What's In The Back Room?

My wife and I live in a four bedroom house, why am I telling you this? Because I decided that I would show you what's in one of the back rooms lol. Out of the four rooms, 1 room is our bedroom, 1 room is a guest bedroom, 1 room at the moment has nothing in it and the other room is like an office - library - dvd storage area.... It's kind of where we put things that don't really have a 'home' anywhere else, OR, stuff that we don't want our cats or dogs to break, as the door to this room always stays closed. All of the photos can be enlarged by clicking on them :o)

                                               

On one side of this room, is a row of bookshelves and on the other is a row of dvd - cd shelves. As I'm painting the house at the moment, we drastically culled our book, dvd and cd collections as we just had too much stuff that either wasn't going to be read, watched or listened to again. This room has been painted, so all we need to do in here now is to replace the curtains.

   
There's also a computer desk, and behind where I was standing is a built in wardrobe, where we mostly store stationary, paid bills, important documents... All the boring stuff lol I have a lot of favourite things, both in and outside of our house, but I decided that I would take some photos of my favourite things that live in the back room. 

                                               

This first photo is of the meanings of both my, and my wife's names. My wife purchased these shortly after we met. The second photo is of a poem that my wife wrote for me, also not long after we met. The timber Buddha belonged to my Aunt who passed away last year.

This is 'Alf', he's ceramic and I painted him for my Aunt was I was a kid (yeah, years ago lol), as she absolutely loved the TV show Alf!! Just behind Alf is a couple of coins that we purchased from the Canberra Mint this year. One is an ANZAC Memorial coin and the other is one we pressed ourselves. These items are just sitting on one of the bookshelves in front of some books.

                                               

The first photo here is of a funky glass bowl my Aunt gave me years ago, and the frame beside it is a gift we gave her, it's the meaning of her Irish Clan maiden name. The next photo is one that was taken of me when I was at university. I had been awarded a highly prestigious scholarship and was awarded a certificate at the ceremony. I was actually very proud of myself on this day, as I had achieved something that was quite sought after, and also humbled that the university felt that I was deserving. I gave this photo to my Aunt who wanted a copy, she had the frame made especially for the photo and at some point stuck a butterfly sticker on the glass lol   

Many years ago when my Nan passed away, my Mum, Uncle and Aunt were sorting through my Nan's things and deciding what to keep, and what to donate. My Aunt asked me if there was anything in particular that I wanted.... I asked if I could have my Nan's old timber chest. She asked me why I had picked that old thing? You see my Nan had lots of lovely items that she had collected over the years, why would I want an old wooden box? It was a fair enough question lol I told my Aunt that I knew what Nan kept in her wardrobe, dresser, cupboards etc..... But I never knew what she kept in the chest, and as a child - it always had an air of mystery about it. lol 

My Aunt thought that this was pretty funny and as it turned out, the chest actually belonged to my Aunt - not my Nan! Apparently my Aunt moved house years before I was born, and stored the chest at Nan's house and never collected it. When we opened it, we found out that this was where my Nan stored her Christmas decorations..... There wasn't anything remotely mysterious hiding inside lol 

                                         

These photos are just of a couple of shelves. The first photo is of a shelf that just has little trinkets on it. One of the trinkets is a medal that I was awarded by the NSW State Government. I received this medal when I worked for Triple Zero (000) - This is the Australian emergency services number. I was working during a period when huge parts of NSW were under floodwater due to massive storms. I will never forget that shift, and the calls from people who were absolutely beside themselves with fear.

There is also a little jug on that shelf that my Aunt gave me, she told me that it belonged to my Great Great Grandmother - I think it's the oldest thing I own. The second photo is of a shelf that just contains some of my tarot cards, oracles, new age type books etc. You can also see a gold coloured side profile of a face in a frame. This was originally a jigsaw puzzle, but it had two parts to it. Once you completed the puzzle which was Egyptian themed, you then had to dismantled it, and complete the second part of the puzzle. The second part was to put it together in a vertical position. Some people find jigsaw puzzles frustrating, lol but I do like the ones with a bit of a twist, especially if it's a wet weekend and you have nothing better to do! lol      

So there you have it! Some of my favourite things that live in the back room :o) Do you have a particular spot in your house where you put your 'treasures?'

Whoa! What An Amazing Day!

On Friday my wife and I went to the Health, Harmony and Soul Expo and the Food and Wine Expo in Newcastle. I had been looking forward to these expo's since we purchased our tickets online a couple of weeks ago. It's funny, I thought that I would walk out with a bunch of soy candles, because that's typical of me. . . As it turned out, I didn't buy a single candle! I did however buy a bunch of other stuff, of course none of it was stuff that I 'needed'. 

I'll start by showing you some of the goodies we got from the food section of the expo. There were so many chocolates to choose from, but we stopped at two types of chocolate and two types of nougat. . . Thank god! lol We tried a sample of the Bondi Chai and it was yummo and will be available in supermarkets soon, so keep your eyes open for that one.

We also bought some chilli chocolate powder and two spice mixes that can be used in any type of cooking, as well as being mixed with sour cream or yoghurt to make dips. . . I tried a sample of the dip and it was amazing!

Lunch consisted of a bunch of tastings from lots of little stalls, we had Vietnamese spring rolls, Mexican style soft tacos - which tasted like nothing I have ever eaten before!

We also had vegetarian food from govindas and gozmeles. We were stuffed! If I had room I would have kept buying and trying different foods lol

I bought a number of books, which I wasn't expecting to do, as I already have a number of books on my 'to read' list. lol There were two guest speakers in particular that I really wanted to see, and they were Mitchell Coombes and Michael Wheeler.

Mitchell Coombes is very similar to Lisa Williams personality wise, he was quite funny. At one point he was reading the woman sitting right beside me, then he stopped and said "the man sitting next to you has really nice energy". He then continued on with her reading!!! I was like... What?!?! Wow!!! lol I met him after the show and he signed both books and a cd that I had purchased. 

The next speaker was Michael Wheeler, I had purchased his book and met him before his show. He was very good and will be hosting his own show near where we live in a couple of weeks, which we hope to attend :o)

We also purchased these pieces, my wife liked the glass infused mineral necklace and I liked the Buddhist beads and labradorite crystal.

This crystal has some fantastic colours! Unfortunately because of the rounded shape, I can't capture them properly with a camera. As soon as I saw it sitting amongst all the other crystals, I knew it had to come home with me. I've yet to decide where I'm going to put it, I also had no intention of purchasing any crystals, that was until this one jumped out at me.

Now this drawing blew me away, I was so close to not having it done as it was quite expensive. There were two women reading and drawing spirit guides. We must have walked past their stall four or five times, and each time I was in awe of their drawings. Every time we walked past, my wife kept telling me to go for it. Eventually, I caved in lol The drawing is about one metre high and about seventy centimeters wide. 

The reader held my hands for maybe 30 seconds before she let go, as though she had received a shock! She asked me if anyone had ever commented on my energy before? I laughed and told her what had happened when Mitchell Coombes was reading a woman who was sitting bedside me and how he had commented on my energy. She shook her head and said that she could understand why he said what he did. She said that I have amazing energy! 

She continued to tell me that my spirit guide was Tibetan and he told her that his name was Chi. The reader went on to say that there was a very strong dragon influence and that I should be aware of dragon symbolism and signs. The reader spoke more about both Chi and the dragon, before drawing the image above...... What was so amazing was, that so much of this image she drew with her eyes closed!!!