Distracted

I was so distracted by everything yesterday that I completely forgot to post here!

I was very busy, between customers, setting up for the art workshop. 

The method that we were attempting this week required a few extra resources like 2 different sizes of paint brushes, a stencil for each person which I had to print out, cut out, laminate and then cut out again. It was the first time that I’d used my new laminator and on the first attempt I jammed the damned thing!

We needed lead pencils, pins, acrylic paint pens and then all the usual stuff like paints, Floetrol, cups, stirring sticks, gloves, paper towel, tubs of water, cloths, silicone mats, spray bottles, oil droppers and more.

It’s no easy feat and takes me 2 days to set up - because I choose to do it inside work hours and try to do it with the least amount of stress and pressure possible. Adoring Husband plays a big hand in it too.

Everybody enjoyed the class today and one of the ladies brought a bottle of wine - which we shared between 8 of us! It was delicious and I saved the bottle for future reference!

That same lady has booked me to run a class for adults at her house in December. While her daughter is enjoying her first birthday party, the female adults will be drinking wine and painting up a storm! Sounds like fun!

Thank goodness the girls all pitch in and clean up the mess after class so there is very little for me to do except fold up the tables and move the completed art works. 

It was a good sales day on Friday and even better on Saturday.

We arrived home around 4pm and even though my back was killing me and my body was complaining loudly, I went straight to the kitchen where I cooked chicken three ways - pork and chicken meatballs, chicken wings plus chicken thighs with tomato and onion.

THEN I put my feet up and watched the footy.

My back thanked me.

I’m looking forward to spending some self caring time in bed tomorrow. My journaling lesson is already prepared so I don’t have to do any work over the next two days.

Now its midnight.

Sleep time!

Nite all.

Over and Out

Another one of those days that passed so quickly it took my breath away!

Adoring Husband put the folding tables up this morning so that I could set up for the art workshop, but the day and the customers and the delivery and the visitors got the better of me and no setting up happened.

It was a good sales day 👍

The Welsh Wonder visited me with coffee and we looked online for floating pool chairs. It took a bit of searching, but we eventually found what we hope will be the perfect chairs for our Summer floating activities.

A delivery of stock finally arrived - they claimed they attempted delivery on Monday, but we all know that’s a fib because AH and I were there waiting!

It took a while to unpack, check off, price and display everything because I had to rearrange some display areas to fit the new stuff in! I’d better sell a lot of stuff in the next week because there’s more stock arriving next week.

We removed all of the art from the treatment room and put it in the training room but I’m not sure where it’s going next. It could be home or it could be some random corner of the shop somewhere. Pfft. I dunno.

There were late customers and we didn’t lock and leave the shop until 2.30pm. I usually close at 2pm.

I did a few chores before sitting down this afternoon and then prepared an early dinner for AH who was off to SES training. Luckily he had done most of the hard work by putting the meat in the slow cooker earlier in the day so I didn’t have to do much. He’s a champion.

Now it’s almost midnight so it’s sleep time for me.

Nite all.

Over The Hump

What a day!

Another emotional meditation morning. Only nine in attendance but a powerful session with amazing aha moments.

The Gypsy had to leave straight after the session because she had big plans and the usual ladies stayed behind for coffee and then extended their time with some crafty time together.

I didn’t get to join them because I had customers to serve and suppliers on the phone as well as one in the shop. The fabulous Daniel who was selling hats AND promoting his own t-shirt business which I absolutely loved, so that’s next on my radar and for which I’ll be saving some pennies to purchase.

Oh there was another lady from Brisbane who had asked me last year if I would look at her hand made jewellery but The Motivator was away at the time so I asked this lady to come back when TM returned. This lady had some family issues and had to return home to deal with everything and never got back to me ... until today.

She left her very large bag of goodies with me and I spent some time today choosing some pieces that I loved, the total of which was too much, so I culled half and was happy with my end result.

It was a good sales day - but I spent 6 times the amount I made! 😳

I feel that the universe is testing my financial resolve and I’m walking the tight rope ... to the right is a financial bonanza and to the left is financial ruin! 🤣🥴😄 Which way will I fall?

Just joking ... I’m rubbing my hands with glee and enjoying this challenge - the challenge is staying efficiently focused and managing my time balancing work, relationship and self care in a healthy way.

So far, so good.

Before we came home this afternoon, I had to send a parcel off to a customer who purchased from her home on the Sunny Coast via my Facebook page.

Sadly, the coffee machine at our local was under repair so there was no afternoon caffeine hit for me.

When I arrived home, I had just enough motivation to do a load of washing, but after that I was in shut down mode. It was even leftovers for dinner so not a lot of effort was required there.

Look at this fabulous photo of Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn waiting in the wings at the Oscars in 1938 (I think).

Now I’m off to sleep so that I’m ready for a busy and profitable Thursday!

Nite all.

One Fine Day

Tuesday morning coffee with the girls sounded pretty good from where I was standing.

My attention was taken by non paying customers so, sadly, I had precious little time with my friends this morning.

After they departed, things really picked up and sales were above average for the day.

Luckily I had completed the lesson for today’s journaling group because I had no time in the day for the usual finishing touches.

Finally, one of the deliveries turned up, though it wasn’t the one I was expecting, and this meant a good part of my day was checking, pricing and displaying essential oils, room sprays, body lotions, mini diffusers and incense sticks.

I sold out of Himalayan salt pipes so I need to order more tomorrow!

The cleaner turned up at 2pm and spent the hour removing everything from the centre table, cleaning it and dusting each and every item before replacing it. I can’t remember the last time that table was completely cleaned like that!

The ladies also arrived at 2pm for the journaling class and we all shared our memories and laughed and focused on our writing. There were seven pages of questions to prompt and trigger and awaken our memory banks. We all agreed that our discussions over some of the questions really brought back some great memories.

Adoring Husband helped me fold up the tables so that I could set the room for meditation in the morning.

Some of the ladies from meditation have decided to form their own little craft group so my training room will be put to good use on Wednesdays.

Curried chicken for dinner tonight which included onion, mushroom, cauliflower, snow peas and spinach for extra nutritional value.

It’s almost 10:30pm and I’m all snuggled in bed wearing my new super soft pyjamas and ready for an early night.

Nite all.

Waiting Game

A friend posted this on FB today and I love it so I thought I’d share it here.

"If the mountain seems too big today,

Then climb a hill instead.

If the morning brings you sadness,

It's okay to stay in bed.

If the day ahead weighs heavy

And your plans feel like a curse,

There's no shame in re-arranging,

Don't make yourself feel worse.

If a shower stings like needles

And a bath feels like you'll drown,

If you haven't washed your hair for days,

Don't throw away your crown!

A day is not a lifetime,

A rest is not defeat.

Don't think of it as failure,

Just a quiet, kind retreat.

It's okay to take a moment

From an anxious, fractured mind.

The world will not stop turning

While you get realigned.

The mountain will still be there

When you want to try again,

So climb it in your own time

...and love yourself 'til then." 

By Laura Ding - Edwards — at Agent Dynamics

Adoring Husband and I spent 2 hours at the shop waiting for a delivery that never arrived. I think it might have been with the early courier.

We found some small jobs to do while we were there so it wasn’t a total lost cause.

At home, I got some washing done and tried on the four new swimsuits that I bought online. I like them all bar one.

I haven’t talked about my nutrition for a while. Today’s: lemon water, bacon, avocado, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, coffee, berry smoothie (blueberries, strawberries, banana, coconut water & a scoop of vegan ice cream), pork sausage and salsa (cucumber, capsicum, tomato, shallots, apple, avocado & sprouts), GF cookie, lots of water.

Now I’m going to sleep like a baby - because AH is sleeping silently after using the Himalayan Salt pipe again today.

Nite all.

Sunday of Productivity

It's 4:30pm on a Sunday and I'm still in bed as I write this ... surprise surprise!

It has been an incredibly productive day and I've designed and created lessons 3 and 4 of the journaling class which comprises of 19 pages worth of typing. 

Here is one page of one class ... 

Any of those questions that are significant for you will be turned into a story to add to the journal. The story should only take ten minutes to create. That's the beauty of this class. Small steps to create a meaningful story of your life.

I'm going to create it as an online course. Each lesson will include a 5 minute video of my fabulous self talking about what the lesson entails and then there will be a downloadable lesson for people to either edit on screen or print out to complete by hand. 

Sounds easy right? 🤪

I've also created the ad for the local newsletter and written up a community news item about what's happening in the training room of the shop. I paid the invoice for last month's advertisement.

It might be time for me to get out of bed, stretch my legs and get some blood circulating through my body! I have to collect all of my print outs from the printer anyway!

I am happy and looking forward to a great week ahead!

Nite all.

I’m Late! I’m Late!

It’s almost midnight and I just realised I forgot to do this!

It’s been crazy weather today and my big heavy “OPEN” sign that usually sits strong and sturdy at the front door of the shop was thrown against the glass front and then dragged along the path towards the rear car park, over the step into the driveway where it smashed onto its side!

Luckily the “Town Spokesperson” was there and was able to pull it upright for me and wheel it back to the shop where I made the decision to park it inside the front door. Thank goodness there was no car driving into or out of the car park at the time because that huge sign could have done some serious damage!

We’ve received some good rainfalls and I think there’s a bit more on the way yet.

Considering the dreadful weather, I was happy with today’s sales and I had time to clear some paperwork, create more files (seems to be a never ending job), print some invoices, pay a supplier and browse through some catalogues.

I made a lengthy “to do” list for my Sunday in bed and imagined my addition to the piece of art that I’m working on.

We were home by 1.30pm and I put a load of washing on before putting my feet up to watch the movie “About Time” which was supposed to be a comedy but had me in tears for a good portion of it. I enjoyed it though.

Super Saturday football was disappointing because my team lost a game that most predicted they would win.

Now I’m off to sleep.

Nite all.

On a Roll

I expected three deliveries today but received just one, which means that I’ll have to be at the shop on Monday when the other two arrive.

Bugger.

My first task this morning was to replace the ink cartridges in the new printer. The cartridges that it comes with are the equivalent of samples so they didn’t last very long. It was a surprisingly easy task so it was a good way to start my work day.

Next, I put together three more Imagine Ellie stands, rearranged the main table to create a space to fit one of the new stands.

I unpacked and priced the small package of new stock.

Photocopied a bunch of receipts and filed them.

Created three new files.

Spoke to a supplier and changed an order.

Served a steady flow of customers - it was an average day of sales.

Took more stock from the Men’s Shed and paid them for a couple of sales.

Paid one of my consignment ladies AND Sassy Duck for a big order that should arrive in about ten days.

Tidied my desk - which lasted all of one hour 😳

Had a visit from The Motivator. She brought some pre-loved clothes in, picked up some items that I‘d ordered for her and took home some things that she’d left behind in June.

We discussed her using the treatment room starting in November.

AH and I arrived home after 2.30pm and all I wanted was to sit down, put my feet up and not think about anything except TV entertainment for the remainder of the day. Mind numbing, vacuous and restful for the brain.

It’s 7.30pm and I’m about to play the BBC2 radio quiz. After that, I’m off to bed to fall asleep watching the 2nd footy game!

I’m looking forward to my weekend off with nothing planned except resting.

Nite all.

Slow But Productive

I remember looking at the clock at 10.30am and feeling impressed with myself for achieving so much in such a short time.

Do you think I can remember now, what I actually did?

I got nothin’

It was a very slow sales day. There were LOTS of people through the door from the minute it opened til the minute we closed, but very few wanted to spend money.

I priced 3 boxes of stock and put it out for display, priced and hung the preloved clothing, filed the invoices, actually made some lunch and ate it, wrote out an Intrinsic order in my “Wish List” book and packed up ready to leave at 2pm (I think I’ve remembered everything 😳)

Adoring Husband and I drove into The Bay.

We stopped off at the vet to pay her for the visit to our house when she took care of Jack.

Cartridge World was the only place with my printer ink in stock, so that was our next stop.

I decided to top up my stock of small canvases, so we stopped briefly at Spotlight before doing a small shop at the supermarket.

I decided to buy a blender to keep at the shop so that I can make my green juices and berry smoothies during the day.

Finally, we came home, both exhausted! 

Barramundi fillets cooked in butter and served with a big salad for dinner.

Now I am ready for bed. I fit a lot into today!

Nite all.

Out of Time

It was a very emotional meditation this morning with at least half of the attendees shedding some cleansing tears. 

One lady picked up her keys and almost left but The Gypsy gently asked her to “please stay” and that person waited patiently at the end of the class to give The Gypsy a warm hug.

I appreciate these classes more and more as I see the changes occurring in people who are ready to heal. It’s awesome to be a part of something so remarkable.

I got to spend a good 30 minutes with The Gypsy after the class and she showed me how to set up the massage table that I bought from her. It will be much easier to massage Adoring Husband’s tight and aching muscles if he’s on the table as opposed to the bed.

A handful of ladies stayed behind for coffee and didn’t leave until well after 11am. There was lots of laughter and noise coming from the training room which created a great energy in the shop. 

They’ve decided to form a craft group that meets on Wednesdays in the training room a couple of hours after meditation has finished - for a small cost. They will do all the work setting up the room so I don’t have to do anything. I like the idea.

As those girls walked OUT the door, a bag of preloved clothes walked IN the door, closely followed by two boxes of stock from the courier, which remain unopened in the training room as I write this.

There will be more stock arriving tomorrow and Friday, so I’m going to be a busy little bumble bee this week!

I spoke to a couple of suppliers, served a lot of customers (a good sales day) and spent a lot of time trying to figure out why ‘some’ of my emails aren’t landing in my laptop inbox. That’s still a work in progress.

AH picked me up at 2pm and we drove directly home where I changed out of my work clothes, parked my butt on the couch and began watching a Netflix series called ‘Good Girls’. It was recommended by the girls doing the journaling class. It’s a good one!

We had pork loin chops with salad for dinner, compared our footy tips, watched The Bachelor and came to bed.

The day has passed quickly!

Nite all.

Big Day In

Just as I suspected, I was not impressed about having to wake up early to do all the ‘things’ that I didn’t do yesterday! I pushed it to the limits and got up 30 minutes earlier than usual.

Adoring Husband and I arrived at the shop, cleared the art stuff away and set the tables up for the journaling class AND for morning coffee with the girls.

He was also kind enough to watch the shop while I ordered my coffee and checked the mail

There were five of us for coffee but I have no idea what time the girls left because I was serving a strange young man who took more time than I’d have liked. We’d all had a nice morning together anyway ... as we do.

Which reminds me ... the link to Bamboo sheets and towels that we were discussing today.

Considering how wet the weather was today, sales were better than I thought they’d be, but I still had time to finish off the class sheets for journaling, clear all the washed up art tools from the kitchen and chat with a couple of suppliers about orders I’ve made.

I took delivery of the Imagine Ellie order, but didn’t have the time to unpack it all. AH helped me put one of the stands together but the rest was put aside for tomorrow.

Two ladies joined me for journaling this afternoon. I must say that I enjoy hearing their stories and they are both around my age so I can relate to everything they talk about. There’s a bit of raucous laughter, a touch of shame, quite a few “me too!”s and some “ahas” scattered about.

The process is quite cathartic and it triggers lots of forgotten fun memories and some not so fun, but always worth writing about.

While we were in the training room, the new cleaner was dusting. She did a very thorough job on the small section that she got done in the hour. She probably got through about one third of the shop, but that third is very shiny clean!

At 3.30pm AH arrived to help me fold up the tables, vacuum and set up the room for meditation tomorrow morning. It was almost 4.30pm by the time we pulled into the driveway and I was ready to put my feet up.

Sausages and salad for dinner. AH is good with that barbecue!

I’ve gotta be up early for meditation tomorrow so here is where I sign off.

Nite all.

Not Much

So much for having a lot to do on my day off!

I DID have a lot to do ... I simply chose not to do any of it!

Because I can 😬

I stayed in bed until midday, ordered some stock, printed some ‘decluttering’ sheets, checked my emails, added some more content to Tuesday’s journaling class, created some ‘then’ and ‘now’ photos of the shop to celebrate three years of operation and added them to a long post for the Facebook page.

I got out of bed to make lunch and even though I intended on adding more to the painting, I chose instead to watch a Netflix movie with Adoring Husband ... of course he chose to find other things to do, so I watched it mostly on my own!

It was, nonetheless, a pleasant distraction.

Together we began watching the series “Lucifer”. After just one episode, I’m not sure what I think of it yet. I’m willing to watch more before I make a judgement.

It has been a very lazy rainy Monday afternoon which I have thoroughly enjoyed.

My punishment for not doing all the ‘things’ today, is having to get up early in the morning to do some of those ‘things’! Which is ok right now, but tomorrow morning I’ll be kicking myself 🥴

On that note ...

Nite all.

Artfully Deliberate!

So, last week, somebody asked me If I knew an artist who could create a particular painting for him, which he wants to gift it to his wife for Christmas.

I thought about it for a while and replied “I’ll give it a go!”

😳

What was I thinking?

I actually told him that I would make an attempt and if I failed I would give him a couple of names to follow up.

So I started today.

It’s the largest piece of art that I’ve ever attempted and this canvas has been sitting in my studio for a year because I was too afraid to use it.

Even though I can show you this stage, I can’t show you any more until after Christmas, but I’m happy with the progress so far.

As you can see, I did NOT spend all day in bed as planned!

Even though I sent Adoring Husband to the shop to pick up my diary and a couple of other books and a folder that I forgot to bring home yesterday, I didn’t actually do any book work or paperwork or studying or ordering or ANY of the ‘things’.

I did a baked chicken and vegetables for dinner, which was delicious.

Because I had to stop and let the paint dry before beginning the next stage, I sat in the lounge room with AH and watched the classic old movie “The Court Jester” with Danny Kaye. An oldie but a goodie.

I dipped my toes in the pool ... still a bit too chilly for a swim, but it’s getting close!

Nothing more to report for Sunday, but I’ve got a lot planned for Monday. I hope I can squeeze it all in.

Nite all.

Deliberately Artful

It was a lovely morning to welcome Beauty home after her extended time away. She has dealt with some trying times of late and was in need of some hugs of love and friendship. An impromptu morning tea was just what the doctor ordered.

I had a busy 90 minutes with customers in the shop, and during the quiet time I ordered more stock and printed out some of my second lesson for the journaling group, so I was quite productive until 30 minutes before the art class was due to begin.

Oh and it was an excellent sales day 👍

I got changed into my casual gear and my apron, prepared the fruit 🍉 for afternoon tea and was ready to welcome everyone as they arrived, taking their payments and getting them all settled for the class.

The class was full on!

The technique that I selected for this week (thanks Krocca! 🥴) took a lot less time to complete than I expected. It was something new for me and I didn’t get a chance to attempt it before the class so it was a surprise to realise at 2.20pm that we had all finished the three planned pieces and there was still an hour left to play with!

Some, but not all, of today’s creations:

Everyone seemed happy with their efforts and all left with a smile on their face. That’s always a good thing.

I wanted to share something not likely to be reported by mainstream media ...

Letter from Victorian doctors 

Adoring Husband and I enjoyed butter chicken for dinner tonight - prepared in the 30 minutes between football games this afternoon.

I am looking forward to a good sleep and a lazy Sunday in bed - although I have quite a bit planned in my bedroom/study/office. 

Have an amazing Sunday.

Nite all.

I’m in Heaven

My suppliers are sending me catalogue after catalogue after catalogue.

I’m in shopper’s heaven!

This is a true test of my self control, which has been teetering between “solid as a rock” and “non-existent” for the last three months.

A customer walked in today and exclaimed “jeez, I wouldn’t want to be the one doing stocktake in here!” so I gave him directions to Van Cootens and told him to come back and tell me which out of the two shops he’d prefer to do stocktake for.

No contest really 😳

Every hour on the hour I tallied up my sales and thanked the universe for ‘providing’.

It was an unusual day of sales because the pattern is normally no sales until 11am, good sales from then until 12.30pm and then dribs and drabs or next to nothing until 3pm.

Today I had equal sales every hour on the hour from 10am until closing time.

I took it pretty easy for the day, mostly going through catalogues and making wish lists in my book.

I had a quick visit from The Motivator and we exchanged big squishy hugs. Short but sweet.

There is a special birthday for a local lady on Saturday so I assisted in a few gift selections. She is well respected and well loved, so there was much thought going into her gifts.

One of my regular ladies came by especially to show me her car, with which she assures me, she is deeply in love 😍 and I could understand why.

After closing time, I rushed home to make an important phone call which lasted for over an hour and I soaked up every minute of it! More later on that!

We had the usual easy Friday night dinner cooked with love by Adoring Husband, who informs me that the pool temperature has climbed to 24°C. Another 4° and I’ll be in for the first swim of the season. Another 8° before AH dives in! I can’t wait!

We’ve watched two games of footy - still watching the bunnies play a good game against Melbourne Storm and there are 25 minutes remaining.

It’s a nice early night for me.

Nite all.

Getting My Art On

Adoring Husband helped me set up the tables for the art workshop on Saturday and then it took me three hours to put together each place setting.

That’s much less time than usual!

I had to mix up some more white paint, but other than that, it was an easy set up.

It was a slow day for sales. Lots of customers who all spent a little which didn’t add up to much, but each of them were friendly and chatty and brought good energy into the shop.

I got to say hello to quite a few doggies who waited outside for their owners. One tiny little black poodle didn’t like me though and warned me with a long low growl! So I left her in peace.

AH had put lamb shanks in the slow cooker so dinner required no effort from me tonight.

I’ve watched my current favourite show, The Bachelor, and I’m now watching my footy team put up a reasonable fight so far against the Panthers. I predict their ‘good fight’ will run out of puff shortly and they will eventually lose by a big margin. It’s definitely not their year.

On that note, I’m off to watch the rest of the game in bed. I had a solid 7.5 hours sleep last night and I’d like a repeat performance tonight if possible.

I expect a nice easy day tomorrow. I’ve found someone to clean at the shop starting next Tuesday, so I might just leave it for her and take it easy tomorrow.

That’s it. Short and sweet tonight.

Nite all.

Two Extremes

What a crazy morning!

It was almost a full house for meditation and the class was powerfully affirming in so many ways as we discussed our powers in relation to our virtues.

I have been practicing my powers diligently and I feel like I’m in a good place, making sure I have a good balance between self care and work while not being affected by outside dramas, knowing when to mind my own business and leaving others to mind their business.

At the three month mark of working the shop on my own, I still feel energised, enthusiastic and motivated. I’m ensuring a good sleep pattern, keeping my nutrition levels high (which helps with energy levels), drinking lots of water, meditating daily, practicing my deep breathing, doing a little self-kinergetics (as taught to me by The Motivator) and drinking my lemon water and broth daily.

The one thing that’s lacking is my movement/activity/fitness practices. Non-existent at this point. Unless you count being on my feet a LOT at work! Now that it’s warming up in the mornings, I’ll soon begin riding my trike to work again.

Anyway! As I was saying about this morning ...

After meditation, the usual ladies stayed behind for coffee in the training room. I had too much to do, so I stayed at my desk, head down, bum up!

At 9.30am the shop filled up with customers and for the next hour, I was SO busy and so focused just trying to be efficient and fast and keeping everyone happy, I had no time to write down sales between customers.

In that one hour, I almost broke my daily sales record and I was certain it was going to be a blinder of a day!

It was 10.20am when the last customer from that hectic hour left.

Even though I had MANY more customers through the doors for the remainder of the day, I did not make one more sale!

Can you believe it!?

I had a very productive day anyway, ordering the new range of Sassy Duck bags, catching up on paperwork, annotating the first journaling class, creating new folders for suppliers, paid a bill, talked to a couple of people about the cleaning job I’ve got available and more.

At 2pm, which is my new closing time, I pulled in the flags, chairs and signs and went through the closing routine by myself because I forgot to tell AH that I’d changed the time! He turned up at 2.30pm wondering what was going on!

I must say, after the early start and all that productivity, I was ready to sit back and put my feet up so I didn’t bring any work home with me and I have been a couch potato all afternoon. AH had leftover curried chicken for dinner and I heated up some broth with a mixture of fresh wild mushrooms for mine.

I can’t believe it’s heading towards 11pm already. Bed time for me.

Nite all.

Be Nice

Even though I was woken early by the sound of psychotic dog Colli howling at the garage door, I had a great start to the day and arrived at work early to set up for morning tea with my girls.

There was snorting laughter, inappropriate insults, some gentle venting, holiday planning, medical discussions and other general silliness that filled two hours!

That’s always my favourite way to start Tuesdays.

As is always the case 11:00am marked the beginning of a 90 minute influx of customers so I was kept on my toes.

Luckily Adoring Husband phoned me so I asked him to come help me set up the training room for the new workshop/class/gathering which was set to begin in an hour.

This means that I need to be especially nice in this post because there could possibly be four new readers watching!

The first gathering for ‘Journaling Your Life’ happened today.

I, for one, really enjoyed it and I was especially inspired by the enthusiasm and motivation of the four fabulous women who sat at the table with me. All very different and all with remarkable stories to tell. I hope I get to hear more of them over the weeks to come.

I’m not just saying that 🤪

After the ladies left, Adoring Husband folded away the tables and I set the room up for meditation in the morning.

It didn’t feel like it but at the end of the day, when I added up the sales, it was a good day!

Once again, no rest for the wicked and as soon as we arrived home, I changed out of my work clothes to act as AH’s trades assistant and helped instal a new toilet cistern!

Talk about a Jill of all Trades.

I was sure to wash my hands thoroughly before preparing curried chicken for dinner!

I’ve just about dislocated my jaw from excessive yawning this evening so I feel that early sleep is on the cards. It will be another early start tomorrow.

Oh and as promised yesterday, here are the new purchases from Tinkerbells ...

Nite all.

Shopping Spree

After a lazy couple of hours in bed this morning, Adoring Husband and I drove into The Bay for some essentials and some ‘not so’ essentials!

First stop Tinkerbells.

I could EASILY have spent $20,000 in there ... if only I had that sort of money spare for jewellery and crystals! They have so many beautiful new jewellery pieces, amazing carved, polished and natural large crystals and remarkable geode caves, artistic pieces with three different styles of crystals put together.

*sigh*

I had to make difficult choices.

I haven’t taken photos yet so I will describe them and put photos up tomorrow.

I got a large silver and turquoise ring to go with the turquoise pendant I bought last week.

I selected a multi-stone bracelet with aquamarine crystal, blue topaz and pearl.

Because I’d already spent more than I’d planned, and I didn’t want to miss out on it, I put on lay buy another bracelet with green crystals including prehnite and peridot.

I had selected the most amazing natural fluorite crystal the size of a rockmelon, the colours of which were the deepest hues of ocean green - I was immediately drawn to it - but I practiced self control and returned it to it’s place on the shelf.

Adoring Husband sat in the car for 45 minutes while I talked business with the owners and admired all the beautiful ‘stuff’ that they excitedly gathered for my viewing.

Thank goodness I don’t own that shop! I’d be keeping everything for myself!

We left there to go in search of mini squeeze bottles for the art class, stock up on new paints - some premixed and some not - small canvases and some new mini torch blowers.

Of course we had to make a detour to the Su Jus Cafe to stock up on slices, muffins and green juice.

We dropped my purchases off at the shop, bought some meat for tea from the butcher, grabbed a coffee for AH and we were both exhausted when we arrived home at 3.30pm.

Little Colli was very excited to see us! That’s the longest she’s been left at home alone since we lost Ruby and Jack. She seemed to survive ok.

No rest for the wicked. I had to phone a rep and make an order as soon as I arrived home.

I emailed the September newsletter to my members.

I finished the first lesson for the journaling course.

Cooked a chicken, mushroom, onion, spinach, broccoli and garlic dish for dinner.

Printed out some sheets for the class.

It has been a productive day with retail therapy so I shall sleep feeling very satisfied with myself!

Nite all

Mainstream Witholding

This is what’s happening all around the world ...

800,000 people protesting in Berlin.

20,000 protesting in Warsaw.

Belgium, Romania, Germany, Netherlands, Nepal, India, Ghana, England, Poland, New Zealand, Ireland and many others protesting against the lockdown laws.

I don’t know the numbers but the photos give an indication ...

Protests are planned Australia wide on 5th September.

Mainstream media are not telling these stories.

You can see that it’s not just a couple of hundred conspiracy theorists dressed in tie dye. People are waking up ... a little late ... but better late than never.

I think it’s been well proven that the people we need to protect are the elderly and the immune compromised. There are better ways to do that than shutting down whole cities, economies, social systems and disconnecting families from each other.

As I said at the beginning of the year, it’s a social experiment that we, as a world community, have now failed for six months. We’ve proven that we are easily controlled and manipulated and that instilling fear makes us willing to give up our jobs, our freedoms, our lifestyles and our social connections.

Anyway, enough of that.

I’ve had a lovely Sunday in bed writing up my newsletter, planning my first journaling lesson and working on the next art workshop.

Adoring Husband brought me my lemon water, my broth, my coffee and my avocado on toast for breakfast. No more bread for me (just quietly).

We enjoyed lamb rump and salad for dinner, followed by some vegan vanilla ice cream. Yum. I’m going to get some right now and eat it in bed!

What a lovely lazy Sunday.

Nite all.