Day Two of Chicklet Holiday

Poppy Blueberry (a recently acquired name) and Chicklet started the day together by eating breakfast before I even woke up.

We all slept soundly last night, so it was nice to wake refreshed and feeling like the world was on my side.

The Bay was our first and only destination for the day, where we stocked up on crafty goodies from Spotlight and Heaps Discounts. We had a brief stop in Coles before heading home because Chicklet was OVER the shopping experience.

She did get to ride in an Octonauts Gup while we were at Stocklands and stated quite clearly that she was "only doing it because it's been a LONG time since she sat in a ride". A lady watching nearby told her that it was ok to enjoy herself.

Chicklet was disappointed that we had to stop and eat lunch before we could unpack all the goodies that we'd bought.

The goal tomorrow is to finish creating the best dragon cave in the history of the universe. This is what we've done so far...

... we have lots of ideas, so the day should be busy! Watch this space for the final product!

Poppy and Chicklet had a water fight with their new water pistols. It lasted about 2 minutes before Poppy was exhausted and had to sit down. Running is not as much fun at 60yrs of age as it was at 59.

I've just looked at the clock and realise why I'm feeling so tired! It's rapidly approaching midnight and there'll be no energy tomorrow if I don't get into bed and sleep the remainder of the night away.

I'm done for the day.

Nite all.

Day One of Chicklet Holiday

It was more difficult than expected.

Despite (or perhaps because) it was such an exhausting day to get here, Chicklet did not sleep soundly in her new surroundings and came into our room four times during the night.

Because the psychotic dogs didn't get fed until late in the evening, their digestion requirements had me up twice during the night.

Then I was awake at 6am.

Needless to say I was not completely present today.

We had a healthful breakfast, made our bed, did some sticker art, did some washing, created two dry clay dragons, ate a healthful lunch, found some jewels to fill our treasure chests, went for a drive with Poppy to inspect the SES shed, played with 'Goo', gave Poppy some lessons in Minecraft, set the outside table beautifully for dinner, selected food from the menu, ate a healthful dinner (including a small smoothie), had a bath, had cuddle time then fell asleep in an instant.

Chicklet said that she would try not to wake me up tonight. That's all I can ask.

It's 10pm and I will be falling asleep in an instant too!

Tomorrow, we go for a trip to The Bay.

Nite all.

Huge Day

There is a lot to say about today, but it's late and we are all exhausted!

Chicklet was the first to fall asleep ... which is surprising because I expected Adoring Husband would be the first to break! He wasn't far behind.

We left home at 8am ...

Our run was pretty good and we even stopped at Forest Glen to have brunch at Kunara Marketplace and buy some organic goodness to kickstart our healthful visit with Chicklet. I even bought some sweets to bring home for later. All GF and DF fairy cake, chocolate brownie, snickers slice and lemon meringue tart. Two of them sugar free too!

We arrived at the airport with about 15 minutes to spare, but it took us almost that long to find where we needed to be. We wanted to greet them as they disembarked from the plane, but the rigmarole required to get there was going to take too long, so we just waited at the exit doors near the luggage pick up.

Her joyful smile as she ran into my arms melted my heart and it was a wonderful way to begin our time together.

We spent an hour sitting in a cafe drinking coffee/juice/water with Vegan Chickie before saying our goodbyes and climbing in the car for the long journey home.

The traffic was dreadful coming out of Brisbane and was quite stressful for AH, so we took our first break after about an hour.  Chicklet enjoyed the fairy cake from Kunara and she and AH played games with a plastic spoon for about 30 minutes.

Back on the road and it was slow going with a minor traffic mishap up ahead which slowed the traffic to a crawl.

Chicklet was literally counting the minutes home, and I gave her landmarks to look out for to make the trip go a bit faster, but it took 4.5 hours with all the traffic build up and then two stops for breaks, so we were absolutely exhausted by the time we arrived home.

I heated up the beef casserole for AH to eat for dinner. Chicklet requested fresh lemon and some apple with peanut butter.

We had a short play in her bedroom before changing into pyjamas, cuddle and talk time, junior meditation to fall asleep to and it took her about ten minutes to drop off (if that).

AH headed off to bed almost immediately after that and here I am blogging before I collapse into bed myself!

Done like a dinner.

Nite all.

It's Time!

One more sleep and we'll be on our way to Brisvegas to pick up the precious cargo AKA Chicklet!

I've just spent the afternoon and evening doing a couple of large loads of washing, clearing the bedroom where she will be sleeping, scrubbing the main bathroom and toilet, folding the gazillion towels that were covering the family room lounge and packaging/freezing the curried beef casserole that I prepared for tomorrow night.

I'm done for the day.

The Happy Abode was quite busy and there was a steady flow of people through the doors in the morning. It slowed down in the afternoon which was a good thing because we had a sales rep showing us her wares for about two hours. We made a couple of small orders with her.

In the afternoon, we took delivery of the new Ivy's order, so we now have a lot of new wallets, change purses, small handbags and a good range of umbrellas.

We love when new stock arrives!

There will be more beautiful Intrinsic stock arriving this week too *happy dance*.

Now it's way past midnight and I should head off to bed.

Nite all.

Full Park

Our caravan parks are almost full at the moment.

We have a regular turnover of people who come to our town every year at the same time.

The Happy Abode has been in existence for just over eight months now, so there are still holiday makers coming into town who are excited to see a new shop and expressing relief that we weren't here a year ago and they hadn't missed us back then!

The best thing about caravan parks, is that everybody talks to everybody, so they share all the information they have about the town and that includes US.

Today was one of those days where there was always somebody in the shop and everybody was in a chatty mood. By the end of the day, I had heard a LOT of stories about children and mothers and husbands and other towns and crafty/sporty interests.

It was a happy day in The Happy Abode.

Coffee morning was also a pretty happy affair with Maid Marian who had returned from her big caravanning holiday and The Miracle Woman making a rare appearance. Tweedle Dee (new name yet to be announced) and The Whinging Pom completed our intimate group.

Everyone had left by around 10.30pm and I locked our doors and put a 'back in 5 minutes' post-it on the front door so that I could check the mail and buy a coffee (which went cold on my desk because I was busy with customers for the next two hours).

A few new handbags arrived today and another delivery should arrive tomorrow, which we are excited about.

I locked the doors a little after 3pm, made a quick visit to the butcher and then pedalled home quickly hoping to avoid the rain. There was a fine mist falling as I pulled into the driveway.

Adoring Husband had been out most of the day on SES duties. He'd returned home for a short while and then went out again, so I had a couple of hours to myself.

Two more sleeps and my little Chicklet will be here for her holiday with us!

Three and a half weeks of joy and fun will be had and we have a couple of exciting things planned, like holding a crocodile, visiting the bird sanctuary, creating and burying a time capsule, collecting shells from the beach and being crafty with them, cooking in the kitchen together, going to reef world and picnics at the park.

She will also spend a little time at the shop with me!

I hope to make it totally memorable in the best way possible.

Right now, it's time for bed.

Nite all.

No Mondayitis

Even though our numbers were low due to the public holiday, it was another good meditation this morning.

We forgot to let people know that we would still be holding the class and only a couple phoned to check.

But that's ok. I would love it if it was only me in the room!

Not counting the meditation class, nobody else stepped foot in the shop before 11.30am which meant that The Gypsy and I could catch up with all our news and get totally lost in our deep discussions of self discovery.

The Motivator was off work today, but came in for a treatment this afternoon. She was feeling very zoned out by the time she left.

The afternoon saw a steady flow of customers and kept me pretty busy so the time flew by and before I knew it, it was time to head home.

I had to shelter for twenty minutes while some wild rains pelted down. The weather was unpredictable all day. One minute there were blue skies and sunshine. The next minute, the skies darkened and horizontal rain was hitting our front windows. Ten minutes later, the skies were blue again.

I did a quick shop in the supermarket and thankfully, the rain held off for me to ride home.

My stomach was very empty because I didn't eat lunch so as soon as I walked in the door, I made a bee line for the kitchen. My current favourite San Choy Bow - quick, easy and full of flavour - was on my menu for an early dinner. Leftover apple crumble with fruit whip ice cream for dessert.

Completely sated by 5pm!

My alarm is just about to tell me to go to bed, so it's time to sign off.

Nite all.

Mid Long W/End

I had to edit some photos today and I wanted to use the iMac for it's bigger screen to do this work.

The iMac is at the shop, so while I was there, I opened the doors for customers.

The weather was cool enough that I didn't need to run the air conditioner and I left the front door open for the light breeze.

As I edited photos, approximately 15 people came through the doors, but none of them wanted to purchase and I think the majority of them were simply filling in time while they waited for their takeaway food to be prepared.

The advantage is that now fifteen more people know of our existence and hopefully they will all follow my request to spread the word.

The weather was very erratic today and I began bringing in the flags before midday when the clouds became dark and the wind picked up. I was worried that if I waited another ten minutes, I'd have been drenched and trying to dry off the flags and signs before storing them inside. Better to be safe than sorry.

Adoring Husband arrived to drive me home and we were sitting in the comfort of our lounge room when the rains came.

It was a great afternoon for watching silly movies and then catching the football.

Thankfully, it was an easy dinner for Adoring Husband, because I had my trusty store of spaghetti bolognese sauce in the freezer and some fresh zucchini to turn into zoodles. This was followed by a big bowl of fresh raspberries and fruit whip ice cream for dessert.

Yum.

It's only 8pm and I'm feeling a touch weary - my brain doesn't enjoy focussing so hard on photo editing these days - especially because the new camera is not photo-shop compatible, so my challenge is figuring out a new editing process using other programs.

Tomorrow, being a public holiday, will give me another opportunity to finish off the editing, but hopefully will also bring in lots of people enjoying their day off and wanting to share their happiness in The Happy Abode.

Gotta watch The Voice and then I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

Happy Saturday

Yes it was a happy Saturday!

Some of our favourite people came into The Happy Abode today and we had some long and funny conversations as well as some deep and meaningful discussions.

We were only in the shop for four hours but those hours passed so damn quickly, and we had to hang around for an extra twenty minutes to finish some important 'stuff' that we'd started earlier.

It was voting day, so Adoring Husband came to the shop to help us close, then he and I walked to the hall to vote for our Mayoral candidate of choice.

From there, we walked to the beach, took our shoes off and spent almost thirty minutes walking through the shallows of the receding tide.

I like to stand knee deep in ocean water and take the 'Super Hero' pose (like the surgeons do in Grey's Anatomy) looking out to sea. I stand strong and announce to the Universe that I am strong and healthy and powerful and capable of succeeding at everything on which I focus.

It took me a while to convince Adoring Husband to do the same thing. He kept asking me WHY and laughing at me and telling me I was mad. I told him that we weren't going anywhere and I was prepared to stand there all afternoon if necessary! FINALLY he took the pose for all of twenty seconds!

I was happy with that.

It was a beautiful afternoon and it was after 2.30pm by the time we got home.

I'm considering opening the shop tomorrow - Sunday - because it's a long weekend and there are a lot of tourists in town. I think it might be worth it, especially with Mother's Day coming up next weekend and even if it's quiet, I still have some photo editing that I need to finish, so the time won't be wasted.

On that note, I am off to bed. Look at me doing the 'adultie' thing and going to bed early on a Saturday night!! After all, a superhero needs her sleep too!

Nite all.

Just Like Old Times

For the second morning in a row, I chose to get out and about on the trike with my camera.

It was, without a doubt, a glorious morning. The weather was close to perfect with the sun shining brightly and twinkling reflectively on the high tidal waters of the river.

There were a few scattered clouds to make the sky interesting.

The birds were all out in force:

• The current high population of lorikeets making a racket in the treetops.
• Whistling kites perched in pairs in the tall trees lining the river bank.
• Tawny frogmouths also in pairs snuggling each other on lower branches.
• Plovers strutting around on the grass piercing the soil with their beaks for bugs.
• Terns, seagulls and oyster catchers jostling for position on the sand banks near the beach.
• Blue faced honeyeaters chasing each other through the big fig trees.
• Kookaburras lining up on the street lamps.
• Cormorants diving in the river for fish.
• Galahs waddling through the long grasses feeding on the seeds.
• Corellas trying to out-screech the lorikeets. 
• A white bellied sea eagle soaring high over the boat ramp.
• Not a pelican to be seen!

There were a lot of people out and about riding bikes, boating, kayaking, fishing, walking, swimming, chasing their dogs on the beach, eating their breakfasts in the park, drinking coffee at the cafe, pushing prams. Lots of smiling and laughing and chatting.

As you can tell, I really enjoyed my morning and took a lot in.

It must have been about 11.30am when I rode home and went straight into the kitchen to cook a hearty early lunch.

Chicken, pumpkin/spinach/roasted capsicum/pine nut salad and a salsa of tomato, cucumber, shallot, avocado and grape.

For dessert I made an apple crumble.

I stewed green apples with water, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, lemon zest and lemon juice.

The crumble was a combination of raw cashews, raw macadamia nuts, raw almonds, raw walnuts combined with coconut butter, a touch of maple syrup, a pinch of salt and a couple of tablespoons of banana flour all whizzed in the food processor.

I scattered the crumble on top and then sat them under a grill until they browned slightly.

I served it with soft serve ice cream fruit whip - frozen pineapple, frozen banana, coconut cream, maple syrup, a splash of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt all blended into a smooth icy mixture.

Needless to say we didn't need much for dinner tonight!

I had a losing night at the club tonight, although I do have a keno ticket to check. You never know your luck.

It's almost 10.30pm so I'd best get some sleep. Back to the shop tomorrow!

Nite all.

Changing Habit

I bet you're thinking that I spent my day off in bed.

My usual habit of staying in bed and studying and reading and playing in Facebook did not appeal to me today, so I was on the trike with my camera bag in the basket before 8am.

I visited the boys at the Seat of Knowledge.

I picked up a take away coffee.

I dropped in to see The Motivator at the shop.

I checked mail.

I walked bare foot along the beach.

I triked along the river and found these guys ...

I followed a Sea Eagle but he did all of his exciting stuff at a distance too far to photograph.

I did some grocery shopping.

I arrived home some time after 11am.

I watched the movie 'Girl on a Train'.

I cooked stuffed mushrooms, roast pumpkin spinach & pine nut salad and crispy skinned chicken for lunch.

I edited some photos from last week's photo shoot.

It's almost 11pm and I think my day is done.

I have a lot planned for tomorrow, so it's bed time for me.

Nite all.

All The People!

My belief that the town would be empty today, due to the big funeral, was unfounded.

There were a lot of holiday-makers through the shop today and I was kept pretty busy almost from the moment I opened the doors.

The people were very excited to find us and even more excited about the goodies that they found inside, so it was a pretty fun day for them AND for me!

Adoring Husband had some shopping to do in The Bay, but drove me to work first because it had been raining and was threatening to rain some more. This meant that he had to pick me up this afternoon, so he helped me bring everything in before I locked up and left the premises.

We had a bit of shopping to do at the Butcher's and Supermarket before heading home.

There was no time to sit down because I had to package up the dog food. I have decided to add a bit of extra goodness to the mince that we feed them.

I'm not going all out like I used to, with a recipe that was absolutely exhausting to put together once a fortnight. Instead, I simply add grated carrot, some finely chopped baby spinach, some diced cucumber, two raw eggs, some turmeric and some Himalayan salt.

I mix it all by hand and then weigh them into three equal portions per Chinese container.

I began doing this while AH was away last weekend. The psychotic dogs suddenly became very excited about dinner time and gobbled up their portions with lightning speed!

After I finished the dog food preparation, it was time to chop up the pineapples that we'd bought and then package it for the freezer too.

That took over an hour and it was almost 5pm, so I had to sit down for a while. I watched MKR from the previous night's recording and at 5.45pm we remembered that it was trivia night at the club!

It was a mad rush to make a quick dinner and freshen up to leave at 6.30pm.

I am happy to announce that we took third place and it was a fun night with a bit of snorting laughter and a few "I told you so" remarks when we got answers wrong.

It's now well after midnight, so I'm signing off ... even though I have two days off work ... things to do, people to see, places to go!

Nite all.

Catching Up

How good was it to catch up with Reality TV Queen today at morning coffee?!

It's been about ten weeks since we've seen her and she has been travelling through the Eastern states in a caravan with Mr Pedantic and doing some house sitting along the way.

There was a lot to talk about, which was lucky, because Tweedle Dee (new name yet to be discovered) was running late due to visitors.

Nobody else was available today.

Three ladies were at their husband's side in hospital for various surgeries, one has just returned a day ago from a long holiday, another was at a Drs appointment in The Bay and another two were missing in action.

It was 11.30am by the time we had finished our coffees and the girls walked out the door.

Another great morning.

The remainder of the day was quite slow and both The Motivator and I had things that needed doing, so it suited us not to be too busy.

We closed the shop and I left very soon after 3pm.

Adoring Husband spent the day on Fraser Island performing SES duties and didn't return home until around 7pm, so it was a late dinner for us.

I'll be on my own in the shop tomorrow and I imagine that the town will be very, very empty.

There is a funeral happening in the middle of the day to farewell a very much loved community member. The Motivator will be representing us both as she attends this farewell. A life to be celebrated and many hearts will be struggling to let go of this beautiful woman.

RIP Lee Dart x

Nite all.

The Procrastinator In Me

I am a champion procrastinator.

I even bought a book on overcoming procrastination, but I procrastinated over finishing the book, so I still don't know how to overcome procrastination!

I'm so good at procrastinating that most of the time, I don't even recognise my actions as procrastination. I believe that what I'm doing is legitimately necessary, but in actual fact, I'm doing it to avoid what really is legitimately necessary!

The truth of the matter is that there is so much that now NEEDS to be done in my home, that there are no procrastinating activities left to do! So I am a frustrated procrastinator!

This is funny because it's true!



Ok I've added enough exclamation marks in this blog to last for the next three blog posts!

It was a crazy start to this Monday morning. We received a text from The Gypsy to say that she was sick and unable to attend the shop, which included meditation. The trouble was that we didn't receive the text until 4.45am which was too late to contact our ladies to tell them not to come.

We winged it.

I thought we did a great job and I'm pretty sure everyone left feeling happy and uplifted, especially after that last dance around the room to the "Happy" song.

It was encouraging to have another lady sign up and pay for the photography course in June, so the class is looking very healthy.

The remainder of the day was steady and there were lots of sales made for Mother's Day gifts.

Adoring Husband arrived home safe n sound around lunch time and dropped into the shop to get his welcome home hug and kiss.

We left the shop very soon after 3pm today and I came home to cook an early dinner - because AH and I were both starving after missing lunch.

Now it's after 11pm (how did that happen so quickly?) so I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

Love and Friendship

I have had a divinely perfect Sunday.

I didn't do anything that NEEDED doing. I only did what I felt like doing in the moment.

I ate a lot. I drank (coffee and water). I made some fruit whip ice cream (pineapple/banana/blueberry). I watched youtube videos. I listened to music. I played with the psychotic dogs. I watched the football. I fed the chooks and the dogs (ok, THOSE two things needed to be done). I thought about all the things that NEEDED to be done and relished the fact that I wasn't doing them. I stayed in my pyjamas all day.

Having enjoyed a big weekend of birthday celebrations, Adoring Husband should be home fairly early in the day tomorrow. Back to reality for him.

So this was one of my favourite videos from youtube. I have another that I will share in tomorrow's post.



Two of my favourite famous people. Jane Fonda is 80 yrs old and Lily Tomlin is 79 yrs old. They are pretty amazing women and I have a lot of admiration and respect for them.

It's now almost 10.30pm and I need to be up early to do AH's work before heading to the shop early for meditation. It's going to be a tight squeeze!

Have a fabulous Monday.

Nite all.

Great Expectations

It was quite a busy Saturday morning at The Happy Abode.

The windsurfers have brought with them some happy shoppers, so while the surfers are out on the water, their partners and families are wandering the streets looking for things to do and luckily for us, they have found The Happy Abode in their wanderings.

It was a really good morning and in the middle of all that, we've had to order some more Ivys bags and wallets because we've almost sold out of the huge order that we received just over a week ago!

We also received our new Lemongrass order on Friday and we've already sold a few pieces from that.

This afternoon, when we closed, I had to run a session of my last photography workshop for the lady who missed the first week.

She gave me some wonderful feedback, telling me what a good teacher I am because I'm so patient, I allow my students to learn at their own pace without force feeding them facts and figures and because I'm happy to answer questions no matter how silly they seem.

I was pleasantly surprised by this and felt a bit chuffed!

I finished editing most of the Anzac Day photos and sent them through to the most important person, The Duchess of Burrum. The photos need to be distributed elsewhere, so I'll do that tomorrow.

It was after 4pm by the time I rode up my own driveway. The psychotic dogs were starving hungry, so they were very happy to see me, as were the chookies! When I finished my few necessary chores, changed into my pyjamas, parked myself on the recliner chair and that's where I will remain until I deem it time to sleep.

I still have to edit the family shoot that I did last week. Stupidly, I volunteered for that shoot, when I could have just stopped and used their point and shoot camera to take some happy snaps, which was their original request. Sometimes I just have to learn to shut my mouth!

Today was very profitable for me in the way of donations. I scored some queen fish fillets from The Motivator and some limes, cucumbers and pawpaw from Beauty. This means that I eat for the weekend!

My blogging duty is now fulfilled, so I am signing off and enjoying a lazy evening doing whatever the hell I feel like!

Have a FABULOIUS Sunday!

Nite all.

  

What we Missed

I've missed two posts this week! The 22nd and 26th April were blog post free - sometimes life just gets in the way!

With all the excitement of our sunset cruise on Tuesday evening, I forgot to mention in that blog post, our coffee morning and all the fun we had opening the gifts that BGWLBH sent in the mail and also the gifts that The Motivator gave me that morning.

Beauty had already left to pick up The Blonde Bombshell from hospital and The Whinging Pom hadn't yet arrived because she had slept in.

These are photos of 'some' of the gifts from both of my friends, but I didn't bring all of them home - there are a few still at the shop. You have to agree that I was very spoilt!

It was a really fun morning and I think the girls enjoyed watching me open the presents as much as I enjoyed opening them!

The Motivator went to a lot of trouble to make the morning special for me by baking a paleo lemon birthday cake (which was delicious!), hanging balloons around my egg chair and sticking little 'happy birthday' signs around the shop. She sang 'happy birthday' about a gazillion times during the day.

Lady Lynn made her signature cheeseball (so yummy) and brought GF crackers adding a little birthday balloon to the pot.

There were candles and the girls sang happy birthday. It was a great morning.

I love my girls and I love my life.

Today is Friday and I had the day away from the shop. I had to get up early to do Adoring Husband's work while he's away and I discovered that I had slept all night with the front door unlocked. I never check that door because we rarely use it and if I ever open it, my habit is to immediately lock it when I close it.

Ah well, I'm still alive to tell the tale.

I spent some time with the old boys at The Seat of Knowledge this morning and came home feeling motivated enough to do some housework, but the motivation left me fairly rapidly lol and not a lot got done. I unpacked the groceries, mopped the floor and did a load of washing and some ironing. I sat for the remainder of the day, watching a movie, checking some emails, doing some study.

The day passed surprisingly fast and the Bowls Club was not lucky for me tonight, although we had a good sized group and it was a fun evening.

It's now well after 10pm and I need to sleep. There is AH's work to do in the morning and then off to the shop. So much to do!

Nite all.

A Cracker

The Anzac Day service was a cracker ...

In the end, The Motivator and I decided not to open The Happy Abode today.

Instead, we went for a long walk along the beach discussing business, making some future plans and creating a mini roster for ourselves.

At 3.30pm I met The Blonde Bombshell at a specified beach spot so that we could do some 'grounding'. We were there for almost an hour and it was really nice to be 'just us' knee deep and bare foot in water as the tide came in.

She is doing so well, all things considered, and is a miracle on two legs. I look at her and shake my head in awe and admiration.

It is 8pm and I am sitting on the couch trying not to move too much because my body is protesting all the walking and grounding that I forced upon it today!!

Ugh.

I have to learn to do things in small steps when I have been so inactive for so long!

I believe that I will sleep well tonight.

Nite all.

It's All About Us!

Happy eighth anniversary to Adoring Husband and I.

We finally got to go on our sunset cruise this evening and it was positively beautiful until it wasn't.

... then the seasickness set in and the final 45 minutes seemed like two hours and all I wanted was to set foot on solid ground and find my equilibrium. I was horrifyingly close to throwing up over the side. Drinking water. Taking deep breaths. Focussing on the horizon. Wishing it was over.

Such relief when we finally made our way through the channel to the marina and stopped the boat.

Prior to the sickness, the captain and his offsider were so wonderful and attentive and interested in us and the other passengers. We talked cameras and discussed the options for his needs and he guided the boat at different angles so that we could get some great sunset shots through the iconic Urangan Pier.

Nature provided an amazing back drop with a massive rain cloud in the distance.

All the while Adoring Husband was in deep conversation with fellow passengers, a couple in their mid eighties, here from Melbourne. They had been out to our town the day before to look at a house, but have decided that they are too old to move. A nice couple.

As we headed back to shore, I could see some lightning behind a mass of cloud out to the west and by the time we were in the car heading home, that storm was moving quickly beside us and putting on a spectacular light show for our benefit.

Our dinner date didn't come to fruition because I was too ill after the cruise, so we cancelled our reservation and came directly home - in time to get the clothes off the line and bring the psychotic dogs onto the storm chair before the storm actually hit.

We were lucky enough to just catch the edge of the storm and it dumped some heavy rain on us for about thirty minutes and quickly disappeared north. Thank goodness because it was looking pretty violent from here.

Now, it's midnight. I'm feeling much better and I need to sleep so that I can be up early enough to act as photographer for the ANZAC march in the morning.

Nite all.

It's All About Me!

Happy Birthday to me!

Thank you Lady Lynn for my very special birthday balloon. I *LOVE* it!!

It's been a lovely day.

I was up bright and early to attend meditation at the shop, followed by a walk along the beach with my camera for about an hour, during which I received a birthday phone call from Vegan Chickie and Chicklet.

I had an appointment with The Gypsy at 10.30am and she gave me some extra time especially because it was my birthday. She worked hard on some of my issues and I felt fabulous at the end of it.

I did some grounding along the beach for about thirty minutes after my appointment and then I returned home so that Adoring Husband could cook me a delicious lunch.

It's been a lazy afternoon - my favourite kind!

I received some beautiful birthday cards from Adoring Husband, The Motivator and The Whinging Pom.

Tomorrow, a parcel from BGWLBH should arrive in the mail - THAT should be fun!

Every phone call I received today began with the caller singing 'Happy Birthday', except for the call from Number One Son who refused to sing even after I told him he was the only one who didn't sing. I called him names. He didn't care. Grrrrrr.

My last call for the day was from Bubbles and both her and Knight in Shining Armour sang the song (take note Number One Son).

I have very much enjoyed my day and The Motivator tells me that she will have a special cake for me at the coffee morning tomorrow. I'm a bit excited about that.

Now it's 10.30pm and I need to get some rest.

Nite all.

Welcome to the Weekend

It was a fun Saturday morning at the shop with both of us on deck.

Lots of customers, not all in a buying mood, but definitely in cheeky, funny and talkative moods. A few from out of town ie Howard, Toogoom, Toowoomba and Childers. It's nice to know that the word about our lovely shop is spreading - even if the locals still don't know we're here!

As I left our house this morning, our neighbour across the road asked if I was 'off for a morning ride'. When I told him I was going to work, he said "Work?"

So I told him about The Happy Abode, and he was totally unaware of it's existence! My neighbour!

He knows about it now and tells me that he will come for a sticky beak some time soon.

The Motivator and I got a lot done today between customers and we both left right on closing time.

My first stop was at Pelican Manor for a family photo shoot. It was a spur of the moment, short notice gathering of many family members and I have to say they were the funniest, happiest group of people  to photograph.

I told them that we had a 30 minute window of opportunity so they were very compliant and moved quickly into each separate group. They were constantly laughing and smiling so the photos were quick and easy.

It took exactly 30 minutes!

I've had a relaxing afternoon and evening with Adoring Husband and I fried up some whiting fillets to have with salad for dinner.

It's now 7.45pm and I'm considering an early bed time. I've had no coffee today, so my body is running on natural energy alone. I must remember to drink LOTS of water while I'm detoxing from caffeine!

Have a fabulous Sunday!

Nite all.