Friendly Friday

We had some really nice customers all through the day today, which brought a wonderful energy into the shop.

It was so noticeable that I even commented to a couple of groups and thanked them for coming.

Reality TV Queen popped in for a quick visit with His Royal Tallness, which was a nice surprise.

I had some time this afternoon to design the registration form for my photography courses and printed a few copies out for the front table.

I checked out the websites of some of our suppliers.

Even though we are trying to hold off ordering any new stock until we've been through the Gift Fair in Sydney, our stock level is a bit low and I'm considering making a couple of small orders next week. It's a bit of a balancing act.

The weather is still hot and we've just had some storms sweep through. There was a huge line of storms from the Sunny Coast right through to Gladstone, but I don't think they've done enough to cool the temperature.

My watch alarm has just told me to get ready for bed. I've done well this week creating my new habit of going to bed at the some time. I've been in bed every night well before 10.30pm.

I've discovered one slight issue with this new habit. Because we're in bed at least 2-3 hours earlier than our old habit, the Psychotic Dogs need to get up during the night to pee! Their elderly bladders can't last the distance and they are waking me up at around 3.30am most nights.

It almost defeats the purpose of going to bed early!

I'm looking forward to my weekend and plan on getting a bit done on Sunday. Bed will be my friend for the first half of the day though.

In the meantime, Saturday is looking good for another pleasant time at The Happy Abode.

So I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

Without Motivation

The Motivator has left the country!

It was a mad dash this morning as some last minute important business popped up (not Happy Abode stuff) and she frantically worked to finalise it all before she rushed to the airport in just the nick of time!

Touch and go.

The day was incredibly busy in the shop. Lots of new customers all announcing "I didn't know you were here!" as they walked in the door. There were even a few men came shopping today, which felt weird, but they knew what they wanted and even though I didn't get anything else done today, it was a great sales day and the people were friendly and grateful for the air conditioned comfort.

This weather is horrendously oppressive and our air conditioner has been running for 36 hours straight and certainly won't be turned off tonight either. It reached 36C It's still 28C but feels a lot warmer. When you add coastal humidity to such high temperatures - there are no words - or maybe there is just one - UGH!

Thankfully, I live AND work in air conditioned comfort.

Adoring Husband was kind enough to help me close the shop this afternoon and I cooked dinner super early (we were eating at 4.45pm) because AH has SES training tonight and had to leave before 5.30pm.

Crispy skinned chicken with salad followed by pineapple whip with macadamia nuts & shaved premium organic dark chocolate. That's a good healthy meal and a half!

Right now, I'm listening to my psychotic dogs tease and chase each other around the family room. I asked them if they remembered that they are each 13 years old. Combined, in human years, that makes them 273 years old. They are still jumping onto the furniture and playing silly buggers with each other like puppies.

Sometimes that can be a bit annoying, but mostly it makes me laugh.

Well, it's just after 8pm so I think I'll go to bed and so some of my course work before I nod off.

Nite all.

Big Day In

What a huge day!

The Gypsy had all her appointments booked bar one and the shop was filled with people many times during the day. Mostly they were only looking, but there was a big group of eight from Howard and three different pairs from Childers, someone from Chinchilla and a lady from Gympie and many more locals who only just discovered that we were here.

I took another name for one of my photography workshops and a lady came in asking if we would be interested in selling her art. I've told her to come back with some samples after 1st March. She showed me some photos and I really like the look of some of her creations. She has her finger in many different creative pies, so I'm looking forward to seeing her work up close.

I attempted to get some paperwork done and set up a booking system for our courses. I have just over three weeks until my first course starts and I still haven't finished creating it!

But don't worry, we do our best work under pressure!

By home time, I was absolutely exhausted. All of my energy had drained and I felt a little bit low ... until I rode home and the ride seemed to energise me. I even went straight to the kitchen to peel the potatoes and chop the beans in preparation for dinner.

Luckily, dinner was super easy and quick and delicious. Adoring Husband even went back for seconds and I put some pineapple in the freezer earlier, so I'm thinking of making some pineapple whip for dessert ... yes that's how early I am writing this.

It will be another early night for me and I think we'll leave the air conditioner on all night so that we can sleep soundly without the heat and the perspiration disturbing us.

Another day in the life of a Happy Abode worker haha.

Nite all.

Solo Effort

I had an interesting start to my day because I woke up a little later than usual, after a night of very broken sleep (that'll teach me for having coffee at 4.30pm!).

Just as I was about to jump under the shower and while I was sitting on the golden throne, I received a phone call from Vegan Chickie - which I didn't answer - but I called back after I was finished on the throne.

It was Chicklet's 7th birthday today, so after I said a quick hello to Vegan Chickie, I sang 'Happy Birthday' to Chicklet in a dreadful attempt at soprano. Chicklet wasn't really listening because she was yelling over the phone that she received three different dragons for her birthday.

She was also very excited to be going to a farm for the day where she was going to feed and touch different animals - but she was especially excited because Mama and Dadu were taking her and they would be a family for the day.

My gift to her will be the experience of touching a crocodile when she visits us in May. The crocodile is her favourite animal (after the non-existent dragon and dinosaur). She will also get to sit with and feed some meerkats (as will I).

By the time we said our goodbyes, I had twenty minutes to get to work and the only thing I had done was throw some clothes on. I was running around like a chook with it's head cut off and left the house in a mad dash at 2 minutes to nine. I arrived at the shop at 9.04am, just as The Blonde Bombshell arrived on her bike.

She kindly helped me open the shop and take the signs and chairs out. We were both lathered in perspiration because the weather was oppressively hot again this morning.

At our peak, there were six of us for coffee and it was a great morning while JMac gave us a very animated description of her concert experience on Saturday night where she saw John Farnham, Jon Stevens, Ross Wilson and The Black Sorrows.

I spent the remainder of the morning making contact with the editors of all the local newsletters, paying for each of our full page ads and then sending the finished ad through to them.

A few people came through the doors, but not many wanted to part with their money today. Some were in for a chat, which is always lovely. There was a booking for The Gypsy tomorrow and a regular male customer bought a Cenzoni bag for his wife - just because. How sweet.

Adoring Husband dropped in to see if I wanted lunch, which I had already ordered from 'A Taste of Burrum', so his timing was perfect to pick it up for me. He then returned later in the afternoon to help me pack up and close the shop. He's a good man.

Just before I walked out the door, the couple from the markets who I ordered another timber display stand from, appeared. I invited them in and they stayed for thirty minutes while we chatted about family and health and work until I herded them out the door so that I could go home.

Oh and Mayberry, the lady who is creating art with record albums came by with her newest creations, which aren't even finished yet, to get our opinion. I love them!

In the kitchen I prepared two different dinners, one for tonight and one for tomorrow night, so all I have to do tomorrow night is make a sweet potato mash and steam some beans to go with the chicken, mushroom and tomato casserole.

There are some storms about tonight and it looks like we might get some rain in an hour or so - hopefully it won't be too nasty because there has been quite a bit of damage caused by storms in areas south and south west of here in the past few days. Fingers crossed we just get some wet stuff!

I'm off for an early night.

Nite all.

Squeezed Full!

How hot is it?

As my mother would say "Hot as Hades"!

Each time we walked out of the shop, there was a wall of oppressive heat awaiting us and it felt like we were melting!

Thank goodness for air conditioning.

Our day was squeezed full!

We had an interesting start to the day because The Gypsy was not available to run our meditation class, which meant that we had to wing it.

Even knowing since last Wednesday that she wouldn't be here, neither The Motivator nor I were prepared for this morning. We DID arrive slightly early, to set up the room. I made up a sheet to get names and phone numbers so that in the future, we can contact the ladies to cancel if necessary.

The Motivator, with her easy listening voice, led the class into three different guided meditations which were pre-recorded (provided by The Gypsy) and in between we had some casual and relaxed discussions, some good giggles and then we finished off with a group dance to the song "Happy" (but of course!), so we finished the morning feeling both relaxed and energised. Everybody left with a big smile on their face.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and The Motivator did a fabulous job. We do our best work under pressure!

My entire day after that, was spent creating our ad to go into three different newsletters - BHPA, The Toogoom chatter and Burrum River Newsletter. The main part of our ad will provide information about the photography courses and the design & styling courses so we have to fit a LOT into a small space.

Here's your preview ...

So if you see any errors, you have until 1pm Tuesday to let me know lol

While I did that, The Motivator had about five different projects going at once, so she was multi-tasking like a whirlwind.

We had few customers walk through the door, so there weren't many interruptions. I think it was too hot for anybody to leave their house today!

I will be by myself in the shop tomorrow, so I need a good night's sleep. I'm looking forward to seeing the girls for coffee in the morning and then I have a 'to do' list to focus on for the remainder of the day.

Still absolutely loving The Happy Abode.

Nite all.

No News

My Sunday has been pretty cruisy.

I've done a little bit of washing.

I bottled my second batch of kombucha and have brewed up the next batch.

I cooked up a huge plate of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, char grilled zucchini, tomato, onion, baby spinach and avocado for a late breakfast, early lunch (11.30am).

Mid afternoon, I filled a bowl with dragon fruit, banana, mango, grapes and plums all chopped into bite sized pieces and then I pigged out on them in front of the TV as we watched the Winter Olympics.

Personally, I'll be pleased when the Olympics are over.

I can't help but wonder how amazing this world would be if all the pro athletes put as much money, time and effort into creating a better planet, instead of training, competing and holding up a trophy or medal at the end of the day.

What about all the Govt funding that could be better used elsewhere? What about the billions of dollars spent on bidding for the games and then the billions of dollars spent on building the arenas for the events?

Oh but don't get me started.

I can't believe it's 9pm already. I really feel like I didn't get enough done today - especially the course work for which I could have been so much more productive if I'd just left the room!

Anyway, big work day tomorrow and The Motivator leaves the country this week. I have much to organise before she leaves, including creating our ad for three newsletters, which I'd hoped to do this weekend, but will do tomorrow.

The Gypsy won't be at the shop for meditation tomorrow, so The Motivator and I will have to wing it.

Wish us luck!

Nite all.

To Market To Market

I woke to the sound of my alarm playing Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Gogo" at 6.15am.

Fifteen minutes later my alarm played "Happy" by Pharrell Williams.

As part of the meditation lessons, The Gypsy suggests something called 'traffic control' and every hour on the hour, we set our phone alarm to remind us to stop for one minute, 'be present' and stop negative self talk.

I did that for a day and then felt that I wanted to change it up a bit, so I added the song "Happy" to my alarm and now, every hour on the hour, I begin dancing (although mostly, I'm sitting down when the alarm goes off, so I kind of jig in my chair!).

Adoring Husband laughs at me ... EVERY time! But that song just makes me feel so good and it's very easy to dance to. The Motivator and I found ourselves stopping and bopping to the music all morning at work and every time, it brought a smile to our faces.

Anyway, I had my first dance to "Happy" while I was still in bed this morning, after which, I got ready for work and left early so that I could attend the local markets first.

Still heady from my big keno win on Friday night, I went a little crazy.

The first money I spent was $5 which I tossed into a hat that belonged to a young girl who was busking. She had a lovely voice and judging by her choice of location, which almost hid her entirely from public view, she was obviously a little shy. She stopped mid song to thank me profusely.

I bought a leadlight string of hearts to hang in my front tree, a beautiful timber hand crafted lazy susan to place in the centre of our table, a gift wrapped washer with soap (somebody out there will have it added to their birthday present this year!), two hanging hand towels, two necklaces and a ring, a hand made card, a pen, a letter opener, a book and two bags of vegetables.

I also ordered a hand made timber jewellery display stand from the same man who made our whale tail display stands.

All of those purchases completely filled the basket of my trike!

We had a quiet morning in the shop, but as always, we still had plenty to do and plenty to talk about.

It was a 1pm closure but I didn't leave for home until 2pm.

This afternoon and this evening I've done some course work, watched a less violent episode of 'Outlander', cooked dinner, watched some 20/20 cricket and some of the Winter Olympics. As I write this blog post, I have Sex and the City reruns on in the background.

But it's way after 11pm so it's time for bed.

Enjoy your Sunday everybody!

Nite all.

Bored Bored Bored

Adoring Husband is enthusiastic and excited about the Winter Olympics claiming them to be more spectacular than the Summer Olympics (in his view).

Five minutes into the opening ceremony and I am bored out of my brain.

So here I am, writing this post so that I can go to bed. Another early night will do me good.

We had a reasonable day in the shop and The Motivator and I both had some other 'stuff' that we had to do during the quiet moments.

We both left the shop around 3.30pm and I had enough time to sit down in the lounge room for twenty minutes before getting ready for the club.

Adoring Husband chose to not come to the club tonight. He had everything ready in the kitchen for me to prepare dinner quickly - it was Parsee Chicken, which I had cooked last weekend, so he had to put it in a saucepan and heat it up. He had the food processor set up so that I could process the cauliflower for cauliflower/cashew rice which I cooked in the pan with garlic, butter and lemon juice and and then I added lots of delicious coriander.

It was quite delicious and we followed that up with some more strawberry cream pie. There is enough left for us to have a small piece each tomorrow.

I had a very successful night with a big win on the keno which was nice.

Oh, my watch alarm just went off with the message that it was time for me to prepare for bed! I will follow those instructions immediately.

Nite all.

Day of Rest

Because Sunday was my day off, but was NOT a day of rest, I decided to make today my day of rest!

I stayed in bed until about 10am and I only got out of bed because I wanted to go into The Bay to get my hair done.

There was no appointment made and my decision was to wing it. If I got in, excellent, and if I didn't, then so be it.

I was going to do a 'salon crawl' until somebody had an available appointment for me. My first choice of salons was 'Headlines' in Torquay.

I went there a couple of years ago and I liked how they did my hair (even though it wasn't quite as blond as I'd expected), but they were a bit expensive. My hairdresser in Griffith has never charged me more than $100 for half a head of foils, trim, blow dry and straighten. A couple of years ago, 'Headlines' charged me $227 for the same treatment.

Also, my hairdresser in Griffith takes two hours to work his magic. 'Headlines' has taken three hours on both my visits.

Today, 'Headlines' had an opening available for me at exactly the time that I walked in the door and they charged $203 before I walked out the door - and it's still not as blonde as I wanted it. Emma told me that because it had been so long since I'd had my hair done (over a year!) it was a major job just to cover the root growth and that as long as I didn't leave it too long, the next visit would make my hair the blond that I wanted.

Ok. We'll see.

After my salon visit, we did some Go Natural shopping, ran a couple of errands for the shop, did a Bunnings run (ew I know) and then finally a quick stop at Stocklands.

We were home by 4pm and while I packed all of our purchases away, Adoring Husband headed back to the SES shed to make a delivery.

I cooked some barramundi for dinner and served it with a light salad, followed by some strawberry cream pie with coconut ice cream. Yum!

It's only 8.30pm but it feels like it's 10pm so I think I may have an early night - I will take notice of my special alarm tonight!

Nite all.

Trivial Matters

Our team came 4th in the monthly trivia competition tonight.

There were only single points between the top four teams and we were pretty proud of ourselves because none of us felt very brainy when we arrived. We even got two perfect rounds! It was a good night.

It was also a good day at the shop.

The Gypsy was fully booked for the day, but the icing on the cake was when we had closed the shop this afternoon, but forgot to lock the door and two customers walked in to make some good purchases before they returned home from their holiday here.

Thanks ladies!

I spent the day decluttering the main draw of my desk. In the end, I had completely filled my little rubbish bin, filled a bag with books and paperwork to bring home, filled two plastic folders with other paperwork to keep at the shop and filled the draw with about eight big notebooks inside which I have begun writing some of my greatest ideas!

I found two important things that I've been searching for at home for the last four months. One was a PIN number for one of my keycards and the other was my newest SD card for the camera. It was like finding treasure!

It actually took me all day to do that - in between customers and chatting with The Motivator and The Gypsy and gift wrapping customer gifts etc.

It was a bit of a rush home to cook up a quick crispy skin chicken with salad before getting ready for trivia.

Meanwhile, psychotic dog Jack has suddenly started cramping in his legs again! I'm madly rubbing magnesium oil into his feet, legs and ears (because when he stopped having cramps from the last episode, we got slack with that chore) and I'm hoping that the cramps will quickly disappear and I make a promise to the universe to continue massaging him with magnesium oil on a regular basis.

There is no worse sound than a dog screaming in pain and no worse sight than your dog holding his leg at stiff right angles to his body. Ugh.

Adoring Husband had his first experience of Bowen Therapy today for his back - I'll let you know the result. He was told that he may not feel anything different until the next day, but I can already see that there is improvement in his movement.

The odd thing is that he forgot to take the Parkinsons medication before we went out tonight, but his tremor is at this very moment, non existent. He has decided to not take any medication before bed to see how it goes.

I wonder if The Gypsy did some extra tweaks to treat the Parkinsons? She did tell me a few things about how Chinese medicine treats that particular disease, so she may have worked some magic. I wonder.

Anyway, it's approaching midnight - which means that I must have accidentally ignored my alarm when it told me to get ready for bed at 10pm. I'm using my phone alarm to get me into a regular bedtime routine - so far it worked for one night haha. I really must be more vigilant!

Nite all.

Across the Miles

I'm posting very early today because I've received some really sad news and I'm not sure that I'll be in any kind of a mood to do much at all tonight.

My Mother-in-Law from my last relationship has been a lovely friend to me all through the twelve years that I was with 'The Pig Hunter' and for the fifteen years since we separated.

Since my split with her son, we've emailed each other a couple of times each year to share our big news and I always looked forward to our contact.

I have been incredibly lucky with my mothers-in-law from all of my relationships and Dorothy was an amazing, vibrant, strong, intelligent, funny, supportive, kind and generous woman whom I admired very much and who was a very positive influence in the difficult phases of my life.

My fondest memories are of her and I drinking wine, singing and dancing around my kitchen in Griffith while we cooked dinner together. We would sit up for hours at night having deep and meaningful conversations about absolutely everything.

She shared so many of her life stories, of which there were many. There were hilarious and hysterical stories along with the devastating and tragic.

Dorothy was always full of good advice and even though she only visited once every year (she lives in New Zealand), I was always excited when we knew she was coming.

When I separated from her son, she said "Well what took you so long!? I could never figure out what the two of you were doing together!"

After I moved to Sydney and while I was working there, she and Ric were in town very briefly, but she made the effort to contact me and we shared a fantastic lunch together where we knew our time was limited and we babbled on trying to share all our news before we were forced to part company again.

That was the last time I saw her and she was looking and feeling great. She was a beautiful woman inside and out and carried herself with such poise and confidence.

I wish I had a photo of her to put on here, but I'm at work and don't have access to them.

I sent her an email a couple of days ago to tell her about The Happy Abode and what was happening with the family and to let her know how happy my life is here in our community.

Today, I received a reply from her husband to tell me that Dorothy is terminally ill and clinging to life in a hospice near Wanganui.

My heart aches and I wish that I'd had the chance to speak to her before she'd reached this level of illness. I feel on the brink of tears and my energy level has dropped to a low that I've not experienced for quite some time.

I'm just trying to focus on the loving relationship that we shared and I want to celebrate the wonderful woman she was - especially to me.

She will know when she's ready.

I guess that this is my goodbye.

Nite all.

Checking In

Another fantastic meditation class this morning. The Gypsy always presses buttons and provides 'aha' moments every week for me. I love it.

It was a freakishly quiet day in the shop as far as sales went, but we had a lot of people coming in asking questions about The Gypsy - she is fully booked on Wednesday, asking questions about our courses and workshops, asking about our meditation classes and asking us to find and order certain items for them to buy.

The Motivator had a productive day in the shop, while my day didn't feel productive until I arrived home.

This is what I made as soon as I walked in the door this afternoon...

It's made out of strawberries, nuts & seeds, coconut oil, honey/maple syrup, vanilla extract and a touch of salt. I posted the recipe here two or three years ago (maybe longer) but I think this one tastes better than the one I made back then.

We ate a slice of it after our dinner of spaghetti bolognese with zoodles.

It's now almost 11pm and today I set my phone alarm to tell me when to go to bed. I want to start a habit of going to bed at the same time every night, so I've set the alarm to warn when I have 30 minutes left until bed time. I only have five minutes left until I should be in bed, so I'd best sign off!

Looking forward to coffee with the girls in the morning.

Nite all.

Not So Restful

My day of rest was not so restful this week.

I stayed in bed (my favourite home office) all morning doing my course work and at midday it was time to get up and start the big cook off.

I made 8 meals of spaghetti bolognese sauce, 4 meals of parsee chicken, 2 meals of curried sausages and one meal of ginger, honey and lemon Chicken Maryland. By the time I'd finished all of that, and cleaned up the kitchen, I was too buggered to make the strawberry cream pie - maybe tomorrow.

The next chore on my list was to declutter my shoes. Twenty three pairs of shoes now sit at the door awaiting removal to the nearest charity organisation. More than twenty three pairs remain in my bedroom.

Two loads of washing were hung on the line and a third is waiting to be hung out tomorrow.

I cleared out the top drawer of my bedside table.

Confession time.

The top drawer of my bedside table has not been cleaned out in the ten years that we've been in this house. It was full of old dockets and receipts, tiny little ziplock plastic bags with buttons, price tags off clothing, pamphlets, business cards, notebooks, pegs, paid invoices, coins, odd socks, charm boxes, safety pins, pens, scrunchies, paperclips, book marks, bra strap extenders, mini hair brush, mini lint remover, stiletto tips and more.

It took almost an hour to sort through ten years of accumulated 'stuff' inside one tiny little drawer!

Then I cooked dinner, which was the Maryland chicken with char grilled zucchini, grilled tomato and mushroom & onion seared in butter and the leftover ginger, honey and lemon sauce.

This is what happened during dinner ...

... but I was too exhausted to grab my camera and find a good place to photograph it! So this is from my front door and taken with my phone.

Adoring Husband required his back massage before bed - I'm not sure that it's even helping - and he'll make an appointment with the Dr tomorrow. He'll need x-rays and probably a referral to a specialist. Who knows what lies ahead of us there, but there have been too many days of pain with no respite, so steps need to be taken.

Now I need to go clean the kitchen before heading off to bed.

It's an early start tomorrow morning for our meditation class and we need to clear the room because it's still set up from last week's smart phone and tablet class.

I will definitely require a day off this week!

Nite all.

Forgetful Jones

Yep!

Completely forgot to do a post on Friday night!

You would think something so habitual would be difficult to forget wouldn't you?

Friday and Saturday were both fabulous in the shop, though February is expected to be a touch quiet in comparison to the rest of the year, so we should be knuckling down and getting some important stuff done in preparation for our courses and workshops in March.

Friday night was especially great at the club, because Rebel Mardi and The Lifesaver came to town and though our time together was short, there was a sparkle and a twinkle in the air that's been missing for quite some time.

Sadly, Lady Lynn, Beauty and Leggy Blonde were out of town and missed all the fun - and we missed them too.

Rebel Mardi came to visit me in the shop this morning and we had a quality laden thirty minutes together before she had to leave to start her very full day with friends and family.

I miss her very much and it always hits me like a truck whenever I see her smiling eyes in front of me.

The weather has been WET WET WET since the early hours of this morning and it's expected to continue for the remainder of the weekend. Even though we need the rain desperately, I also desperately need to get some washing done!

The best part though, is the drop in temperature. It's currently a blissfully delicious 19C and it only got as high as 22C during the day. People were actually wearing long sleeves!

My plan for Sunday is course work in the morning, a big cook up in the afternoon and in between all of that, getting some washing done.

Included on the cook up menu is 'Strawberry Cream Pie' - Yum.

So you see? You missed nothing by me forgetting to post on Friday night. There is not a lot happening in this neck of the woods and they do say "no news is good news".

Nite all.

Gusty Thursday

Gale force conditions in town today.

Our flags almost flew away and our sign went for a tumble and almost smashed our front window.

The winds possibly kept people away because we had a very light day of customers, which, on the plus side, gave us a chance to catch up with other non-customer related chores.

We had lots of time for D&M chats and laughter and singing and a bit of dancing. We do enjoy a good dance through the shop - especially to our favourite songs "Happy" and "Shake It Off"

We made sure to leave the shop as soon after 3pm as we could because we have lots of plans for self care and study time for our course, which we are loving! It kind of strips you bare emotionally, but the other end of that is full of enthusiasm and motivation and we encourage each other along the way.

I came home and unpacked the groceries, put the ingredients for the chicken broth in the slow cooker and got that started, then sat down for 30 minutes before cooking dinner which was duck breast with stuffed zucchini.

After we cleaned the kitchen, I bottled the kombucha that has been brewing on the kitchen bench for ten days and then started to brew the next batch, which entailed boiling 12 cups of filtered water with a cup of sugar and a knob of ginger, then taking it off the boil and adding the Rooibos teabags to brew until the water cools.

I got three 300ml bottles of kombucha out of this first batch which is a bit sweet, so I've added more water and a bit less sugar to the next one.

My plan for Sunday is to do a cook up so that there are meals to heat up during the week and I won't have to come home and spend too much time in the kitchen. I'd like to cook up some spaghetti bolognese sauce, curried sausages, butter chicken and beef casserole. The spag bol will be served with zoodles and the butter chicken with cauliflower rice.

I'm also looking forward to having some bone broth every morning.

Now I have some study to catch up on, so I'm outta here.

Nite all.

Lucky Day

I had a fabulous morning in bed (my favourite place to work) and spent three hours working on the course material and playing Words With Friends (which is very much like Scrabble).

Eventually, I made myself presentable for the lady's luncheon and Adoring Husband drove me to the Bowls Club at 11am.

I wasn't the first to arrive but the first thing I did was buy myself an alcoholic beverage and check the keno ticket that I'd bought on Friday night. It was a good start to the day with an $80 win!

The pokies captured my attention (as they do) until it was time to enter the dining room. Everybody had already been seated and there was nowhere for me to sit! So I made a noise and called my friends (Tweedle Dee in particular) nasty names, stomped around like a spoiled child wondering which stranger (of which there were many!) I would have to sit with and make small talk - when Tweedle Dee got people at her table to move along and she got me a chair to slot in next to her.

I gave her a big hug and thanked her. I like to spend my lady's luncheons with my friends and not have to be friendly to people I don't know - yes it's one of my many foibles!

The next challenge was finding something GF to eat for lunch. I had one option - it was chicken and salad - which sounds nice and I should have taken a photo, because it was shredded chicken, which tasted very much like processed chicken, certainly NOT roast chicken. The salad was green leaves, 3 slices of cucumber, 3 cherry tomatoes and some red onion. A boiled egg cut in half. No dressing. I guess you can't expect too much for $8, but the crumbed calamari looked damn good!

So, wallowing in my disappointment, I bought myself another drink and headed back to the pokies where I pocketed some more winnings. I have a keno ticket to check when I return to the club on Friday night.

We had a record number of ladies at the luncheon - around 32 were expected - they were very loud and the drunker they got, the louder they got!

When I was ready to go, I called Adoring Husband to pick me up and the plan was for him to take me to The Blonde Bombshell's house for drinks, but his back was giving him hell, so I though I should probably head home and give him some TLC.

After a couple of hours worth of TLC, I jumped on my trike and pedalled to the beach to capture the so-called 'super moon' rising. It was no different to any other full moon really ...

I waited for the eclipse and captured some of it before the heavy cloud cover came to spoil the party.

This is the photo that I took yesterday of the storm across the river ...

Now it's midnight, so I'd best get some sleep.

Nite all.

And So It Begins

There was an extra person at morning tea today which gave us a few extra laughs. The JMac is always a bit of fun with her silly sense of humour and today was her first morning tea with us.

Our workshop for smart phones was held today with just one person in attendance. The Motivator was teacher extraordinaire while I manned the shop and the client left after 90 mins feeling happy with new knowledge about using her smart phone.

We had a few happy customers, old and new, come through the doors, and we recommenced our monthly FB 'photo with purchase' draw today - which means one lucky customer will win a $25 voucher on the 24th of each month.

An elderly lady visited with her artwork hoping that we might sell it in the shop. That matter is still under consideration.

We closed the shop right on 3pm, had a bit of a business meeting, discussed where we are up to with the course that we both signed up for and I walked out the door before The Motivator.

There was some heavy rain during the afternoon and just as I left the shop on my trike, there was a short sharp shower, so I sheltered under a shop awning across the road before riding along the river and getting a few good shots of the rain showers as they reached the other side of the river. Those pics are still in camera, but I'll edit them tomorrow at work and hopefully remember to post them here tomorrow night.

I'm excited that Grey's Anatomy starts again on free to air TV tonight, but I don't think I can stay awake to watch it all, so I'll have to record it.

Adoring Husband's back is still sore, however, he was well enough to not wake me to do his work this morning. Tonight, my back is giving me a bit of grief, so we are both in the wars at the moment.

Lady's luncheon tomorrow and I have the day off work to attend. I'm not even sure if there will be anything GF for me to eat because I forgot to ask on Friday night, but I'm pretty sure they'll at least be able to make me a salad.

Anyway, enough of this frivolity. I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

Back Breaker

We had a nice group for meditation this morning and The Gypsy did a good job of explaining her meditation theories and practices and providing us with tips on how to bring some peace to our own lives.

I loved having Lady Lynn sitting beside me through three guided meditations.

I started the day feeling energised and felt even more energised at the end of the one hour session.

It was a quiet day in the shop with just a few customers coming through the door between heavy showers, but that gave The Motivator and I a chance to catch up with our news and go through some of the course material.

Unfortunately we had a blackout for at least an hour in the afternoon, which made the shop really muggy and hot, but The Motivator and I set up a new display table and moved the other one to make enough room. Now it feels like we need some more stock to fill the gaps!

I left the shop before 3.30pm and rode along the river path on the way home. The town has become quiet again and now it is the quiet season.  

Adoring Husband injured his back this morning as he put the trailer on the car to go mow lawns.

He is in a lot of pain and it's highly likely that I'll be working for him tomorrow morning, and maybe the next few mornings.

He really needs to take better care of himself.

I guess it's time to get into bed. If I have to work at 5.30am I should get some sleep.

Nite all.

Opening up to Goodness

Here I sit, on my day off, in bed working on Denise DT's Manifesting Course and clearing bad money memories that I didn't even realise that I had. Talk about cleansing and invigorating! Just the introduction week is mind blowing - week one doesn't even commence until next week.

As I sit here tapping away at the keyboard, I can hear the TV in the next room where Adoring Husband is watching 'Outlander'.

Over the top of the TV I can hear his grunting and groaning and cursing and moaning.

I sat out there briefly, about thirty minutes ago, and had to leave the room after five minutes.

Here's the thing ...

I believe that everything that you see, hear and feel has an impact on your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual being. Every tiny negative experience in your life affects the energy in and around you.

Whether it be 'real' negative experiences in your own life or dramatic visual experiences on TV (or in a book or a story or on the radio). They all have a negative affect on the mind and body, which remains with you always - sometimes on a deep subconscious level - which you don't even realise.

I also believe that if you don't deal with all that stuff that is being pushed to the recesses, it slowly but surely, over a long period of time, manifests into physical ailments as your body tries to deal with the negativity and the ugliness.

Sometimes it's released in other ways, like the subconscious build up of frustration or anger that you take out on a loved one when something small triggers the negative emotions. Sometimes it takes the form of a headache or the inability to sleep or food cravings or a skin rash. Every tiny bit of negativity weakens your immune system.

It takes a strong conscious effort to surround yourself with love and positivity and to treat yourself with tenderness and care.

With this in mind, I have made changes to my life to avoid negativity where I have the power to do so eg I don't watch any news other than the local news (which mostly tells me about the man who has been donating blood for 50 yrs or the local sports stars who have achieved something nationally or internationally).

I don't watch national or international news - for example - how scared has the entire planet been for the past year, as the media brain washes us with threats of an impending nuclear war because of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un?

What can we do about it? Does knowing of this threat change anything? Do you do anything differently with your day knowing that somebody in another country could press the red button any minute? No - you sit in your lounge chair feeling the fear rising in you as you imagine a major war and how it will affect your loved ones and your future. Needlessly.

I avoid talk back radio with people like John Laws, Ray Hadley or Alan Jones who all incite anger and division within the community and force their opinions upon their listeners, telling anyone who's opinion differs, that they are idiots.

I don't watch movies or TV shows that are filled with graphic violence or horror, or movies that retell a true historic story about wars or murders or natural disasters (I know that it happened - knowing the juicy details will not change anything except make me feel sad/angry/frustrated/depressed) I don't listen to angry aggressive music that attempts to embed itself inside my brain.

I avoid negative people. I avoid angry people. I avoid bigots. I avoid drunks (when they're drunk). I avoid disempowering males. I avoid people who thrive on being 'victims' or thrive on the dramas in life.

When I realised that I had the power to make the choice to avoid all of that and surround myself with positive happy people who want the best for themselves and for me, that's when my life changed for the better. I felt freer and lighter and less anxious or stressed.

Life brings with it, it's own share of challenges and obstacles and burdens for which we have to find a way to deal. We can surround ourselves with love and move forward, dealing with those challenges in the most positive way possible OR we can hold on to the drama that we choose to accept from artificial sources (movies/books/media) and weave it into our real lives so that every challenge seems impossible to overcome and the physical and emotional pain seems unbearable.

If I'm lucky, I reckon that I still have a third of my life left to live. Boy, I've had my fair share of challenges during the other two thirds of it and I can honestly say that I haven't dealt with most of it as well as I could have. Having cleansed as many of the toxins and the negatives out of my life as I can, I want to move forward into my future feeling happy, loved and positive about the possibilities and that means for me ... "Outlander" and it's drama, graphic torturous violence and demeaning disempowering of already powerless people, is off the table!

It's 5.20pm so I'd best get out of bed and cook some dinner!

Nite all.



 





  

Steady Satdee

The Motivator is away for the weekend, so I was alone at the shop today.

My plan was to work on the photography course and fill out a sheet from the Lucky Bee workbooks that I'm studying, but I was so busy that I only sat down for ten minutes all day!

I met some lovely people and some generous husbands, quite a few gift givers and a local who has been here for a long time but I've never laid eyes on her before. Another young woman who will return next week with some friends and without her baby. A couple of visiting daughters of acquaintances and some Australia Day weekend visitors as well.

I took a name for The Motivator's designer course in March.

There was a constant flow of people through the door and I sat down for the first time just before midday.

Adoring Husband was a great help, as usual, and assisted with opening and closing the shop.

We shut the doors at 2pm and I went for a ride along the river with my camera (to no avail) but the town is pretty busy with big groups of out of towners all having loud, musical and physical fun together. The sound of laughter was ringing in my ears during the ride, which was lovely.

AH had cooked up some lunch, so I was able to come home and sit down to watch a few episodes of 'Outlander' with him until I just couldn't stand the torturous graphic horror any longer. It left me grateful that I wasn't born into that era - although AH seems to think that I would have been the healer in the dungeon.

I left the room a couple of times and in the end, AH turned it off and we switched to watching something more demure - "Grease" - much easier on the heart and soul and a nice one for singing along. Although having listened to me for half of the movie, AH might disagree with the singing part!

I think I may have an early night tonight. It was 1am when I got to sleep this morning and 4.30am when I woke - that's not enough sleep to manage a full day effectively. I think it might have been that late cup of tea that I drank!

So I'm off to catch the last thirty minutes of Grease and then I'm outta here!

Nite all.