Posts Tagged ‘sharole’

Our 8th Wedding Anniversary

Posted: 26/03/2013 by Sharole in Events, News, Pictures, Uncategorized
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For our wedding anniversary this year we decided, ok it may have been more me to go and see, Cliff Richard in concert in March. We bought the tickets last year and waited for it to come around.

Before it started. Bad lighting here but oh well. The theatre is beautiful all Art Deco.

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Wow, what a lot of energy he has for a 72 year old, not to mention a great figure. I guess staying single and no kids, has kept him in fine form.
We had a nice time. My dad watched the kids and we jetted off into the city by train, grabbed our favourite snags, my favourite is the Greek, Toby likes to change his up each time. We were going to go the Reuban this time but it was closed, so we were still happy with our fancy snags. Then made a run for it to the concert and thankfully made it.

As it was starting. Awesome lighting throughout.

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Obviously an older audience, though I will say we weren’t the youngest people there :) There was also one ning nong that kept calling out, one in every crowd, as they say. He came back for 3 encores and it went for over 3 hours. I enjoyed singing all the songs.
We were so impressed with his stamina dancing all over the stage. So many good songs, gotta love the goodies and oldies…. His sense of humour was great also, nice to know your going to get class at an event and not trash.

Happy Anniversary to us!!!!

Sharole’s Birthday

Posted: 07/11/2012 by Sharole in Events, News, Pictures
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I had a lovely birthday, thanks to mostly, my husband.

Firstly my sister came up and took me to a show of Les Miserables, for my birthday gift. It was nice and close in Parramatta and was directed by my friend David Tucker, it was fantastic and it was nice to see 2 other people I knew in the cast. We went out after, for a hot chocolate and then she slept over so as to be here for the family birthday party for William and Rocky. Ezra and Gran also came up so as to be here for the family event.

On Sunday we hosted a BBQ for the family and we had the afternoon together. It was nice to see Gregg and Seth playing with all the kids and Tom also. My boys love having Tom around, their big boy cousin Tom. I managed to get a photo with one of my brothers, Gregg.

My birthday barely got a mention, but after there was a card in the pile from Seth, wishing me a happy birthday. Apparently that’s good if you get that off your big brother for anything. So I was grateful.

Monday Toby made be breakfast, he had a lovely card that he’s designed. And one gift for the morning. It was a wireless headset for me for the gym and if I wanted to talk to people around the house whilst doing something then I can use that. It was in my favourite colour red, very thoughtful, he then also had an arm band for my phone whilst at the gym or exercising also, matching once more, I may have helped with that idea, but he picked it out and bought it. I got a new pair of gloves for gardening, more sturdy, so far so good. It’s kind of sad when I was wearing out a pair of gloves per one gardening sitting. Then there was a slicer for my “laminating facination” he calls it, he says I have to have everything perfect for the kids learning tools and for primary etc…. it’s got a double edge one side is a guilitine and the other side is a scrapbooking blade, it shall be very useful. I was a very lucky girl and yet Toby tells me I have one more gift coming. Something with my name on it. I might blog about it when it arrives.

I took it easy that day and Willy and I watched a movie a chick flick and relaxed and I got lots of cuddles off my boys, then when Toby got home he had a lovely bunch of flowers in toe with my favourite flowers gerbera’s, and he made dinner. He had a cupcake sized cake so they could all sing happy birthday to me, and you can guess what happened at night ;) . I almost forgot to mention we danced! We put on my favourite songs (including our wedding song) and we danced and the kids joined in also, some nice family time, for the evening.

The next morning when I went to the gym my gym buddy Josephine had a lovely bunch of flowers for me, roses, they were beautiful. I actually managed to remember to take a photo of these ones.

On Friday Toby had organised for a group of my friends to go out for dinner, it was a steak house but when I saw the salmon I decided to go for that, I am loving salmon these last few years, it was delicious. We had a lovely night. Toby had ordered a cake with my name on it, a mudcake which is my favourite cake, although that said I loved the cake he got me last year, it had porfiteroles on the top (the same as like the dessert from our wedding).

I wore a pair of high heels! Sporting a country gal look. That doesn’t happen very often these days, and I’ll go ahead and admit I can’t walk in them like I used to I have put that on my to do list, to re-learn now there are no more kids to give birth to. I normally hate seeing women that can’t walk in heels, but I am going easy on myself and saying well I could I’ve had a bunch of kids and now I shall do it again. And to think I wore heels right through the preganancy with TJ, that became less and less as each child came along. The pair of boots were tan ankle boot heels, love them. Yep I am a shoe girl and honestly it’s not very often I find shoes I like, so it was nice to find a few pairs this year to help me get back into the swing of things. Slowly but surely though, these ankles aren’t strong like they once were. I still have hope though after talking to another lady that had several kids, she said they do get stronger once more, my fingers are crossed.

So this gal sure can’t complain. Everything was GREAT!!!! Thanks for a great week Toby, and thanks for all my birthday wishes peeps.
Oh and in case anyone was wondering I figured it out, I just turned 37. Glad you’ll be joining me soon Mooly…… ;) (inside joke)

Shazza Cruising the Pacific

Posted: 06/06/2012 by Sharole in Events, Informative, News, Pictures, Uncategorized
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To the theme song of

“The Brady Bunch”

Here’s the story of a gal, Sharole
Who went cruising with 3 very lovely girls
There were 3 brunette’s, and a blonde
Only 1 with curls!

Here’s the story of my hubby, Toby
Who was at home busy with the kids
There are 4 of them with Dad together
And they were all alone

Till one day when this lady hit Noumea
And then there was Mare and Mystery I (island)
Then finaly, there was Isle of Pines
That was my cruise, then back-to the, O’Hara Bunch
The O’Hara Bunch

I was glad to see my O’Hara Bunch……..

That will do it?

Ok I guess I should give more detail.

We set off from Sydney in the late afternoon, catching the sunset on the harbour, it was beautiful sailing out of the heads, via the Harobur bridge. Before too long the mobile phones worked no more and we were free for 9 days, from answer to mum and all our daily lives.

It was 2.5 days to get to the first Island, then Noumea, Mare, Mystery Island, Isle of Pines, then 2.5 days back to Sydney. (minus Vila in picture)

Noumea: We were there on a Sunday so there wasn’t a lot to do there. They had a market set up so we started there. We took a bus ride, which didn’t actually take us far. So before long we were back where we started. Everyone had said how horrible and ugly this place was, well I disagree it was perfectly fine. Lovely beaches and ocean water and the people were fine.

I saw these adorable scootbuggies. Convinced the girlies to hop on board and so we hired 2 for a decent price of $55 each for 2 hours. Certainly better than the price for jet skiing ($190 for 15mins). I will have to fulfill that wish in Lake Powell I think. We had a blast on these things flying around the Island. I got mine upto 60km/hr. It was really a glorified 2 seater ATV or 4WD. Courtney and I even went through McDonalds in it, we made the girl working laugh. I got an ice cream cone for 195 francs, sounded expensive still haven’t figured that out, oh well.

We did some markets shopping and we checked out a supermarket, and managed to find Smurf candy’s. So we each bought one packet for our families back home. I’ll tell you it came and went real quick in my house, less than 3 minutes. They tell me they tasted good :) We got a Polynesian dance before hoping back on the boat to head to the next shore.

Mare: It seemed to take a while before we got off onto this shore we had to got via tenders (safety boats) this time, so we all had to take turns. When we reached the land we took a look about checked out the church and a waterhole and the school with all the cute kids. Went and checked out the water then decided to head over to the other swim area when we realised we didn’t have much time. Determined we paid and hoped in the van and on the way it started to pour with rain.

When we got there we asked the man to wait for us, he said fine and so we took off our clothes and left our bags in his van and ran into the water in the rain. It was beautiful :) Sadly we had to cut it short since the Boat crew started to harrass us to head back to the boat.

See how beautiful the colour of the water is, and the sand so white and soft. We made it back in time to get back on the boat, yep last tender back :)

I’ve wanted to go to Vanuatu for many a year, and today I made it.

Mystery Island: This was a deserted Island, where the locals come across to set up markets for the boats passing by. It has an air strip on it from WW11 on it. Other than that is had some huts and a little house of some sort and that was about it. My favourite part of this stop was just floating in the water for hours. The water was so beautiful we could see right down to the ocean floor 20-30mtrs from the beach.

That said we did come acorss some hostile natives, tried to cook me up for soup. After a battle I came out triumphant, thankfully :) And we made friends.

Isle of Pines: Our last stop before forging home. Here we had paid for a tour, involving a resort and snorkling, with a BBQ lunch and use of their vacilities. Honestly it wasn’t what I expected upon arrival, The view was beautiful and and the pool lovely. Firstly we sunbathed by the pool before too long realising we shouldd get our snorkling out of the way incase the weather went bad.

We took a 15min walk and ended up at a water type hole, where many people were snorkling. I admit I wasn’t skilled at it, I kept gagging, so I threw it aside and just went without. We ran into some native members their which was cool, one had even served a mission in Australia recently. Melem our group leader even climbed a palm tree for us, my he made it look easy. Once again we were on the last tender back to the boat. It was nice getting a break from the constant travelling and I had to wonder how my parents did it with my brother when they migrated back to Australia from England for 6 weeks. I sure don’t have the stomach for it.

You’ll see in the picture above the pines, funny slim things. The Island was named by Captain James Cook. He didn’t even bother to hop off the ship for that discovery.

On the boat: Activities we did were trivia, we saw several acrobatic shows, and stage shows. We visited the gym once and decided not to go back – movement on movement was not pleasant. Nope no bingo – I did find out though it was very popular and as was the casino, which I didn’t even see till the last day or so, lots of people in there gambling. We tried to play air hockey but it was broken :( There were 2 swimming pools however in the times when you would use them it was very much a wave pool and not well attended. We did partake in karaoke and I am proud to say I did my first vocal performance alone to the song “Shine” from Vanessa Amorosi. Jacqui and I also let loose on “Dancing” Queen by ABBA. There also was a dancing area that we attended for some dancing, we figured our best chance of exercise, we did have some fun but found it somewhat seedy as time went on.

I would like to take issue with the carpets on this cruise ship obviously not a seasoned cruise taker, the pattern on these long corridors made me quite oozie, day in and day out. Ok I’m feeling sick just looking at this picture.

I was surprised by the size of the rooms and our large window which I appreciated. We had two animal towels made, a monkey and an elephant.One of the best things for the boat was having our room cleaned and made to look nice everyday by Alvin, he was fantastic. If our clothes weren’t folded he would do it, fresh towels everyday, agh…. what a delight!

Massive crack up was Courtney with these on. I even have a video :)

Now back to mumhood – it was very nice to see my family. I was happy to see all my kids run upto me and maul me, Rocky was lagging behind though, I’m guessing the car seat wasn’t helping matters.

Rocky’s Birth – My Birthday

Posted: 07/11/2011 by Sharole in Events, Family, News, Pictures
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Seems I shall be sharing my birthday for the rest of my life now. Yep Rocky was born on my birthday.

The plan was for me to relax all day, but come afternoon we decided to take a trip to Parramatta and buy me a guitar for my birthday. It was my birthday request. I sold mine when I moved to the States and hadn’t had one since. I figured now was a good time to bring the guitar back into mine and now into my kids lives.

Whilst waiting to pick up my guitar I started getting contractions. at 3:30pm 4mins apart lasting for 1 minute. When we got home I called the hospital to ask what they want me to do, since my waters hadn’t broken. They said dear you don’t want your waters to break being your 5th child. I said ok so we headed into the hospital.  After being there for not long my contractions got closer 2 mins apart and by 6:20pm my waters broke. No chance of crossing my legs now :)

At 8:14pm Rocky had arrived.

He weighed 8lbs 4 oz. Length was 53cms long. Head circumference was 34.5cms. Rocky is our largest and heaviest child to date.

Some features we’ve observed. He has Granddad Frater ears, and the Frater chin. He has Toby’s nose and feet. He has sandy blonde hair and very blonde eye lashes and eye brows, looks to be a blue eyed baby. Looks like he might have a wave to his hair.  And broad hands?

Gran and Aunty Nicky arrived not long afterward to welcome him into the world and into the family. Yep the one born here in Sydney, was the one they missed the exit of.

I need to find a picture of Aunty Nicky, surely we have one somewhere.

Rocky has been shown lots of love his first week. Nana,TJ, Gigi, and William came first thing in the morning. Granddad and Uncle Gregg came to visit at the hospital and Jacqui. Then during the week we had the Wilson’s, Tucker’s and Gomez’s all come visit. Aunty Mel and Brooke, Uncle Seth, Louise, Jonathan and Lucy and my visiting teacher Lisa Pelayo.

Rocky welcome to our family.

The kids are all besotted with him.

Headed home.

Swing Dancing

Posted: 02/04/2010 by Toby in Informative, News
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Last Saturday Toby and I got to go Swing Dancing at the local Bowlo (aka Hazelbrook Bowling Club). It is right about the corner (almost) from our home. Dad kindly looked after the kids and off we went. It was our first time going dancing in a little over 3 years.I found out that I no longer fit the dance shoes I bought 5 years ago :( Turns out it’s true after 4 kids my foot has grown half to a whole size. I guess I was doing well until the last one.

Lets just say the band wasn’t so crash hot (PenrithSwingBand). But we didn’t care, we got up for all but 3 dances for the night. We made several boo boo’s and laughed a lot.

It was so much fun to go out and have the dance floor pretty much to ourselves and feel no pressure that we were surrounded by great dancers or have to feel bad at how rusty we both were.

Today we ran into some of the people that were there that night at a garage sale. They said “are you the two dancers from the other night”, we said “yes”. They said “that was great!” So a compliment to boot.

Now we’ll have to find another venue we can go out and strut our stuff at.

Swing Dancing

Swing Dancing

10 Most Livable Countries

Posted: 13/01/2010 by Toby in Informative
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Turns out Australia is number two.

Beaten by Paris, France.

Turns out we upgraded 5 spots as the US was down at number 7.

Not sure how Canada was at 10 though. It’s a beautiful country, hey I’d live there!

This of course is all subject to the person who got to publish this article. What I’d like to know is, who determines these lists. Have they actually lived in each of these places. Is it just a vote at some pub during “Happy Hour”? who knows.

I just found another list where the US didn’t rate at all. I wonder if people from Countries that don’t even rate on these lists, see these statistics and think that’s it “I’m moving” DONE….

Perhaps one thing we can guarantee is that the countries that have the highest Emigration are the countries that aren’t even put on the consideration list :)

Note: There are many reasons why people might choose to emigrate. Some are for political or economic reasons, or for personal reasons like finding a spouse while visiting another country and emigrating to be with them. Many older people living in rich nations with cold climates choose to move to warmer climates when they retire.

So where are the Top 10 unlivable lists for these? Seems no one wants to put their name to that article.

I certainly can think of some things that make a place unlivable for me, how about you? Do share…

On the Catwalk

Posted: 22/11/2009 by Toby in News, Pictures
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I’m a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I do my little turn on the catwalk

I’m too sexy for my shirt too sexy for my shirt
So sexy it hurts…

‘Cos I’m a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I shake my little tush on the catwalk

Anyone recognize this song? It’s from I’m too Sexy by Right Said Fred a one hit wonder band. It was a unforgettable tune and lyrics for me. It’s amazing how many neat songs in the world have been the only known song from a singer or group.

Anyway I diverse. Recently I had the opportunity to go to my first Catwalk Fashion Show. I had asked my niece what she’d like to do for her birthday and that was what she chose. I did a search on the internet and before long I had found a show and booked the tickets via Ticketek.

November 12th was our outing. Brooke and I ventured off to the city, for a girls night out. We only took a slight detour on the way there near the end, there was a new tunnel, and some roads I’d not been on before, but we course corrected (there may have been one illegal turn oops…), parked and headed inside.

There were around 120 stores represented, many of which I’d never heard, most of which Brooke had, some nice things and some garbage, and, some really good prices. There were huge discounts from the original prices, up to like 70%.

We managed to see all 4 catwalk presentations. They used the same models for each segment. They were 30minute shows (2 hours all up). Brooke was familiar with several of the models some from a TV show called “Australia’s next top model (?). Funnily enough whilst getting my hair cut on Saturday and flipping through the magazines one the models we saw, was in Cosmopolitan.

 

My observations:

* I had just assumed that all the models are taught to walk the exact same way, all these models had definite differences to their walks. Some were slouchy (bad posture), another had this kick up out the back. I started to see how some become more well known and supermodels than others.

* I had assumed they always had just about nothing in the bust department. There was actually a variety of sizes, from nothing to a full C cup. All wearing no bra’s, some were heading south quite fast.

* One of the models had a large scar down her leg and it hadn’t ended her carrier. Good to see :)

* Most were spray tanned from head to toe, but one model had only her chest up spray tanned.

* My favourite was as we sat in the front seats for the catwalk shows (3 out of 4 were great odds, we thought). I could see lots of stretch marks and in a variety of places. Granted none on their tummies (YET) but legs, butt, arms etc…. yes…. it was nice to see that they too are human and are susceptible to each of our gene pools and life.

* With the large screens visible on their walk back, most of the time they spent it looking at themselves.

* It was mostly women in the place (spectators and shoppers). I wondered if the Models were thinking these women are probably picking us apart.

*I’d never really thought about their hair that much. I noticed that each segment had it’s own hair style where all the models had the same do. We noticed they all had long hair and similar lengths also.

* Some of the models definitely seemed to enjoy their job more than others, some looked so miserable with their grumpy face on, it was as if you could tell which ones seemed to have nice personalities and which ones didn’t! Some really played up to the camera’s at the front of the catwalk, it added to the experience I thought.

* I wonder why the walk means that feet, legs, body then shoulders and head come last, how does that enhance the clothes?

* The shoes they were wearing were mainly so tall and looked so hard to walk in I could see the stiletto backs slide , by the end of the night I could see red marks and rub marks etc… on all of their feet, some shoes didn’t fit so their toes were hanging off the front and others, were too big. The walkway is so smooth and shiny that I was surprised with those massive high heels that someone didn’t slip. You’d want to soak your feet after for sure I felt, ouch….

4.5 hours later we were done and the event was over. We headed home. Brooke got a manicure and painted nails, I got a large arm bag and Gigi yep Gigi got a designer summer dress at a major bargain ($10).

I’d definitely go again. It was so nice to get out of the house and get some special time with Brooke (my niece). It was a new experience, a 1st for us both.

A great night was had :)

I almost pee’ed my pants!

Posted: 17/09/2009 by Toby in Funny, Informative, Pictures
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Imagine this coming at you racing in the front door as you open it to put out a dirty nappy?

Scared the living daylights out of me, so yep I screamed. Firstly we don’t own a cat, I have no idea who’s cat it was. But alas in it came, faster than I could close the door.

The kids ran for the couch, William stuck on the floor started crying and Granddad after saying why’d I let that cat in, started running around the house trying to get it out. Imagine a 66 year old man, maneuvering about the house, light footed in a cat manner, trying to out think the cat. My heart was a racing and I was totally grossed out to no end.

Before too long dad managed to get it but, it was ferocious, clawing at him and trying to bite him. As I opened the door and passed him some shoes and said throw it as far as you can, he made it to the fence and threw it over.

Dad said to me next time you get the cat. I said there won’t be a next time, if the cat comes in, the kids and I are running out. He then goes on you can’t leave the cat in the house, you’ll have to put a blanket over it to get it out so you don’t have to touch it. I said yeah right!

Spiders I can handle, cockroaches if I have to, snakes I’ve killed, but a ugly, underfed looking black, hardly and fur, feral cat, is out of my willingness to touch.

GROSS……….

As you can tell I’m not a pet lover. Give me a horse in a field any day. A dolphin in clear water, fine. I didn’t do too well with eels in Jelly Bean Waterhole either, things slithering through my legs, yuck!

Just one of our adventures this week.

Last Tango in New York

Posted: 20/08/2009 by Toby in Informative, News, Pictures
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This took a long time coming, I know!

Toby and I got to escape to New York on our last weekend together in the US (yep child free thanks to Uncle Rory) . New York has many memories for us both individually and as a couple, we got engaged there, and is also one of our favourite cities.

We took the early bus up to New York. Sadly it didn’t arrive as early as we had hoped. After several people having wrong tickets or no tickets and causing all sorts of who ha, like standing in the door so the bus couldn’t go anywhere till they got what they wanted, we finally made it approx 2 hours later than planned, mind due with no a/c. Trust us to get the bus with the a/c on the blink. We were all sweating terribly, I was glad we got the front seat, the back of the bus would have been much worse, I’m sure!

As soon as we hoped off the bus we had about 5 activities we could do potentially, depending on time before needing to catch the bus back that night. First up was lunch. I had picked the restaurant that I wanted to go to.

It’s called “5 Leaves” and is run by Aussies, friends of Heath Leadgers, in Greenpoint. It was a very cute, cafe/bar. Very popular we had to wait about 30mins before we got in and seated. The good point to that was for me, means it must be a good restaurant if people want to wait. The place had a lovely atmosphere about it and nice and laid back, very Aussie! The MD/part owner was great and had some good stories, like for example about how they got the place furnished, how most of the items in the place were given to them. I really like the decor/design of the cafe.

Now to the food. It was delicious! I had a sandwich and salad and it was the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten, if you go make sure to ask for a BLAT. From memory I think Toby had the burger, he loves the Aussie burgers with egg and bacon in it. Overall it was a great location, great food, great company, and great decor. We highly recommend this place to anyone that wants some food on their sojourn in NY.

http://www.fiveleavesny.com/

Once our bellies were full we went for a walk around McCarren Park a block, which had some lovely history. Our first stop was McCarren Pool.

The McCarren pool, is on the border between Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn, opened in July 1936. One of 10 large city pools built by Robert Moses with federal Works Progress Administration funds, the six-acre pool could accommodate 6,800 swimmers and was said to have been among the largest public pools built at that time. The design, by Moses’ architect Aymar Embury II, features a striped arch, more than 38 feet high, that served as a bathhouse. Free entry!

The other nine WPA pools still function, but McCarren closed in 1983 for renovation. Some residents, claiming it had become a magnet for raucous kids and illegal activities, opposed reopening it.

Now, 26 years later, it remains shut. In 2001, the city presented a $26 million plan for the pool but nothing ever came of it. A spokesperson for the Department of Parks and Recreation said that currently no plans exist for the pool because funding is not available. “Right now, it is the city’s most poignant ruin,” Francis Morrone wrote in the New York Sun last year. It’s now said to cost around $40 million to restore.

Above is it’s former glory, and the pictures with us in it is it’s current state, sad huh. I hope it gets fully restored, being a lover of architecture and history.

Our next stop was just on the other side of the park. The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration, on North 12th Street, built by architect Louis Allmendinger between 1916 and 1921, a few years before the pool. I was surprised it was built with Brick. Before and now.

After that we realised we only had time for one more thing and so chose to go see what is happening with Ground Zero. Three buildings already built and from memory a total of 8 will be replacing the twin towers. The building pictured below looks like armour.

I can’t remember what the monument was of, but hey it was right outside the first building built and it looked cool, so alas we took a snap shot. We then hurried back to the the bus stop to get a bus home. Sure enough, there was a bus before our one still there, so we hoped on and got home a bit earlier than we’d anticipated. A/C intact – yes!!

All in all a really nice day. Toby and I really enjoy our time our together. It sure helps that we have similar interests also.

It’s my Lucky Day

Posted: 10/08/2009 by Toby in News
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Today I was blessed enough to be the recipient of a $50 note. On my sojurn to the local store this morning whilst Granddad watched the kids, I just happened to look back and voila there it was lying on the ground, no one around and no one searching, so I decided. I deserve a treat and picked it up.

Sadly it wasn’t this many $50 bills just the one.

I remember thinking over the times when I’ve dropped money, yep once I was just walking along with a $20 bill in my hand for a walk and when I reached my destination it was no longer there, I guess I forgot I was holding it, opps!

There has been many I time when money has disappeared. I always said to myself well hopefully it’ll make someone else’s day. I guess my turn came along today. Yay!!!!

Some people would say well I should buy lottery tickets with it. And granted the thought did occur to me, but instead I plan on getting a date with my hubby, we could really do with some alone time together. Too bad he’ll have to watch a chick flick, wink!

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