Sadly for me I had to cancel out on the workshop last weekend, had to work. We missed opening on Monday, weren't quite ready. The doors opened on Tuesday and business has been climbing since then, we still have another floor to finish but hopefully it will be in business this Monday. I've been mainly working getting the other floor ready but did get to serve customers while others went to lunch after a rushed 30 second lesson on the register. As long as customers used cash or cards I was fine but when one had a coupon and another required a club discount I was stumped, needed help for those. I was having such a good day, really enjoying interacting with the customers that I completely missed out on lunch and didn't notice until 4.30. Usually I've been having an 11am lunch but was sent on a 15 minute break then, I made a sandwich and ate some strawberries because I thought I wouldn't be having lunch until 2. Instead of stopping for my hour break I was told to leave an hour early.

Cassie and I went shopping today, there were a few things I needed to get, some nail polish and a glass file, my nails are shocking, they been broken and stained and some containers to carry supplements and food in my bag. I also bought a cookbook, which I am going to check out recipes for Cassie and Thomas to learn so they can cook dinner when I am at work.

While shopping I was feeling a little peckish so stopped at a stall selling corn in cups. The girl serving (loosly termed) had a mobile phone pressed to her ear, looked at me so I asked for a cup of corn, she then said "please hold". I had thought she meant the person on the phone but soon realised she meant me as she turned away and kept talking. Can't even say if it was personal or a business call, she was talking in another language. I stood there like a fool thinking I should just walk off when she finally stopped talking long enough to ask what I wanted. Had to tell her twice before she started fumbling with the scoop and trying to do things onehanded because she still had the phone pressed to her ear. I told her I changed my mind and not to bother before walking off. It really irked me that she couldn't have put the phone down for the 20 seconds it would have taken to serve me. I've worked retail and done it with girls who spend time on personal calls ignoring customers while I've been the fool running around doing the work.

Later I decided to treat myself to a Detoxing Ionic Footbath, I just wanted to see what it was like. It was nice soaking my feet in warm salty water while reading a magazine for half an hour. At the end of it the water had turned a rusty orange colour which I was told was from my joints and muscles with a frothy scum on the top that was supposed to be from my liver. When I was checking on the net later about the footbaths, there were sites that showed that the colour change could be hoaxed, I did think it could be. The only thing I noticed afterwards apart from my feet feeling nice and clean was a sharp pain in my liver that lasted for a little while. If it's a hoax I am left wondering why the girl told me the scum was liver related and why I had pain, I do have liver disease. The soles of our feet are supposed to be linked to every part of the body, after putting Vaporub on my feet in an effort to stop coughing last year I could taste it in my mouth.

I don't have a black thumb afterall.

The plants in my no dig "garden" are still alive, the peas have sprouted as well. I've also discovered that I am not to blame for the many plants that have karked or simply not grown recently. When I started getting interested in having pot plants I bought potting mix to put my plants in, I thought it was my fault, that I was neglecting the plants when they didn't flourish. Just after Valentine's Day I planted up some vegies into the potting mix, before I had all the plants in I ran out of the mix so looked in the shed and found some Soil Mix that I hadn't gotten around to use. I was worried about using it in a pot, this was supposed to be used in a garden but it was all I had.

I can't believe the difference in the plants, the ones in the soil mix are huge, very healthy looking while the others are puny, sickly and/or dead. Those that are alive haven't even doubled their size, while the other one has grown tenfold. They all have had the same treatment, same watering and no extra feeding.

I've not been able to get on with my plans for putting in a proper garden bed, my job has been exhausting, but not as bad as last time there have been no late nights and they only let us work 5 days in a row, not like before when I was working 10, 12 or 15 hour days for 18 days straight. We have an excellent team this time. I am working on getting a permanent job, had been hoping to do it at the new site but thinking about it I spoke to the Manager of the other site (same company) about getting a job with her. I wasn't ready to do it last November but now I am.

No dig gardening

Yesterday was my first workshop at The Watershed. I've booked in for another in a couple of weeks. I don't live in the area where The Watershed is based, I am a Sydneysider but from almost an hour away. I did a search on our local council website and did find some sustainability workshops, but there is nowhere near the variety as The Watershed's nor are they held so as often. I'll be checking out the shop next time I am there, we don't have a shop like it here. When I was walking through Newtown they had a lot more interesting shops than we have, there must be a large Indian population there. There are a lot of Indian clothing stores there. I'll have to check them out, we only have one nearby, I love the clothing and it's so much cheaper than the same sort of things from boutiques.

The workshop I took yesterday was on No Dig Gardening, it was very informative, wasn't expecting hands on experience or to bring anything but paperwork home. Was so surprised when we got to build o\ur own little garden in a pot and take it home complete with plants. Very cool. I'd reccomend everyone to search for similar workshops in their areas, make suggestions to your council if they aren't available.



I've planted parsley, coriander and a couple of sugarsnap peas in it. When the peas sprout I'll probably move them into their own pots.

Now I just have to put my new found knowledge into action and build a big version down the back.

I don't have much time at the moment, am working again on a store setup, long hours 8am - 6pm (when the trucks turn up, twice this week we've had early days). It means I leave home a little after 6am and am back home after 7.30pm. It's hard physical work, I am covered in bruises. It's going quite well, we have a really good team who really get on with the work so much so that they have brought opening day forward. On Friday we were waiting for a truck to arrive and everyone was sitting waiting for it, our boss came up and asked for 4 volunteers to do a small job - everyone jumped to their feet. None of us wanted to be sitting around doing nothing so we all got stuck into the job - only a few minutes later the truck arrived and we were flat out for the rest of the day. I am hoping to have some work after the store is set up, everyone asks why I would want to travel so far, it's an hour train ride, but I use the time to catch up on reading or knitting so it's not wasted time. Wish me luck.

Clean up Australia

Today was Clean up Australia Day, this is an annual day where volunteers go out and remove rubbish from the Aussie landscape. I'm ashamed to say that we hadn't volunteered before, we either have something on or the day just goes by without us realising. Today was our first time, we helped out at a local park. There were kids and adults helping out, 27 in total but could have done with a lot more. The park had grassland, bush and a creek running through it. Only the adults were allowed in the creek area, it had sloping bushland down to it. We worked for about 3 hours before we had to leave, but there was a huge pile of rubbish removed including a couple of bikes, lawnmover and 5 shopping trolleys.

Definitely will be doing this again, next year we will know to toss our gum boots in.