Nice to see you!

Three major events occurred for me last year (2010), all in the space of about 2 weeks. I turned 50. The following day I got married. Two weeks later, my oldest daughter became pregnant with her first child and my first grandchild.

Most middle-aged people will tell you that in their minds, they still feel 20 something. It's the same for me.

Wasn't it only yesterday that I was planning a night out with guys from the surf club? That gorgeous new perm. Flaired, cuffed denims and the red t-shirt with the off-the-shoulder frill. Corked platform wedgies. **sigh**

Suddenly I'm looking in the mirror and wondering how 30 years can flash by so damned quickly!

So here I am in cyberspace, sharing my genuine shock and horror with anyone who'll listen and maybe I'll even meet some other over 50s who find themselves in the same predicament!

Welcome to my dilemna!!

Saturday, November 26, 2016

G.G. Heaven

I must apologise for not posting here yesterday, but my eyes and ears were only for "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life" which was a TV mini series revival which took six hours of my evening, from 8pm.

I arrived home from the club at 7.30pm and prepared a very quick dinner (which was reheated leftovers from lunch),  and then I set myself up with junk food, ready to binge watch six hours of two long time favourite TV characters.

It was mostly fabulous .. a couple of slow bits and a couple of surprises. One of the highlights for me, was the cameo by one of my all time favourite singers, Carole King!!

A number of times I felt my emotions overwhelm me as old memories came flooding back and I felt all warm and fuzzy and teary.

It was 2.30am when I climbed into bed, but it took me a full hour to relax enough to fall asleep. Truth be told, I could have watched it again right from the beginning, but I forced myself to practice the meditation breathing until I fell into a deep five hour sleep.

It's now just after 9pm and I can feel my inner snooze button slowly being pressed, so I will finish quickly here and head off to bed. If I can catch up on the missed sleep, I can focus completely on my work tomorrow.

I've just realised that I only have four days until the end of the month, which is the deadline that I gave myself to present my website! Eep! How did that get here so quickly???

I also have four days to submit a photo in this month's Flickr challenge, which is themed 'beverage'. I doubt that I'll get one in, but you never know what will present itself between now and then!

Meanwhile, The Motivator discovered a Tawny Frogmouth nest in a tree that branches over her driveway, so I got myself some lovely photos of the cute little chicks and I will attempt to get more every couple of days to track their progress.





It was my sister, Squirt's, birthday yesterday and the best I could do, was a collage of photos to post on her Facebook page and a singing message left on her voicemail. So if you actually read this, which I doubt, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SQUIRT!

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Lady Lynn who also celebrated her birthday yesterday! xo (I know that she reads this lol)

I attended an essential oil party today. The brand is Le Reve, they are made in Australia, and I was so impressed with the quality of these oils and other products, that I'm hosting a party on Tuesday 6th December at 10am ... so all of my lovely coffee ladies, I hope that you can attend and I will provide morning tea!

The party is so that I can order MORE! They will make lovely Christmas gifts too :)

Anyway, enough of this frivolity. I've taken too long to write this and it's suddenly 10pm!

Nite all.



Thursday, November 24, 2016

Light Me Up

The Christmas lights are up!


There is still one more item to add.  I ordered a Santa sitting on an outback dunny, online and it came without the power box, so that should arrive next week and then our Christmas display should be complete!

I left the house quite early this morning while workers were here installing solar lights in our kitchen/family room. We now have a new solar panel on the roof and four bright solar lights making what was once a dull area in our home, nice and bright.

The remainder of my day was spent socialising in the morning, showing off Ms Mac to anybody who cared, and in the afternoon, Adoring Husband and I drove into The Bay to stock up on junk food for my Gilmore Girls binge watch tomorrow night.

While we were in town, we lunched at Wild Lotus, which was nice, but I ignored my full button and suffered all afternoon with a very full belly!! It's been a while since we ate there and it was quite busy, but the service was still good, as was the food.

We picked up our FROG box on the way home.

No work on the website today, but tomorrow is looking good for some desk time.

It looks like I could have an early night. It's not even 10.30pm and I'm headed to bed right now!

Nite all.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Distractions

Well, I finished the ebook, but Ms Mac distracted me with all of her wonderful new features and I just didn't get around to linking the ebook to my website! Ah well, I still have a week to get that sorted.

I registered a business name .. because some of the wholesale sites wouldn't accept just an ABN to sell their goods and wares to me .. and I figured that I'm going to be so successful that I didn't want anybody stealing my thunder!

I was very surprised to discover that "Romance Your Life" was not taken as a business name or as a trademark or as a domain name.

So that will be me - Romance Your Life - coming soon! Watch this space.

Adoring Husband has been very busy (with a little help from me) finishing Christmas lights today, but unfortunately you will have to wait until tomorrow for a photo, when all the solar lights are working properly.

Don't walk past my house at night if you suffer from epilepsy, because the flashing lights could cause you some difficulty!

It looks very Christamassy!

This Friday is the BIG day - Gilmore Girls! Four new 90 minute episodes of "Gilmore Girls - A Year in the Life" becomes available on Netflix at 6pm Friday.

I can't tell you how tempted I am to stay at home and forego my night at the bowls club, so that I can watch it from 6pm!!

Tomorrow, we are heading into The Bay so that I can buy some salted caramel coconut ice cream and some potato chips, as my 'junk food' to binge on while binge watching Gilmore Girls. Because that's what you do.

Another fun thing ... three of my favourite movies over four nights, starting tonight with 'The Holiday', Friday night with 'Love Actually' and then Saturday night with 'Notting Hill'.

Of course 'Love Actually' clashes with Gilmore Girls, so that's out, besides, it's only a month until Vegan Chickie and I watch it together, miles apart, on Christmas Eve.

It seems that my life completely revolves around electronic screens at the moment - television or computers!

Big day tomorrow. Skylights being installed in the morning, two friends to visit with Ms Mac, a trip into The Bay and the FROG box to be collected.

Things to do. People to see. Places to go.

Nite all.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

She's Here!!

I had almost given up hope, and a strong wave of disappointment was just about to wash over me, when I heard the heavy rumble of the delivery truck outside my house.

The tracking information showed that my MacBook Pro was in Maryborough this morning, so I was counting on a delivery today!

In all of my delivery experiences, the truck has arrived pretty much spot on 12.05pm, but just to torture me, it was almost 12.30pm when he finally pulled up.

To make matters even more torturous, it arrived just at the end of my lunch preparations. So I had to finish the cooking process, eat my lunch, tidy up ... THEN Adoring Husband announced that he needed help to untangle some Christmas lights (seriously!).

It was my good fortune that it took all of 12 seconds to complete that job, so I made a hasty escape to my workspace with the new MacBook in my hot little hands!



She is so smooth and light and shiny new and slimline and fast and clever and different ... I have a bit of a learning curve ahead of me.

Within ten minutes, she was up and running and I spent the afternoon getting to know her.

I'm pleased to say that I finished my ebook before Ms Mac arrived ... at least I thought I had, until I realised that it might require a 'contents' page and a summary ... so I will do those tomorrow, and then figure out how to link it to my website.

The Motivator emailed me some links to a few wholesaler's sites, where I can source silver jewellery and various accessories, so I subscribed to those sites as well as to a big Gift Fair that happens in Sydney and Melbourne a couple of times a year.

So, my achievements for the day include, all but finishing my ebook, pinning my new 2017 calendar wall planner to the wall behind my desk, clearing 300 emails, subscribing to 4 wholesaler websites and the Gift Fair, printing out the itinerary for my return flights to Melbourne in March, cooking lunch and dinner, decluttering my desk and setting up Ms Mac.

I'm a bit excited about how much I can achieve  this week. I'm feeling very motivated and inspired!

It's almost midnight and I'm off to bed to listen to some guided meditation ... my brain is very hyped up tonight so I really need to focus on calming it down before sleep.

Have a great hump day.

Nite all.  

Monday, November 21, 2016

Fully Wasted!

I sat up until after 2.30am watching the four nations football final between Australia and New Zealand, and for some unknown reason I woke up at 7am. That is not enough sleep to function effectively.

Needless to say, my brain wasn't in the best place for website building.

I did come VERY close to finishing the ebook, but most of my attention was aimed at my new academy books, which arrived in the mail today!

The goal workbook for both business and life, the diary/planner, the poster calendar/planner and the pad of 'to do' lists.





Once I get the website/business up and running, all of these resources are going to motivate, encourage and support me through my first year.

I am on the precipice!!

Apart from lack of sleep, my biggest downfall was eating grilled fish and chips from our local cafe, for lunch. The fish was fantastic, but chips ... oh the chips ... I do love hot potato chips, but it's been so long since I ate a whole plate of simple carbs and my poor body was not prepared for the insulin spike. By 2pm, I could barely keep my eyes open.

I climbed onto my bed and two hours later, I opened my eyes!! I still felt very lethargic and lay in bed reading for another hour.

So there was my precious afternoon completely wasted.

My new laptop did not arrive today and I fully self sabotaged my first full day for working at my desk.

It's now 10.30pm and I am going to bed early.

Tomorrow I will be full of energy and I will absolutely make the most of every hour available to me!! No procrastinating. No sabotaging. No excuses.

I've got this!

Nite all.

Do Not Disturb

What a weekend!

Saturday was an early start to get some housework and washing done and prepare dinner in advance, for Best Cousin in the World's overnight visit.

Adoring Husband and I were invited to The Blonde Bombshell's house for birthday drinks on Saturday afternoon, so I decided to bake her a birthday cake .. except my oven has decided to play silly buggers with me, so I had to improvise and found a delicious paleo, raw chocolate cake to make.



I've never used this recipe before and I made it non-paleo by adding chocolate whipped cream as one of the layers. I made extra so that there would be enough to create three small tarts for us to have for dessert with Best Cousin in the World.

There was lots of chocolate and lots of strawberries and blueberries and lots of nuts. I loved it and will make it again for AH and I to indulge ourselves.

AH, with his sore back, didn't accompany me to the Blonde Bombshell's house, but dropped me off for an hour. He picked me up with about 20 minutes to spare before BCIW arrived.

We began drinking wine almost as soon as she walked in the door. AH barbecued our steak for dinner while I made the dressing for the salad that I'd prepared earlier in the day and reheated the boiled jacket potatoes. It was an easy dinner and BCIW and I sat up until midnight catching up.

It took me about 20 minutes to stack the dishwasher and clean the kitchen before heading to bed where I fell into a coma for seven hours! I considered adding a short blog post before bed, but my bed won that argument .. well it wasn't much of an argument that close to 1am.

There wasn't much time with BCIW this morning. She left to pick up Marco Polo from the hospital and ten minutes later, The Motivator arrived to pick me up for the next leg of our survey work for the Frack Free Burrum Heads group.

The Blonde Bombshell issued an invitation for coffee and cake this morning, but unfortunately, I was committed to completing the survey.

The Motivator and I were both dreading it, after our poor results during the week and I came very close to phoning her to cancel, but I'm glad that I didn't! We were very well received today and all but two of the residents gave us their details and stated that they did not want gas fields in our community.

Of the two who turned us away, one man stated that if the good lord gave us coal and gas, then we should mine it and he was 'all for progress'. Another man who works in the mining industry didn't want to get involved.

It only took us 90 minutes to finish our work and we decided to reward ourselves with a coffee at the cafe and sat in the air conditioned eating area to debrief and share a gluten free pear and walnut muffin .. which was delicious!

I arrived home some time after 1pm. AH and I had been invited to a lunch time barbecue, so I phoned the joyful duo to let them know that we would not be attending. AH's back is still sore and I was well and truly done for the weekend.

This allowed me to spend almost four hours at my desk where I completed three more chapters of my ebook, researched some more wholesale sites and caught up on some emails.

Dinner was super easy tonight. Leftover Hainan chicken and I added the leftover chopped vegetables from the other night, so it took twenty minutes to prepare, then leftover raw chocolate cake for dessert.

I looked at the clock at 9.30pm and expected that I could be in bed by 10.30pm, however, it is now half past midnight and here I am still tapping away at my keyboard!

The four nations rugby league final between New Zealand and Australia is about to start and I'm considering sitting up to watch it. Perhaps I will watch it in bed .. see how long I last.

I am looking forward to having a week without commitments and finally making some progress on the website. Wish me luck!

Nite all.