What was I Thinking?

A LOT of people came into the shop today but few were in a purchasing mood.

Luckily for me, the art workshop made up for it!

I stupidly gave the participants four technique options. What was I thinking?

Seven of them chose three different techniques, so this meant that I had to demonstrate all three techniques one after the other, very rapidly because we had to fit a practice piece in and then the main piece.

Prior to that, everybody had to mix their own pouring medium and then mix their own paint colours, so we fit quite a bit into 2.5 hours!

Needless to say, I was mentally exhausted by the end of the workshop.

Normally, the participants help clean up and wash all the tools and cups and cloths but when they headed to the kitchen, Adoring Husband had beaten them to the sink and said “No, it’s ok. I’m right.”

They asked “Are you sure?”

😳

Who was the dumb bunny who had to spend the next hour washing up and clearing the mess??

Me 😭

AH knows now, and filed it under “for future reference” that participants are supposed to help clean up the mess.

Poor AH copped a gob full from this tired little possum.

It was after 4.30pm when we arrived home and thank goodness I had already prepared the lamb shanks the night before and they were sitting in trays just waiting to be reheated. Straight into the oven! Easy peasy.

We watched two and a bit games of footy.

Ate blueberries and strawberries for dessert.

My nutrition for the day: lemon water, bone broth, coffee, watermelon, strawberries, leftover avocado and prawn mixture, literally two mouthfuls of leftover lime cheesecake, lamb shanks, onion, sweet potato, carrot, tomato, mushroom, blueberries, strawberries, banana, nuts. Water.

I forgot to mention the other night when I was talking about the benefits so far of my changed eating habits - I had dropped 1.5kgs after 10 days. A little more would be nice but I won’t be bothered if it doesn’t happen.

It’s after 11pm and I’m in need of sleep.

Nite all.

Jam Packed

Today was another full on, jam packed day.

Not in sales 😳

I set the training room up as best as I could, but still needed supplies, so a trip into The Bay was on my agenda.

My shopping list required visits to Office Works, Pialba Shopping Centre, Bunnings, Spotlight, Heaps Discounts and Coles.

While we were at Pialba, we visited Su Jus Bar (which made the closure announcement a couple weeks ago, but came back from the dead) where we bought a green juice and three sweet treats. Their sweets are GF, DF and refined sugar free, so I got a lime cheesecake slice, a rocky road slice and for Adoring Husband a raspberry muffin.

The universe took good care of me today because there was just one bottle of Floetrol left at Bunnings, the Elmers Glue-all was on sale from $23 down to $17 and even though the paint stocks were low at Heaps Discounts, they had all the colours that I needed.

I now need to fill two art workshops to get a return on what I spent for them today!

We left the shop at 2pm on the dot and returned to the shop at 5.30pm to pick up my laptop, iPad and cash tin.

My nutrition for the day: chicken stock, coffee, filtered water, J5 juice = pear, cucumber, celery, spinach, apple and lime. 6 king prawns mixed in mashed avocado, lemon juice, salt n pepper. Two chicken wings. Half a lime cheesecake slice and 1/3 of a rocky road slice.

All the running around this afternoon in the wet weather has worn me out so I need a good sleep to get me through my huge day of sales and art tomorrow.

I think I wore AH out because we came to bed 20 minutes ago and he is sleeping soundly beside me.

Big Happy birthday wishes to Bubbles who turned 36 today and to The Motivator who can be whatever age she chooses to be!

It’s a chilly evening and I’ve closed the bedroom window, but I must say that the rain has been very refreshing and I think we’ve had about 30mm.

Nite all.

Slowed it Down

I took it a bit easier today.

The training room is now partially set up and I printed out some colour swatches ready for the workshop.

I did a little book work and served some customers.

It was another surprisingly good sales day and I say “surprising” because it rained for most of the day and for this neck of the woods it was quite chilly, so I expected the locals to stay indoors!

There were a lot of people out and about.

I mailed Bubbles’ birthday present and then realised I still had more at home that I should have added - I guess she will receive two parcels!

My nutrition for the day: lemon water, chicken broth, coffee. Lunch was coconut yoghurt with banana and blueberries. Dinner was a chicken thigh with sweet potato discs and mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, onion and baby spinach baked in butter and 2 tablespoons of liver pate stirred through. That was followed by a bowl of watermelon.

AH enjoyed dinner so that’s a bonus.

I’ve put some lamb shanks in the slow cooker which I will set aside for our dinner on Saturday night. Pretty sure I’ll be too exhausted after the art workshop to be spending extended time in the kitchen!

Adoring Husband and I watched a few episodes of a series on Netflix called ‘Good Witch’. It’s a nice easy show to watch. No brain power required and little to no heavy drama ... so far.

I’m off to bed to watch the footy now.

Nite all.

More Chilled

It was an incredibly interesting meditation this morning with The Gypsy going deep into a new discussion that we, as a group, requested a couple of weeks ago.

It inspired great discussion, created a fabulous energy in the room and the class went 15 minutes over time!

Afterwards some of the ladies bought coffee and returned to the training room to chat together, while The Gypsy and I sat at my desk for a catch up.

Just before TG left, my friend Aggie turned up to try on some clothes that she was looking at yesterday. She purchased her selections and then sat with me for a while. We had a good old chin wag  managing global problems, creating world peace and venting about important issues.

There were few customers today and they spent up big OR they lay praise thick and fast about the shop and how beautiful it is with a real ‘Zen’ energy - I can listen to that all day!

Adoring Husband picked up our FROG box from Craignish, unpacked it at home and arrived at the shop to help me close, but I put him to work setting up the tables for Saturday’s art workshop.

It was after 3.30pm when we drove home and Psychotic dog Ruby required my attention as soon as I walked in the door.

I got to sit down for an hour before it was time to prepare dinner. AH cooked on the barbecue while I  did the salad and the last of the hash browns.

Today’s nutrition:  lemon water, filtered water, coffee. Chicken broth for lunch. A raspberry and white chocolate muffin which I did not enjoy because it was tooooooo sweet, so I’m happy to remove that from any future menu. Dinner was 2 sausages with hash browns (I’m so sad to say goodbye to potato) baby spinach, cucumber, raw fresh snow peas, a cherry tomato, half an avocado, sauerkraut and onion. A mandarin for dessert.

Today was day 10 sugar free until that dastardly muffin and what changes have I noticed in my body?

The only reason I wake during the night is to empty my bladder and I am able to fall back into a deep sleep immediately. I’m averaging 7 hours a night. Prior to that I was averaging 4-5 hours of broken sleep.

I’ve had no gut pain for 6 days straight - I can’t eloquently express to you the relief I feel because the pain really was debilitating.

I have loads of energy, which I have not been using efficiently because I’m going and going and going until I can’t go any more. I hope to pace myself better in the future, take breaks and not push it so hard. Just because I’ve got the energy, doesn’t mean I have to use it all up!

I just realised that my joint pain in the mornings has gone. I still have joint pain when I get up off my lounge chair after sitting for an hour or more, so I will monitor that, but morning pain has gone.

That’s it for now. Continuing my health improvements.

Time to sleep or I’ll never fit my seven hours in!

Nite all.

Full Speed

I could NOT have fit another job or activity into today if I tried.

My comfortable shoes were far from comfortable by the end of the day because I barely sat down for a minute.

Morning tea sounded like it was great. Rebel Mardi made a surprise appearance and I think there were eight of us in attendance, but the customers came in earlier than usual and took my attention away. I was also distracted by the packages that were delivered.

The girls got some “first” and “second” dibs on the stock that came in and it was well after 11am when the last of them walked out the door.

In between serving a lot of customers, I unpacked, checked off, priced and displayed five deliveries.

I cleared the folding table behind the counter so that it could be removed and replaced with the new white table that finally arrived from Fantastic Furniture. It was only 6 weeks late.

I vacuumed the training room floor of all the tiny packaging mess so that I could set up the room for meditation.

I attempted to clear off my desk before leaving the shop - it’s my one constant - to come to work every morning with a clear desk to begin my day.

We arrived home at 3.40pm and I got changed and began preparing dinner. I knew if I sat down, there’d be no getting back up! So we were sitting down to dinner at 4.45pm!

I hung out a load of washing before coming to bed at 7.30pm where we watched Big Brother and now I’m writing this blog before the sweet allure of dream time sweeps over me.

My nutrition today:  lemon water, coffee, filtered water, chicken broth for lunch, lamb chop with broccoli, cauliflower, fresh snap peas, sweet potato, onion, garlic and bacon. A mandarin.

I need to sleep now because it’s an early start for meditation.

Nite all.

Oopsy!

Sooooo tired ... again!

As much as I wanted to spend hours in bed, I was up and out the door by 10am.

We arrived at the shop and Adoring Husband attempted to repair a chair, vacuumed the floors and set up a table for my meeting with the supplier.

I cleaned the big sign on the fence and stuck the new sign over the logo, moved the displays from the front of the windows and then cleaned the glass so that I  put two new signs on the top panels. I put the displays back and rearranged the art and craft area.

I sent AH home in the middle of all that.

The supplier arrived a little early and I spent 2.5 hours going through all of his clothing lines. I had a budget but more than doubled it because I wanted it ALL! The beauty of it was that I could take it on the spot - no ordering - no shipping costs - no waiting.

I purchased two items for myself immediately ... that’s the advantage of owning the shop ... first dibs!

After the supplier left, I immediately banked all of my spare cash to cover my costs and picked up a delivery from the post office.

It took me thirty minutes to hang all of the new clothing, which I will price tomorrow.

AH took down the big table and set up the small one for morning tea with the girls.

I packed up all my goods and we came home at 3.30pm.

No rest for the wicked.

I had to bathe psychotic dog Ruby and tend to her eye, do two loads of washing and check my work emails.

My nutrition for the day:  lemon water, chicken broth, filtered water, coffee, chicken wings and a mandarin. Not much! I was too busy to eat and too tired to prepare anything for dinner. AH did the chicken wings.

It’s now 8.30pm and I’m feeling weary and ready for bed.

Nite all.

Sunday Done

This wasn’t my usual type of Sunday.

It was totally and completely unproductive.

No study, no planning, no ticking off the list, no writing, no checking emails, no reading, no work stuff, no nothing.

I did spend all day in my pyjamas but I think I was out of bed at about 9.30am because Adoring Husband wanted to watch the new Paul Hogan movie and I didn’t want to miss it.

It was a weird movie with some big names and an interesting lesson in mainstream media antics. Some strange but familiar characters, a couple of questionable story lines and a warm and fuzzy ending.

Don’t go out of your way to watch it.

My footy tipping this week was pretty dismal with only four out of eight correct.

I received a video of Chicklet finding out about becoming a sister. I’ve replayed it a hundred times and it makes me cry every time. She is so excited.

My nutrition today:  lemon water, chicken broth, water, coffee.

Lunch of bacon, baby spinach, mushroom, onion, snow peas, tomatoes, sauerkraut and leftover guacamole.

Dinner of eye fillet, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, snow peas and sweet potato followed by a juice of cucumber, celery, baby spinach, apple, mint, coconut water and water.

We watched the final of The Voice which was a disappointing result. I think the Hillsong Church may have used their numbers to bring it home for the winner. Yes, he is very talented and deserves success, but I thought others were better. Australia decided.

I’ve got a big day planned for tomorrow, putting up the remaining signage, cleaning the shop loo and vacuuming the carpets, washing the glass doors, taking some deliveries and meeting with a supplier.

Time for me to sleep (7.5 hours of sound sleep last night).

Nite all.

Best Day Ever

This will be a short post because it’s late and I’m tired.

Sales in the shop were surprisingly fabulous. I say surprisingly because sales were steady, but not overly busy all morning. I wasn’t expecting such a big total when I added up the takings!

We closed the shop right on 1pm and came home to put Ossobuco in the slow cooker. I had afternoon plans and didn’t want to cook afterwards.

I prepared a quacamole dip to take with me and mixed up a vodka and tonic - my first alcoholic drink in 4 months.

I met my girls at 4pm and had two hours of fun and frivolity, feeding our faces, sipping alcohol, laughing, joking, planning, venting, sharing, snorting and reminiscing.

It was the perfect afternoon for bonding girlie style.

Upon my return home I found a message from my newly engaged Vegan Chickie asking me if I was ready for surprise number two ...

It took her such a long time to fall pregnant the first time and she needed fertility drugs to do so, but this pregnancy happened almost instantly and now we have one very happy Melbourne family enjoying a double celebration!

I figure the speed with which she fell is the universe saying “this is right”.

The first time was overwhelmingly emotional for me, probably because of their struggle to get there, and of course being a first time grandmother is extremely special. This one feels very comfortable and calming.

Let’s hope COVID-19 takes a hike soon so that I can head to Melbourne and meet my future son-in-law before the wedding!

I spent the following hour telling all the important people.

Now I’m emotionally and physically exhausted lol so I’m off to sleep right on the stroke of midnight.

Nite all.

A Touch Disappointing

I expected a couple of orders to arrive today, but alas it wasn’t to be.

This means that there will probably be four deliveries on Monday! Not only will I be having fun looking at new stock from my favourite supplier when he visits, I’ll have lots of new stock arriving while I do it!

Won’t next week be fun (and exhausting)?

It was another good day of sales with 50% of people walking through the door “just to browse” and the other half on a mission to purchase something from the new stock that already arrived this week.

I started to create my first monthly newsletter to email out to my regulars at the end of this month, created yet more files, browsed through some catalogues that were emailed to me from new suppliers and made a wish list, gently reminded two other suppliers to stop sending emails to my old Happy Abode email address and checked off my weekly ‘to do’ list.

I have two things remaining on this week’s list - one of them being signage - MUST put the new signage up soon!

We closed the shop at 3pm and I cancelled my booking for attending the club tonight. It’s been a big week and my desire for gentle self care overrode my need for a social outing.

My nutrition today was very similar to the rest of the week:  lemon water, chicken broth, water, coffee, coconut yoghurt with banana, blueberries and strawberries. Chicken wings. Watermelon. More water.

I bought a big bag of snow peas and fresh snap peas from the wandering veggie man so they will be on the weekend menu. Yum.

The first job when I arrived home was to bathe psychotic dog Ruby and tend to her eye - I feel that this will be a permanent routine because she is not producing tears in that eye and it’s dry and mucky all the time. Not pleasant for her.

The time is drawing near for our Ruby. She’s deaf, almost blind, has allergies that require an injection every 6 weeks and then the problem with her eye. She still runs to me wagging her tail and looking for a pat when I arrive home from work, so all is not lost yet.

Footy is on tonight and I’m about to go to bed to watch my team lose (I predict) to West Tigers.

I slept very soundly for almost seven hours last night before my bladder so rudely woke me at 5.45am and then my alarm put an abrupt end to further sleep at 7am.

I look forward to the same sound slumber tonight.

Have a GREAT weekend everybody!

Oh and for anyone who was wondering ... my Melbourne family returned NEGATIVE results from their COVID-19 tests. 🥳🎊🎉

Nite all.

Sleepy Me

I was gently woken at 4.30am by Adoring Husband who couldn’t find his 🤓 glasses.

Every night, he falls asleep wearing them, and during the night he takes them off and half asleep, he puts them on the bed head.

Somehow, last night, they found their way to the bedroom floor, perfectly in line with the timber frame of the bed, so they couldn’t be seen unless you were looking in just the right direction at just the right angle!

I very patiently dragged myself out of bed and luckily found them after a few minutes. AH is as blind as a bat without them so he wouldn’t have been able to drive to work.

It took me ages to get back to sleep and my alarm woke me at 7am.

I tried to take it easy at work. I have more stock arriving this week, but luckily none of it arrived today.

Ten days ago, I received a dozen of this style of top ...

... and I sold the last one today! I’ve now ordered more and they’ll arrive next week.

Today was a fantastic sales day with a steady flow of holiday makers through the door. I lost count of how many people have told me, this week, “what a lovely shop” and “what beautiful things”. I can never hear that too often!

My nutrition today:  lemon water, chicken broth, filtered water, coffee, plain coconut yoghurt with strawberries and blueberries, Hainan chicken with mixed mushrooms, ginger & coriander, berry smoothie with blueberries, dragon fruit, banana, yoghurt, coconut water and water. Raspberry muffin.

Lots of berries today!

What else did I do today? Created more files, filed more paperwork, sold a lot, talked a lot, ran the updates in my mini iPad because it wouldn’t process payments - this meant everybody had to pay cash during the morning, did some banking, checked the mail and sat on my butt.

We didn’t get home until well after 3.30pm.

It was an easy dinner with the smoothie for dessert - enough left over for me to take to work tomorrow and enough dinner left over for AH to have for lunch. I love it when a plan comes together.

I think I’m off to bed now and hopefully I’ll get a full, uninterrupted night of sleep.

Nite all.

Clear Headed

It’s the first difference that I’ve noticed since changing my diet.

A clearer head.

Day 5 without refined sugar and day 4 of almost 100% paleo eating (using up the hash browns in the freezer and have one meal’s worth remaining).

Today’s nutrition:  lemon water, chicken broth, coffee, pumpkin & spinach muffin, lamb cutlets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, hash brown, watermelon.

I didn’t actually eat any food until 3.30 this afternoon!

Oh and my nose has stopped running, so hopefully the sugar withdrawals have finished.

It was a good, long day at the shop, starting at 7.10am to prepare for meditation. Afterwards I got to spend an hour with The Gypsy while some of the meditation ladies brought coffee back to the training room for a catch up.

I had a visit from The Welsh Wonder who brought me another coffee and we chatted for about an hour between customers.

A delivery of stock and furniture arrived so I had fun unpacking that and setting up the new display counters in the arts and craft corner.

The man from the Men’s Shed came to verify the wording of my new arts and crafts sign and quoted me a very reasonable figure which I agreed to.

I received a phone call from a supplier about visiting the shop on Monday, so I’ll be having fun checking out some new clothes on my day off.

The monthly Telstra bill arrived so I immediately paid it.

It was a full, busy and productive day. I had the energy to do all the things and we didn’t close the shop until after the last customer left at 3.30pm.

Now it’s time to sleep.

Nite all.

Withdrawals

Day four without sugar and the withdrawals have started, which are unpleasant. So far, not as bad as the last time I quit sugar - runny nose and aching joints - similar to minor flu symptoms, but noticeably different.

I hope that it eases soon because people will be worried if I’m blowing my nose constantly!

I found a fantastic essential oil called Sinus Clear that provides instant relief when I apply it under my nose. I imagine it would work a treat in a diffuser - which I’ll try tomorrow.

The symptoms are simply my body attempting to release the toxins that have built up in the last 6 months of me eating Weiss bars every day, GF cookies, 2 or 3 coffees per day etc. I know it will be worth the sacrifice because I’ve proven that before.

Today’s nutrition intake was water, lemon water, chicken broth, coffee, blueberries, a blueberry smoothie (blueberries, wild blueberry powder, dragon fruit, banana, coconut yoghurt, coconut water and water), chicken curry with cauliflower rice.

I already feel my energy levels improved and my head is definitely clearer. Still a long way to go.

I enjoyed coffee with the girls this morning. There were six of us because a couple are away on holidays and one wanted to remain warm in bed (who can blame her!?).

Unpacking the three boxes of new stock was next on my priority list and that took a couple of hours between serving customers. It was a good sales day.

Adoring Husband helped me clear the training room of all the art and tables and rubbish from unpacking the new stock so that we could set up for meditation. Thank goodness I have him to help - I say that a lot don’t I? It’s true.

We left the shop at 3pm and I began preparing dinner straight away, which we ate early so that I could sit and watch my favourite TV shows while checking my emails and reading up on creating my new website.

It’s now rapidly approaching 11.30pm and I need to be up at 6am so I’d best sleep.

Nite all.

Much Improved

I woke this morning in a much improved physical and mental state.

It was 5.30am when I opened my eyes and listened to the sound of rain lightly falling on the plants outside the bedroom window. It was a pleasant way to start my day.

Adoring Husband brought my lemon water into the bedroom at about 6.30am and I had already begun writing the editorial for the local newsletter which I sent through to The Progress Association with my quarter page advertisement mid morning.

My next accomplishment was purchasing the domain name for Roz’s Happy Place so that I could design my business cards with my website address on them. Everything is now set and ready for me to create the website.

Next, I designed and ordered 500 business cards.

I also ordered some stock for Fathers Day!

At 11am AH and I drove to the shop fully intending to clear the training room, but the art was still very wet, so we cleared as much as possible and set up our morning coffee area for the girls on Tuesday.

I was certain that a delivery would arrive today, so we returned home for me to check the tracking and discovered that it had arrived in Maryborough at 1.30am which meant it would be delivered to the shop at 12:30pm.

Off we drove back to the shop and waited from 12:30 - 1pm to no avail.

Back home we came and were all relaxed on the couch when I received a phone call at 1:20pm from the delivery guy to say that he was at the shop.

Once again, back to the shop to take delivery of three boxes. He said he’d been very busy today, hence the late drop off.

I simply put the boxes in the training room and left. That will be my fun job tomorrow!

Meanwhile, in Victoria, Vegan Chickie, Prince of Perfection and Chicklet are not well and took themselves through the drive-in Covid testing site. It will take three to five days for them to get the results. Fingers crossed the result is negative, or if it’s not, may their illness be short lived.

At the other end of the family, Bubbles and Knight in Shining Armour have a new member to lavish their love upon ...

How cute is that?! Her name is Pebbles.

Number One Son is living his dream ...

AND they won their first game of the season on the weekend. He’s a bowler and got 1/19 off 5 overs, a catch and a run out. He’s a happy Chappy.

So aside from possible Covid, we have an engagement, a new puppy and a big sports win.

I’ve had a productive day and my nutrition intake has been:

Lemon water, filtered water, green juice, chicken broth, watermelon, salmon and salad, plain coconut yoghurt with blueberries. Oh and half a coffee.

Keeping on track and obviously feeling a little better for it.

Nite all.

Day of Ugh!

I have to say that this day of rest has been horrible.

While I have stayed in bed for the entire day, it has not been my usual productive, enjoyable, relaxing, do what I want kind of day.

My sleep was restless during the night and I have felt weak, lethargic and tired, unmotivated and miserable all day.

I’ve had three naps and achieved nothing in between.

My nutrient intake started with a cup of warm lemon water followed by some delicious chicken broth, lots of filtered water, four slices of watermelon, half a coffee (to ease the headache from no caffeine all day) a green juice of cucumber, celery, baby spinach, apple, mint and coconut water. It will be chicken and salad for dinner.

I don’t feel like I overdid it during the week but my diet has been appalling for some months now and every muscle, joint, bone and organ is feeling old and painful.

Now that I’m running the shop on my own, I seriously have to show myself some love and take better care of my health. Riding my trike, rebounding and hooping will become my norm and making sure I fill my belly with nutrient rich food will be a priority.

How am I supposed to run health workshops and classes when I’m not healthy myself!?!? I need to practice what I preach and set an example.

Besides that, I just want to feel good again!

I have myself a journal where I will plan and record my dietary intake and exercise and how it makes me feel. I’ll monitor my health improvements and then brag about it here as it happens.

Meanwhile, I shall wipe this day for the big fat blah that it was and use it as a stepping stone to an improved diet and lifestyle choice.

I might just drag myself out of bed now and watch the footy with Adoring Husband Before I prepare dinner.

Before I sign off though, I have to announce that Vegan Chickie has just become engaged to her Prince of Perfection, with Chicklet’s excited blessing (and she helped choose the ring).

May their happiness, love and respect for each other continue to grow and may Vegan Chickie always swoon and feel weak in the knees when he enters the room.

I am so happy that they found each other and have become a loving, supportive family unit.

Now I’m outta here.

Nite all.