The fun is Done

Gosh but I enjoyed today!

Eight ladies attended the ‘paint and create’ workshop this morning. There should have been ten but two didn’t turn up and I’m willing to bet that they forgot! Still, eight was a good number for the class.

Each and every one of them were disappointed that The Motivator was not in attendance and they all felt sad about the circumstances surrounding her absence.

One of the ladies brought a little wind up machine that played “Happy Birthday”, so she cranked the song while the other ladies sang along because it’s The Motivator’s birthday next Wednesday! I took a video of it on my phone and sent it through to TM but I don’t think she’s seen it yet and there has been no response. I’ll keep you posted.

We had a lot of fun in the class. It was noisy. There were also long moments of silence when they were ‘in the zone’. There was silliness. There were questions. There were mistakes - even by me 😳. There were accidental splashes on other’s art and accidental smudges - whoops (not by me).

These are the results. Four of the ladies had never painted before and all of them left feeling pleased with their efforts.

I came home and headed straight into my studio to create three different paintings. This is one of them ...

I didn’t take photos of the other two. Maybe tomorrow.

Adoring Husband did a marvellous job manning the shop and even sent a couple of strangers in to check us out, which has created an interesting contact with Maryborough and perhaps a chance to promote and advertise The Happy Abode in the near future.

I made a vegetable loaf tonight. I layered onion slices, zucchini slices, tomato paste, roast sweet potato slices, roasted capsicum, pesto, roasted pumpkin slices, semi sundries tomatoes, mushroom slices and then poured cauliflower purée over the top and sprinkled with almond flakes. Popped it in a hot oven for 30 minutes and this ...

was quite delicious!

Now, I’m feeling decidedly weary and after checking my art, I’ll be making my way to bed.

Nite all.

Frantic Friday

Most of today was spent setting up the training room for the paint and create workshop tomorrow.

Adoring husband helped set up the tables this morning and I spent my time between customers covering the lazy Susans with glad wrap, finding all the tools and creating kits for each participant, unwrapping the canvases and adding the push pins, lining the bottles of paint along the centre of the table, finding a spot for the water tubs and writing a list of tools that I need to bring from home to make up the numbers.

In the last hour of the day, I created a piece of art in a style that is similar to the flower garden that I hope will please a couple of ladies who are not “into” flowery stuff. It can be easily adapted and or merged into the lesson to suit.

I had an unlucky night at the club tonight, though our table was lucky! Lady Lynn winning in the lotsapots, The Brains Trust winning $50 in a number draw and The Blonde Bombshell winning a corned silverside in the raffle.

Right now I’m tossing up whether to go create a quick piece of art or go to bed. Perhaps if I go to sleep early enough, I might wake up early enough to play?

Penrith are thrashing St George in the footy so it’s not worth staying up to watch the rest of the game.

Adoring Husband will be working the shop in the morning while I run the workshop so if there is anybody out there who wants to come say hello and ease his pain, please feel free!

Have a great Saturday!

Nite all.

I Dunno

I have no idea what was going on last night.

I was asleep a little after 9.30pm and then I was awake at 2pm. For good.

At 2.30am I got out bed, made myself a cup of tea and took myself to my studio. This was the result ...

I thoroughly enjoyed the silence of the night as I worked away in my PJs and Ugg boots.

It was 4.15am by the time I climbed back into bed and I was still awake when Adoring Husband’s alarm woke him for work at 4.45am. I was still awake when MY alarm went off at 6am!

At 7am I jumped under the shower and spent a few extra minutes enjoying the hot spray.

We were at the shop, doors open and ready for business before 8.30am.

It was a VERY quiet day except for one gentleman who asked to see any photos that I had of kookaburras. I showed him the photos in my Flickr photo stream and he selected this pic ... 

It’s one of my earlier photos and not very impressive in my eyes, but he was willing to part with his cash for it, so I guess he thinks a lot more of it than I do!

He lives in Gladstone and will be back on Monday so AH and I closed the shop a few minutes early, rushed into the Bay to print the photo, then rushed to the framers to get the mat board fitted. The owner is going away next week and was busy finishing some jobs but offered to do my job on the spot for me. What a champion. We expected to make another trip in tomorrow to pick it up, so we really appreciated that gesture.

AH was so impressed with dinner last night, that we stopped to stock up on big mushrooms so that I could repeat the menu tonight.

I think my night of sleepless creativity is catching up with me now and I can hear my pillow calling out to me. I don’t think I’ll even see out the second half of the football and it’s MY team playing 😳

Have a fab Friday!

Nite all

I'm Back!

It was tough going this morning having to get out of bed at 6.30am to be at work by 7.15am to open the shop ready for meditation.

I'm glad that I did though because it was a great day.

I've missed meditation for the last three weeks because I wanted to stay in bed and be cosy, but I really enjoyed this morning's session and catching up with the ladies who attend.

It was also fantastic to catch up with The Gypsy who I haven't seen for a month (except for yesterday at hooping).

The Motivator appeared a couple of times and we had a brief chance to chat too.

It was a good day for sales.

Adoring Husband picked me up after work and we drove into The Bay. We picked up the FROG box on the way in, then stopped at Tinkerbells so that I could pick up my Citrine crystal ball. We searched for weighted hula hoops, but I didn't like the ones at the sports store. Finally, we stopped at King Kong where I bought a few canvases for the shop AND for me, along with a handful or two of paints.

We arrived home at 5.30pm and it was straight to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

Those delicious stuffed mushrooms again with a salad and some fried cubed potato.

We actually have the heater on right now. I must be acclimatising because I'm feeling the cold lately.

Today is day 17 of plant based eating for me and I feel great. It's not as difficult as I expected (because I've always loved meat) and all the horrible pain and discomfort that I was feeling after a meal completely disappeared by day ten. Meals have become pleasurable again.

I'm feeling good.

There have been no after effects of the hooping yesterday. My muscles are good. Just a little bit of tenderness in my mid section where the hoop, which is quite heavy, was battering me on it's way round and round and round!

Anyway, that's enough from me. Time for sleep.

Nite all.

A Bit of Hoopla

We had a lovely long coffee morning with eight of us in attendance.

After sharing news, we talked about religion and politics and gyms and gambling and many other things before everybody departed at 11am.

I hung around to try and catch up with The Motivator and all her news as well as work stuff, but lots of customers came through the doors.

An elderly gentleman whom The Motivator assisted last week came in to thank her for being so kind and then proceeded to give us business advice. He must have been about 90 yrs old and I know that he meant well but he was in the shop for about an hour and he had a hearing problem that prevented him from hearing the register of my voice.

This was kind of good for me because it meant that I didn't have to contribute to the conversation and simply stood and smiled through the entire encounter.

However, I had to leave before him so TM and I didn't get to finish our conversation.

I arrived home at almost 1pm to make a late lunch and do a few things before leaving on my trike at 3pm to make my way to the hoop dancing classes!

None of the ladies who I expected to be at the class were there! I still knew everyone there, not necessarily by name, but certainly by sight.

The class was amazing! I loved every second of it, even though I could tell within ten minutes that I was going to be in a world of pain the next day! I almost felt like I had internal injuries by the end of the class, but at the same time I felt exhilarated!

Who knew that you could use so many different muscles hula hooping?

Today I learnt how to hoop in both directions, how to stop the hoop from dropping to the ground without using my hands (also in both directions). How to stop the hoop the correct way with my hands and then immediately spin it in the opposite direction and how to take steps forward while continuing to keep the hoop spinning (that one was difficult and I need to practice).

We did stretches before the class began and we did a warm down at the end of the class.

The Gypsy (who was teaching the class) took orders for her hand made hoops before we all departed vowing to return next week with even more enthusiasm than today. There were ten of us in the class which was the perfect number for the space in the hall - it's quite amazing how much room one person with a hoop needs in order to hoop successfully.

I'm looking forward to purchasing my own hoop so that I can practice at home.

So a good time was had by all and it already feels kind of sad that the course only lasts for 8 weeks. I hope the beginners course progresses to a new level afterwards.

We had an easy dinner tonight. I took some leftover Parsee Chicken out of the freezer and cooked it for Adoring Husband with some cauliflower rice.

For me, I made a stuffed portobello mushroom. A big one. I put a dob of grass-fed butter on the mushroom and a handful of chopped shallots and fresh chilli, then a layer of semi sun-dried tomatoes which I poured some of Roza's pesto over and then sprinkled some fresh GF breadcrumbs over the top, followed by another dob of grass-fed butter. Cooked it in a hot oven for 15 minutes.

I wish I'd made two of them, because it was delicious!

I have to be up early in the morning to attend meditation and I'll be working. I hope my body doesn't make me suffer too much.

It's off to bed for me now.

Nite all.  

Fairly Productive

I didn't stay in bed for as long as usual this morning.

I almost decided to go back to sleep at about 9.30am but instead I climbed out of bed and began to set up the dining room as my studio again.

Adoring Husband had different ideas.

Even though he was feeling like crap and his tremor was really bad, he decided that we would set up the back room as my studio.

We took the legs off the single beds and lay the beds on their sides against the back wall and placed an old doona cover over the top and then three boards over that where I can dry my art flat.

We lay a doubled over drop sheet on the floor and then a rubber mat in the doorway.

My big new red tool box fits beautifully inside the wardrobe, along with all of my blank canvasses.

My three tiered trolleys fit perfectly in the corner.

The big folding table sits very nicely in front of the window so that I have a lovely view of the pool while I'm working.

Over that, I put a plastic table cloth with a felt underside and then a blue tarp to catch the dripping paint.

I created two pieces of art this afternoon. One was a fail and the other was quite nice. so that's a good start.

The only reason I stopped was because I had to cook dinner. I had already baked a chicken yesterday, so I baked potato, pumpkin and sweet potato tonight. Steamed some broccoli and cauliflower. Sauteed some onion and Brussels sprouts which I added to the home made gravy. Then I added some chicken to heat up for AH and served him all that deliciousness.

For me, I took some of the broccoli, cauliflower, roast pumpkin and sautéed onion, put it in the blender with the vegetable water, olive oil, white pepper and Himalayan salt and blended it into a soup. I sprinkled chopped spring onions over the top and it was very nice and very filling.

For dessert, we had a small slice of the chocolate tart that I'd made for our visitors on Friday.

So the day was quite productive and we are both very tired, so it's off to bed for me.

Nite all.    

Workshop Done

It was difficult getting out of bed this morning, being so chilly, being Sunday AND being a work day for me running the photography workshop.

But I got there an hour before the workshop began and had time to set up and organise the NEW course material that I had to prepare for those speedy young girls.

It seems that the old and the young traded places because unlike yesterday, the young ones lagged a bit this morning and struggled to keep up for the first hour or so.

At the end of the day, the participants thanked me profusely and were pleased with how much they had learned and were happily surprised with how relaxed the workshop was.

I think I can class it as a success, although one of the ladies declared that she would continue to use her camera on 'automatic' because she didn't want to fiddle with the controls all the time.  Hers was a smaller, older digital camera and I can understand her reluctance but it means that she basically just wasted $240.

I enjoyed teaching them all and it was worth losing my entire weekend of sleeping in and being arty farty to practice a skill that I've neglected for quite some time, and share it with people who were so keen to learn.

At the end of the day, Adoring Husband and I cleared the mess and set up the training room as it should be, washed all the dishes from morning tea, packed all my paraphernalia into the car and headed home to veg on the couch for the remainder of the day.

I'm mentally exhausted from the brain work, physically exhausted from the 90 minutes wandering along the beach and the path taking photos and assisting the others and then emotionally exhausted from sharing my time between strangers and the visiting family for three days.

Perhaps 'exhausted' is bit of an exaggeration. Give me a word between tired and exhausted ... I'm not quite 'exhausted' but I'm a bit more than 'tired'.

It's nice to have things back to normal now. Time to convert the back bedroom into a studio for me ... AND SOON because I CAN'T WAIT to get back into my art!

I love how chilly the weather has become again and how lovely it is to stay snug under the covers in the morning ... I'm gunna stay there for a long time in the morning.

I'm sitting here on the couch in my pyjamas and ugg boots ready to sign off and go to bed. I hope you all had a bonzer weekend!

Nite all.  

Workshopping

It was midnight when I finally got to sleep last night.

Having visitors the night before running a workshop is not necessarily a good idea.

Still, I got to work at about 7.30am and had everything set up and prepared before the participants arrived.

I've got a couple of young ones in the class who are very clued up. They are beginners but amazingly quick learners and I had used the whole day's material before lunch time and had to dip into Sunday's material just to fill the day for them!

They had completed the exercises quickly with excellent results, practiced all of the methods a number of times on various subjects and were very confident and very happy with their own progress.

They said that they had learnt a lot in one day and were pleased with the first day of the workshop, so that's always a good thing.

They are also lovely girls and easy to teach, so I too, am enjoying the class and then to top it off nicely, one of them posted on Instagram how much she has enjoyed the workshop so far and mentioned The Happy Abode.

The older participants are not so impressed because the young ones are making them feel a bit slow and inadequate. I had to convince one in particular to return tomorrow and that I'd give her some one on one attention to catch her up.

Anyway, it was a good day, but I'm exhausted and am heading to bed as soon as I've finished here.

I was sad to say goodbye to my cousin Nellie Noo today. I thought she was staying tonight as well and was hoping to have some more D&Ms with her before she left, but circumstances changed and she left today. I hope she visits again soon.

It was handy having so much leftover food from yesterday and Adoring Husband and I pigged out on all of that for dinner. Little to no effort by me after such a big day.

I've had to spend some time creating some more course content for the young ones so my brain is feeling a bit frazzled now and I'm already looking forward to having Monday off!

The Motivator has to leave on Thursday to attend a funeral down south so she'll be gone for about a week. Not a happy time at all, but it's good that we can be here to cover for each other when the need arises and that we are happy to do it.

Now, I need some sleep. Have a lovely Sunday!

Nite all.

Biggie

I’m exhausted!

I walked into the kitchen at 11am, didn’t stop until 3.30pm when I had to go to the shop to set up for my photography workshop on the weekend and returned home to continue in the kitchen until our guests arrived at 5pm.

I made a chocolate tart with a nut based crust and a Ferrero rocher flavoured filling, a chocolate mousse made with avocado/melted dark chocolate/coconut cream, some salted toffee nut crunch, whipped cream, strawberry sauce and mixed fresh berries.

On the main menu was potato salad, seaweed noodle Thai salad, coleslaw, cherry tomatoes, beetroot, capsicum/cucumber/avocado salsa, guacamole dip, toasted some Turkish bread slices and Adoring Husband cooked some steak and sausages on the barbecue.

We had some beverages and chatted around the table until 11pm when I had to go to bed. Oh and in the middle of the evening I had to photocopy some sheets and put my course material together ready for the workshop!

Luckily I had started the day eating breakfast under the Bali hut and enjoying some peaceful time, so I was energised to get through the hard work.

I’m pretty sure my efforts were appreciated, and there’s plenty of leftovers to keep our bellies full for a couple of days.

Now I’d best get some sleep so that I have my wits about me to teach tomorrow!

Nite all.

Token Offer

Because I’ve just come to bed at 1am and haven’t the time nor the energy to write anything much, I thought share this with you all instead. It’s a very interesting read!

An interesting take on alcohol consumption

Have a wonderful Friday!

Nite all.

Two For

NSW have won two State of Origin series in a row and they (and by ‘they’ I mean Adoring Husband) seem to be very excited by this success!

I think they have a long way to go before they reach EIGHT series in a row, which is QLD’s record. Not only that, but NSW won the ninth series and QLD won the next three after that.

So when NSW get close to that, they will definitely have a reason to be bragging/celebrating. Enjoy this mini success while you can AH.

We started our day in The Bay having breakfast at Aquavue. They have a delicious vegan option for breakfast. Baby spinach leaves, roasted sweet potato, seasoned chickpeas, roasted cherry tomatoes, hash brown, avocado, capsicum coulis and GF toast. I couldn’t eat it all!

We did a grocery shop and some art shopping for me AND the shop. I got the new Pete Evans book ‘Heal’ and some tools for art. We purchased some Boost Juices and headed home.

I finished clearing the dining table, which means my art studio is currently nonexistent and everything has been packed away and is being stored against the back of the kitchen bench until next week.

Sad face.

I made the bed in the rear bedroom, finished cleaning the shower recess, scrubbed all the paint off the tiles in the dining room, did two loads of washing, ironed some clothes, unpacked the groceries, stored away my art purchases, got washing off the line and folded it.

Sat outside in the pool area for about 40 mins.

Did baked potatoes in their jackets and a salad for dinner. When cousin Nellie Noo arrived with Big Bird, AH cooked up some steaks on the barbecue and we ate dinner and had everything cleared away before State of Origin began.

Noo and I have much to catch up on! Luckily Big Bird’s touch footy games don’t start til late in the day so we will have long mornings to chat.

For now, I need some sleep.

Nite all

Faux Coffee

Day nine of my plant based eating and today was coffee morning with the girls, but not many girls turned up and as The Motivator calls it now ... a 'faux coffee morning' because I don't actually drink coffee!

There were only six in attendance including The Motivator and I and I only stayed for a bit over an hour because there was much to do at home.

I cleaned most of the bathroom. I sprayed the shower recess with Oil of Cloves and have left it overnight to clean in the morning when I have a shower.

I emptied out the fridge and cleaned the shelves.

I cut open 42 empty paint tubes to scrape out the remaining paint and ended up with four small tubs full of paint! Two tubs of white, one of aqua, half of blue and half of greenI still have another 29 tubes to cut open.

I did some washing.

Tomorrow, we need to go into The Bay for some food shopping and some paint shopping and run some other errands.

Then I have no choice but to completely clear my dining room/studio because Adoring Husband thinks it's too cold to eat outside. He's right. 😳

Late tomorrow afternoon, my cousin and her son will arrive and we plan on an easy barbecue for dinner. Their touch football games are quite late this season and there will be games that don't even finish until 6.30pm, so I expect we'll be having some late dinners (we usually eat at 6pm) and some late nights, especially Friday night when we'll have other visitors here overnight.

This weekend is my photography workshop, so I need to get a good sleep on Friday night.

It was an excellent day of sales in the shop today and there seems to be a lot more people out and about this week, so we are breathing easy again.

We had a fun dinner tonight. Fun because Adoring Husband struggled with the finer points of wrapping a fiddly, wet rice sheet. We had a plate full of julienned avocado, red capsicum, cucumber, carrot, spring onions, snow peas, beetroot, mushrooms and mint leaves. We wrapped little piles of food in the wet rice wraps with a drizzle of chilli dressing.

It was bloody delicious and I think I ate about 8 of them! Adoring Husband had chicken with his, which he'd cooked on the barbecue.

For now, it's time for me to sleep because we have a big day ahead of us.

Nite all.

Down and Out

Adoring Husband has come down with an injury of unknown origin in the region of his mid section.

It came on suddenly and is causing him considerable discomfort.

He's been working very hard and it could be a muscle strain but it seems to be growing. We'll see how it is after a (hopefully) good night's sleep.

The rooms are prepared for our visitors. We may have to eat outside because although the dining room/studio is quite clean, it is not completely clear and there is nowhere to put all the stuff - desktop computer, 5' high tool box, two 3-tier trolleys, stack of canvasses, drying boxes, lazy Susan, blue tarp and other stuff.

Having given AH a small hand with some chores, I concentrated my efforts on creating some art with the leftover paint in the little tubs and using two old canvasses that I didn't like the results of.

It was a pleasure to spend some time at the table and the new chef's blow torch that AH bought for me works a treat to bring out the cells in the paint...

I had to stop to prepare dinner. We had stuffed mushrooms and stuffed tomatoes. Stuffed with tiny cubes of cooked potato, sweet potato, zucchini, onion, capsicum, spinach, garlic and chilli, then topped with dukkah and cooked in a hot oven. A side of snap peas and green beans. I had some beetroot as well. AH cooked his steak on the barbecue.

AH headed to bed soon after dinner to hopefully ease the pain in his mid section.

So now I need to go clean the kitchen and make my way to bed. Luckily, there is a TV in the kitchen so that I can watch Ash Barty play while I work.

I hope to see all the lovely ladies in the morning for coffee.

Nite all.

Like a Dog

Adoring Husband has been working like a dog today, preparing for our visitors next week.

I spent the entire morning in bed, reading, writing, studying and watching information videos - NOT about art for a change!

It took me a couple of hours in the afternoon to finish off the back bedroom and do some more at the other end of the dining room/studio. Almost done.

I really miss my art and I think I'll have to spend some time doing something tomorrow because I'm having withdrawals - I've just recovered from the caffeine withdrawals and now I'm having art withdrawals!

Speaking of which, seven days into my plant based diet and I'm feeling pretty good. I feel lighter and emptier, in a good way. I also don't feel as hungry. That is, I feel satisfied for longer.

Before, when I ate meat with my meals, I felt uncomfortable, but never realised HOW uncomfortable until I stopped eating it.

Now that the caffeine withdrawals are over, I feel clearer in the head.

I'm sleeping more soundly and for 6-8 hours each night, but that could be because I'm not having coffee in the afternoons.

I need more than a week to determine if these changes are related to the eating or just co-incidental. I'll keep you posted each week.

For dinner tonight, we both had a repeat of my lunch the other day. Baked potatoes with a gravy of mushrooms, onion, spinach, chilli, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes with roasted flaked almonds on top. Broccoli and zucchini on the side.

I enjoyed watching Ash Barty win her match convincingly last night. Thank goodness she won it quickly because I couldn't have stayed awake any longer!

I like the look of the young 15yr old Cori (Coco) Gauff from the USA and I hope she goes a lot further.

Now, I'm watching The Voice finale! Cya. Bye.

Nite all.

Miss Me?

Not a lot happened on Friday.

I did some more cleaning in the dining room/studio and the back bedroom, continued on my plant based way of eating. I ate a baked jacket potato with mushroom, onion and spinach for lunch. I’ve passed through the caffeine withdrawals so my headache is gone.

I chose to stay home from the club and was in bed at 7.05pm - before the raffles had even started!

I had Wimbledon on TV so that I could keep an eye on all the games, while watching “ Good Omens” on Apple TV. I’m on a one week free trial so I’ll try to watch the entire series before the week is up. It’s only $3.99 per month if I stay with it, but I’ll check to see if their content is worth it before I decide.

Even though I was in bed early, it was 11pm when I went to sleep and 6am when I woke. A good solid 7 hours!

I worked today because The Motivator was running a paint and create workshop. Very quiet in the shop, but the workshop was a success and the ladies will be returning in two weeks for the next one. Lots of fun and laughter coming from the room and I kept popping in to sticky beak often!

As soon as I arrived home the back bedroom took my attention for a bit over an hour. After that, my back was telling me stop, so I did.

We watched movies for the remainder of the afternoon. AH had a paleo pizza for lunch and I ate 3 mandarins. I’d eaten a biggish breakfast of plain coconut yoghurt with blueberries, raspberries and cashew nuts for breakfast so I wasn’t hungry for a big lunch.

I cooked up a chicken and vegetable curry with papadums for AH’s dinner. I scoffed a few papadums myself and a coconut icy pole - not healthful, but just right for me.

As I type this, I am in bed again! Wimbledon is on the telly and I hope to stay awake long enough to watch Ash Barty play. I doubt I’ll last. I’m feeling too cosy and with the intermittent rain showers and the cool temperature, it’s perfect sleeping weather.

I hope you all have a fabulous Sunday.

Nite all.

A Working Day

Gale force conditions all day.

So strong that our very heavy shop door was blowing open and sometimes it felt like the big window panes of glass were going to implode!

The winds blew a few people along the driveway to our shop and some of them made purchases while others didn’t.

I did some ironing, had a quick visit from The Brains Trust, purchased some business cards and priced some stock to display. I also took some photos and posted on our Facebook page and Instagram.

The day went quickly!

When I arrived home, I changed out of my work clothes and began cleaning my studio/dining area. I made a big impression in an hour, filling my new tool box and the two 3 tiered trolleys. Now it’s all clear ready for my next masterpiece.

That was one end of the dining table!

Tomorrow will be the other end which is also a shambles!

My cousin and her son will be arriving on Wednesday for the touch footy carnival so there is still some work to do in the bedrooms.

I cooked a big tray of baked veg - potato, sweet potato, cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts for Adoring Husband to have with his chicken.

I reheated last night’s leftovers for me AND I took the loose leaves from all the Brussels sprouts, lay them on a baking tray, sprinkled flaked almonds and salt over them and then drizzled some maple syrup over them. Cooked in a hot oven for 20 minutes which made the leaves crispy, the nuts crunchy and the maple syrup and salt caramelised. I could have eaten a bucket full of that!

After our very late bed time last night (midnight-ish), we are ready for an early one tonight.

I have the day off tomorrow so it will be a lazy start to the day 😍

Have a fabulous Friday!

Nite all

Unfinished

I had my usual start to the day - in bed until about 10.30am.

Adoring Husband brought my celery juice and vegetable broth before he headed out to meet a mate for coffee.

Having listened to the beginning of an audio book called “Energy Medicine” by Donna Eden, I practiced some energy work on myself  until I felt energised enough to get out of bed and start on my ‘to do’ list.

I had to put some food in my belly first so I took last night’s leftovers and my water bottle out to the pool area, stood up to my ankles in icy waters and then sat in my egg chair to eat and drink.

Twenty minutes later I decided to get some more of the back room cleared, but twenty minutes into that and I remembered that there were sheets waiting to be hung on the line so I had to take clothes off the line first, to make room.

Part way through hanging the sheets I heard a delivery truck stop out the front, so I went into the house to check out the front window to see if we were the lucky recipients. We were!

AH had just arrived home so he greeted the delivery man, and the package was so big he had to get the trolley from the shed to wheel it into the house.

He then informed me that the package was for me!

He had ordered a very large tool box on wheels for me to store my art supplies!

We unpacked it, put the wheels on and brought it into the house for me to begin filling it and AH then left to pick up our FROG box of organic fruit and vegetables from Craignish.

He returned 20 minutes later and I stopped to check the goods.

I decided to make our afternoon smoothy - a mint condition with added kiwi fruit that came in the box.

At this point I had partly completed the bedroom, partly completed hanging out the washing, partly completed filling my tool box and partly completed emptying the FROG box!

There was now one hour left until I had to meet The Motivator for an appointment with a potential supplier, so I finished hanging the sheets and putting away the clean clothes while AH put the fresh produce in the fridge.

I made myself presentable. AH and I drove to the supermarket to do a quick shop and from there I walked to The Happy Abode. The Motivator and I drove to our appointment which took about an hour and she dropped me home.

It was a rush job to make dinner - potato and sweet potato bake, roasted brussels sprouts, carrots and eggplant with roasted chickpeas. Still no meat.

My head has been pounding from caffeine withdrawals so Panadol has been my friend!

I’m feeling pretty good meat free so far.

We picked up The Blonde Bombshell on our way to trivia and had a pretty lousy night at the table with little luck answering trivia questions. We came 8th out of 11 teams! Possibly our worst effort to date. It was still fun and the company was, as always, the best part.

It’s now well after 11pm and I’m working tomorrow, so it’s bed time for me.

Nite all.

Plans Changed

Woman of Many Talents has come down with the flu, so our lunch plans were changed.

After a great coffee morning, Mrs Bucket, Reality TV Queen and I headed into The Bay for lunch at the RSL. We ran a couple of errands before we got there and when we walked through the doors, our memberships needed to be renewed as well.

We had a flutter on the poker machines for 30 minutes before we ordered lunch. The only option for a plant based meal was a farmers salad, which was actually quite delicious. Cos lettuce leaves with quinoa, baby beetroot, cherry tomatoes, roasted pumpkin, Spanish onion, dukkah and dressing. It was very filling and tasted so good, I was quite disappointed that I couldn't finish it.

We all did a bit of a grocery shop before returning home and I bought myself the ingredients to make my own 'mint condition' juice that I usually get from Boost Juice.

I also made a quick trip into Truckloads and bought a couple more canvasses and some paints.

It was a really pleasant day with the girls and we arrived home before 3.30pm.

Mrs Bucket came inside to have a quick look at our pool area and was impressed, especially with the kitchen.

Instead of having an afternoon coffee, I made my mint condition juice.

For dinner, I made myself a guacamole dip to which I added grated carrot and chopped onion. I dipped some rice crackers and a couple of hot sweet potato chips into it. I was quickly full and had to put some of the dip back into the fridge.

There was still room for my coconut ice cream though 👍

AH cooked up some meat on the barbecue for himself and I made him a salad.

Now we are at 7pm and both of us are off to bed. I'm feeling pretty weary after my big day out!

I can feel the terrible caffeine withdrawals hitting me hard this evening - I may have to resort to drugs to relieve the headache if sleep doesn't come quickly.

I hope to spend another couple of hours in the back bedroom tomorrow and I could quite possibly do some art as a reward in the afternoon.

Tomorrow night is trivia at the club! Wahoo!

Nite all.  

Likin' It!

I got my art on today.

From this ...

To this ...

Followed up by this ...

And I love all of it.

Now I have to wait for some of my art to completely dry before I do any more because there are no drying spaces left in my house!

This afternoon, Adoring Husband and I watched a documentary on Netflix called "What The Health" and I was so impressed and amazed and convinced that I've made the decision to try a 'plant based diet' for three months just to see the effects on my body.

I see two difficulties.

1.  It means that I either have to drink coffee without milk (yuk) or give up coffee altogether (again). I've done it before for three months, so I know it can be done.

2.  I base all of our meals around meat so I need to rethink my meal plans. I'm not pushing Adoring Husband to go meatless. Perhaps I can make the main part of the meal plant based and have the meat on the side???

It will be an interesting experiment and I'm going to keep a diary - food and thoughts - to keep a record of the experiment.

Who knows? It may last forever! OR I may not make it to three months!

Wait and see.

I'm looking forward to a beverage with the girls in the morning and then lunch with Woman of Many Talents and Mrs Bucket.

A big social day!

Nite all.

Sunday not Funday

This was not my idea of a fun Sunday.

It started ok with Adoring Husband bringing celery juice, bone broth, tomato on toast and coffee during my first 90 minutes awake in bed.

He decided to mow the back lawns and do some maintenance work in the gardens, so I got up and spent almost 2 hours in the back bedroom making a start on the massive clearing that needs to be done in there.

I did a couple of loads of washing and changed the bedding, so I’m looking forward to sliding in between those cool crisp sheets tonight!

We watched two games of football, both of which had disappointing results for my tipping.

I cooked some chicken thighs in the oven in one tray and some veg in another tray. Brussels sprouts, red capsicum, eggplant, zucchini, onion, carrot, cauliflower, mushrooms, tomato, garlic and some little strips of bacon, all sprinkled with Himalayan salt and black cracked pepper. Ten minutes before they were ready, I drizzled two teaspoons of honey over everything.

With all of the scraps from the veg - core of the capsicum, head and tail of the carrots, onion, eggplant and zucchini, skins of the onion and garlic, the stem of the cauliflower and the outer leaves of the Brussels sprouts - I put them into a big saucepan with Himalayan salt and white pepper and simmered them for a couple of hours.

I strained the liquid and when the chicken was done, I added those juices to create a delicious broth which I had for dinner.

At one point, I walked outside and stepped into the pool. The water was cold but not painfully icy.

There is a dent in my ‘to do’ list, but there is also still much remaining 😳

On that note, I shall sign off and head to the shower. A clean body between clean sheets will be absolutely divine and make a nice end to my less than fun Sunday.

Welcome to a new week!

Nite all.