It's gonna have to be laterrrr

 Hello Possums (yes I'm really picking the Ozzie lingo!)

This was supposed to be a quick apology for my late upload of the next book .... big breath... however I have been busy.. oh yes, apart from the terribly thrilling hermit like days of contemplating my navel, counting the wrinkles on my face and wondering if anyone was going to put two and two together with all the goings on in the world, I house sat for my friend Meow Meow, who has a menagerie of animals that need feeding,  look nothing spooky, just a few chooks, ducks , guinea pig and doggo.

Chooks laid an egg for me!

We also had a bit of an emergency at home (no I did not call the ambos out of sheer desperation to see the hunky driver... puhleeseee... I go to the firestation for that! .. KIDDING!!! OMG.. people, I'm not that bad... yet) 

I'm thinking really hard

So I was having a bit of a rest ala "gone with the wind" (what! you haven't seen that classic.. what has the world come to !) anyway, I was lolling around on my chaise lounge when I hear BB yell out for me, sounded a bit dire, so I hustled out to the back and all I saw were two outstretched arms , and BB saying "take the phone, just take the phone ",  I'm like " uh.. okkkk". BB says "it's the vet, I can't talk to them  now" and dashes off to the back yard .  I gingerly take the phone and say " hello?"  long story short, its the local vet, she's giving me the name and address of the emergency vet's and instructions on the colour of the dog's gums...  right.

  So I dash back out to BB who is now cradling the doggo in her lap and I relay the address and then it hits me, we don't have a car because of all days today the car was being SERVICED!  So I say hang on, I 'll go see if the neighbours are around.  I slowly panted to the neighbours on the right (I'm operating on one lung ok, i get breathless fast!). "Hello!  Hello!"  no one is a round, right so then I duck to the left and I see our neighbour though his window, and tap on it say " hi, I'm your neighbour two houses down could you please give us a ride to emergency vets as dog is choking and we have't got the car today!".  Our neighbour Brody bless him says, "yup let me finish up and I'll be right over.

I hobble back to our house (i was wearing my mankiest sweats , you know the kind, with the elastic all gone and some holes in it but boy are the comfy.... uh huh) anyway I get to BB, tell her Brody will be here in a bit, carry the doggo out and I'l be there in a jiffy as I gotta go get some pants on ( listen, murphys law and all that be damned, I was  gonna wear a. proper pair of jeans and not embarrass BB and my daughter .. nuff said). so Brody arirves, BB grabs a towel off the line, we dash into his car,  I totally forgot his lead and as we screech to a stop outside the emergency Vets,  I have to leg it again inside( I must have lost at least 1 kilo yo) relayed to the vet nurse , "have a reactive doggo, barely breathing, choking on summink, forgot his lead, can you sort it out?!! " blink blink   ... 

"Yes of course" says competent nurse and organises for doggo to go through the back way.  They get all the Vets on call and have a con fab.  BB by this time is on the blower to Lan to relay the news, and of course the CAR has to be picked up!   We do a tag team, after reassurances that it will be a while before doggo is taken to O.R.,  I stay behind at emergency, BB races of to get the car before closing time  and Lan is 10 mins away from emergency.   

 Vet comes out to give me the news , and explains the procedure, the object is stuck stuck.  First she gives me the good news, ok ok we can deal with this , it's fairly straight forward, then she hits me with the 10% chance if it goes wrong... my eyes go round like saucers, flash backs of when that eejeet doctor was talking to me ....no he was patronising me with the Radiation treatment and then got  right into the after effects and the possibility of heart failure, breast cancer, lung infection... and I remember saying to the eejeet Radiologist Doc, "man you're really not selling this to me" ,... I digress, so I say "I've go to get Lan's approval a as it's her dog and she's ten mins away, then the Vet hits me with the price, my eyes teared up, uh.. it came to the same amount of my two day stay at the emergency hospital! .. 

Anyway, Lani arrived within 10 mins of the Vet con fab with me, she agreed to the procedure, and then BB and her had to pay deposits as Vets had to get that first before anything was done.  Yes policy. ahem

4 hours later, BB and Lan go pick up the doggo, who's getting anxiety from hanging around the hospital and groggy from anaesthesia, and show me the pics of what was stuck down his gullet.... poor thing. 

Doggo is all good now!  

So yes it was all a bit chaotic  for a few days but we're back to me binging on K-dramas.    I'm halfway with getting the next batch of books done,  thank you for reading my blog and watching my videos!

Love

Dx

Wake me up before you go pro

"You know how girl's can say - oh I really like her she's great, but if I were to say the same thing  I'd cop it big time mate !!" , "yeah mate, that f@rked yeah, and then". .. Argggghhhh do I have to wake up to this verbal vomit being spouted by the tradies who are working on the finishing touches to the houses next door?   I feel for my headphones on top of my "doona". (when in Australia....) and hit play.. ahhhhh thank the goddess for music. I scoot out of bed and look out my window at the two young tradies below who have no idea that the entire street can hear this heartfelt 'woe is me' bleat... Uh grow up please! I grumble to myself.  Such is life now that we've moved house, we had no idea that the development next door would take this long. Sometimes I wake up to the sounds of drilling (the drill guys the drill... tsk) or banging (again with a hammer...sheesh) and or someone has brought along a MEGA speaker, seriously the size of luggage, ok ok not the 25 kilo bags more like the 7kg carry on ones, but still.. and has ramped up the volume to the max with everything from mumble rap to Ozzie country songs. I shall not complain.. much.. because sometimes when I hear them all laughing together it makes me smile, how wonderful to have a great day filled with such good energy.

Tradie Matey

Every time I think of setting up to video my vlog, I wonder what conversations from the tradies will be picked up on my mic ! Can you imagine? ha ha ha, mind you it would add some spice and humour to the vlog!! Something I feel has been somewhat lacking in my life for a bit, last year was pretty dark, two of my closest friends passed away suddenly within months of each other, that hated phone call when all you hear is sobbing and sharp intakes of breath as the news is broken to you. I'm no stranger to death, we have a complicated relationship, it started when death took my husband away 20 years ago. Wait! What??! 20 YEARS??? I had to count back and do some swift calculations there!! WTH? has it been that long? WOW that was unexpected , and Oi none of those black widow jokes!

 

 However it brings to mind how much life has changed, I said to my buddy Johan, why do they not tell you these things about ageing for kerist's sake! The stiff muscles, creaky joints, the GREY of hair and not only on your head, OMG ...really?... yeah (hear that lad's next door, that's what you're going to be talking about soon enough, hah!) When I called up my mentor and ex boss to get some advice on podcasting, I had asked what he was up to these days, he said " D, I turned 70, I'm supposed to be retired but I can't sit around and do nothing! so I still do some consultancy and compose music apart from going for dialysis twice a week" .. umm .. So many of us have made huge changes in our life, either due to illness, (like me), a change of countries (again I raise my hand ) early retirement, ageing, or just to step away for a total change to help with work life balance. What made you make that change? How did you handle it, what goes through your minds, and how has it turned out? 

I'ma leaving on a jet plane

For me , as I was taking another one of my long walks and nodding to the people walking their dogs or fit mums jogging behind the prams and mumbling curses at the cyclists who zip by ringing their bells , UGH! I'm turning into THAT BAG LADY! I swear I can see myself standing at the corner of the street, muttering at everyone going past and casting them evil looks and showing them many different varieties of finger signs!! Anyway I digress I was thinking, so 6 years ago, the universe tapped me on the shoulder and said "Oi, you need to make some massive changes in your life or you and death are going to have a smackdown, here's cancer deal with them first". (cancer is a bitch who needs a kick in the butt) I thought so what did I learn, and how am I now? I can say, that the stress of the lifestyle I had was not worth it, that I should have learned to meditate earlier  and done more yoga! but I should have been truer to myself, and walked away from a load of situations that I had no control over. The first time I heard Eckhart Tolle the power of now I bawled my eyes out, but you have to be in that head space to want to discover, resolve and have inner peace. 

Eckhart Tolle

They say (and please don't ask me who they are) “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” It is the box in your mind that imprisons you, those false parameters that you set for yourself, and only you can break free from them . There are some vestiges of that mindset sometimes but all in all I feel freer, that huge event in my life made me do a 190 degree turn, and forced the change for the better I feel, and so I ask.. What next?

much love

Dx

Spicy Kale and Romesco pasta

My goodness my head is pounding! No one realises how many pictures and musicbeds I have to go through to get this as right as possible!! I know I'm due to write another blog, lets hope it'll be in the next week or so as I'm going to visit the "Godmother"! ooo I can feel some mischief coming on! Until then Dx

Four walls and a window

One would have thought right, as the average common sensical person would, that I would have started blogging ages ago, right when the lockdown or self isolating started.  Where was my brain? Probably in twitter land getting myself worked up about the virus.

I had actually gone to Adelaide visiting my bff Miz P and going to the Fringe Festival there.  A first for me, flying since 2017 and the fringe. 

One of the tents at the Fringe that had some great shows

 It was during the last week that the seriousness of everything hit, I flew back after that to the Sunny Coast as I was concerned that they would shut borders down , (in fact they did 2 weeks after I returned.. phew) Just wanted to be with my kids.  A few days later, I asked myself why.. .. no really... ok ok WHY?

and I find selfies of my kids on my phone???

So there have been more "Zoom" parties and more online gaming
me:  "oi... keep it down" ( live music blaring from one room)
kids" "what ma...I'm in the middle of a game". (the other one doesn't respond)
me". I know, keep it down though, you're so loud!"
kids :" huh?.. wait I can't hear you, hold on.... *shouting to online players*  (live music still playing)
me : " I know you can't hear me,  turn the volume down!!!!
Kids: "gimmie 5 mins and I'll talk to you"
me: ".. what EVER".... *goes to watch Rupaul's drag race*. (noise cancelling headphones.. I love you)

I've gone through a load of seasons of some really banal crap on Netflix, I will never get that 1 hour and 50 mins back.  I've read countless e books, I think I need to go test my eyes... does cross eyed count for reading glasses? I've tended to me little backyard garden (am still having a battle with the ants and the grasshoppers) Grew my first pumpkin, and now have ordered more seeds to see how far I can go!

Talking about pumpkins, check this out.

can you see the strain in the wrists!

PUMPKIN CURRY... YUMZZZZ

Pretty proud of this. So I decided to start my videos again, as more people were leaving messages , this one is about making vegan curry with pumpkin. 

Leaving you with the link, drop me a line ,  always respond.  Have a great week ahead.
DX

Enter the... Monkey!

KUNG HEI FAT CHOY! Happy Chinese New Year of the Fire Monkey!  Wow we've been waiting for this year for a while, it'll bring about many many changes I'm sure.  I'm born in the year of the Dragon, so is my mother as well as my son... can you hear the thunder!?! Heh Heh however the Dragon is great friends with the mischievous monkey so I shall be looking forward to this year.

Well I thought I'd keep this blog short and sweet, as we're all on holiday mode here, again, so after mindlessly watching movie after movie,   of which 'Creed' was included ( and if you ask me, that was a total waste of time I'll never get back, yuck, I could go on but this is not a movie critique blog.) where was I..?? ah yes So whilst everyone has gone away some us continued on with our work, that's the beauty of working from home, you choose your own hours.

The great thing about network marketing is that it doesn't matter what day it is as long as everyone invited can turn up and benefit for the gathering.  What I found most interesting is the cross pollination or cross marketing you can do when you go to your networking get together.  For example when we called on some ladies to come to our  world ventures get together, they brought along their products .  I'd say they range from jewellery to food!

Apart from home made beauty products, which included hand made containers for the jars used, there is also Gelato! My girlfriend Joanna has her own Gelato business, and though she couldn't make our networking meeting, she was prepared to send her products to try, now that's what I call great marketing, about a product that she says and I quote " Best Artisanal Gelato in M'sia guaranteed!"

If you'd like to know more about Jersey Jack here's her link : JERSEY JACK GELATO

Another product shown to me was home made jewellery by Lisa, her brand name is Oxoloco. These beautiful pieces  of jewellery were designed and hand crafted individually and most of them snapped up without any marketing on social platforms at all.  This talented lady also makes beautiful cards , paints fab pictures and stay tuned for an exhibition of her up cycled lamps!

If you'd like to know more about Oxoloc go to OXOLOCO

Which brings me to these glorious hand woven bags, they're absolutely beautiful with eye catching colours, which is why another friend decided to look into importing them after she saw them at a South American event here.

they are called Wayuu bags 

The women of the Wayuu tribe have been hand weaving these bags for generations. Every single bag is different and unique, with intricate tribal designs and colours

How clever of these ladies to have thought of these products.

It's getting clearer still that more people are gravitating towards artisan products, people are becoming more aware of what and where their products come from and how it impacts on the local economy, environment and it's a great way in moving forward by supporting cottage industries. It helps keep the micro economics alive.

Lets pay it forward folks, now is the time to support each other, and grow our business organically.                                                                    Have a great week!