Batten down the hatches

It sure has been a wild and woolly few days especially for our Queensland friends and now the weather is heading south towards NSW. The heavy rains hit here last night at around 9pm and haven't really stopped. I'm watching the weather and flood warnings but where I am, not far from the Tweed River, there are flood gates that will be closed if there is any chance of the river rising too high. [edited to add: the levee gates were indeed closed with the water just 10cm from going over the top. We had an evacuation order at 2.30am Friday morning. South Murwillumbah was devastated with the whole area going under. Heartbreaking to now see every home with all their belongings on the footpath. This is the worse flood event ever seen here. So fast and so strong. Murwillumbah Matters] All the schools are closed (not that the kids mind at all!) and they're telling everyone to not go out if at all possible even suggesting businesses close. Stay safe everyone and listen to the authorities and DO NO drive through flood waters no matter how desperate you are to get home, it just isn't worth it!

Given all this rain and wind it is still warm and very muggy, I've given up on my hair! We lost power yesterday for about 30 minutes or so and the wild weather hadn't even hit us yet. I believe something large blew a bit further up the coast which effected pretty much all of the Tweed. They have warned we may get power outages over the coming days. My phone lost service earlier this morning but is back on again. I'm sure this will be an ongoing thing with the high winds expected later this afternoon. As long as no trees fall down or roof tops are blown off and everyone is safe I am sure we can cope without power/phones for a bit.

Easter Nibbles For Everyone - $50 delivered

A few more Easter orders have come in, thank you, but I am still hoping for more! Never pleased :-) I've also been working behind the scenes on the website, still, trying to get the right balance of user friendliness and search engine friendliness. Our rankings on Google seemed to have fallen with all the changes I have made but as I've mentioned previously I need to be patient with this as it can and does take awhile for anything real to happen. Good or bad! Here's hoping it's more good than bad! The search engine terms for Easter seem to have helped a bit which I am hoping will continue to improve leading up to Easter and then in turn improve the orders that are coming in. That's been the plan and why I spend so much time doing this seoing business! Did I mention how exciting and glamourous it is running your own online business?! I still love it though.

If you're stuck indoors and looking for something to do may I suggest heading to our website and getting your Easter gift giving sorted??

Take care and be safe,

Jacqui ~ Rainbow Designs boss(y) lady

A Couple of more books, Easter eggs and a Lizard

Another warm and humid day greeted me yesterday, this meant big hair (don't care) and time to do some washing! I have mentioned before how exciting life is for a small business owner haven't I?! I also made another trip to the library (I had an appointment at the council which is just next door to the library) and returned a couple of books I'd finished (Maeve and Ellen's book - both books I did enjoy to a certain extent but probably wouldn't recommend them. Maeve's book mainly because it's short stories and I'm not a fan of short stories, they're like the beginning of what could be a wonderful novel but then the author just seems to give up. Ellen's book was just short chapters of nothingness really, it does have some funny anecdotes but for the most part it's filled with nothing. I thought it was going to be an actual story of her life, it's not.) The two new books I borrowed, I've still got a couple to read from the other day, are 'The Hurricane Sisters by Dorothea Benton Frank' and 'A Mother's Story by Rosie Batty'. I did hesitate getting this book as it's obviously going to be a sad and tragic read but I know how strong and resilient Rosie is so I am hoping I will get to know more about her and how she has coped with the loss of her son at his fathers hands. Gulp.

Yesterday afternoon as I was faffing away on the computer I heard a noise and my front door rattle. I go and have a look and there's a water dragon clinging to it, thankfully on the outside! If it was inside you would have heard me screamed! Just the other day a much smaller baby water dragon was on there, I'm thinking this maybe his older bother or sister! There are often lizards wandering around the garden and a couple of times I've encountered them in the car park at the local shopping centre - didn't I move fast!!

An unexpected visitor!

A few Easter orders came in over the weekend which is great but I do hope (fingers tightly crossed) that a few more come in. It's always so hard to gauge how many Easter Eggs to order, here's hoping we got it right this year! There's only really a couple of more weeks for Easter gift sending but I know from previous years people tend to leave ordering to the last minute so am anticipating a very busy Easter week. 

Just Chocs with added Easter Eggs! - $33 delivered.

Time to pop the kettle on, make sure the flycreen door's securely closed and then head out to a couple of meetings I have in town.

Jacqui ~ Rainbow Designs boss(y) lady who's not a fan of unexpected visitors (especially if they don't have any chocolate)

A few errands and F1

TGIF!! I didn't have a super hectic week but enough to keep me out of mischief and fill my days so it's no surprise it's already Friday!

I went to a healthy eating talk at the school on Wednesday, truth be told I only went because there was going to be free food :-) It was quite an interesting evening in the end and we went away with some food (literally) for thought. I think the main 'take away', no pun intended, was to limit the processed food and drink and only have 'not so healthy' food a few times a month and not have it in the house all the time. The temptation is just too much. Chocolate is an exception ;-) This is quite an obvious thing I know but sometimes when the kids are fussy with their food and life is just getting a bit overwhelming it can be easy just to have some frozen bits and pieces in the freezer and packets of chips in the pantry for when the kids come home from school 'starving'! I really feel for my sister, I only deal with this intermittently when the kids pop in, my sister deals with this day in day out. So what ever I can do to help and support her I will :-)

Another visit to the library and another bunch of books to read in the coming weeks. Two biographies and two novels. 'Seriously......I'm kidding - Ellen DeGeneres', 'Life as I Know It - Michelle Payne', 'The Someday Jar - Allison Morgan' and 'A Wedding in December - Anita Shreve'

My drivers licence is due for renewal in April so I thought I'd get in early and get that sorted. The letter that came with my renewal notice said that most places now posted out your licence so it was best to renew a few weeks before your renewal date so it had time to arrive, although you would get a paper licence in the interim. Anyway, I went up to the local RTA, did the eye test (I wear contacts - passed!), paid my money (half price because I'm such a fabulous driver!), had my photo taken (do not smile) and then low and behold they were able to print it out there and then - woo! So technically I have two drivers licences now, funny considering I hardly ever use my car. I either walk everywhere or my sister does the driving!

The season of F1 is starting this weekend in Melbourne. I use to follow the F1's but have found it a tad boring the last 4-5 years so rarely watch it now. At least with it being in Australia it's shown at a decent time and I am assuming they'll be showing the V8's. I'll have it on in the background anyway, possibly mute it a few times when the waffle gets too much!

Enjoy your weekend, be safe, eat chocolate and balance that out with some fruit, and send a gift or two from Rainbow Designs. I'm off to help (I use that term very loosely) my niece with a PDHPE assignment, wish me luck!

Jacqui ~ Rainbow Designs boss(y) lady and excellent hider of chocolate ;-)

It's Handy Having my own Gift Shop

It's hard to surprise my family these days with presents because 'generally' they know sorta kinda roughly what they are going to get. I do run a gift hamper business so why not use said gift hampers for my own gifting?? Why not indeed!

What's not to love if you're a beer drinker?? Happy Birthday!

The lollies and chocolates are always very well received by the youngans and the beer hampers, lets just say, dad looks forward to my gift the most on his birthday ;-) With such a delicious range of products that go into our hampers I've always been able to find something or somethings for everyone plus I can get feedback too! It's been a great way to test out new gift ideas and products under the premise of 'happy birthday', ha ha.

This pleases the kids no end!

A few times when I've added something new I've actually had to order in an extra box of something just to set aside for visitor. Generally some form of chocolate, Easter is often when this happens - one box of Easter eggs for Rainbow Designs, one box of Easter eggs for family ;-)

Even I find it hard not to eat an Easter egg or two!

It's great that the family show so much interest in my business but I do wonder if it's just so they can get free samples :-)

Jacqui ~ Rainbow Designs boss(y) lady

Salad or Chocolate Coated Peanuts

Now I had every intention of buying a bag of salad, honest I did but I also had every intention of sticking to my shopping budget I had set. So what's a girl to do when I could only get one more thing and my budget would be hit. Technically I guess I had two choices - I could have either gone over budget and got both or made a choice between the two. One of my small things (see previous post) was to stick to my weekly shopping budget (sort of a matter of necessity really) so the first option was out plus what's the point of having a budget if you're just going to go over it?! This meant a choice was needed to be made.

I love salads and I love chocolate peanuts. I've been eating salads a lot throughout summer, pretty much every day for the last month or so. I've been eating chocolate a lot throughout my life, pretty much every day for as long as I can remember (he he). Salad is good for the body. Chocolate is good for the mood. Salad is a summer food, chocolate is an all seasons food. It's now Autumn (even though it's still very warm). I'm a sweet tooth.

So, what do you think I went with?

Surprised aren't you?!

Jacqui ~ Rainbow Designs boss(y) lady and her idea of necessity may differ from yours ;-)

Edited to add: I found $2 in the bottom of my handbag so went back and got my bag of salad - alls well that ends well ;-) Who says you can't have your salad and eat chocolate too??

Start small.

It's always (well for me) hard when you start something new with great expectations and high motivation to stick to it. I read something just recently to help with this. It said to start small, really small. So for instance if you want to start exercising regularly start with something small, like a single push up and then each day add another one. It's something so small and to start you may think insignificant but being so small it's more a thought or question of 'why wouldn't you just do it'? One push up isn't hard and takes all of 10 seconds to do so no big deal in fitting it into your day. It's not daunting to do or too hard. Something small can lead to something big.

I've been wanting to get a bit more active as mentioned previously I don't walk anywhere near as much as I did in Port Mac so just wanted to be able to do something at home. I've now started doing a few smallish exercises, think lunges, touch toes and running on the spot, but I've started small. I put some music on, doesn't matter what just something I enjoy (obviously) and have to be active doing all or one of these activities. I've now worked up to doing a single activity per song which is still only about 10 minutes but it is better than no minutes!

This starting small is also relevant to my business. I wanted to start blogging a lot more regularly than I was so I thought I'd 'start small' and just set a goal of doing 4 blogs a month - focusing on anything. So technically not really 'focusing' at all but giving myself free range on what I blog about. So far it's working and I've actually been blogging more than my small goal. I know my posts aren't awarding winning writing but that is something I wasn't aiming for. It was never my goal to be a 'writer' as I know I am not I just wanted to be able to share what I did and think (for the most part) about my business and life in general. Sometimes I ramble, well ok most times I ramble, but I am actually finding it beneficial to me and using it as a springboard or for want of better words, a dumping ground, for my thoughts and worries. It's been a bit of a release. When I've been feeling overwhelmed or disheartened blogging has been a help and has enable me to 'talk' about what I'm going through even if there isn't anyone else around! Maybe that's a good thing.

So if you have something you want to do or something you have found hard sticking to when you've finally got around to starting it, start small. Don't be hard on yourself either. Keep things small and relaxed and informal. Don't beat yourself up if you miss a day or don't do the 'number' you had aimed for. Let it go and go again tomorrow.

When I first started my let's get active idea I had thought 'ok, I'll do touch toes until an order comes in' let me tell you if I had stuck to that I would have probably broken the Guiness book of records of the longest time someone did touch toes :-) Small steps people, small steps.

Jacqui ~ Rainbow Designs boss(y) lady and believer (not Belieber) in bigger isn't always better!

Working towards goals

I've set many a goal in my time and to be honest most of the time I never reach the goal - oops. This year I have one main goal (getting Rainbow Designs back on track) which leads to having reasons why I MUST achieve this goal. Not the least of which is, quite obviously, eating and paying bills BUT I also have other reasons why I want Rainbow Designs to get back on track. These are things I am focusing on to give me the MOTIVATION I really, truly need to get things happening.

All You Can Eat - an amazing variety of the products that go in our hampers!

When I start thinking 'this is too hard' or 'what's the point' I look to the things I want to be able to do to push me on. To make me get up every morning and get on with things. It's never been a walk in the park and I can't imagine it ever will be but it has been getting harder and harder to keep going. I woke this morning with the intention of letting go of the negative thoughts and to try, try, try and focus on what I need to do for my business (and my sanity!). I know I'll have down days (I'm just wired like that) BUT I am going to try so very hard to limit them and limit how much they affect me and my attitude to Rainbow Designs (and life in general really).

Sydney - Smooth Festival of Chocolate!

My biggest motivation is my family and being able to spend time with them doing 'fun activities'. I think they all start to get a bit nervous when I mention a 'fun activity' now as the last few haven't been 'fun'. Well, they have but not necessarily for everyone or when it was actually happening - great memories though. The last 'fun activity' I planned was with my mum climbing a bridge - mum is terrified of heights so lets just say not much 'fun' was had by her that day. (sorry mum) We can laugh about it now and even though during the climb mum wasn't having any fun at all the time we got to spend together is irreplaceable. We've even got some photos so if mum tries to block it from her memory I can whip out the photo album and remind her all over again :-) ha ha

The dreaded bridge! It's not that high mum.

I've been lucky to have had many fabulous holidays and weekends away but am now paying for it or more accurately still paying for them - gaaaaaa. I've always tried to justify using credit saying that I'll be able to pay it off in no time as the business is trucking along ok but in reality this hasn't been the case. Boo. So for now 'fun activities' are to be in the 'dreaming and planning' book to hopefully transfer over to the 'things we're doing' book.

Over the past few weeks we've added our Easter range plus a few new 'all purpose' hampers plus in the coming months we'll be adding some more fabulous hampers - which I am very much looking forward to. In the mean time I am focusing hard on being more regular with my blogging as well as Facebook - my main trouble is working out what to talk about and what to share both on the block and Facebook. I know I need to promote Rainbow Designs and her gifts but I also want to add other 'stuff' in the mix so it's not just a sales pitch day on day out. Nobody's got time for that! A balancing act which I am still learning even after 13 years running Rainbow Designs.

If you have any suggestions or ideas for our blog or Facebook or have any questions you think I might be able to help with please let me know - I'll try my best :-)

Jacqui ~ Rainbow Designs boss(y) lady and fun activities officer!