Juggling hats & the old converted bakery!

Oh my gosh – life has plans for me this week!  Plans other than time to sit and write for the blog or to edit my photos!   I usually aim for three posts a week – Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays – but sometimes things go awry and it doesn’t happen!  There is only one of me and I have many hats to wear and I’m practically juggling all my hats this week!

Right now, it’s 10pm on Monday night and I’ve just sat down at my computer to start typing a post for Tuesday morning.  I have yet to edit photo’s to go with the post!  Super organised this week – NOT!  😉

Here’s just some of the hats I’ve been wearing lately:

Hat #1 – the Mother & Daughter Hat
Mother to my children.  Daughter to my parents.

I have Twin 2’s graduation ceremony from his University degree this coming Thursday.  We’ll be taking along my parents (who live on the other side of town) and incorporating lunch with them after the ceremony so that will be my Thursday.

Twin 2 also starts work experience today – three days a week for a couple of months.  Though I had previously bought him business shirts, ties, socks and he has the shoes, he was not equipped for this ARCTIC VORTEX weather we’ve been having, so I’ve had some urgent dashes out to source some business jumpers and jackets.  Of course he is a ‘small’ and finding any men’s winter clothing in a SMALL is like trying to find a needle in a haystack as they are the first to sell out so it’s been quite a mission, but it is now done!  Phew!  While I was at it I got the same (different colours) for Twin 1 as he needs to be ready for interviews and hopefully a job soon! (please send good vibes his way!)

My darling daughter is not well at the moment and I lie in bed at night listening to her constant persistent coughing.  It’s a dry unproductive cough!  I hate those kind of coughs. I’m never sure what to do for her to offer some relief.  One thing I could do, which I did yesterday when I went shopping, was buy a new blanket for her bed.  She recently (ok a while ago) changed from a single bed to a double bed so we’ve had to get all new linen.  She has a doona and doona cover but with the cold weather lately I wanted her to also have a lovely wool blanket on her bed.  Now she has one!  I went into her room to put the new blanket on her bed and I find that under her doona she has put two single blankets side by side – a pink one and a green one.  Oh my gosh – mother of the year award will not be going to me!

Hat #2 – the Sister Hat
Making time for my sister once/week.  I have three sisters, but one lives nearby and we get together at least once/week, so I need to incorporate that into each of my weeks.  We went shopping together yesterday.

Hat #3 – the Friend Hat
Impromptu requests from friends for a catch up.  I’ve had a few of these lately.  They may sometimes throw my plans but I reckon we should always make time for friends if we can.  I’ll be meeting up with a friend today for morning tea and I have a few more similar catch ups coming up and some that are long overdue!

Hat #4 – the Family Member Hat
Sometimes a family event comes up that sounds like fun.  You know you have a million things that need doing but you realise that sometimes you have to put all that aside and take these opportunities by the horns and just be in the moment and enjoy.  One such occasion came up on Sunday.  We’d been invited by The Tennis Player’s brother and his wife up to Toowoomba.  They own an old bakery there that was converted many years ago into a rustic quirky little residence.  It’s been a weekender for them and has been rented out for short periods over the years.  They’ve given it all a lick of paint recently and made some repairs and on 31 July a neighbour’s friend will be moving in there for a long-term rental.  They invited us, some other family and some friends up for a BBQ lunch celebration to see the work they’d done and to enjoy the rustic old bakery as it could be some time before they will stay there again.  So we went, and I’m glad we did.  I took my camera and snapped a few photo’s.  I had to be a little strategic with my inside snaps as they were in the process of taking away furniture (the new lessee will be bringing her own furniture) and there were lots of tools lying about here and there.  I would have loved to get a photo of the original bakery oven (still there!) but it had furniture in front of it and people sitting on the furniture, so it wasn’t possible.  I’ll share some of these photo’s at the end of this post.  I apologise in advance though as these will have been edited in a flash by a very tired me at some ridiculous hour of night, so won’t be my best work!

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So there was no post yesterday and I was stressed that I didn’t have one ready.  I started trying to bash one out when I stopped myself.  I would rather publish no post at all then publish a rushed post.  In particular, when it comes to my self-confidence series.  Though I have it all planned in my head and know what I want to say, they have not yet been written.  I don’t want to rush those posts as they are far too important.  For this reason, I’ve decided it won’t be a weekly series – more likely fortnightly.

Guess what folks? I’ve lost 11kg’s since I got back from Tasmania!! Woot woot! I am feeling so much better for the loss.  It has been hard work getting that 11 kg’s off, particularly as it’s been so cold.  I go for walks and feel so much lighter and it is so much easier for me! I tell you what though, if that arctic vortex wind had been any stronger I might have taken off like Mary Poppins when I went on my walks with Ava! Haha! I am going to stop the losing for now and focus on maintaining.  Once it warms up again, I’ll go back to losing again (I hope) as I have some more that I want to lose.

Putting on my WOTM Hat
I’ve been putting a lot of time and thought into the blog and the direction in which I want to take it. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger and his 31 Day Challenge has been excellent in helping gain some clarity and focus on what is important to me, what I want my blog’s purpose to be, how I want to make people feel when they visit my blog, and the difference I want them to feel within themselves when they leave here.  It started with writing my elevator pitch. That exercise gave me SO much clarity and a realisation that I want to help people.  I want people to look after themselves, to prioritise themselves, and to realise that they are important too and that putting others before themselves all of the time is not always the best and healthiest option.  You may or may not have noticed that I’ve created two new pages on the blog in order that important posts relevant to Mindfulness and Self-Investment are more visible and accessible:

1. Mindfulness
2. Self-Investment

Apart from the above, I will still be sharing share bits of myself via posts like this one and Taking Stock posts. I’ll also venture into a bit of nutrition and health at times. Of course I will always be sharing my photography in most posts but particularly the Wordless Wednesday posts.

Another thing that I have been contemplating doing for some time is posts where I provide some photography tips. Now, I’ve got to be honest and say that I’ve been up and down about this because there are already so many blogs that provide photography tips and they do it very, very well. The main one that comes to mind is Darren’s Rowse’s – ‘Digital Photography School’.   I guess the main point of difference if I were to do some photography tips posts would be that it would be written in my own unique voice and coming from someone who as recently as early 2013 didn’t know how to use my camera off automatic.   So I’ve learnt a lot over the last couple of years and know the important stuff that people need to know to move their photography to the next level.

I’D LOVE YOUR OPINION:  What do you think – should I start including photography tip posts here at WOTM or leave it to the others that already do it so well?

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you now with some images of the gorgeous old rustic converted bakery in Toowoomba where we spent the day on Sunday.  Oh, and this will be my only post this week.  This week is going to be too crazy to promise any more.  Any time I find to sit and write (and edit) will be better spent preparing for next week and beyond. Have a great week everyone!

Well I’ve done it.  I’ve finished this post and inserted the images.  Thank goodness I had edited some of the images a little earlier today.  My eyes can barely stay open and all the words are looking blurry so I’m now off to bed and will schedule this post to publish early in the morning.  I’ll check it again tomorrow afternoon (which is today for you reading this now) and fix up any mistakes!

Ciao for now,

Postscript:  It’s 9pm on Tuesday night and I have finally stopped to sit down and respond to comments and have a read through this post that I wrote in a tired haze last night! LOL  Today has been non-stop.  I thought I’d add a postscript to this post to update you on Twin 2’s first day of work experience.  He has to catch two buses to get to where he is doing his work experience and it is quite a trip!  He was due to start at 9am.  At 8:50am I get a text saying the first bus has been stuck in traffic and he is only just getting to the city (he has to catch the 2nd bus from the city).  Then I get another text telling me “oh and by the way my shoe broke”.   A couple of texts later I find out that the sole of one of his shoes had fallen off.   OMG – not a good start!  So, he got to work 15 minutes late, and had to hobble around all day with one shoe with a heel and sole and the other without!   When he got home this afternoon we had 15 minutes to get to the local Lowes Menswear before it shut to get him new shoes.  WE DID IT!  Yeah!  Tomorrow has got to be a smoother day for him yes?

Linking up with Essentially Jess for #IBOT