Missed Again!

I don’t know where my head is at!

I didn’t even realise that I missed Thursday night’s blog post.

With hindsight, I remember heading to bed with my iPad intending to do it there, but I must have got side tracked by Facebook or YouTube or Words With Friends or something. 🤪🤪🤪

So tonight I am sitting in my recliner and finishing this post before I go to bed.

I’ve had busy days at work with new suppliers, deliveries of jewellery and our linen clothing walking out the door so fast that I can’t keep up with it all. Gorgeous hand made solid silver bracelets and earrings that I absolutely love. White linen pants arrived today, along with linen mandala dresses in all colours.

Today was crazy busy with lots of visitors from out of town all wanting to chat and all wanting to spend money.

Adoring Husband and I both attended the club together tonight and our regular group was just about as big as it can get. We left early but I assume, from the lack of photos on social media, that nobody was a winner.

Thankfully, I had put a corned beef in the slow cooker before we left, so a few slices of that with a quick salad was the perfect dinner when we arrived home.

Now, it’s suddenly 10pm and I’m ready for bed.

I’m expecting a big morning with some last minute purchases before people start heading home after holidays, funerals and weddings.

Nite all.

The Reveal

It can now be revealed that nobody enjoyed the movie “Hustlers”.

Nobody.

Not even Adoring Husband. Not even with all those beautiful half naked women!

I had a busy day at work.

Not many paying customers, but plenty of tyre kickers and two deliveries to unpack, price and display.

I spent quite some time emptying, cleaning and rearranging the glass display cabinets to make room for the new jewellery range. THAT was a job and a half and the question remains ... whose stoopid idea was it to include glass cabinets for our displays? 😳

Some of the jewellery ...

I have to admit that I was feeling pretty exhausted by the end of the day. I even ordered myself a coffee at 1.30pm to attempt to feel some energy. It didn’t work.

After an hour sitting on my butt in front of the television, I decided to make duck a l’orange for dinner. It was delicious and served with buttered asparagus, fried mushroom and roasted cherry tomatoes.

It took about 40 minutes.

It’s almost 10pm so I’m off to bed.

Nite all.

How?

How did I get to this point without a day of rest?

Ok I had all of Sunday in bed, but I felt like I needed more than that to recover from the week that was.

Coffee with the girls was light on with just three of us at the table this morning. Medical appointments, family commitments and illness kept everyone away today.

Lady Lynn and The Welsh Wonder filled my morning perfectly with some good giggles and interesting chat.

Afterwards I followed up on a text that I received from The Motivator telling me that a new supplier had arrived at the shop if I wanted to drop in to look at the wares.

The wares were beautiful and it was difficult to control ourselves, but we did very well and ordered a small selection of her lovely jewellery. Having seen the collection, we know what we’ll be ordering next time and hopefully we’ll be flush with enough cash to spend up big!

It was after midday when I left the shop and I stopped in at the butcher to grab some of their remaining meat in the fridge. They have sold their shop to the butcher from Childers and Wednesday will be their last day of trading.

The new guys will be trading in a couple of weeks and will be extending their stock from meat to milk and cream and hot foods, so it will be very interesting!

I only had about 90 minutes at home before I had to return to the shop for a final meeting with The Motivator before she leaves for Sydney and to discuss our progress with the course we’re doing. It was a good meeting that I got a lot out of and I hope we continue them when she returns.

I cooked up a hearty chicken and vegetable soup for dinner.

It’s already after 10pm and I feel like I’ve not achieved all that I’d planned for the day. So many things still on my ‘to do’ list. I guess the list will live to see another day!

Now it’s time to sleep because tomorrow I’ll be a working girl!

Nite all.

THREE HOURS!

That’s how long it took to complete the requirements for NBN connection and to purchase our two new iPhones from Telstra.

Absolutely crazy!

Tammy, our service assistant, was lovely and helpful and efficient, but the process involved so much work on her monitor and half a tree (her words) of paperwork and was bloody long winded.

It takes less time to apply for a Centrelink payment!

This wasn’t part of our plan for the day which made the experience all that much more painful and made the day oh so much longer than I anticipated and prevented me from getting some jobs done on my list at home.

We had a movie date first up this morning and we saw “Hustlers”. No spoilers here because I know the girls are going to see it on Wednesday. All I want to say is that I would consider switching teams for 50 year old J Lo. Man, she is stunning!

From there we only had 4 things on the list.

1. Glue-all from Spotlight
2. T-shirts from Suzanne Grae
3. A cheap hairdryer from Target (for my art)
4. Getting a pedicure

That’s it!

My pedicure was done by 1.30pm. We arrived home at 5pm.

The last four hours have been filled with AH swearing, asking a million questions, expressing his frustrations and practicing his oppositional defiance as he attempted to set up his new phone by transferring everything important from his old device to the new one.

Kill me now 😳

I made a quick chicken and mushroom soup for my dinner and AH got the last of the barramundi with salad. It took me less than 30 mins to prepare both.

AH cut his leg open on the corner of our new bedroom suite, just as I predicted and the reason why we switched sides of the bed, so that we could avoid those injuries! He was illegally on my side of the bed! Ugh!

I didn’t sleep well last night so I’m off to bed now. Wish me luck.

Thinking of you Brains Trust 🥰

Nite all.

Losing It

We were in bed super early on Saturday night!

Our busy, labour intensive Thursday, followed by a busy morning in The Bay, followed by my small art class on Saturday morning all caught up with me so I was done. I didn’t even cook dinner that night and was in bed by 8pm.

No blog post. Thank you for your understanding.

I’ve spent all of today in bed.

I got out of bed at 9.30am to make a big bowl of berries, coconut yoghurt, paleo muesli, activated cashews and chocado while Adoring Husband reheated my coffee.

I took it all back to bed with me.

I didn’t get up again until 5.15pm when I was ready to prepare dinner.

Barramundi fried in lemon butter served with salad. Quick and easy.

We are watching an ABBA show on TV but I think I’m ready to return to bed now. 8pm again.

We have a biggish day planned tomorrow.

Nite all.

So Much For That Idea!

So much for the afternoon of rest!

Our trip into The Bay lasted until about 1pm.

Art supplies for Saturday’s workshop. The winning ticket in next week’s Oz Lotto. Two new tops. Groceries. Supplies for our cleaning biz. Halloween gifts for Chicklet’s Halloween costume.

We arrived home and I unpacked everything then cooked up the dog food while Adoring Husband rested his weary bones. He slept in his chair for over an hour and then decided he needed the comfort of our beautiful new bed.

I just need to mention here that our bed is fabulous! Like sleeping on a cloud ☁️

I did duck and salad for dinner and was just too buggered to think about dessert even though we stocked up on every berry known to mankind while in town today.

It’s time to go to that beautiful sleeping location to watch “Love Island” - yes - total trash TV and loving it.

Nite all.

Too Old for This!

Adoring Husband demanded (perhaps ‘demanded’ is too strong a word) that I be out of bed and hard at work by 6.30am.

Our new bedroom suite was being delivered today and we had decided to go the whole hog and clean the room from top to bottom.

This meant washing the walls, cleaning the windows, fly screens, blinds, architraves, doors and the bloody ceiling fan which is made of  woven cane. Dirt and dust sure accumulates beautifully on that little bugger! A hard lesson learned.

So, for some strange reason AH thought the furniture would be delivered at 8am. I know! Hilarious right!?

We spent a good 3.5 hours removing the old furniture, washing the bedding and cleaning. Talk about exhausting!

We sat down at 11am to wait.

Our delivery finally arrived at 3pm.

Five giant boxes filled our room and the king sized mattress leant up against the wall outside the room. It took over an hour to remove the damned packaging!

Between the two of us, with AH’s dodgy back and me straining a muscle in my stomach, we struggled for 3.5 hours to put this bad boy together. It’s HUGE and it’s heavy and fills the room. The dressing table and tall boy haven’t even arrived yet.

The psychotic dogs now have to sleep outside our bedroom door because there is no space left for them.

Needless to say AH and I are absolutely exhausted! We need to go to The Bay in the morning and we’ll leave early so that we can come home and rest our weary bones. A swim might be in order too!

I think I hear my new bed calling me!!

Nite all.

Returned

Adoring Husband has returned home safe n sound.

I had a very short coffee with the girls this morning so that I could be home when AH arrived.

I was motivated enough to get a few things done today.

• More washing
• Hand washing my delicates and silks and lace
• Bathing Psychotic dog Ruby to tend to her eyes
• Unpacking four big bags of organic groceries that AH brought home
• Mixing some paints and pouring medium
• Tidied some stuff off the dining table
• Made lamb salad for our lunch
• Made turkey meatballs and salad for dinner

I wanted to do some art but I couldn’t decide what to do. So many options ... sometimes I’m not good  at making decisions.

I forgot it was Tuesday and I missed my hula hooping class. THAT was disappointing.

It’s now almost 10.30pm and I need to sleep.

Nite all.

Checking the List

As I lay in bed this morning, I made a list of things I wanted to get done today.

It was a substantial list that included jobs as well as self care activities.

It is currently 5.30pm and I’ve completed all but three jobs from the list. The day is not over and I have some hope of completing one or two more yet, although my motivation level has plummeted this afternoon, so the hope is minimal.

• Clothes off the line
• Two loads of washing
• Water plants
• Sweep floors
• Cook breakfast
• Empty dishwasher 
• Clean the kitchen
• Clear out and cull my shoes
• Cook my mini lamb roast
• Go for a swim
• Do some art
• Clear leaves out of the pool

I still want do some hand washing, clean the bathroom and sort through the jewellery on my dressing table.

Culling my shoes was interesting. The op shop will be receiving 18 pairs of my cast offs, which leaves me with 23 pairs to store somewhere.

The first piece of art was for a challenge using pink, peaches, grey and white for a sandwich pour ...

The second was a swipe with balloon kisses to get rid of some leftover paint in some cups that have been hanging around on the table for a few weeks.

When I get a few hours to myself, I have a more complex painting in mind, but I really need to focus so I’ll need to choose my moment.

I wasn’t very impressed with the NRL Grand Final and the poor refereeing decisions. It really took the shine off the win for me.

The good thing about Sunday was my very busy morning in the shop. The bad thing was my watch automatically switching to daylight savings time. I thought I worked until 2pm but it was really only 1pm!

Ok I’m off to clean the bathroom.

Nite all.

Peace Worthy

I forgot to set my alarm for this morning, but luckily I woke at 5.17am.

The morning air was not quite as cool as yesterday as I pedalled to perform Adoring Husband’s cleaning duties, which was easy and fast.

Upon finishing, I rode to get coffee and again rode to The Seat of Knowledge to visit the boys.

It was incredibly busy by the river with a continual procession of the old regulars from when I used to be a regular myself. I enjoyed myself very much but I was still the first to leave at around 8am.

I stopped at The Motivator’s house hoping to catch sight of a beautiful pale headed rosella that I saw the day before. Of course, because I had my camera with me, the bird did not appear.

When I got home, I was motivated to get stuff done.

• I emptied the dishwasher and refilled it.
• I washed psychotic dog Ruby’s eyes and trimmed the hair on her face again.
• I did a load of washing.
• I added to yesterday’s painting (no photo yet).
• I stacked my newly varnished paintings ready to take to the shop.
• I made breakfast.
• I tidied the kitchen.
• I emptied the bin.
• I checked the pool water (no swim today).
• I lost motivation.

I didn’t even want to paint.

So I sat in the peace and quiet of the lounge room. No TV. No electronic device. No nothing.

It was lovely 😊

I made myself a chicken salad for lunch and then sat down to watch some YouTube art hoping to be inspired.

I was inspired to save some videos in my “try myself” folder, but not inspired enough to get up and do it.

Number One son called and we chatted for half an hour. There was quite a bit to catch up on because it’s been a while, so it was nice talking to him.

I talked to Adoring Husband twice and he’s having a great time with the Grandies and his back is improving every day.

I’m working tomorrow so I think it’s time for me to sleep 💤

Nite all.

Early Bird

It was an early start for me this morning.

I set my alarm for 5.15am and I was on my way to work at 5.45am.

There was a real chill in the air that I wasn’t expecting and I was wearing a sleeveless top as I rode my trike! I pedalled REALLY fast to warm up!

After I completed my duties, I rode to the shops to get a coffee before heading to the Seat of Knowledge to see my boys for the first time in about 8 months, and thankfully they were happy to see me.

I hung around for almost two hours before returning home.

I couldn’t decide what to do, so I sat for a while before making the huge decision to clean my work area in the studio so that I could do some art.

This is the beginning of something that I plan to finish tomorrow ...

I watched an old movie and at 3pm I decided that I’d go to the club for raffle night. I phoned and booked the bus and took the hour to make myself presentable.

I had a little win on the pokies. Nobody won a raffle prize and I was quick enough to score a seat on the bus home at 7.30pm.

Adoring Husband phoned just as I walked through the door and we chatted for almost 15 minutes. He eventually let me go so that I could prepare dinner for myself.

The psychotic dogs were very happy to see me home and ran around in circles for ten minutes.

Now it’s time for me to sleep, so I’m signing off.

Nite all.

The Hilarity Continues

I found a link on my Facebook feed which took me to a list, from the 1950s, of ways to find a husband.

There were 129 ways, but I’ve just taken the first 30.

Ways to Get a Husband

WHERE TO FIND HIM

1. Get a dog and walk it.
2. Have your car break down at strategic places.
3. Attend night school – take courses men like.
4. Join a hiking club.
5. Look in the census reports for places with the most single men. Nevada has 125 males for every 100 females.
6. Read the obituaries to find eligible widowers
7. Take up golf and go to different golf courses.
8. Take several short vacations at different places rather than one long one at one place.
9. Sit on a park bench and feed the pigeons.
10. Take a bicycle trip through Europe.
11. Get a job in a medical, dental or law school.
12. Become a nurse or airline stewardess – they have very high marriage rates.
13. Ask your friends’ husbands who the eligible men are in their offices.
14. Be nice to everybody – they may have an eligible brother or son.
15. Get a government job overseas.
16. Volunteer for jury duty.
17. Be friendly to ugly men – handsome is as handsome does.
18. Tell your friends that you are interested in getting married. Don’t keep it a secret.
19. Get lost at football games.
20. Don’t take a job in a company run largely by women.
21. Get a job demonstrating fishing tackle in a sporting goods store.
22. On a plane, train or bus don’t sit next to a woman – sit next to a man.
23. Go to all reunions of your high school or college class. There may be widowers there.
24. Don’t be afraid to associate with more attractive girls; they may have some leftovers.
25. Go back to your hometown for a visit – the wild kid next door may have become a very eligible bachelor while you were away.
26. Don’t room with a girl who is a sad sack and let her pull you down to her level.
27. Get a part-time job in a convention bureau.
28. Change apartments from time to time.
29. When traveling, stay at small hotels where it is easier to meet strangers.
30. Learn to paint. Set up your easel outside an engineering school.

How hilarious is that!? Nite all.

Happy H Day

We had some great rain overnight and this morning, so instead of triking to work, Adoring Husband drove me and helped open the shop ready for meditation.

It was a great class but it was interrupted halfway through by a desperate shopper. We shouldn’t have opened for another 40 minutes but I was accommodating and she spent up big!

The Gypsy stayed for a while and we chatted for an hour before the strong gusty winds seemed to blow everyone up the driveway to the shop.

It was busy. Not like Tuesday busy, but it was a good day.

AH picked me up after work and we did some grocery shopping 🛒 before heading home.

We took advantage of some quiet time before getting ready for the monthly trivia night.

It was a good night and we came third! Out of 18 teams!

It finished late which is why I’m wring this post at almost midnight.

I’m tired and AH is snoring in my ear so I’m off.

Nite all.

Where Did It Go?

Where did my day go?

It started with the usual Tuesday morning coffee with the girls which was emotional and hilarious and thought provoking and enjoyable.

Just as I was about to leave, with thoughts of artistic creativity in my head, a new supplier walked through the door and introduced himself.

The next three hours were filled with sorting through stock that that may or may not sell well. We made a small order, although it was bigger than we’d planned, and I left the shop just before 2pm.

Adoring Husband picked me up and on the way home I remembered that I had to be at my hooping class at 3pm so I made myself a light late lunch and sat down for half an hour before getting ready for the class.

AH dropped me off - because the weather was looking a bit ominous for trike riding - and I spent an hour learning some new tricks and laughing a lot.

I returned home and sat for 30 minutes before preparing dinner. Duck and salad was sooooo delicious and I made the chocado dessert to have with blueberries afterwards.

We watched The Masked Singer and both decided that bed was calling us.

Getting too old for these big days!

Nite all.

Club Lunch

Adoring Husband and I had a lunch date today with the Welsh Wonder and her hubby Gentle Ben.

We lunched at the Golf Club in The Bay.

AH and I had grilled barramundi with salad, which was delicious.

We all chatted over our meals and each enjoyed a beverage before the WW and I made our way into the poker machine area while the boys moved outside to enjoy their beverages in the fresh air.

I didn’t win, but I came out even after 45 minutes, which is when AH was ready to leave.

Earlier we had been to Stocklands where I stocked up on knickers and bought a top at 75% off, the new Pete Evans recipe book and a shirt for Chicklet.

So we were ready for home after lunch.

The water in the pool was perfect but I didn’t swim today. No art. Leftovers for dinner.

I spent 90 minutes on the phone with Vegan Chickie which was hilarious and there was plenty to catch up on because it’s been a while.

Now it’s almost 10pm so I’m off to sleep.

Nite all.

Not In It

I felt a little discombobulated all day.

Getting out of bed was hard work and all I could manage was one load of washing which was followed by a touch of vertigo that led me back to bed where I napped briefly and watched some YouTube until our pre-warned power outage happened right on the dot of 4pm.

That was my cue to test the pool water, which was just the right temperature for swimming, so I changed into swimmers this time and jumped right in.

I’d only swum four laps when the power returned and the creepy crawly decided to play tag with me.

After I got dried and dressed, I decided to attempt some creativity but my heart just wasn’t in it.

I cleaned up a little but I really have to reorganise my art studio because I have a whole lot of new ‘stuff’ that doesn’t currently have a home and that ‘stuff’ is loosely scattered all over the place.

A girl can’t set her creativity free in such a mess!

I got a bit creative for dinner and we had crispy (ish) skin chicken with roasted cauliflower steaks, buttered asparagus and mushroom & onion gravy.

I think I’m off to bed to sleep away my discombobulation.

Nite all.

Stepped It Up

The tourists stepped it up today and I was very busy while the happily noisy art class happened in the training room.

I came home to an empty house because Adoring Husband had a man date to watch the AFL Grand Final with a bunch of blokes.

It was nice to sit alone in the quiet for a while and I didn’t do anything productive. No art. No swimming (though the water was lovely). No cooking. No housework. No study. No creating.

I surrounded myself with books and paperwork and my laptop ready to work on my health challenge, but all motivation waned quickly and all I wanted was to sit.

The AFL Grand Final was a non-event with a massive win to the Tigers.

Now we are going to watch the second preliminary final between Sydney Roosters and Melbourne Storm. I might have to watch it in bed because I’m exhausted from doing nothing all afternoon!

We’ve put all our outdoor cushions in the outside kitchen because the weather forecasters have predicted storms tonight. The BOM shows some nasty weather coming in this direction and it seems to be moving pretty quickly. If it reaches us, it will be the first storm of the season which is a couple of days later than last year.

I’m looking forward to a lazy day in bed tomorrow morning and after I clean the bathroom, I’ll
reward myself with some art play.

Nite all

Working Gal

It was a steady day in the shop and I had some long chats with people from Cooktown, Cairns, Townsville and Gold Coast, including one lady who has been holidaying here for 27 years!

Over the last few weeks there have been some interesting rumours filtering through about the managers of one of our caravan parks and the changes they are enforcing which is putting regular holiday makers off side and ‘apparently’ causing people to head home earlier than they would normally.

It leaves me wondering if they are the reason that the park is extraordinarily empty for this time of the year.

I do know that since these people took over, our usually thriving holiday community has been far from thriving during the holiday periods, but I can’t determine if it’s just co-incidence or connected to the rumours.

Today was a good day with lots of foot traffic and people hoping that we’ll be open all weekend ... which we are.

Tomorrow is our fluid art workshop, which The Motivator will be running while I take care of the shop.

So I think I shall go to bed and watch the second half of the NRL Preliminary Final between Raiders and Rabbitohs. I’m barracking for the underdogs - the Rabbitohs. The score is currently 6-all.

Happy weekend everyone!

Nite all.

Shopped Til I Dropped

On a whim, I jumped out of bed early ... and by ‘early’ I mean 8am ... and decided that I would accompany Adoring Husband on his trip into The Bay to buy meat for the psychotic dogs’ food.

On the way out of town we checked the mail and bought coffee. When I dropped the shop mail into The Motivator, I took a photo of her beautiful flower.

AH and I had a list and an order to how we would shop.

You might be surprised to learn that I got carried away at the art shops. This is just a sample of what I purchased - 50% off at Spotlight ...

I didn’t photograph the rest of the stuff, but I now have 40 canvases in the cupboard of my studio waiting to be shown some love, not to mention some more metallic paints and some useful tools and containers.

I tried in vain to purchase an attachment to hold my phone on my tripod so that I can video my art processes and start a YouTube channel. Both Harvey Norman and JBHIFI sold their last clamp in the last two days.

It was mid afternoon by the time we returned home and we had a late lunch of barramundi and salad. I got the fish at Coles and I have to say, it was fresh and succulent and very tasty! I wish I’d bought more.

There was no Boost juice today because the queue was ridiculously long.

No art today because I have to clean my work area.

No swimming today because I was wearing good clothes and I was too lazy to come inside and get changed.

I’m working tomorrow (Friday) and even though the caravan park is quite empty, it’s starting to really get busy for the school holidays, which is always a good thing.

So it’s time for me to sleep now.

Nite all.

Flower Power 🌻

I dragged myself out of bed early this morning to attend meditation, even though I wasn’t working.

It was a good session and worth the effort!

Afterwards, The Motivator and I set up the tables in the training room ready to practice some art. TM wanted me to show her how to create the sunflower.

Sadly, I did not take a photo of her beautiful flower, but here is mine ...

... which is very similar to the last two flowers that I painted.

We took turns to serve customers throughout the day, so our art was interrupted continuously, which is a good thing because it was a good sales day.

We spent the entire afternoon chatting like old times and I didn’t leave until after 3pm!

I tested the pool water when I arrived home, but it was a bit cooler than the other day, so I chose to not swim today.

I have to say that I am very tired tonight. Far too much excitement for one day!

Nite all.