Kelly Azuma

Had a really fun day today, met lots of my spooky friends, did some readings (tea leaves and cards), received some readings, and ate lots of yummy food!

We had loads for morning tea including hand-made pies and sausage rolls and hot-out-of-the-oven scones with cream and homemade jam! Yum!

Lunch consisted of 3 types of quiche, bruschetta, more salads than you can poke a stick at, roast chicken and various other meats, scotched eggs and various other savouries. Dessert was cheesecake, pavlova’s, fruit salad, fresh mulberries, chocolate mud sponge cake, brownies, my lemon bar, spongecake, coconut pudding etc etc!

I piled my plate high and felt like I could have rolled myself home. I was that full. We had a sweepstakes, but I didn’t win anything. Then we got to choose a pressie hanging from the awning, and it had a $1 scratchie, which I again didn’t win anything on, and a ticket for the Lotto for tonight, we all got entered into it thanks to Joyce (my teacher) and Helen (my reflexologist). They set it all up by themselves! On top of that, we then got our names called out of a hat and got to choose a lucky dip, the whole 29 of us! I got a set of Maya Oracle Cards, and my other spooky friends got either cards or books relating to what we’re interested in. The non-spooky people there got other kinds of gifts like soap, smellies, home decorations etc. It was cool! Really nice to get something too!! What can I say but that my teacher is one of the most generous people on the planet!

I’m not sure if we won anything on the lotto ticket, I haven’t checked yet, but if you don’t hear from me again, you’ll know I won and have left the country! haha

Melbourne Cup Day @ Joyce's house

People getting their pressies from the awning

Pressies blowing in the wind

My morning tea

My lunch

Choices for afternoon tea

It was one of those days today. My phone was ringing from 8am this morning, it all started when a boat at Yasu’s work caught fire because of one of the welders who got too close and then Yasu had to put out the fire with the extinguisher, but ended up inhaling half of the stuff and ended up feeling really sick. Being a man, he didn’t think to drink some water, but kept walking around like a zombie feeling bad until I made him drink some water and sit down for a while. I had to keep ringing up to check on him and he kept ringing me, so it was like playing phone tag all morning!

Sunday night we had talked and decided to get reverse cycle central heating and cooling in our house, thinking that we’ve already been here nearly 3 years, if we don’t get it now, we never will. So I started to call around some of the specialists and book them to come out for quotes.

I also had to chase up our insurance company and got the royal run-around, fielded from section to section until I got to a very grumpy lady with a real attitude problem. A few months ago a car hit the lightpole around the corner from our house head on, and it blew the mains of our reticulation system, so we had to get it fixed. $300 later, and now we don’t even know if the insurance company will pay up because they ‘requested’ a detailed report. Then I had to go organise the stupid report, more time wasting, delaying, and just pathetic really. We’ve been paying it for 3 years, never missed a payment, and how they repay us is with suspicion and attitude.

By 3pm I was running around in a mad scramble because I had to make something to take to the Melbourne Cup Lunch tomorrow (dessert), and make a roast for dinner as I’d promised Yasu.

I turned to an old favourite, Lemon Shortbread Bars from La Fuji Mama. They have been very popular in the past and are very simple to make.

Lemon Shortbread Bars

I then got on and cooked a pork roast. In order to get the crackling nice, I had to turn the oven up to 250 degrees celcius for 30 minutes. This ensures a nice crackling but it also makes the house really smokey, and I managed to set the fire alarm off, even though I had the fans on, and all the windows open. Yasu arrived home and thought the house was on fire!

Roast Pork and Crackling

Roast Veggies (Butternut pumpkin, Sweet potato and Potato)

Yasu's dinner

It was all worth it in the end though, as the pork came out really lovely and was sooo tasty! I couldn’t stop picking at it. The veggies I cooked in my George Forman fat free cooker, because I can’t take alot of fat due to not having a gall bladder. We both really enjoyed our dinner though, and after I did the washing up I sat down with some lemon bar and a cuppa.

Looking forward to seeing all my ’spooky’ friends tomorrow and having a chin wag, and with any luck I might win on a horse!

• I went to Yoga on Wednesday night and the teacher, Sui, told me I should give it a go anyway because when she was in a car accident and broke her wrist and had whiplash she still did yoga, and it actually made her better and strengthened her wrist and neck. So I did give it a go, and it actually wasn’t too bad. I didn’t push myself, only did as much as I could.
• Halfway through the yoga I was called into the AGM that was happening in the next room and stood for election onto the community centre committee, and won! I was sworn in that night and am now officially a member of the committee. Our next meeting is on 18^th November to decide on a few projects coming up and to set who will be doing what. I’ve already learned a whole heap of stuff, it’s really interesting.
• One of the women in my life skills course, I found out today,  is a clairvoyant and a healer. It also turned out she is going away and needed someone to stay at her beautiful house up in the hills for 4 days (weekend) while her and her husband go away. She has a mini-farm with sheep, dogs, a horse, goats, chooks, and cats and it overlooks the whole of Perth. Anyway, Yasu and I will be staying at her house over the weekend she is away, so it will be like a mini holiday of our own! Add to the fact I just love animals, so it really will be a pleasure.
• I have also been talking with a friend in Melbourne and we have made plans for me to go there in February to go to the Soundwave Music Festival together. Our favourite band, Faith No More, is playing after reuniting again, so it will be a blast. I will be staying for a few days so I can hang out with him and his wife and their two young sons who I am yet to meet! It’s been about 7 years since my last visit.
• As well as that, we are heading to Adelaide for Christmas, driving over, to stay with a high school friend of mine who just moved there with her partner, because of his work. So it’s all very exciting!
• Melbourne Cup Day is coming up on Tuesday and I’ve been invited to my Reiki Master’s house for a Cup Day party, all our ‘spooky’ friends will be there, so it will be a fun day!! Plus which one of us will be the better psychic and pick the winning horse??
• I’ve put in an early order for a good pair of sunglasses for xmas from Yasu… anyone have any ideas about good brands? I’m totally new to this… I’ve never owned a really good pair, but with the sun so bright now, and summer on the horizon, squinting is making the skin around my eyes go wrinkly so I really need to get some good ones, the darker the better.
• On the weight front, I’ve dropped another 3kg and 5cm from my waist. I’ve had some small-er clothes in my wardrobe for a while, and I can now fit into them, so yay. I haven’t really changed what I have been eating consciously, but I noticed once I started drinking 2.5 litres of water per day, and walking 3.2km per day, the craving for sweets has gone out the window. I also eat far less than I used to, it’s as if my body needs less, and I definitely can feel now when I’ve had enough.
• I bought a papa-san chair online, you know those round chairs on a frame you can sink right into? I bought one from someone else, but it was practically brand new, hardly ever used, beautiful black suede and so big and comfy. I have been meditating in it every day, and it’s sooo good. I mean I can get really comfy and the meditation is just so enhanced by that. And it was only $30 so a very good buy!
• Somehow I keep winning competitions. I won some energy saving lightbulbs last week, and this week I won a potato chips competition I entered online and received a big box of mixed potato chips from the company! I also entered another competition, and was one of 400 people worldwide to win a bunch of cool prizes which I was just notified about last night, so I’m waiting to receive them by courier!
• I felt it was time to come off the anti-depressants (Luvox) I have been on for the past 9 years. In the beginning I was taking 11 different pills in the morning and 11 pills at night. 8 of those were anti-depressants because at 22 I was suicidal after a personal incident. From there it all just snowballed and I ended up with all these pills after seeing a psychiatrist. Over the last few years I’ve taken myself off most of them, and have, for the last 2 years been on only 1 anti-depressant per day. That’s a big step down from 22 pills per day. Anyway, I felt that now is the time to come off totally, but with anti-depressants you can’t stop just like that because the withdrawal symptoms are hell. If even I missed one pill by forgetting to take it, the next day I would suffer hellish withdrawal symptoms until I took the pill and even then it would take half a day to work. The symptoms are feeling like you’re going to vomit, or actually vomiting, dizzyness, headaches, anger, extreme sleepiness, nausea etc. It’s just like with any other drug. So bit by bit I’ve been coming off. It means for me, cutting the pill by myself unless I want the rigmarole of buying a lesser dose pill, but instead I just cut off a bit, one pill for me is 100 miligrams, so cut the end off it becomes 80 mg, then abit more 70, etc, until now I’ve got it down to 50. I’m hoping within the next week or so I can get it down somewhere to 30. Hopefully by mid-november I can be off them altogether. It’s somewhat fast the way I’m doing it, usually it would be slower than this, but I’ve been giving myself reiki every day and it really helps with the symptoms, so I’m not feeling it as much. Also, when I get determined about something, nothing is going to make me stop, so the willpower that I need to get me through is strong, thankfully.

Phew!!