Hi ho hi ho, it's back to work I go!  My how time flies.  I've loved this break I had, from the excitement and busyness of my ever so quick trip to New Zealand followed by the week I had in Yamba on retreat.  

Yamba was a time of deep reflection, relaxation, new friendships and new experiences.  It was also deeply restful which is a good thing because life has been flat out since I arrived home. 

On my way home from Yamba on Sunday, I stopped in at the Crystal Castles at Mullumbimby.  Always a beautiful place and a nice way to round out my time away.  A friend has been visiting Brisbane since I've been away and I had the opportunity to have dinner with her.  She then had a sleepover as well, so was great to have plenty of time to chatter away and catch up on the last year.

Yesterday was a busy day, trying to get some chores done and then had my brother arrive for a visit.  He lives in Cairns and has also been here while I was away (is there a common theme there? lol).  He and his partner and her son stayed over last night and most of my sons came over to visit, so it was very much a family type of night.

And then today.  Good to be back at work, busy doing the catch up thing and getting my head around the changes that are happening.  Lots can happen in the space I work in during 10 days leave!

Aside from all that, I've finally got the costings together for my retreat in NZ!! Very exciting.  I'm in the process of getting some advertising organised and have now put it on facebook as well.  I'll see if I can figure out how to put a link here!  

Oh and one other little exciting bit of news, I lost another kg while I was in Yamba.  I'm totally baffled as to how I managed to lose 2 kgs while on holidays but I'm sure not complaining.  I'm delighted!  I think it was probably more about eating regularly and moving more, so I'm going to try and keep that up.

Well that's it from me today and I'll see how I go with that link to the retreat info.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rikkis-Soulfull-Retreats/461121457303867?ref=hl

Today's photo was of the full moon near Wellington Point the night I came home.

Ahh two posts in two days... what's the world coming to!!  

Today has been a day of beautiful moments, little surprises, a few tears and a day that has felt somewhat emotional.  I don't mean in a bad way, just a my heart is full kind of way.  

I started my day with a walk on the beach where I watched the sunrise (taking a whole bunch of photo's as well) and enjoyed getting my feet wet by the water as the tide came in.

I had a tarot reading, just for something different and was blown away by how much it resonated with me.  I didn't give the tarot reader any information at all before starting and very limited later on through the reading, so found it rather surprising.  

Today's workshop was around joy not only for ourselves and our own achievements, but also those around us, those close and not so close.  

During the morning, I also received a call from one of my best friend's who I went to high school with.  She lives in our home town and we only get to catch up periodically.  She's getting married in a few weeks and has asked me to go down.  I'm so thrilled for her and she richly deserves to have this love in her life.

This afternoon consisted of a Nia dance workshop.  Can you imagine?  Me, the person who doesn't dance, who doesn't know how to dance, doesn't feel comfortable at all on a dance floor (background story of screwed up religious cult type beliefs of childhood), yet loves to watch others dance and have always secretly kind of wanted to know how to dance, just not game enough to do it.

I'm totally uncoordinated, have two left feet, feel very awkward and uncomfortable, but I did it!  And mostly enjoyed it once I got over that sick feeling that accompanies anything you are resistant to doing.  And what a workout it gives you too!  

This evening, I had a long chat with a new-ish friend (we met mid last year) and facilitator of this retreat.  She has been really supportive of my venture into running my own retreats and tonight gave me a little gift from NZ, as encouragement and support and a token to wish me well in my new direction. I'm feeling very blessed tonight.  

Well this is it for today's post and I will finish by posting a pic of this morning's sunrise over the beach at Yamba.

Hello out there!

I'm currently in the beautiful little sleepy seaside town of Yamba, staying across the road from the beach attending a Compassionate Heart retreat.

There are 9 of us here, all similar in some ways, different in others, all from different backgrounds and life experiences, yet drawn to this retreat in the interests of taking time out for ourselves, to direct some loving kindness and compassion towards ourselves.

The accommodation is simple but clean and comfortable.  The food is also simple but wholesome.  The view is beautiful, as is the beach.  We have free time before our morning and afternoon workshops that allows for naps, wandering around the local area, going to the beach, having a massage, a singing bowl healing, a tarot reading or anything else we would like to do within that time.

The evenings we've been going out to dinner, somewhere nearby, sampling the local food, enjoying the company, conversation and laughter.  While I still have some things drifting through my mind, mostly in relation to the retreats I will be running (the first in less than 3 weeks time), I'm feeling like I'm more relaxed, that I'm finally unwinding.

I had a complete technology break while in NZ and this is the first time I've been online since coming to Yamba.  I'm enjoying this technology free time.  I have had mobile phone service here, but I keep it on silent and just check on occasions.  It's good.  It gives me breathing space, time for me.  To recharge the batteries.

And speaking of batteries, my laptop battery is about to go flat ~ well the update there is it died, just as I'd finished typing the word flat.  Good reason to put it away and have another wee technology break.

So now it's evening, I've enjoyed an afternoon of meditation and a delicious Mexican dinner.  I even tried a watermelon marguerita!  Not bad from this non drinker.. acquired taste, took me a little while to get used to it, but I managed to drink it albeit over a couple of hours.

Anyways, that's it for tonight.  My mind isn't up to thinking deep and meaningful, so will finish here and see if I can download the pics I've taken here.  They're pretty much all beach pics, but there's a few to choose from. Slightly different angles, one end of the beach, then the other, waves splashing... I know I know, I easily end up with dozens of pics of the same thing!

Hello dear reader

I'm back again!  Already!!  I know, I know, hard to believe I can get my act together to put two posts up in less than 24 hours isn't it?  I'm heading off to a retreat in Yamba today and I'm unsure whether I will have internet access, so figured I'd do a post now and pre-warn that it may be another 6 days before a new post appears.  

One of the things I forgot to mention yesterday was that I decided to weigh myself. I admit I wondered if it was a good idea given that I'd just had 3 days in NZ and hadn't eaten a home cooked meal for around 4 days or so.  Imagine my excitement and delight to find I'd actually lost weight!!!  Yep, you read it right.. lost weight.  A whole 1.5 kgs.  

Was I surprised?  Heck yes!!  That was totally unexpected.  I don't have to eat to gain weight, I only have to smell delicious food, not taste it.  Not that I ate badly while I was away but different meals, eating out, I even had some gelato one night and ice cream another afternoon.  

But when talking with my friend and thinking about it, I realised that it was probably aided by the fact I don't eat before I fly (anxious flyer but that's a whole other story) and although often ravenously hungry once I land and am on terra firma again, I don't tend to eat a huge meal.  And that was certainly the case in NZ given it was almost midnight their time when we arrived.

The food I did have was delicious, but probably fairly balanced and I moved more than I usually do (my day job sees me sitting in an office, creating reasons to go for a brief walk at regular intervals).  Walking to chase photo's mostly but also just wandering to enjoy the views.

So do you want to know about the food?  Oh my gosh!  Can we say scrumdiddlyumptious?  Everything we had was delicious.  Although some of that may also be because we didn't have to prepare it :).

First up was the chicken, brie and cranberry tartlet I found at the Christchurch airport.  Whoever said that airport food was dodgy?  This was great and just a perfect size for a late night small meal.

The next morning on our travels, we stopped at a little place in Geraldine for breakfast (the name escapes me but it was a lovely little cafe and gift shop) and had a decent cooked breakfast of bacon, poached eggs, tomato, hash brown and a small sausage.  I went without the toast and was still unable to eat it all. We also got a piece of ginger cake for the road, but didn't end up sharing that until late afternoon.  In fact, our breakfast kept us going all day until we had the cake!  

Dinner that night was at a Japanese restaurant in Wanaka called Sasanoki and was very nice.  Just a good mix of things, sushi, gyoza's and curry, not too heavy a meal when shared between two (we had single serves and shared it all) and I'm hoping the manager's wife will do a cooking class for me at my retreat.  We followed dinner with a visit to the Black Peak Gelato shop. Gotta love gelato!

Saturday morning I had a meeting with a caterer at a little coffee shop called the Urban Grind in Wanaka.  If you ever have the opportunity to go there, do so.  They make the best hot chocolate I've ever had!  Not too sweet but oh so yummy.  For breakfast I had smashed avocado which was a little like fresh guacamole and was decoratively served around 2/3's of the plate, with roasted tomato (thickly sliced roma tomatoes), on ciabatta bread that was lightly toasted and ever so soft in the middle, with a rasher of bacon on the side. The presentation was great and it was one of the nicest breakfasts I've had in a while.

After my next two meetings, we headed down to Queenstown for a scenic drive and came back through a quaint little place called Arrowtown.  It's an old heritage town and was once a Chinese gold mining town.  They still do some gold panning in the area and I'm told there are still some finds to be had.  We managed to find some other treasures there, enjoyed wandering the little township and had an awesome lunch at a place called the Stable.  Again, I'd highly recommend it. My friend had a potato and leek soup, which also had a little bacon in it, served with ciabatta bread that was delicious.  I had a pear and blue cheese salad that was sublime!  The pear was marinated in red wine and spices (such as 5 spice), there was mixed lettuce, walnuts and the blue cheese.  One of the best salads ever!  

Back to Wanaka late afternoon and we decided to mix up our dinner experience.  It started with a visit to Patagonia Chocolates, a sample of their chocolate and a single scoop of hokey pokey ice cream in a cup which again we shared. I'm not much of an ice cream eater, but NZ ice cream is awesome.

From there we went to The Spice Room which is an Indian restaurant that was recommended to us.  We shared their mixed platter which consisted of 2 small lamb shiskebabs, some tandoori chicken, a vegetable samosa and 2 onion pakora's served with rice.  Very very nice!  We found ourselves a little cafe bar afterwards where I enjoyed a local red wine and K enjoyed a little citrus cake with passionfruit icing, again very nice.  

We decided what the heck, we may as well also check out Francesca's Italian Kitchen which had been on my to do list, but we knew we wouldn't be able to fit in a meal so went with the cheese platter instead. I LOVE cheese and although the cheese platter wasn't a big one, the serving size was just right and was a perfect end to our evening.

And that was pretty much the excitement of our culinary explorations in NZ. We headed back to Christchurch on Sunday to fly back home, but didn't have anything out of the ordinary to eat on the way back.  Today's pic of course will have to be a food pic.  Alas it was the only food photo I thought to take, thankfully it's a good one!  It's of our lunch in Arrowtown on Saturday.

Enjoy!

Hello dear reader!!  

It's me again, presuming there is at least one of you out there reading this little blog of mine.  My apologies for the desertion over the last week or so. It's not that there's been anything happening, there's been lots!!  I have valid reasons for not posting the last few days, but absolutely no valid reason for the days prior to that.  So it's grovel and catch up time and today's post is going to cover the excitement and awe of the last few days.

On Thursday night (Mar 6th) I flew to Christchurch New Zealand with my dear friend K. I'm not a big fan of flying so it was great to have company on the trip.  We arrived around 11.30 pm and it was a pleasant surprise to find a cafe open at the airport, given the time of night that it was.  I have to say that Christchurch International has delicious chicken, brie and cranberry tarts! 

It was almost midnight by the time we got to our accommodation for the night and of course we were still wide awake partly due to the time difference.  NZ is 3 hours ahead of QLD time in Australia.   I set the alarm for 7 am as we were picking our hire car up at 8 am.  We did manage small 2 hr bursts of sleep between the trying to wind down to sleep and the chattering we did.

We were up and collected our hire car on time and were on our way towards Wanaka by 8.30 am.  Of course we needed to stop along the way and get breakfast which we did in a little place called Geraldine.  We had a breakfast fit for royalty and took a slice of ginger cake with us for later.  

I was sooo excited to see snow on the mountains as we neared Lake Tekapo. I thought it may be too warm for any snowfalls yes, given it's only a few days into autumn.  Lake Tekapo with the Good Shepherd Church and Lake Pukaki were both moving in their stunning beauty.  The water in the lakes is a turquoise blue and is crystal clear.  

Arriving in Lake Wanaka a little after 3 pm was quite emotional for me.  I so love this place. There is just something about it that draws me on a deep level and brings me a sense of peace and calm.  Almost a feeling of belonging.  

So what did we do in this place that has such a hold on my heart?  Well, we had a whole 39 hours in the area and in that time I (or I should say we as my friend K was along with me as my PA hehe... and a good one she was too!) attended 4 meetings, checked out 5 eateries ~ all of them superb and they gave us the opportunity to sample delicious local foods, was given more leads and/or suggestions for retreat activities, managed to squeeze in some sight seeing, obtain some little treasures, make plenty of precious memories and take 274 photos!!!  I've managed to pick out just 63 to share on facebook, however, I will share some here too over the coming days.

The trip in itself was very successful and was beyond what I was hoping for.  I now have the task of trying to narrow down and complete my program for the retreat, finish the costings and do the advertising.  The manager at the lodge where I'll be hosting the retreat is also happy to do some advertising there too.

All this means I'm delighted to announce that Rikki's Soul~full Retreats will be hosting my first NZ retreat from November 3rd - 7th, 2014 in beautiful Lake Wanaka.

I will share more of our shenanigans and photo's over the coming days, but for today's pic I will share one of my favourites of the trip which was taken yesterday morning at Lake Pukaki near Tekapo.

Dear Reader

Today was a good day.  I came into work and found a little gift on my desk.  I have no idea who it was from - well actually I have a sneaking suspicion but I don't know for sure - and it was a little beeswax candle in a jar, all done up in a pretty little bag.  I'll take a pic tomorrow and add it here.

I had a fairly productive day at work and have also finalised some of the meetings I have lined up in NZ next week.  I had a nice relaxing lunch with a colleague and we noticed two more of our colleagues sitting nearby painting in water colour.. very talented artists too.  Just shows we don't know the hidden talents of those around us sometimes.  

A late finish from work meant a late arrival home, which was followed by a visit from my youngest son and later a phone call from my sister.  So it's all been happening today!

I'm feeling really tired though now, so am going to finish here and scoot off to bed.  I'll post photo's tomorrow of the candle. G'nite!

Ack, Monday arrives way too fast!  The upside is, I only have 7 more work days until I have 8 days leave.  Very much looking forward to that.

Today was busy as always, but I don't mind busy as it's always interesting and the work day goes faster.

I had a slight movement with my weight today and I'm wondering if the fact I've stopped taking the pill has helped with that.  I was only on it for a few weeks to alter my cycle, however, I'd forgotten gaining a little weight was a side effect previously when I'd used the pill for short periods of time.  Time will tell I guess.

I've had a rather productive few days and feel like some more of my retreat plans are coming together, along with ideas for further retreats.  I'm also going to be able to do some training through work that will be helpful in my workplace, as well as for my retreats so that's a big bonus.

I seem to have an enormously busy few weeks coming up, but also exciting too and I'm looking forward to it all.  

It's date night on Wednesday night for Tiara and I.  This month's plan is to go to either a Chinese or Thai restaurant because she will be going to Thailand in a few weeks, with a couple of brief stops in other parts of Asia.  

Wednesday night is also Xavier's 5th birthday, so I'm going to take him on an excursion to Underwater World when I get back from NZ and Yamba.  It will be the first time we've done something like that together too, so it should be fun.  

I was back into my yoga nidra this morning, I seem to fall off the wagon a bit on weekends, but I sure notice the difference when I'm doing it regularly.  I need to remember that difference each morning when sometimes the enthusiasm for sleep or dozing is a little stronger!

Today's pic is of another little watercolour I did a few years ago.  It was one of my favourites.