Artslim
 
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I had a wonderful visit to my favourite clothing shop.

It has been three years since I bad been this store and I had saved up and was ready to shop till I dropped.

One of the ‘finds’ I got was a fully lined, designer label dress like one I purchased in David Jones, at the hald yearly clearance sale for $139. (it was worth it), when I was a size 16, only that one is now too big for me and I picked up the identical dress here at Endevour clothing in a size 12 for about $30. J  it is firm on but it fits. I purchased 3 small tops, one pair of slacks a parka and I bought Reg an RM Williams sweat shirt for $10, and I also bought a black leather back pack or shoulder style handbag for only $33.  Crazy, good value.  There were two large racks of top designer name clothing and the store has everything colour coded to help you mix and match.

For someone like me who is changing clothing sizes and needing to replace her wardrobe regularly this is a great place to find good affordable clothing that you can wear for a few months then donate back if it’s still in good condition.  Guilt free shopping. J.

There is nothing like this in Victoria that I am aware of.

This is no ordinary opportunity shop, they are professionally set up with epson receipt printer , and they even take credit card and offer a seniors card discount.

Endeavour Recycled Clothing stores are the place to find stylish and one-of-a-kind clothing at dramatically low prices. There are 37 recycled clothing stores in Australia, including specialty label and wedding retail outlets.

Designer Labels
Endeavour Recycled Clothing Labels Stores provide an opportunity to purchase Australian and international brands, designer and vintage labels and accessories.

Check out these Label Stores in your area:
Aitkenvale - 210 Ross River Rd, Keith Thompson Building
Paddington - 29-31 Latrobe Terrace
Maleny - 6/39 Maple St (this is where I shopped)
Toowoomba - Shop 21 High St - High Street Plaza
See full store listings.

 

Weddings
Endeavour’s wedding specialist stores have hundreds of beautiful, pristine bridal gowns in a range of styles, from as little as a few hundred dollars.

Formals
School formals are the undisputed social highlight on any Year 12's calendar and semi-formals are not far behind for Year 10's

Girls in particular spend a lot of thought, time and often your money creating their perfect look, whether inspired by celebrities or something completely unique.

Guilt Free Shopping
Enjoy guilt free shopping – make space in your wardrobe by donating to a good cause first! Donate your pre-loved clothing at your local Endevour Recycled Clothing Store.

 Volunteers  provide the valuable support to help keep the Recycled Clothing stores open.

 
 
 
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Reg has an organic, locally raised, Bega, chicken is in the George Foreman Oven, our second one for the week. The first was oHH uMM :-), magnificent and I had to exerience that taste again before we leave this area, tomorrow.  Wonderful smells drifting through the camp. 

Do I go for a swim or a beach walk while it cooks?  

This caravanning lifestyle is hard work :-), but someone has to do it J .

Someone has to travel the land, spend the kid’s inheritance. $22.95 for an uncooked chicken in a country town, yes they see us tourists coming.

Actually that chicken, is the second I have bought this week the last one tasted, ```` sigh., it tastes as good as the one my mother would buy for Christmas dinner back when I was a child and chickens were a rare event at the dinner table, we mostly only occasionally, ate the old boiling chook once it was too old to lay an egg and if the hens were in laying season there was eggs on the menu other than that food was very sparse and I learned to appreciate it, for its rarity and with very attuned, taste buds J, I can still remember the taste of chicken dinner, at Christmas at age 12, cooked in the wood fire oven  lol, 52 years ago.

No wonder really that I grew up with an obesity problem once I had access to all the food I ever wanted.  I remember where every bit of gourmet food I have ever loved, has come from.  I associate places with the best food I can buy there.  OK, think  of Tilba and I am having an orgasm over Tilba Cheese (I kid you not). I was in the Tilba Cheese tasting room with Reg and I was drawing the crowds attention with my tasting appreachiation noises. lol. J   

I will be driving through Tilba in the next day or so, lol J, I have renounced cheese binges, lol, but I will have to save up my 300 to 350 calories for a meal for at least one Tilba Cheese tasting.
OMG, have you read how many calories are in some of those gourmet extra vintage tasty cheeses?  I have. That is why, they are now, occasional (and I mean, very occasional), tasting fare, these days, something I’ll treat myself to if on a party platter, in small calories counted and me in control, not the cheese amounts and I do not buy them anymore.

 

Yes I Still LOVE my savory cheeses and I have found a new way I can enjoy the taste without the high calories. 

My lunch today was homemade pizza toasts.  I used a gourmet bread, it was a poppy seed coated, sour dough rye bread and I toasted it and put a slice of low fat cheese on that, then tomato, cucumber and red pepper on top of that, with a sprinkle of extra sharp, tasty, grated, parmesan cheese.  That is high calorie cheese but you only need a smaller amount on the low fat cheese slice and you have the taste of vintage tasty high fat cheese at fewer calories.  I learned that trick from my 12wbt program. The Pizza toasts have always been my version of a healthy pizza, more vegetables, less fat and my choice of usually a whole meal bread base.

 
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Indigo is supervising the chicken being cooked, she hopes there will be a reward
 
 
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I spent most of today, doing a sort through the suitcase and bag full of too small clothing I have been collecting since I first began to seriously, downsize myself, back in 2007.

Back then I went away on my tour of Australia for 6 months, leaving as a size 22/24 and I returned to step into the size 16/18’s I left hanging in my wardrobe for when I arrived home.

The next two years, my weight loss slowed down. I had a few set backs and stopped making weight loss a priority, strength and fitness became my focus.  I had two spinal compression fractures and an iron overload condition to sort out and then I caught the Swine Flu affecting my ability to exerise for a while.

I was focussing on  weight lifting, muscle building to combat the diagnosis of osteoporosis, I had been given so my weight actually gained by a few kilo though  I dropped my size to a 12/14

This year, I have put these 12/14 clothes I now wear, in one side of the wardrobe. I will wear these over the next couple of weeks, while I am here at base camp and I have hung all the size 8/10 to small 12’s in the main part of the wardrobe as those are what I am coming home, to wear, next spring.

I have packed my bags for the caravan into:-
 
Open in four weeks time, as in fits but a little too tight right now.

Open in 8 weeks time, as in one size too tight for me now.

Open in 16 weeks time as in 2 sizes too tight for me now.

The very best of the too small clothes are those I have will have waiting for me in the wardrobe when I return. I think the rest in the middle, was a good thing in many ways, but 2010, I am completing this journey to my ideal dress size of 10/12, which is not too small, given how short I am.

Some of my existing small clothes have been kept from years back when i was this size, others have been bought at sales, some bought on Oztion auctions and some were from a couple of favourite, designer label op shops.  The gradual putting to gather of coordinate wardrobe of clothes in advance has been  a huge financial saving as I have downsized.  I have found it has paid to buy all new underwear and a couple of good jeans, fashion blouses and dresses when they were on sale, each year, to augment the inexpensive bits I have built the all new size, clothes wardrobe up with.

My reward for achiving my goal wis to head to Dvid Jones on the Boxing Day sale for some quality underwear and clothes at a reduced price. :-).

Here are some great tips I found on the web:-
How to sort and Decluttering Clothes

Related articles:-

 
 
I bought some new clothes in the recent after Christmas sales and I have been doing a wardrobe clean out and reorganize, so I took a look at coming fashions, while I was working out what I needed to update and discard. 

That old leather jacket I never wear will be held on to, it’s coming back into fashion as are the large belts, that jump suit, all brief shorts.

Reg had best hang on to his worn out, frayed denim shorts, they  will be high fashion now, not ready for the trash, lol, J. However, I do not think my figure is ready for the bikini, ever again, even if it is high fashion again. J.  How does that saying about skimpy clothing go? ‘If you’re old enough to remember wearing it half a century ago, you’re probably a bit too old to wear it again. Well I feel like that, for myself.

My own taste in clothing is a mix of classic and casual, though having come from a fashion background, my mum having owned a fashion house and been a leading dress designer; I always take an interest in, though I personally do not follow, fashion.

I like to web search what clothing design and colours are currently featured in Paris or Milan. Then I look to see how this is translates into practical wear for New York jobs. Then I watch to see the more casual interpretation of the same fashions in San Francisco    There is a subtle difference as each season’s fashion moves around the world, following the seasons and while Australia does have its own fashion industry, we adapt very quickly to a similar fashion taste to that of California. Not surprising as our climate is similar.  If I had to chose one favourite [place to shop for clothes, it would be the end of season clothing sales in San Francisco, as the end of season clothes are sold off very cheaply and they are the current seasons, full price latest fashions in Australia.   I have wonderful memories of shopping tours in San Francisco with my sister. J.  Well right now, I had best be content with a little reminiscence, the few goodies I have to update my wardrobe, I bought in the after Christmas sales for my wardrobe update.

How to Sort out your wardrobe of clothes.

Step 1/ – Take everything out and spread it on the bed. Return to the wardrobe only those clothes that currently fit, look good on you, are being worn, are clean and not in need of repair.  Arrange them according to colour following the sequence of the colour wheel.

Step 2/.  Spot clean, iron and repair any items you wear, look good on you and fit, and return to wardrobe in colour arrangement.

 

Step 3/. Pack clothing that you feel you may grow into, away, do not leave it congesting up the wardrobe. Give away any good clothing you do not intend to grow into and throw out clothing that is past it’s use by date and condition.

 

Step 4/ Make a list of what items you have an actual need for. Carry this list in your diary and buy when you see the items you need at a good value price and of a good quality. Buy poor quality and you buy twice. Classic clothing is an investment.

 

Step 5/ Buy for the lifestyle you live. A gray nomad, touring senior like myself, needs only one wash and wear light weight party dress, not five, however I would get use from five pairs of well made jeans in a mixture of cream, blue denim and black colours.  

 
 
 
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Here I am, at my workaholic size 22, working from home, before I got the 'get fit', message and learned to incorperate it into a creative self employed lifestyle.
Tips I have learned, during 50 years, successfully, self employed.

Set work hours and ask friends and family, to respect them. Sometimes it is hard to convince others that you have work hours. People can assume, you are a person of leisure and they can drop in at any time, when you work at home, you need to be firm and let people know you have work hours. Sometimes you cannot take your mind off home chores and focus on the income generating work.Focus on the job. Self employed people; need to develop strategies that allow us to complete the work we commit to doing.  If you cannot ‘turn off’ from the home chores to focus on an income earning job your trying to do at home, try setting  yourself,  work hours and knock off from work hours. Write these down even put you work hours on the front door, so visitors know when you are at work and not there to socialize. To help you focus, try playing, ‘mind games’ with yourself.  One successful tip, many home workers have used, is to walk out the front door, lock it, as if going out to work. Then walk around the house and come in the back door, then head straight to the home office, as if you have entered a different world, a world where the washing machine and house work has been left behind ‘at home’, far from your place of work, where it can not distract you.

Extend your skills into your changing life. The same skills that can help you earn an income from home as a young mum(or dad), can, later in life, convert to skills you could travel around the country with and use to earn an income ‘out of the caravan’, as a gray gypsy, nomad J, a great lifestyle. Many seniors, travel from Caravan Park to the next, sharpening knives or doing sign writing or selling art cards.Act on opportunities or go out and make them. Successful people are not those who sit around and complain that ‘ends do not meet’; they are usually too busy doing something productive to make sure they can provide the basics.  Want to earn money from home – or the caravan? The formula is simple,

1/ Chose to sell something or provide a service that fills a need

.2/ Commit to set work hours. For example I  treat my writing as a profession and I commit to a 40 hour working week,  4 hours writing in the morning, 4 in the evening, extra time when I can to allow for me to take time off when I need to.

3/ Learn and stay in ongoing training, learn from the experts, in the field you want to pursue. Remembering the saying, ‘a self taught person has a fool for a teacher’.

4/ Be persistent. Successful self-employment rarely happens overnight.  If you are not earning an income after six months, do not quit. Learn. Learn to work smarter, not harder, review what you have done and understand we learn valuable lessons in observing what not to do as well as what worked. 

5/ Fine tune your work to make sure you are providing a valuable service to others.

6/ Add in a touch of your own unique, creativity to personalize the service  you offer and to make your business stand apart from rivals.

7/ It goes without saying, but ‘be friendly’, so people will enjoy interacting with you  and coming back to deal with your again.

8/ BELIEVE in yourself and your potential.  If you do not believe your work is good, then how is a customer supposed to believe it is?.  If someone praises your work, accept the compliment with grace, thank them, and even say something along the lines of ‘I am proud of this too’.  Do not say, ‘do you think it’s OK’, or you are going to fill your own customer with doubts as to whether the item or service you are selling is worth buying. Sigh, some parents ‘over did’, their efforts to teach little girls to be modest and unassuming, in my day and  I spent most of my art teaching career teaching women to accept a compliment and believe in order for them to be able to achieve. Self-confidence is essential for success. If you have an issue with it, then focus on developing your self-confidence, as you are also developing your home business, the two skills are interdependent on each other.

9/ Make sure you plan and take adequate rest and exercise breaks.

10/ Resist the urge to take fast snacks and eat on the job, self-employed people tend toward workaholism. At the very least, if rushing for an important deadline, eat healthy fast food like nuts, fresh fruit or have a protein drink,www.proteinpowder.net. Try to stay away from the self abusive habits. I have saw in my own workaholic and now deceased due to life style disease, family members self abusing with cigarettes, lollies and even alcohol consumed on the job. Working for ourselves should be a joy, not a self-destruction. If it is not going to benefit you to work for yourself, then ‘sack the boss and get a decent one’J. I once self abused by over consuming food, using ‘work’, as an excuse for inactivity and over eating.  I ‘woke up’ to what I was doing to myself, made corrections and literally saved my life.  Don’t let self employment become an excuse for self abuse.
 
 
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Kathy Shell, working on a commissioned, portrait.
Earn Extra Income From Home.

Isn’t that a carer’s dream, extra income and to do it from  home.?

I can remember when my children were little, turning my hand at many activities to gain, extra income from home. I completed artwork commissions, I even took in clothing repairs for a fee from the neighbours, then later on as my art skill increased and requests came in, I began teaching art from home.

Most of the mum’s in my family have earned an income from a home business, while their children were young. The enterprising women, mum, aunt, daughters, followed various home  self employment fields from dress design, teaching scrap booking,  dog clipping  and even teaching Hawaiian dance.  Successful home self-employed people, men and women, tend to make every moment of our lives count.

All this juggling of our time, work from home with carer duties multi tasking skill building, is why carers end up being 60% of Australia’s small business owners and have a high rate of success at endeavours they pursue in their mid-life.

These days there is a lot of advertisement directed at internet viewers, from companies claiming to make you a millionaire or at least allow you to “fire your boss” almost overnight, but of course if it sounds too good to be true, it is.  The fact is, if they are offering to sell information to make you rich, why are they not doing it themselves, instead of selling the information? Legitimate companies do not promise to make you rich, just fair wages for fair work. I think we become attuned to ‘reading between the lines’, and I sure hope they teach scepticism to our children in schools. My mum was great at teaching me about 'reading the fine print' and being aware of ‘what is not said’, being as important as what  is said.

The fact is, when you go into business for yourself, as most home based income is, it is the, poorest paid easy work and the best-paid, hard work.  The only place where success comes before work, is in the dictionary. You do need to be self motivated, prepared to learn new skills, use all your talents and then manage to make adequate time to do the job well, if a home based job is to be successful.
You also need to have a plan to nurture your own needs, be sure to set exercise and rest breaks in your day, the danger in being self employed, for me, for my entire family of 'self starters', has been workaholism. As most of my work activities are sedentary ones, I split up my work day into mornings and evenings and strive to be active in the afternoons so I can 'have my cake and eat it to,'  or have my sedentary creative work I love and remain fit and build on my fitness level.

I have been self employed for fifty years, I began accepting my first dog portrait commissions as soon as I became a teenager. I've written some tips on how to earn an income from your own home based business and published it in my 'A Creative Life', blog at http://www.kathy-shell.com
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Kathy Shell, working on a commissioned portrait, in her home studio.
 
 
My dream goal size 12, (US size 10) Christmas party dress, then a day sun frock, was my present to myself today. :-).
I haven’t earned it from any special exercising nor good eating feat but I have spent a week and a half, helping to clean up the family home of one of my daughters and I think I got rid of the last of the mouldy not eaten school lunches hidden away by the youngest granddaughter, today.  I have to laugh to think, ‘like mother, like daughter and myself  I have vivid memories of searching for the mouldy lunches in my daughter's dressing table and wardrobe.  My daughter was so like me and now my adorable granddaughter takes after her mum.

So I have been working very hard this last two weeks, not achieving a personal goal I have mentioned here, but a goal non the less.  My daughter’s happiness means everything to me. I do not mention my family much, I respect their privacy and do not speak of them a lot, but I love them dearly.  My daughter works very hard, and like all mums, gets tired at times, children do not help a lot, they make lots of creative mess. My daughter is a great mother, encourages creativity, after school interests, and allows the mess that goes with being creative.  I was happy to help but it was hard work.  Work enjoyed and I will keep doing it, though I will not keep rewarding myself spending money on presents for myslelf.

But here are my two treats :-). My new dress and gorgeous denim coloured shoulder bag, just great to wear with jeans and hold my mobile phone, camera and diary. I will use that a lot during my travels.

Oh and lol, 'did I boast that the dress is a size 12 J ?'  lol, I know I did. 

When I was a size 22 going on 24,, size 12 was my goal size.


My husband saw the specialist today. They will do some more tests, just for precautions but no sinister expectations from them, the specialist seemed to think, as I think, it was just a setback that he had, that he is gradually recovering from :-).  All is well :-), and glamour gran is going to shock her husband and the children by showing her cleavage for the first time this Christmas, lol, :-).

Wherever you are in your preparations for the Christmas holiday season, have fun :-), take it a day at a time and enjoy life :-).  I know Christmas can be a strain for many and there is as much grief as there is joy as we remember family members who are no longer with us more at this time than at other times.   

This isn't so hard for me, my parents left this earth when i was in my 20's, I've had so many Christmases now without my mum, and my own children have grown and given me wonderful grandchildren that I am easy with the partings and see this as a part of life moving on.  This season is very much like this, a time not just for party frocks but also for reflecting about the family now, and the family past. 

I spoke to my daughter this week, I gave her my father’s military records to keep for the next generation, I also mentioned to her that my mother would have been 100 years old, soon, if she had been alive.  There was no pain for me, at all, in talking of loved ones long gone and lol  ( as family skeletons exist in all families), the not so loved ones. 

So (((hugs))), if this season brings more grief or stress to you than joy and I hope if that is the case, that soon your special season, however you celebrate it and whatever its meaning, will be one where you can feel joy in the family and friends that are present. I hope that you soon will, feel pleasure recalling the best of the past and let go of the pain in past memories. I am wishing you a wonderful Christmas season.

For those struggling with weight issues, and self-doubt, remember I was a size 22 going on 24 at Christmas 2006. Today I ate half a take away Asian meal, half a small lemon and shortbread tart, and tonight I am eating a few chocolates (see I am not fanatical about my diet J ), and I'll be loving wearing my size 12 dress and counting my many blessings :-) and sharing the season with loved ones.

 
 
 
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 I went shopping on my own last night, happy to leave Reg at home now his whooping cough appears to be in recovery stage and he is improving.

I went to Bunnings, I bought gypsum to help break up the heavy clay soil over the road from us and some slow release poultry manure pellets and four different varieties of seed potato and straw to mulch the potato bed.  That’s going to be my after lunch exercise, breaking into that heavy clay bank and making it into our potato growing patch. Nothing is as nice as a freshly harvested new potato by plunging your hand through the straw and pulling out a lovely clean baby spud, to have as a side serve for lunch.

Then dropped into the Telstra store and picked up brochures to look at, to learn about these touch screen phones and larger key board phones that will make it easy for me to add status updates and short 60 to 100 word blog updates to my web sites while I am travelling.

Next I treated myself to a new sports bra, my current one rubs when I work out, no more discomfort. J. I remembered to ask if there was a senior discount and I got 10% off. I must always remember to ask.

Now while other ladies might be tempted by the cake and chocolate shops, I always seem to slow down and drool as I pass the travel luggage store,  J just as I do when I go on line and look at Eagle Creek luggage , it always brings thoughts of wonderful outdoor adventures.

I went into BigW, determined to buy and learn how to use a body fat percentage scale. I have owned these before, never worked out how to use them beyond just viewing the weight, which I now no longer focus on as I know that BMI does not give an accurate reading of healthy body composition, rather than just focusing on weight, important if you are a senior not wanting to lose bone density or muscle. Weight loss has to be from substance we have in excess, to be healthy.  Even so, these body composition scales are only a guide and it’s important to not try to get a composition assessment too frequently and to do it at about the same time of day at least a week apart and weigh in similar conditions as everything from fluid intake to humidity can alter the readings.   Like weight scales, they are still, only a guide. The best guide of all is how you look and feel and for a woman, aiming to have your waist measurement no more than 80cm. 

So that was my shop up J,  a bit of retail therapy, I enjoyed.

After dinner, which I conveniently pulled out of the freezer, one of my already precooked healthy time saving, heat and eat, meals, I spent the remainder of the remainder of the evening, making new goals, action plan and to do list for today.
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Nice easy meals, pre prepared in my freezer, ready to heat and eat after a busy day and an outing.
 
 
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'Sicky', time off turned into money in the post for me.
Would you like some money for rest time, too? 

I started out well, the week and weekend before, I had joined my gym in great enthusiasm and attended five consecutive days eating well and highly motivated to complete my slimming journey.

Then on Tuesday last week, ironically after writing a blog post about colon health, LOL, sweet justice was dished out for being a ‘KIA’, LOL J,  I came down with a bout of food poisoning.  That threw me right off course for the rest of the week.  I ate to try to gain energy and I did little exercise aside from one enjoyable day in the garden tidying up and planting lilies.

I did strive to use the quiet recovery time productively, and I worked on my web sites and looked into further ways to supplement my income on line.  After I had exhausted all the avenues that required concentration, on my to do list, I settled down to watch a TV movie on both Saturday and Sunday night and during the advertisement intervals and the short breaks when Reg switched channels to watch the footy, I began writing short reviews giving the pros and cons and general summery of products I own.  Initially it was just a way to pass time and give an opinion of things I liked or did not like and why, and see what others thought of the same products and then I realized, it actually could supplement my housekeeping money if I did this in the mornings when I was ‘waking up’ over coffee and later at night, in all the add breaks, I realized it actually will make a difference to our budget and I have set myself a target to earn $60. This week, part time, and at the same time ensure that this does not interfere with my being as active as I can be, throughout the day.

I know I would not have bothered to try out this on line, income source venue, if I had not had this week of sick and needed a lot of quiet time recovery.   The first few reviews were very poorly paid as I spell checked, proof read and re read and dotted every T (oops I mean i) and being dyslectic, that took ages.  So I probably spent half an hour earning my first $1.    Then I got wise to what was required.  They were simply asking for my opinion of things, not an essay LOL, J and after that, the cash was adding up fast.

Would you like Gift Vouchers to use at Myer, Target, Kmart, Coles, BI-LO, Office Works and more?
If you are interested in a way to earn money in spare moments at your computer, no outlay, please email me your name and email address so I can send you an invite to earn Coles Myer GIFT Vouchers, for reviewing products you use.
I have tried it, earned  $20. In morning tea and evening TV add breaks in one weekend. 

Discovering this was a great use of my ‘sicky’ time off J, I am happy to share it and it’s something I plan to make use of from now on.