A Sentence A Day – July 2020

At the end of last month’s edition, here in Queensland we were taking the first tentative steps back towards normality as restrictions were eased.

But as I write this, we are on the brink once again (for those not in Australia, three young women went on holiday to Melbourne – a covid hostpot – and lied on their return to Brisbane, before resuming their usual social life and spreading the infection far and wide).

Even though we’ve been out and about a fair bit this past month, it’s always felt weird. It’s like we’re scared to be near other people, giving each other a wide berth. I know we should still be social distancing, but how can I *not* hug my gorgeous children when I see them, or my dad who is struggling following a stroke earlier this year?

So here’s what July looked like, in just a sentence (or two) a day …

1 July – A coffee meeting followed by a tour of the premises of my newest client. Can you guess what sort of business it is?!

2 July – Visited a local retirement village to interview some residents for a copywriting project I’m working on. I’ve been having some troubles with my Outlook calendar (and tech in general, for months) and it hadn’t saved the meeting; luckily I remembered 10 minutes before time and the meeting was only a few streets away! Not happy Jan.

3 July – Over the past few weeks I’ve done quite a few quotes for businesses applying for Covid grants – today I got a phone call from one that had been successful – happy news for them, and me!

4 July – I went a bit mad with a tube of rose gold paint … this is only two of the items I painted!

5 July – The husbear and I had a bit of cabin fever so went on an outing to Colmslie beach, along the shores of the Brisbane River. Despite being a Brisbane girl all my life I’d never been before! I’m told people don’t swim there due to sharks in the Brisbane River, but there’s a lovely park as well.

6 July – A couple of business meetings today – one in person, and one via Zoom.

7 July – The highlight of my day was my session with my personal trainer, Sally (yep, I can’t believe I’m saying that either!).

8 July – Two more client meetings today. One was at a big shopping centre so I seized the opportunity to buy a couple of things for the husbear’s birthday, as I probably won’t get a chance otherwise! It’s a bit hard to do sneaky shopping now we are in each other’s company 24/7 😉 .

9 July – Another great meeting with my business mastermind group.

10 July – Friday night movie time – we watched “A Simple Favor” on Netflix which was a bit strange.

11 July – Slept in, and my first trip back to the library since lockdown. In the evening we watched Mission Impossible 3 with our son.

12 July – Miss 23 and her fiance visited for dinner; and I ordered a couple of rugs online, for our front door and under the pool table.

13 July – Hot chocolate meeting with a couple of other business owners, we are trying to keep each other accountable and inspired to work “on” our businesses and not just “in” them!

14 July – Cold and windy. Today was the big day – we connected to the NBN, in the hope that it would solve all our internet woes. However we still only get 1mbps download speed from our office so there are obviously other problems, sigh …

15 July – Started a new jigsaw puzzle (this pic is from when it was actually finished!).

16 July – My new rugs have arrived, and look how well they coordinate with the cushions I bought last month!

17 July – A pleasant Friday night relaxing with my puzzle (and my Bear of course)!

18 July – We had a BBQ lunch with the kids to celebrate the husbear’s birthday. Afterwards we got a bit silly and played “hot potato” with multiple lemons that had dropped into the yard from the neighbour’s tree, went crazy with Mr 26’s pellet gun, and played ping pong. So much fun, I haven’t laughed so hard in ages!

19 July – It might have been the husbear’s birthday, at least we celebrated yesterday because we both have a lot of work on our plates and ended up at our desks.

20 July – Have you ever had the deep fried camembert from Aldi? It’s REALLY yummy! The coffee chocolate however I DON’T recommend … yukky!

21 July – Dinner at a Thai restaurant with my Dad and stepmum to celebrate the husbear’s birthday.

22 July – Big news … Miss 23 and her fiance put a contract on a house a couple of weeks ago and today the finance was all approved!!! Being purely selfish, I’m really happy because their new (forever!) home is much closer to us 😉 . This is Miss 23’s impression of how she would like to decorate …

23 July – Business mastermind group in the morning, and dentist to get a filling replaced in the afternoon.

24 July – The husbear and I had planned to go away for a long weekend in the motorhome but we ended up revising our plans to a one night getaway, and both worked instead.

25 July – It might have been a wet and miserable Saturday but we went away anyway! We stayed at a lovely spot just outside Canungra, on the banks of the Coomera River and made friends with some geese who were enjoying the rain.

26 July – The wind blew the rain away and we woke to clear skies. I particularly loved listening to the bell birds and whip birds as we lay in bed – we don’t get them at home.

27 July – A treat for Fleur!

28 July – Takeaway fish and chips for dinner. I don’t eat seafood so I usually have a couple of potato scallops instead. This one looks like a turtle with chips for legs!

29 July – The husbear had to go in to his workplace for the day – the first time in about 4 months! It was very quiet and dull without him.

30 July – Madly trying to get all my work for the month wrapped up as tomorrow I am booked into the DMDU (Digital Marketing Down Under) Conference.

31 July – So how do you attend a conference in the midst of coronavirus? The event went virtual and as I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of watching it from my desk all by myself, I joined a couple of other attendees from my mastermind group at our usual venue to catch all the action on the big screen!

In other news, Miss 23’s wedding has been officially postponed until 31 July 2021. When they rang the venue to confirm, they were told that while it could go ahead, there would be all sorts of restrictions in place (including no dancing!) so they have made the difficult decision to wait and hope that things will be a lot more relaxed, this time next year. At least with buying their new house, they now feel like they are moving on with their lives even if the wedding has been put on hold again …

See ya next month!