Not So Flat Out

Beautiful, glorious, delicious steady rain!

24 hours of it!

And more to come. A LOT more!

The rain did keep the customers away from the shop though. It was an average day of sales so I can’t complain and I must say it was quite peaceful for most of the day.

I don’t know why, but for some reason, by the time I arrived home I was feeling incredibly agitated. I was snapping at both Adoring Husband and Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair.

I spent some time fixing my new water filter while hedging a million questions from AH - which agitated me even more 😳

I decided that I needed some time out to process my unreasonable mood. I locked myself in the bedroom, put my earplugs in, turned up the volume and selected a 35 minute meditation video from YouTube  by The Gypsy.

It was exactly what I needed and I came out the other side feeling completely recharged and much lighter and happier.

It just occurred to me that I should have apologised to my housemates for being such an evil, bitter and twisted bee, but I didn’t. I’m a bad friend and wife.

We had a very early dinner of lamb loin chops on the barbecue with salads that BGWLBH prepared and we played trivia until 7.30pm - which appears to be our standard bed time.

I played Pop Master at 8.30pm and have been guzzling water from my new super duper Walter filter. I’m guessing I’ll be up a couple of times during the night for obvious reasons 😳.

Time to fall asleep to the sound of rain on the roof.

Nite all.

Flat Out!

It was a busy day at the shop.

So busy, I barely had any time with my girls for morning coffee 😕

I had no time to do anything between customers because there was always somebody in the shop and at one stage, I had 20 people wandering around! It was the first time I’d thought of putting the ‘maximum number of patrons’ sign on the door!

Needless to say, sales were good.

My cleaner came an hour earlier than usual because there was no journaling class and I wanted to leave the shop at 2pm. She dusted and chatted with me and some of the customers but still got the job done.

I received a LOT of parcels in the mail today, some of which should have arrived before Christmas because they included Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair’s gifts from me.

A few years ago, I purchased charm bracelets for both of us so that we could buy a charm for every holiday, but up until now, we didn’t have any charm except the car to represent our road trips.

This year I found:

• A Halloween pumpkin for the great Halloween dress up as zombie brides
• A koala for the wild one we found in a tree at Mallacoota
• A mobile phone to represent our ‘selfie’ road trip
• A dog to remind us of our babies who are no longer with us
• Our first initial
• Our birth stone
• Angel wings for protection

I put each charm in their own individual box, wrapped each box in Christmas paper and presented them to BGWLBH this afternoon.

We also received a gift from Vegan Chickie which was a box of pop master quiz question cards. It took us a bit over an hour, with Adoring Husband reading the questions and our scores were BGWLBH 33 - ME 32.5! Soooooooo close!

We all, at the suggestion of BGWLBH, went for a grounding walk along the beach this afternoon. It was difficult to find the motivation after such a big day, but we’re glad we pushed ourselves because we always feel good for it.

Barramundi for dinner with a selection of three salads made by BGWLBH. Bloody delicious 😋 

I came to bed at 8.30pm and played pop master and this was followed by AH coming into the bedroom to tell me that my new water filter was leaking! I grudgingly got out of bed to inspect the damage, cleaned up the mess and made sure it was safe for the night.

Thank goodness he found it when he did because the filter is sitting on top of the mini freezer, so if water had leaked into the motor, it could have been a very expensive little exercise!

Anyway, it is rapidly approaching midnight so I should sleep.

Nite all.

Worth It

It was definitely worth opening the shop today.

Sales were good and in between customers I wrote up most of my January newsletter.

Adoring Husband arrived early to help me close the shop so that Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair could pick me up and we could drive into The Bay for a shopping frenzy.

Of course, there was no shopping frenzy because today was recognised as the Boxing Day Public holiday and very few shops were open. We went to the RSL Club instead. I won $100 on keno and BGWLBH broke even for the afternoon.

We were there for about 2 hours and walked over to Coles to do some grocery shopping before driving home.

I spent a good portion of time chopping up fruit and bagging it for the freezer so that we can make smoothies every morning. I used 1 pineapple, 2 punnets of blueberries, 2 punnets of strawberries, a punnet of boysenberries, a punnet of blackberries, a punnet of red currents, 3 bananas, 2 mangoes, 2 pears, 4 plums and 3 kiwi fruit.

That all made 9 bags of chopped mixed fruit.

We threw together a salad and ate that with leftover roast pork and ham for dinner.

It was 6.30pm and we all declared that we were exhausted and headed our separate ways.

I was in bed when I received a text telling me that the BBC2 Pop Master quiz was recommencing tonight, so I played that.

Adoring Husband is sound asleep beside me and now it’s my turn to sleep.

Nite all.

Pretty Average

I opted to open the shop today and Monday from 9am - 1pm.

Considering how many people are around, sales were pretty average - not holiday average - but normal average. Quite surprising really.

Adoring Husband helped me close up shop and I came home to enjoy a late lunch of prawns with mango and avocado.

We played trivia for a couple of hours and then put the game on hold while we prepared some fresh salads for dinner.

The three of us decided on a grounding walk along the beach ...

We had an early dinner and I felt exhausted so Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair walked over to observe the bats on her own. AH decided to go for a ride on his bicycle to look at the bats. Apparently the bats were a bit lazy this evening and not as active as previous evenings.

We’ve all retired to bed extra early. I know that I am feeling very weary today and my energy levels are quite low. A good night’s sleep is what I need - with minimum pee stops during the night!

Nite all.

Winner Winner

Finally!

I won a game of Trivial Pursuit against Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair and Adoring Husband. 

It was close ... three ways.

I had a king prawn and crab feast for breakfast at about 9am and followed that up with a smoothie - strawberry, raspberry, pineapple, banana and coconut water.

The pool water was too chilly for swimming so we played trivia at the dining table while munching on fresh watermelon slices. It was a long game! 

After the game we all made our way to the beach for a grounding walk in bare feet. It was busy with tourists and very windy but so refreshing and invigorating. We all enjoyed that.

Of course dinner was left over Christmas food so we spread it right across the table and hoed in quickly so that BGWLBH and I could race over to the lagoon for some bat shots at sunset.

We got there a little too late, but I managed a couple of shots of the bats 🦇 swooping into the water for a drink before they flew off for a night of feeding. They seemed to fly north.

Now it’s 8.30pm and AH and I are laying in bed watching Singing in the Rain.

I’ll be opening the shop tomorrow for reduced hours so it’ll be an early night for me. Hopefully, there’ll be a trip into The Bay afterwards - or maybe Monday.

It’s exhausting being on holidays!

Nite all.

Happy Christmas/Boxing Day

What a strange Christmas!

I received a call from Number One Son at 7.30am.

I don’t even remember what time I got up ... maybe a bit after 8am?

I made us a smoothie to start the day - pineapple, apple, raspberries, pear & coconut water.

We all sat down to finish last night’s Trivial Pursuit game. Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair won.

We started another game but at 9.30am I decided it was time to start preparing lunch.

With BGWLBH as my assistant, we made roast pumpkin, spinach and pine nut salad, sweet potato salad, coleslaw, thyme lemon and honey chicken drumsticks, thyme and lemon zest chicken balls, grated fresh beetroot and carrot and finally, a mixed salad.

We had ham, prawns, sand crab and Adoring Husband cooked a roast pork on the barbecue rotisserie.

So much food! It took us three hours to prepare and fifteen minutes to eat!

We then opened our Christmas gifts.

At that point, 2.30pm, we decided to have a little rest and join together later in the afternoon.

I lay on the bed and promptly fell asleep.

I heard the home phone at 5pm but couldn’t get up fast enough to answer it. Vegan Chickie had been trying to contact me all day, to no avail.

AH had climbed into bed at about 4.30pm and that’s where he stayed, sound asleep until after 7.30pm.

BGWLBH put together some leftovers for her dinner but I was still sated from lunch. While she ate, I attempted to put together my new water filter but I discovered that the whole process takes about 48 hours so I didn’t get very far.

BGWLBH suggested that we walk over to Cheelii lagoon with our cameras to capture the sunset. Great idea until I discovered that my battery was flat! I used my phone to take these ...

Then the bats put on a show ...

When AH finally appeared, we sat down to finish our trivia game. AH was winning comfortably when he gave up and sat in the lounge room. BGWLBH and I finished the game and she easily won again. I told her that the greatest gift I could give her was the gift of winning.

I’m not sure what our plans are for tomorrow but it’s time to sleep for me now.

It’s on its way to midnight!

I hope you’ve all had a lovely Christmas Day. For the first time, we had noisy neighbours on both sides of the fence so we remained indoors.

Nite all.

Tired

It’s been a long day.

9am - 5pm at the shop.

Great sales but not record breaking.

With Vegan Chickie’s permission, we opened the Christmas gift that she sent us, which was a big hamper of GF goodies from Byron Bay. Lots of deliciousness inside that box! 

Started a game of trivia before dinner.

Paused trivia for dinner.

Watched “Love Actually” with Adoring Husband and Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair in our lounge room and Vegan Chickie, Mr Perfect and Mama Perfect in Mama P’s lounge room in Victoria.

Vegan Chickie created a group chat page so we could all comment at the good bits through the movie.

Afterwards, BGWLBH, AH and I continued playing the trivia game we’d started, but couldn’t finish because I was too tired. We paused it again and will continue tomorrow.

It’s almost 11.30pm and I am absolutely exhausted!

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas Day and that you feel some love. 

Nite all.

New Records

It’s been a day!

Adoring Husband is still not back to his usual self so he remained at home this morning and Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair drove me to the shop.

I had no sooner opened the door when people started walking in to make their Christmas purchases.

It was another record breaking sales day!

My final stock order arrived and in between customers I was frantically unpacking, checking the invoice, pricing the bags and finding somewhere to display them all.

While BGWLBH and I were attempting to close the shop at 3pm, a couple of customers pleaded with us to NOT close yet, so I remained open for them. While they were selecting their purchases, another customer came in and spent up big, so it was definitely worth the extra hour.

I’ll stay open til 5pm on Christmas Eve.

I arrived home, changed my clothes and began preparing our baked chicken dinner. Sweet potato, carrots, pumpkin, garlic asparagus and broccoli with home made gravy.

While it was cooking, BGWLBH drove me to do AH’s cleaning job.

Dinner was delicious - even if I do say so myself!

BGWLBH was kind enough to clean the kitchen so that I could put my feet up and relax.

We both did the Pop master quiz at 8.30pm and I came to bed straight after that.

I’m so tired and distracted, it’s taken me over an hour to write this post.

It’s time for me to sleep. I have a BIG day ahead of me!

Nite all.

Alive and Well

Today, after three days in hospital, Adoring Husband came home.

Obviously he is much improved from Saturday when he was delirious and agitated with a raging temperature.

He still has that nagging cough, but at least all of the tests they did revealed nothing sinister, so hopefully the medication that he’s been given will clear it up. The UTI seems to be gone so it should be all good from here.

I broke all the sales records today!! It was amazing and busy and joyous all day with very happy people excited about the festive season. I even had a few men purchasing gifts for their wives. It was a great day.

Beautiful Girl With The Long Blonde Hair drove me to work and helped me open the shop this morning and this afternoon drove me into The Bay to pick up AH from the hospital. She drove me to do AH’s job and sat in the car waiting for me to finish, helped me prepare dinner and then drove us all around town looking at Christmas lights.

She is my champion and I’m not sure how I can adequately thank her for all that she has done and is still doing for us.

It’s 11pm and I’m exhausted so it’s sleep time for me!

Nite all.

Sleepy Head

It was after 1.30am when I fell asleep and 5.22am when I woke up.

Even though it was short, it was a sound sleep.

I phoned the hospital early to ask what was happening with Adoring Husband, to be told that the UTI he had been struggling with for the last 6 weeks had taken hold and that he was now on an IV drip of antibiotics to  nip it in the bud. They said he would be in hospital for at least another night.

Beautiful Girl With The Long Blonde Hair went for an early walk so when she returned I filled her in the news. She was shocked that she slept through all of that!

We made smoothies for breakfast, went for a swim and at 9.30am we drove into The Bay with AH’s toiletries. I tell you it was a drama trying to find him ... or even someone to ask where he was. Eventually we discovered that he was being held in isolation because there were no beds available in the wards.

They led me to his bed where he was sleeping flat on his back. It didn’t take much to wake him though and he explained, with very little detail, what was happening.

I’ve spoken to him again this evening and they are conducting all the same tests that he did last week with his own Dr and he may stay in until Tuesday!

BGWLBH and I did some fresh fruit and veg shopping before we came home.

All day we have filled our bellies with giant salads and smoothies packed with nutritional goodness. 

Now it’s 9.30 pm and I am struggling to stay awake, so I shall sign off here and catch up on some much needed sleep.

I can’t stay awake for another moment.

Nite all.

Extremes

What a day.

I woke this morning and realised that my fridge desperately needed cleaning - especially because Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair was arriving today. So I climbed out of bed early and took almost an hour to pull all the food out, wash all the shelving and drawers and replace the fresh food and toss the old stuff.

I got to work and sat for 90 minutes before a customer walked through the door! I had to speak very assertively to the universe about providing some customers for me and thankfully, I received an excellent response.

It was a good sales day!

BGWLBH surprised me by bursting through the door at about 11.45am. Hugs and happiness all round!

Adoring Husband surprised me by phoning at 12.30pm to tell me he was not well after mowing the lawn and couldn’t come to help me close the shop.

BGWLBH helped me close the shop.

We arrived home to find AH in bed, in pain and cramping badly all over his body. His tremor was dreadful and he was incapable of getting out of bed.

I gave him fluids and painkillers and let him sleep for a while. When he woke, I gave him a small tuna salad which he ate. He slept some more.

BGWLBH and I went for a swim and sat in the Bali hut catching up on some of our news.

She went for a walk and I cut up some watermelon and pineapple for AH.

I prepared a dinner of curried chicken and vegetable soup which everybody ate but soon after AH began cramping again.

He was in a lot of pain. He had a temperature. He became agitated and confused. He couldn’t get comfortable in any position sitting or laying on the bed. He asked strange questions, couldn’t find the light switch for the light and his tremor was off the charts.

I asked him if I should call an ambulance and he asked me why?

I called the ambulance at 10.30pm.

They have taken him to hospital.

I suspect he has heat stroke or sun stroke. 

BGWLBH is sleeping after two days of intense driving and doesn’t know what transpired here tonight so I won’t disturb her until I hear from the hospital or from AH because we will have to pick him up.

*sigh*

So it has been a day of extremes. I’m exhausted. I’m also worried about AH being in Hervey Bay hospital but beggars can’t be choosers and I have to trust that universe is supporting us well. I’ll be happy to get him home.

Tempting to partake of a beverage about now 😳

Nite all.

Turnaround

Today was one for the books.

My busiest time at the shop is usually between 11am - 12pm-ish.

People rarely come through the door after 1pm.

Today my busiest time was between 12.30pm - 2.30pm.

It was a very good sales day and FINALLY the linen clothing arrived!

The Motivator was working in the treatment room today and after her morning appointment, we chatted and caught up with our news.

I sold some more of my art! Wahoo!

We locked up the shop at 3pm and I pedalled home in the heat to find Adoring Husband doubled over the dining table with severe cramps in his hands! So my first job was to massage his hands and forearms.

He had SES tonight but his constant cramping prevented him from attending.

Chicken and salad for dinner, followed by a couple of cheesy Netflix Christmas movies.

Now it’s time for bed.

But first, I’m thinking these might be fun for Christmas!

Nite all.

Hump Day

No meditation today so it was an easy and slow start to the day.

I fell asleep at 7.30pm Tuesday night and not surprisingly, I was awake at 2pm! I got up for 90 minutes and then climbed back into bed where I slept for another 90 minutes.

It was a good day of sales with the added bonus of a visit from Aggie. 

I did some tidying up in my office area and decluttered a touch, did some rearranging in the drawers behind the counter, took some stock from the storage drawers and displayed it in the shop.

My new stock STILL hasn’t arrived and that ticks me off! The couriers are all very inconsistent - some of them are ridiculously fast and some the total opposite!

I hope it arrives tomorrow.

It’s after 10pm so it’s time to sleep for me.

Sorry about the shortage of words!

Nite all.

Jump In

I jumped into the new week big time.

I was hoping to get in to work really early to clear the training room but the morning moved a lot faster than I expected and by the time I was ready, it was already 8.20am.

Some of the paintings were still wet so we left a table up to accommodate them until they dry.

We set up the small table for morning coffee before opening the shop.

There were six of us at the table but the energy was muted and I think all my girls are exhausted from caring for sick husbands as well as dealing with their own health issues. It’s been a draining year - even without taking COVID into account.

I think we’ve all coped really well until now, but we are feeling fragile and desperately need some self nurturing.

It was a very slow sales day and my delivery of lovely linen did not arrive as expected.

This afternoon was the final journaling class for the year which meant drinking beverages - I tried Pear Cider for the first time which was quite nice. Not something I would drink on a regular basis. We each brought a plate of nibbles and while we did discuss journaling for a while, we spent more time talking memories - which really is what journaling is all about.

I enjoyed that couple of hours very much.

All those nibbles filled my belly enough that I didn’t want dinner. AH also passed on dinner so it has been an easy afternoon.

It’s now 7pm and we are packing up and heading to bed already.

I am open to the universe providing abundant sales tomorrow, Wednesday! So I will sleep and build enough energy to cope with such abundance!

These are my new hippy pants that I absolutely adore! 

Nite all.

More Nurturing

It has been a wet and windy pyjama day for me.

I finished the 3rd series of Good Girls.

Now I will attempt The Witcher. It doesn’t look like my kind of show, but it has been highly recommended so I figure it’s worth checking out.

Today’s plan was to decorate the tree, wash some windows, clean out the fridge and do some art.

None of those things happened and I don’t even care.

Duck with avocado, cucumber, mango and onion salsa + sautéed mushrooms for dinner.

That was my day.

Oh and we were supposed to go to the shop to clear the art mess away and never got there either. So that means going in early tomorrow morning. 

I guess that means I should get some sleep.

Here are some of Saturday’s art pieces...

Nite all.

R & R Sunday

I have nothing much to report except that I’ve been lounging in bed binge watching Good Girls most of the day!

The wet and windy weather has been very conducive to staying indoors.

We changed the bedding mid afternoon and put the new new doona cover on the bed - the doona is actually going in for dry cleaning this week, but the cover is spread lovingly over the mattress ...

I washed the bedding, made Adoring Husband a tasty juice of pineapple, mango, banana and pear with coconut water and reheated last night’s leftovers for AH’s dinner.

AH was feeling much better during the day but as the afternoon wore on, his pesky cough gained momentum and he’s been struggling during the evening.

Today was just what the doctor ordered. Very restful and self nurturing for me.

It’s now 9pm and we are both in bed watching First Dates. I think I’ll get back to Good Girls shortly.

Nite all.