Good News

While all hell is breaking loose with the horrendous fires all over Australia and we are feeling frustrated and helpless against the wrath of Mother Nature, I thought it timely to pass on some good news:

• New surveys reveal that the population of humpback whales in the south Atlantic region now number 24,900 - almost 93%  of their population size before they were hunted to the brink of extinction.
• Chinese authorities began preparations for the creation of the largest national park in the country’s history, covering an area of 27,134 km², and home to more than 1,200 wild giant pandas.
• The indigenous Waorani community of Ecuador won a landmark case against oil companies this year, protecting 180,000 hectares of their land against exploitation.
• Dolphins are breeding in the Potomac River in Washington for the first time since the 1880s, whale populations are exploding off the shores of New York, and 100 seal pups have been born on the shores of the Thames, 60 years after the river was declared 'biologically dead.' 
• In July, Ethiopia smashed the world record for tree planting. Led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, millions of Ethiopians planted 353 million trees in 12 hours.

I have LOTS more good news items to share, but that’s enough for today.

It was another fabulous day in the shop and it was so busy there was no time to add to the dragon! There was a final flurry ten minutes before closing and it was 3.24pm when we locked the doors.

I decided to go to the club tonight and while I was lucky on the pokies, the rest of our group were sitting ‘next’ to the lucky table - which was full of visitors from Maryborough, all of whom won the majority of raffle prizes tonight!

Well, it’s already 11.30pm and I’m working tomorrow so I’d best get some sleep.

Nite all.

On Our Way

We are well on our way into the new year.

So far, my new year has included lots of time in the pool swimming laps, stretching, floating, meditating, singing and also relaxing under the Bali hut, reading, sketching and playing.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

This morning there were two Lewins Honeaters in the soursop tree beside the pool and a lizard about ten inches long dived into the pool with a splash and swam for his life right across to the other side and scrambled out into the pebbles.

Oh and I saved a bee from drowning 🤗

Lots of groups through the shop today and everyone was in party/holiday mode!

It made the day go quickly.

Adoring Husband took the car into The Bay for a service this morning, which meant that I had to ride my trike into a head wind to get to work. What is usually a six minute ride turned into a ten minute ride that felt like a 30 minute gym workout! I was very hot and sweaty by the time I arrived at the shop.

The Motivator spent the afternoon with her family in the training room where they all played with paints creating a number of fabulous pieces in all different colours.

I came home after work to watch some Greys Anatomy and then cook dinner with time to spare before the new Dr Who episode aired. AH was very excited about that! He says it’s the best episode yet.

Sad but true.

You’re off the hook today. No powers. No D and Ms. No blah blah blahs.

Light and breezy.

Nite all.

Enlightenment

We all have attachments.

There is the obvious, like drugs and alcohol.

There is the less obvious like food, family, relationships, work, study, shopping, negativity or other “patterns” of behaviour like obsessing over the news or over other people’s behaviours.

If these attachments are causing you stress or anxiety, bringing fear or anger into your life and/or putting a strain on finances or relationships then it’s a problem.

We all live within our self imposed limitations.

Our own subconscious and unconscious fears make us resistant to firstly looking at our attachments and secondly, to making changes to help remove ourselves from them and begin to heal ourselves and  live our best life.

How can the unenlightened mind become enlightened?

You have to be prepared to open your mind, look at new perspectives, take in new information and apply it to your life.

Our current knowledge is limited, but our potential for knowledge is limitless.

It doesn’t matter how strongly you have held on to certain beliefs, things change, science changes, times change, there is always new information at hand and to survive in a mindful and healthy way, we need to be open to changing our old beliefs.

If you are angry with the world, unhappy with your lot in life or generally feeling depressed - these old beliefs are simply not working for you anymore. Nothing will change until you are ready to change.

Accept that you are a little bit broken (or a lot broken), set aside your ego and relinquish your belief that you know best.

Be willing to experiment with new beliefs and actions that may benefit you. Invite the Universe (or whatever higher power you believe in) to help you in a positive, kind and compassionate way.

Ask yourself “What could I be?”

Fear limits everything in our lives and anger thrives on fear. When you’re feeling angry or someone close to you is angry, quietly search for the underlying fear that is triggering the anger.

For example when Adoring Husband is forgetful or has trouble understanding something, I sometimes get angry. I’m realising that the anger stems from my fear of the Parkinson’s getting worse. I’m recognising the trigger faster now and I meditate and sit with the feelings to help understand and dilute them.

I’m still not there yet, but I’m committed to releasing and changing my behaviours because they are not good for me or AH.

I also have to recognise the self sabotaging - which is the fear making me resistant and which helps me find other excuses for my unacceptable behaviour.

Oh we humans are interesting and intriguing creatures.

Recognising, acknowledging, accepting and releasing.

It’s ok to feel the feelings, just don’t purge all over the ones you love and most of all don’t punish yourself or feel guilty.

So ...

while initially, I was going to talk about the “Power of Detachment”, I think, in this case, I should be talking about the “Power of Realisation”.

Realising that nobody can upset me without my approval. Nobody can upset YOU without your approval.

It starts with ME.

It starts with you.

I have complete control of my actions, my emotions, my reactions and responses.

It is up to me to use my powers. It’s up to me to recognise my triggers and my aha moments and take steps to make positive change.

I will practice using my powers every day, recognise the tests that are placed before me and understand that nobody ‘belongs’ to me and I belong to nobody. Everybody in this world is a soul doing their best with varying degrees of enlightenment.

This year I am going to be fully aware of my powers, I will be my own best guide and I will surround myself with souls who bring love and light to the world. I will live in the ‘now’.

I’m pretty sure that AH will have started reading this and after the second paragraph was seeing “blah blah blah blah blah”

I’m pretty sure that quite a few of you saw the same blah blahs.

That’s ok.

You’re just not ready yet.

Nite all.

PS It’s ALREADY the second day of the new year!! Eep!

*Power*

My word for 2020 is *power*

This word covers a myriad of strengths:

• The power to discern
• The power to co-operate
• The power of compassion
• The power of faith
• The power of positive thought
• The power to be silent
• The power to face
• The power to be present
• The power of enthusiasm
• The power of detachment
• The power to adjust

And sooooo many more. There’s plenty to share and discuss and understand about all the different ways to use the different powers.

That’s what I want to focus on in 2020 and I’ll probably share some insights here at times.

I added a bit more to the dragon today ...

Finally ...

Happy New Year!

Nite all.

In Review

I feel like this year was very much less productive than the previous two years, which were worth bragging about!

I really only had three things on my list of goals for 2019.

1. Get out and about more often with my camera - fail.
2. Add to and improve on my book to sell in the shop - fail.
3. Get started on creating an online course - not a complete fail.

What I learned this year is that it’s a difficult balancing act trying to fulfil your goals, study,  run a business, keep your household running efficiently, care for a partner with special needs and care for your own physical/emotional/spiritual needs.

Other circumstances had a bearing on all of that too!

So my top ten memories and/or achievements for 2019 are:

• Visit from Bubbles and Knight in Shining Armour.
• Purchasing the Bali hut, a toilet, a bedroom suite and plantation shutters for the front windows of the house.
• Trips to Sydney for the Reed Gift Fair, to Brisbane for the Denise Duffield Thomas seminar and Montville/IKEA visit.
• Learned hoop dancing, water colour painting class in The Bay, attempted lots of different acrylic art methods and created over 90 pieces.
• Ran photography and art classes at The Happy Abode. Introduced lines of clothing to the shop. Created and sold postcards, cups and calendars.
• Celebrated Bombshell’s first year of survival after her car accident and 3 x 70th birthdays.
• Attended two local retreats.
• Sold more than 20 large photographs and six pieces of art.
• Survived two close bushfires, 7 weeks of plant based eating, 4 months of morning celery juice and 4 months without The Motivator.
• Practiced meditation every single day and used other holistic healing avenues like kinergetics (taught to me by TM), continued mini journeys on myself on a regular basis (at least monthly), grounding, swimming, hooping, journaling for life and for gratitude, listening to audible ‘self care’ books and practicing my powers as taught by The Gypsy.

So the year wasn’t a complete loss and there’s plenty to be happy about and proud of. My minor health issues have eased considerably and even though AH had a few hiccups with his health, all things considered, he too is doing well.

We’ve taken full advantage of our beautiful pool area and created our happy place in our own back yard.

We have much to look forward to in 2020.

Our 10th wedding anniversary, my 60th birthday, road trip with Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair, AH will be releasing his Mum’s ashes on south coast of NSW, hopefully there’ll be a visit from Chicklet, 2nd celebration with Bombshell ... all of that in the first four months!

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the word I’ve picked for 2020.

Now it’s time for bed because I have a coffee date in the morning and then work in the afternoon.

Nite all.

Progress

There is no news.

I worked from 10am - 2pm and had 46 customers through the doors. Not even half of them spent money but almost all brought good energy to the shop - especially the ones who said I was an exceptional photographer haha!

My last visitor in the shop was Aggie! What a nice way to end my day!

Between customers I started on my fish ...

Here is the progress on the dragon ...

I didn’t add to it today.

This is a paint pour that I did on Saturday. Not sure how I feel about it so I might pour over it yet, or maybe embellish it. We’ll see.

Time for sleep.

I guess I’ll see you next year!

Nite all.

That Time

Yes it’s that time of the year when we have no idea what day it is.

Even Adoring Husband was surprised when I told him that today is Friday!

The days all run into each other and our days have been so perfectly UNexciting, which I absolutely love, but it means there has been nothing to post about except swims in the pool, Christmas movies on TV and lazy mornings in bed.

I did, for the first time in weeks, begin an art project today.

Chicklet’s birthday is only 7 weeks away, so I’ve decided to embellish one of my paint pours and create a dragon (her favourite creature) for her.

It started as this ...

I began with this ...

It has developed into this ...

And I’ll show you the progress of the process as I add to it in the coming days and weeks.

So far it looks okay, but anything could happen at any minute!

The new acrylic paint pens are easy, but messy, to use, so I can’t use them in the bedroom or the lounge room otherwise I’ll end up with fingerprints of paint on the leather lounge or on the new bedroom suite!

Which is a shame because they are my favourite rooms, however, the Bali hut is a possibility because the light will be perfect out there and I need to set up my easel for this.

Anyway, that’s as good as it’s got here in our household.

AH has hurt his back again ... not as bad as last time, but enough to slow him down.

No clubbing for us tonight.

An early night to bed.

Nite all.

It’s Here!

Christmas Day arrived right on time!

I got to stay in bed until about 8am and unusually had to get my own coffee, so I dressed and sat down on the couch with my coffee while the Santa of the house distributed gifts from under the tree.

We opened gifts randomly, so he opened some of mine and I opened some of his and we opened some of our own. We ripped everything open and threw paper all over the floor so by the time we finished ...

... worse than kids really.

Here are a few of my gifts ...

Yes! I am one lucky bee!

We made our own breakfast. I had chicken liver pate on toast and Adoring Husband had a bacon and egg sandwich.

I got a call from Vegan Chickie and Chicklet. We chatted for about 40 minutes, which was lovely.

The weather forecast predicted rain a storms for today so AH and I decided to get outside and make the most of the pool while we could. We swam for a while, played catch with the ball, soaked up the sunshine until it was time for lunch.

This was lunch ...

We played trivia for an hour or so, until psychotic dog Ruby was obviously struggling with a crazy itch that was out of control, so I took her in for a bath in her special shampoo, then lathered her in special cream. It still took a while for the itch to ease, even after the bath, but eventually she was able to relax.

By now, the storms were rumbling and drawing near, so we packed everything up from around the pool and I jumped in for a quick dip - very quick! In and out, just to cool down.

The storm was very brief but there was a nice drenching downpour. We needed it to last longer, but we’re grateful for what we got.

I received a call from Number One Son. Also really nice.

We’ve watched some mindless TV tonight - currently watching a great special on NITV about Sammy Davis Jr. I loved Sammy. He died way too young at the age of 65. What an incredible talent.

So it’s 9.30 pm and we’re ready for bed. Exhausted and happy. What a lovely Christmas Day I’ve had. I wish I’d had a Christmas call with Bubbles, but hopefully we can make up for it tomorrow.

I hope you’ve all had the perfect Christmas with friends or family or even alone.

Nite all.

Happy Christmas!

Christmas Eve has been a very pleasant day.

I opened the shop at 9am and Adoring Husband checked our mail and dropped in a parcel before heading into the Bay to run some errands.

He also delivered a message from my girls who were waiting for me to arrive for coffee!!

Oops!

He minded the shop for 20 minutes so I could spend some time with them - not enough time for coffee, but time for some giggles and hugs.

The shop was busy all morning and by the time The Motivator arrived for her shift at midday, I was exhausted!

There was a quiet period for about 40 minutes and we exchanged Christmas gifts and Christmas hugs and created our Christmas video. Then it was time for me to leave.

I did some grocery shopping and could barely fit everything in my trike’s rear basket. My laptop wheelie bag, one bag of Christmas gifts, one bag of clothes, two bags of groceries and my handbag. It was a juggling act!

As soon as we arrived home, we had to return to the shops to get our afternoon coffee - we doubled up because we can’t get coffee on Christmas morning - these will be gently reheated in a saucepan in the morning.

I cooked up AH’s dinner of crispy skinned salmon with buttery asparagus and salad early because I had my movie date with Vegan Chickie and Chicklet at 5.30pm.

Just in case you don’t know, on Christmas Eve, wherever we are in the world, VC, C and I watch “Love Actually” together at the same time, texting each other our favourite lines and favourite moments throughout the movie. It’s a tradition we’ve been following for many years and we look forward to it every year.

After the movie finished, AH took me outside to the pool area to show me this surprise ...

Beautiful twinkling multi coloured lights all around the fence line! How cool is that?!

It’s now 10.30pm and I’m feeling quite weary. I’m certain that the big kid in the family will have me up early to open presents, so I’d best get some sleep.

I hope you all have a happy and safe Christmas enjoying time with the people you cherish. Feel the love and spread the love.

Nite all.

It Was a Bug

Well that was a nasty period of time lasting about 16 hours.

A tummy bug got me and floored me long enough to prevent me from opening the shop and working on Sunday. I sent Adoring Husband to the shop with a hand written sign and some sticky tape.

I spent the night sitting on the throne with a bucket on my lap, moving only to take a couple of cool showers to bring my temperature down.

Not a pleasant experience.

So to make up for disappointing any potential customers on Sunday, I opened the shop today for six hours and am very pleased that I did!

It was very busy and I would have stayed open until 5pm except I had four orders for photos so I had to go into The Bay to order them so that they would be ready on Christmas Eve.

Unfortunately, my regular framer is now on holidays until 7th Jan so that’s a slight problem, but fortuitously, when I phoned him to ask about his opening hours, he ordered two of my photos! He’ll be visiting The Happy Abode for the first time during his holidays so I know he’ll be sending people to us after that.

He already promotes us quite well, but with first hand experience, he’ll step it up a notch.

Our psychotic dog Colli visited the vet for some surgery today. What started out as a possible 2 teeth extraction, ended up being NINE teeth!

She has been fabulous through the entire ordeal ... and I say ‘ordeal’ because that’s what it has been for Adoring Husband ... but she has not behaved like a sick dog. She came home with a list of behaviours that we should expect after such major invasive surgery.

• Drowsy
• Will take a few days to recover - longer for older pets
• Bloody saliva
• Offer a small meal, but she will probably refuse it.
• She will probably feel nauseas after eating.
• She will probably not be feeling herself so be calm and loving

I’m here to say that she was NOT and is NOT the slightest bit drowsy. She appears to be fully recovered and is full of beans trotting all over the place. She was excited to eat her entire meal and went looking for more in the other dog’s bowls - no nausea. She is definitely herself, probably more so because she no longer has a head full of rotting teeth causing her pain!

It was a costly process, but nowhere near what we expected, so that was a pleasant surprise.

So ... 14 and still going strong.

Well, tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we expect it to be a big one at the shop, so I’d best get a good night’s sleep.

I hope you’re all feeling relaxed and calm and looking forward to spending time with family and friends.

Nite all.

Peopled Out

Today was a hibernation day.

My intention was to accompany Adoring Husband into The Bay this morning while he was taking psychotic dog Colli in for grooming. At the last minute I changed my mind because I couldn’t stand the thought of the traffic and the people and the busyness and the craziness of pre-Christmas holiday makers.

I am peopled out and I needed to spend the day hibernating from the world.

Unfortunately, while grooming Colli, the groomer found a large abscess on her face from an infection in her mouth caused by rotten teeth. Luckily, the groomer is situated right beside a vet, so they were able to get her in immediately.

Colli is now on antibiotics and is booked in on Monday to have one, possibly two teeth surgically removed.

That’s going to cost a pretty penny!

She has not and is still not behaving like a sick dog! She is perfectly happy, but AH is a little stressed.

I have to add that I would love to have partaken in some emotional eating today, but the best I could come up with was blending a mango and banana with some coconut ice cream. What resulted was two delicious smoothies that AH and I enjoyed together.

I’m working tomorrow, so it’s time for me to sleep now.

Here is our Christmas tree complete with all of our gifts to ourselves ...

There are still some gifts to arrive in the mail, hopefully on Monday.

Have a happy Sunday!

Nite all.

Friday with a Flourish

My day began with low energy and a few uneasy feelings that I couldn’t explain and they didn’t feel very nice at all.

So I stayed in bed until about 10.30am which is when I heard the pool calling to me.

The water was chillier than I expected, so I knew that Adoring Husband wouldn’t be joining me. I swam some laps, floated, did lots of exercises to the music, sat in the sun for ten minutes and then sat in the Bali hut for a while.

I took a phone call from my favourite Aunty because she had just received my calendar which I sent to her for Christmas. She’s fabulous and was gushing over my photography.

Eventually, I headed inside to shower and make myself presentable for a video, which The Motivator and I were going to make in the shop, to wish our customers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

By the time I arrived at the shop, TM finished serving customers and we fixed the stoopid Square Reader again, neither of us was really in the mood for making videos, so we’ve delayed it for a day or two.

AH and I both attended the club tonight and the members of our group were almost all pretty lucky. I had a nice win on the pokies, so Merry Christmas to me!

We had a late dinner. Late for us is 8.30pm because we usually eat at 6pm.

Tomorrow will be an early start because we’re taking one of the psychotic dogs in for grooming. The Bay will be chaotic on the last Saturday morning before Christmas and school holidays have just begun so ... you know ... eep!

So it’s bed for me now.

Nite all.

Spoiled

Look what Adoring Husband gave me today!

It’s a pendant and the stone is Larimar.

Larimar is said to enlighten and heal in a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual way. It stimulates the heart, throat, third eye and crown chakras facilitating inner wisdom and outer manifestation. It represents peace and clarity, radiating healing and love energy.

How special is that!?  Yes, I am a lucky person!

We drove into The Bay early this morning so that I could purchase my Christmas present to put under the tree and boy was it chaotic! People and cars everywhere! We couldn’t get out of there fast enough!

We went to two shops and on the way out of town stopped at the coffee drive through.

When we arrived home, I wrapped all of my gifts and made a big mess of the kitchen bench, which then had to be cleared to make a late lunch.

AH and I binge watched some Grey’s Anatomy until we decided on an early light dinner.

Now I’m exhausted!

Sleep time for me.

Nite all.

Long Enough

I’ve been sitting here for 45 minutes trying to figure out what to write about.

I’m brain dead.

The Gypsy visited for a while his morning at the shop and the second that she left, the customers came thick and fast. I had a few locals in for a chat too which took quite a bit of time out of my day.

The day passed quickly and before I knew it, Adoring Husband arrived to help me close up.

I wasn’t in any mood for preparing a meal so we stopped and got some grilled fish from the cafe on the way home and had an early dinner.

It’s almost midnight so I’m making this short and sweet and sleep. is calling me.

Nite all.

Fully Christmas

Today confirmed for me that Christmas is definitely in full swing!

It started out a little stressful when our Square Reader (which is basically our electronic cash register)  somehow logged us out and wouldn’t accept our password to get back in!

So The Motivator came in with her laptop and after making a couple of attempts to sign in herself,  then checking that no messages had come through regarding any known problems, she changed our password and all was right with our business world again. Thank goodness!

I didn’t get to spend much time with my girls for coffee because it was so busy in the shop and it stayed that way all day. Just a constant flow of people, all in with a purpose and feeling grateful that they didn’t have to drive into The Bay.

Great for us!

I got to mail the last of my Christmas gifts before the afternoon mail cutoff so I was pleased about that.

I still haven’t purchased my own gift to put under the tree yet.

I’m feeling decidedly weary now, and I am already in bed so it won’t take long for me to fall asleep.

Happy Hump Day!

Nite all.

Morning Swim

After ten long days of pain (for both of us!) Adoring Husband returned to work today.

I would have enjoyed the sleep in but I had invited some of my tribe around for a pre Christmas morning tea and a swim, and because I dilly dallied yesterday with the gift wrapping, it meant that I had to get up extra early to bake some brownies and prepare the fruit platter, as well as clear the laundry for bathroom traffic.

I also bathed Psychotic dog Ruby again in her special shampoo to ease her grass allergy and to clean her weepy eye. Two loads of washing and a shower for me to wash away the dripping perspiration. It reached 35° here today, which is very hot for this neck of the woods.

Ironically there was no bathroom traffic and probably the reason everyone left so abruptly at noon - because their bladders were more than likely ready to explode!

It was a really pleasant morning with us all bobbing around in the pool for an hour chatting before Lady Lynn’s grandies arrived and livened up the energy. They showed off their swimming and diving skills, racing each other in the water and splashing around having fun, just as kids do.

They were a delight and their manners impeccable. They certainly warmed my heart when they each thanked me for having them over and letting them swim in the pool.

After everybody left, Adoring Husband joined me and we swam for a little while until we remembered the parcels that we had to get to the Post Office before 2pm to catch today’s mail run so that everyone would receive their gifts before Christmas.

There were ten parcels going to 6 different addresses and now we can’t afford to eat over Christmas! *joking*

AH was able to set up our Christmas inflatables on the front lawn again today. It’s a bit of a pain having to bring them inside when storms are approaching - especially painful when the storms don’t eventuate or skim past us! Storm season sucks!

😳

At about 3pm, my body decided it needed to rest, so I lay on the bed and fell asleep about 15 minutes later. Psychotic dog Jack woke me at 4pm with his psychotic bark which was aimed at nothing!

AH prepared dinner of lamb loin chops and fresh asparagus - both perfectly cooked and delicious - which he served to me in bed!

I am still in bed writing this post and thinking about my first day back at work tomorrow. I think I’ve only worked one day in the last two weeks! Crazy!

I feel so relaxed and happy right now. All is right with my world and I love my life.

Thank you universe for reminding me how lucky I am.

Nite all.

Wrapped Up

It has taken me ALL day to wrap all the Christmas presents, box them up and address them.

I had a couple of breaks in between to cook lunch and dinner and watch a movie on SBS, but I calculate that it’s taken a minimum 4 hours to complete this task. I’ve only wrapped the gifts that need to be sent in the mail so I still have more to wrap!

It’s almost midnight and here I am still sitting up doing my blog and thinking of what I have to do tomorrow morning before my girls arrive for coffee and a swim!

I’m feeling a bit peckish!

The movie that I watched was a claymation film called “Mary and Max”. It was released in 2009 and had the voices of Eric Bana, Ian Meldrum, Toni Collette, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Humphries to name a few. It was a combination of weird, intriguing, sad, funny and relatable.

I can’t say that it was enjoyable, but it was thought provoking and meaningful and worth watching. I’d probably watch it again.

Enough of this frivolity.

I need sleep.

Nite all.

What’s Today?

Two people asked me today if I was enjoying my Sunday.

It’s Saturday! Don’t confuse me!

I was up early to work for Adoring Husband. The work is easy. The getting up early is the hard part.

I returned home with our morning coffees and AH thanked me for doing his job. He drank his coffee and fell asleep in his chair. An hour later, he woke up, thanked me for doing his job and asked if I’d forgotten to buy coffees.

Duffer.

So we drove to the shops and got more coffee.

I prepared some breakfast for AH and we decided to go for a swim before he lay down with the TENS machine.

Needless to say, he fell asleep for another couple of hours. Sleep is good for healing!

I had a few things planned for today, but motivation escaped me ... how unusual!

I did some more doodling with lead pencil...

... not impressive. I think I prefer pen for doodling and I prefer silence and solitude. Sitting beside AH and in front of the TV is not conducive to creative, imaginative artistry.

AH and I binged on some Greys Anatomy tonight. Series 14. We probably should have started at series 13 because it was tricky at the beginning to figure out what was going on.

I get to sleep in tomorrow *happy dance* but because I was so lazy today, I will have a lot to do ... like wrapping a stack of Christmas presents to send off on Monday morning, getting the pool area ready for visitors for Monday morning coffee and doing a touch of overdue housework.

It’s already after 11pm so I’m off to bed.

Nite all.

Record Breaking

Another early morning start for me - day nine of Adoring Husband being out of action due to his back.

He is on the improve and could possibly be good to go in a couple more days.

We drove into The Bay this morning arriving at the school zone at around 9.30am.

We had most of our Christmas shopping and some grocery shopping to get done today because we don’t plan on another trip in until the new year! We need to visit the fish markets on Christmas Eve to buy our seafood but we’ll avoid the main part of town over the holidays.

At 1.15pm we had completed our task and were purchasing our favourite coffees via the drive through on the way out of town!

I think I spent more money on myself than I did on everyone else. I purchased a new hand made wallet which I absolutely love. It fits my phone, all my cards, spare business cards, cash and still closes comfortably. She had so many different colours and designs to choose from, but this one was my favourite.

It’s the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, with the words “We’re all mad here”

I’ve removed 8 garments from my wardrobe to make room for the 8 new tops that I found today. I got a lovely pair of Diana Ferrari shoes on sale - like walking on air - and perfect for work.

I caught up on my collection of Greys Anatomy series on DVD. Time for some binge watching!

This weekend will be spent wrapping and packaging Christmas presents ready to send in the mail. It’s the first Christmas in a long time that we’ve put so much effort into gifts. I’m not sure why. I hope we’ve made some good choices though.

We received a nice drop of rain this afternoon as a big storm passed by and we got the edge of it. We need a lot more of course, but it was nice to hear that unfamiliar sound on the tin roof.

I decided to not go to the club tonight and because we skipped lunch, I prepared a very early dinner. We are both exhausted and I think I’m ready for bed. I’m not sure if I’m working at the shop tomorrow or not. I’ll go in anyway.

Happy weekend to you.

Nite all.

Another Quickie

Ha! I worked two jobs today!

It was a slow afternoon in the shop, so I started doodling and ended up with this ...

It turned out a lot better than I expected.

Adoring Husband was capable of driving into The Bay to check out the Harvey Norman sale today. Our DVD player died a while ago so he purchased a temporary replacement until we can find out if our main system can be repaired.

Hopefully he will be capable of driving tomorrow because there is more stuff to do.

Even though it was a stinking hot day, I didn’t swim in the pool. I tested the water and it was almost luke warm. Perfect for AH who prefers a warm bath over a cool swim.

Well, gotta clean the kitchen before bed so I’d best get moving or it’s going to be a late night.

Happy Friday!

Nite all.