I Found Some

I found some motivation today.

I was out of bed much earlier than usual and I started phase two of the bathroom treatment.

It was a frustrating process. Because of faulty equipment, I had to compromise and find alternatives for part of it and this meant it took much longer than it should have. I still haven’t quite finished and it will probably take another 20 minutes of work before I can start phase three.

It was messy and uncomfortable because I had to work on my knees for a good portion of the time. My knees are feeling a bit tender this evening.

I stopped to prepare lunch. Ham, LF cheese and ham toasties. We’ve been relying too heavily on bread lately and I’m pleased that I’ve promised to help BGWLBH become the healthiest version of herself because we need to do that for ourselves too.

I had another big secret job to do in the afternoon. It was quite time consuming but I got most of it done.

Sausage, egg, tomato and onion for dinner.

Big Brother for entertainment. (Some might disagree on the ‘entertainment’ part of that sentence)

Now it’s time to sleep.

Nite all.

At One With The Universe

I was advised to “be at one with the universe” today.

While we had an appointment to meet the movers at the storage centre for 7.30am, they were phoning to find out where we were at 7.05am!!

I’m a bad morning person so it doesn’t take much to trigger me. A phone call at 7.05 asking where I am for my 7.30 appointment was just the trigger to set me off.

Not only that … they had both Adoring Husband’s AND my phone number as contacts for this appointment, yet they phoned BGWLBH in NSW!!

Ugh 😩

Luckily, the main moving guy was a polite young man (except for a few scattered curse words) who had a never ending supply of bad dad jokes and who took extra care moving everything out of the truck and into the storage shed. He also apologised for the early call and I told him to NEVER do it again!

It took 90 minutes to unpack, after which we secured the shed door with a strong padlock, and just after 9am we were heading into The Bay with a short ‘to do’ list.

Office Works, a different office/stationery shop, breakfast at a cafe we hadn’t tried before (the food was good but the location was on a loud and busy main road), BigW and Harvey Norman.

We ordered our new lounge suite which, surprisingly, will be delivered next week, instead of the 16 weeks originally quoted.

By the time we arrived home at 1.30pm, we were both pretty buggered and we didn’t do anything else all afternoon. We even reheated last nights leftovers for dinner.

We watched mindless TV and it’s almost 11.30pm so I reckon it’s time to sleep.

Nite all.

First Time

For the first time, I drank all of my sleepy tea and it had no affect whatsoever!

I was still awake at 3am. Just laying there, in the dark, with my eyes closed and waiting for unconsciousness.

Obviously, it came eventually, and I opened my eyes again at 8.52am when I was woken by a text ping from Squirt, my lil sis, telling me the news of Andrew Symond’s demise.

He was my all time favourite cricketer and I feel so sad that he’s no longer with us but when I imagine Shane Warne and Rod Marsh greeting him on the other side … well, that’s just a special sight.

It was a pretty productive day for me.

I started the treatment on the bathroom - it’s a three step process.

I started decluttering the linen cupboard, but was distracted (many times) until eventually, the room that BGWLBH will be staying in, took my full attention.

It went from this …

to this …

The biggest struggle was putting on the doona cover. In the end I YouTubed ‘easy way to put on a doona cover’ and it worked a treat. I don’t usually struggle with the covers but today was a doozy.

We completely cleared the wardrobe, top and bottom, which was full of old fancy dress items, empty boxes of all shapes and sizes, our 10 pin bowling gear (which we’ve used twice since we moved here 14 years ago!), camera gear, wrapping paper for every occasion, photos and other such crap.

BGWLBH now has quite a bit more space to play with, and those hula hoops will have a new home once I clear my old art room and create my new art room!

I got creative in the kitchen tonight and invented a pasta bake.

The creamy sauce was made of puréed cauliflower, lactose free cream, dairy free cream cheese, loads of butter, lemon juice, garlic salt and white pepper.

I poured that over penne pasta, lightly fried onion and mushroom, halved cherry tomatoes, a jar of quartered artichoke and flaked salmon steak that I’d cooked earlier.

I mixed it all together and sprinkled lactose free pizza cheese mix over the top, cooked it in a hot oven for 20 mins - the cheese on top was golden and bubbly.

It was delish! Should have taken a pic!

We’ve watched The Voice and hopefully I’ll get enough sleep tonight because we have to be at the storage shed at 7.30am to take delivery of BGWLBH’s truckload of possessions!

Counting the days til she arrives! No more goodbyes after a few weeks! A second wife for AH! A partner in crime, a fun playmate, a sounding board, a like minded ally, a games buddy and BFF … no longer a million miles away!

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll finish the bathroom and the linen cupboard.

After that, I want to do a full clean of the fridge and the oven, do the bathroom treatment in the ensuite and declutter my bedroom.

That means I’ll be able to focus completely on the art rooms and with BGWLBH’s organisational skills, I hope to create the perfect space for us to play.

I’m done for the day.

Nite all.

Felt Like Sunday

Today felt like Sunday so I treated it like Sunday.

I stayed in bed until 3pm.

I spent the day laying the foundation for an online course that I hope to create down the track. 

It will be a long way down the track, but I have a notebook where I put my ideas and add notes when I think of something new.

This is a mini course for women over 50 that goes for 30 days and I’ve roughly laid out the first 15 days. It will take months to create because 1. I’m old and slow with technology and 2. I still haven’t set up my work space but I’m feeling pretty positive about it. Maybe I’ll aim for a Jan 2023 commencement.

Adoring Husband brought tea and toast to me for breakfast and followed that with fish pieces with lemon  for lunch.

At 3pm I got up to watch the football with AH and I made my version off hot and spicy KFC with salad for dinner. It was a hit.

Now it’s almost midnight and I need to sleep because tomorrow will not be my usual Sunday - I simply MUST finish my ‘to do’ list, which means getting my lazy A out of bed earlier than usual … but not TOO early.

The best way to garden!

Nite all.

Rain Train

We currently have a slow moving ‘rain train’ over us …

For the third time this year, there will be flooding because this is going to bring hundreds of mm of rain in the area.

Maryborough has already erected its flood protection wall in the CBD and Gympie is, once again, bracing itself for the onslaught.

Howard residents have been issued a warning that sections of the town will be cut off.

While the State Government and Bureau of Meteorology brought the weather event to our attention, they certainly downplayed the possibility of damaging floods and even told some areas of QLD not to be concerned.

Higgins Storm Chasers have been issuing warnings for over a week and shared their disbelief that the Govt and the BOM could be so negligent in their warnings.

Higgins have known that this would be a huge event for some time - as they did for the last event when the BOM were silent.

How can this even happen? What’s going on?

Meanwhile, the removalist has arrived 24 hours EARLY at BGWLBH’s house to take her stuff. She was woken by a knock on her door at 7am this morning by a sole 60 yr old man to do the job (the other guy didn’t turn up due to illness).

Of course she was not prepared and still had to wrap protection on some of her furniture so it was an unexpected and shocking start to her day. 

I’m a bad morning person. If that had happened to me, I’d have been livid! I’d have probably sent them away for 3 hours so that I could be properly prepared without pressure.

Anyway, the universe likes to test us and it’s how we respond that determines our strength and resilience in the moment and into the future.

As nice as it is right now, sitting up in bed at 11am listening to the rain, Adoring Husband is waiting for me to get out of bed and get started on our ‘to do’ list.

The linen cupboard and the kitchen have my name on them today.

Just in case something interesting happens today, I won’t sign off yet.

Explained: The World Health Organization’s Controversial ‘Pandemic Treaty’ (14 minutes)

It took 2.5 hours to empty the pantry, clean the shelves, toss the out of date foodstuffs, throw the containers that haven’t been used for more than a year and then restock the pantry in a useable fashion.

It was fun finding a red back spider’s nest in a bottom dark corner of the pantry and then juggling the timber cutting board as the spider ran frantically around it trying to escape giant ME and watching AH jumping backwards in arachnophobic fear, even though I was nowhere near him!

The job required climbing up and down a three step ladder so after 2.5 hours, I was plum tuckered out and the linen cupboard is now added to tomorrow’s ‘to do’ list.

I emptied our gauge of 150mm of rain this afternoon at about 5pm. It rained nonstop all day, but now, at 7.30pm, it has finally stopped.

I’m watching the footy and my team is winning at half time. Anything can happen in the second half though so I’m not counting my chickens.

That’s it from me.

Nite all.

A Good Start

 The beginning of our cashless society

I slept so lightly for most of the night, it felt like I lay there with my eyes closed for hours but completely conscious and aware.

At 5.40am I gave up.

I made some tea and toast and returned to bed until I felt sleepy around 7.30am and had a two hour nap in an attempt to catch up on some sleep.

Adoring Husband was waiting patiently for me to wake up and get moving on our ‘to do’ list.

We pulled the washing machine away from the wall.

Considering how small our laundry is, it’s difficult to manoeuvre around the space to clean but I washed the wall and the tub cupboard, scrubbed the floor, cleaned the vertical blinds and polished the glass wall beside it.

AH cleaned the washing machine and steam cleaned the rest of the laundry floor as well as the hallway.

I tossed the old place mats from the dining table (they are 14 years old and grubby and stained) and replaced them with the new mats and my fluid art lazy Susan.

I styled the top of the cupboards in the sunflower room.

I made lunch.

I decluttered the cutlery drawers and tossed quite a few ‘long ago used’ and ‘unused’ tools.

Then I rested.

There is still much to do on that list and hopefully I will sleep well enough tonight to wake up refreshed for a full day tomorrow.

I received a couple of books in the mail today …

I just need to reward myself some time to read them! I started on the Immunity book and it’s quite easy to read.

Apparently there is a lot of rain heading in this direction for the next three days. Fingers crossed it doesn’t come to fruition.

Time for Big Brother now so …

Nite all.

Showery Day

As Adoring Husband dropped me off for my girlie date, we looked out over the water and commented on how bleak the day looked.

Everything was grey.

The sky. The water. The sand. The trees. The buildings and houses.

The rain was softly falling on the lush, vibrantly green grass - the only colour that shone through the greyness.

Because of the weather, we moved our date from the Lions Park to one of the girl’s homes.

It was such a fun morning and time flew!

Three hours later, I reluctantly left the group, but only because there was a guy coming to quote for the glass sliding doors replacing our garage roller door.

He gave us a time frame for when he would arrive and I was able to prepare our lunch and eat it before he turned up.

Thirty minutes of measuring, build description, rough estimates, reasonings and processes.

I’m not sure I feel 100% confident with this company, so we’ll get a couple of other quotes.

It was a lazy afternoon to match the lazy, rainy bleak day.

I made a lasagne and salad for dinner, which was delish!

Big Brother held my attention for the evening and now, at almost 11pm I’m feeling a bit weary.

Tomorrow, there is more to do on my list, so we’ll see how that goes.

Nite all.

A Big One

We had a big day in The Bay on this rainy day.

Our list was long, but most importantly, we were going to order our new lounge suite and single recliner rocker from Eureka Street Furniture.

We found them last week but decided to take a couple of days to think about it before confirming the order.

When we arrived and walked to the back corner where the modular suite was, I felt a wave of doubt that it was even the same suite! It looked like a different colour, it looked smaller and when I sat in it, it was NOT as comfortable as when I sat in it last week!

Adoring Husband then sat in the recliner and was also disappointed with his choice.

No order was made and we left empty handed.

The search was on for a new lounge.

Aside from checking off the list, lounge shopping is what we did for the rest of the day.

It was emotionally draining! Divorce was imminent!

We drove home without having chosen a lounge.

We made a decision tonight.

AH is very rough on the chair that he uses in the lounge room. Because his legs are not strong, he literally falls into the seat so that weakens the structure and because of his tremor the arm rests wear quickly.

Therefore, we’ve decided that he needs his own separate chair within a suite so that we only need to replace the one chair and not an entire 2 or 3 seater couch or modular lounge suite.

We considered a chair with a lifting mechanism so that he didn’t have to fall into it or struggle to stand up but decided to put that off til next time.

This was our final choice …

It was, by far, the most comfortable suite that we’d sat in all day and I want the two seater, not the three seater.

Four months is the wait time so we need to order as soon as possible.

It was wet, wet, wet all day.

I have coffee with my art girls in the morning and it’s after midnight so it’s time for me to sleep now.

Nite all.

Rest & Recovery

Even though we had good intentions, after yesterday’s effort with the spring cleaning, we needed a day to rest and recover.

We didn’t even have the energy to drive into The Bay as planned.

We did, however, take advantage of the sunflower room.

Adoring Husband napped on the lounge for a couple of hours and I took his spot and enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere for about 30 minutes. We both love the space.

We planted ourselves in front of the telly all day, postponing our trip into The Bay until tomorrow, and simply enjoyed some light entertainment and quiz shows.

I cooked duck breast with leftover au gratin for AH’s dinner. 

I had fresh crab (which I picked up from The Motivator this afternoon) with a sweet and spicy chilli dipping sauce.

It was exciting for me to watch the first episode of the new Big Brother series tonight! Loved every minute of the 90 minute show and I can’t wait for tomorrow night.

The weather has been cool and wet today. The forecast is for a wet week so hopefully we can run all our errands tomorrow and then stay cosy and dry at home for the rest of the week until the weather clears.

I love the cool breeze coming through my bedroom window at this time of the year and it makes for very comfortable sleeping.

Which is exactly what I need to do now.

A prediction for 2030 (The Great Reset)

Nite all.

Spring Cleaning

I woke up to this …

And we worked all day to end up with this …

We washed the walls and skirting boards, the windows, vertical blinds and fly screens, the floors and the furniture.

We swapped the family room with the dining room and created a games area so that we don’t have to clear the games off the dining table at meal times.

It’s such a lovely peaceful space. I love it.

The dining room still needs just a few loose ends tied up and there are a couple of things to clear in that bedroom.

After that’s done, I’ll be disconnecting the washing machine and pulling it away from the wall so that I can scrub the floor and wash the big glass window beside it.

Next on the list will be decluttering the linen cupboard. That’ll be a job and a half.

Of course, the bathroom job from last week still needs to be done.

I should just confess that the entire house needs a good spring clean - even though Winter is just around the corner.

The art studio will be last on the list, because by then I’ll feel like it’s my reward for doing all that other hard work.

There’s a method to my madness.

Dinner tonight was cauliflower and broccoli au gratin with a delicious chicken, mushroom and artichoke concoction that I made up. The fact that I still had that much energy to exert on dinner preparation was pretty impressive I thought!

I’m feeling surprisingly good considering the hours and energy I put into the day.

Adoring Husband broke his glasses this evening so we need to go to The Bay tomorrow and it’s almost midnight so I’d best get some sleep.

Nite all.