Events & Outings

There are many FREE events in our town. We go to some of them for inexpensive entertainment. This allows us to take part in fun activities individually or as a family while saving our money for mortgage, travel, retirement and the important things in life.

Recently we went to a Easter Egg Hunt and Fun Day offered by the City Council. This was so much fun for Dolly who was loaded up with chocolates, lollies, bandanna, wallet, stickers and other small gifts. There were craft stations, face painting, jumping castles, waterslides and outdoor play activities. We participated in many of the choices available. It was all FREE.

We spent over 3 hours at the event and kept our spending down by bringing our own packed lunch and water bottles. I wanted our lunch to be a treat too so I splurged on fresh baguette, smoked ham and cornichons. We had 1 large generously filled sandwich, a fruit each and a large bag of chips to share. The cost was $8AUS for the 3 of us. A bargain compared to the usual food available at community events and no waiting in long hot queues for greasy selections.

I'm interested to know are you taking advantage of FREE events in the area you live in? What about packed lunches? Do you find yourself going to events with your own food or buying something there because bringing your lunch is too hard or maybe you want to support small local businesses?

Remember to keep having fun, even in frugality :-)

Stephanie at Frugal Down Under.

Soil

I read a very good article on garden soil in a discarded gardening magazine recently. It stated that much of the bagged soil that is sold in Australian gardening shops is actually a detriment to our environment. The reason is most of it is dug from waterways thus damaging our fragile ecosystems. I never knew this and was blown by my new knowledge.

It went on to say people that moan about their terrible natural soil in their yards are actually missing the rich Gold they have. Most of the soils just needs to be enriched with compost and mulch. So instead of digging away your dirt and removing it for glossy shop bought stuff, mix in other enriching ingredients and give it life.

A great tip was if you don't have enough to build raise beds then look around your neighbourhood. Is someone having their yard dug up for a pool or the likes? If yes, ask them if you can have some of the earth which will be otherwise dumped and left unused. They save the cost of disposing of it and you save the cost of buying it. Winners all round and Eco Frugal to boot.

Now my happy friends, get out there and get your hands dirty ;-)

Have a wonderful Long Weekend for those lucky to have one,
Stephanie at Frugal Down Under.

Random Tibbits

Hi Everyone,

I have a few random things I want to show you and chat about.

The Swap-O-Matic Vending Machine...
Have you seen it? I love all things cool and kitchy. Well click this link and take a look! Or this link for a little demonstration video. I love it!! And want one right here in my city! I could see this in the local libraries and cool arty shops.

Super Cheap Haircut.
So my fringe was touching the middle of my nose and I was feeling blah about my hair. But wanting to not spend time or money at the hairdressers I grabbed my small sewing scissors and snipped snipped away in less then 5 minutes. It's a bit crooked, but I like quirky so now I'm quirky.
By the way, if you live in Darwin I noticed the hairdressers in Karama Shopping Centre are looking for models for creative haircuts. So if your feeling groovy give them a call and see if you can get a FREE cut.

Crookedly Quirky and Free.

Bad Book Purchase Turned into a Win.
I purchased a 2nd hand book for $4 thinking it had a photograph The Rambling Expat had taken. It didn't. However it had eight, 55 cent postal stamps that I can use. Value $4.40, that's a 40 cent win. Book off to the op shop, stamps in my wallet. Yeah for small wins.

Not the Right Book.

Happy Discovery of Stamps.

Birthday Goodie Bags.
Dolly prepared her goodie bags for her birthday party. I was inspired by this Blog Post. We used a 50 cent Art op shop book we had lying around gathering dust and lunch bags from last years birthday party. I am trying to instill a love and knowledge of Art to Dolly. So she chose Art Nouveau pictures that looked like Princesses, Princes, Queens and Kings.

Working Hard

10 Bags Completed - Ready To Be Filled With Treats.

Tiny Frog.
As I blog tonight the rain is sprinkling it's much wanted moisture giving us some relief from the humid heat. I can hear frogs singing from every direction and I saw this tiny creature on the fly screen catching insects attracted by my light. I dashed out in the rain to take a photo of him on the window and as I did so, he jumped on my head. As I eased him off gently, I took a quick pic for you. So small and beautiful.

The Rambling Expat in the Background, Inside Out Of The Rain.

Exquisite.

Thanks for reading and if you're lucky enough to get a Swap-O-Matic near you let me know :-)

PS: My Rambling Expat has a Fishing Lure Giveaway if you enjoy fishing.

New Blog For Darwinites

Hi there,

I started a new Blog for people living in Darwin. Often people tell me they didn't know of an event or where to find FREE fun stuff to do. Since so many events come my way via word of mouth, notice boards, flyers and email I thought I needed to share them.

My new Blog is about events in Darwin and surrounds that is inexpensive or FREE.

I will try and list an upcoming event regularly. As an event is over, I will delete it so that people can look at the blog and know all events are current or upcoming.

So if you're in Darwin and surrounds CLICK HERE and follow or favourite. And if you see me at one of them come up and say hello :-)

Do You Crave To Pay?

Hello there global bloggers,

I've been thinking again about how activities that are FREE often don't get a full turnout and yet when people have to pay there is often a waiting list or queue. Is it putting on monetary value on something makes it more desirable?

A couple a weeks ago I took Dolly and myself to a couple of fantastic eco craft classes at the public library. They ran for about 2 hours each, both on the same day. The program was well organised. The teachers skilled and professional. And they were really in line with my aims in life.

This Is Me - My Daughter is My Photographer :-)

The 1st class was a Rip Wrap class where we Ripped old pieces of salvaged fabric and clothes and Wrapped them around old coat hangers and foam to turn them into amazing colourful creatures.

Coat Hangers

Add Foam Bits

Wrap Ripped Fabric and Decorate

The second class we used recycled bits and pieces such a cardboard tube, plastic, broken jewels, recouped beads and butterflies cut from magazines to turn them into exquisite dream catchers. It's amazing what you can do with discarded items and a little know how. And a great way to spend Saturday. (I don't know about the feathers and I should have asked as many craft feathers are obtained in extremely cruel circumstances from our feathered friends).

Dolly Working Hard to Catch Her Dreams

A Couple Of Others Created By Other Older Children

Now my query above about a monetary value is because all these wonderful FREE events I go to, don't have a huge turn out. However any similar payable event with all the bells and whistles always have queues miles long.

Do you find that events that need to be paid for seem more desirable to attend? Is it because the quality is better or are we all so sucked into the buy buy buy ideology, that we think FREE means B-Grade or Charity. Tell me what you think...

Saturday Fun

Saturday I had my neighbours over to for a sniffy party to try a new Air Wick - Aqua Mist product that I was sent to test and review. I decided to splash out a little with our 10am nibbles as I've never had my neighbours over "officially" before. I offered lovely cheese Blue Castello and Goats), prosciutto, biscuits, wasabi peas and chips. I pulled out a bottle of bubbly (someone gave me in exchange for spinach and guppies that I had offered on Freecycle), a bottle of orange juice and lemonade. 4 neighbours couldn't make it due to; Bali, Flu, Early Shift and Yoga. But I went ahead with the other cool cats from my block and The Rambling Expat.

Delights on Offer

Some of The Gang

Dolly and I blindfolded everyone with some of my old scarves and Dolly sprayed the air. Dolly has sooooo excited to see them all blindfolded - nose in the air sniffing and commenting wrongly about the smells, it was hysterical. I was the only one who could see her jumping up and down in crazy excitement bursting to tell them what the scents were! But she's amazingly strong will-powered at keeping secrets. It was a very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours and I was able to treat each of them to their favourite scent to take home which was a bonus. It was a fun morning for me :-)   I would do it again.

Blindfolded, Sniffing and Trying to Determine the Scents.

After our sniffy party Dolly and I headed to Children's Week Activities for some FREE fun. Here is what she did:

• A Hip Hop Dance Lesson
• Rock Climbing
• Rock Crafting
• Got a sausage
• Got an apple

I kept saying "Don't go higher!!!" My very own adventure girl.

There was so much more to do but we were short on time. Other great activities on offer were; pottery, jumping castle, face painting and balloon art. I also talked to an organisation about foster caring as it's something I have always wanted to do since I was a teen. I'm too busy at this point in my life but it's good to arm myself with knowledge now.

Free Crafting

How was Saturday for you? Any friends over? Tried a new "product"? Created some crafty treasures?

Free Fridge From Freecycle

Our Snake Bean Community Garden group is looking at getting chickens very soon and also swapping produce with each other. As many of us garden at different times of the day and week some of us rarely (if ever), see each other. So we discussed trying to find an old fridge from somewhere - anywhere as to store eggs to buy, fresh produce to swap and stock fundraising sell-ables.

As all good things tend to come my way when I keep my mind and eyes open that is just what I did. Oooh Lucky Lucky me, I spotted a giveaway fridge on Freecycle within days of the group's discussions. So I emailed the lovely Lyell (Thank you) and was thrilled to be the lucky recipient. And even more lucky... The fridge was just a 3 minute drive from the garden so 2 of the staff headed out to collect it, as there is no way it would fit in my little city car.

Cleaning Racks and Compartments - Dolly Eating Malabar Spinach.

Today being Sunday, Dolly and I went to the garden with our eco cleaning products (bicarb, vinegar, eucalyptus oil, water and old rags). We cleaned it thoroughly and now have a gleaming working fridge waiting for it's 1st lot of goodies. Can't wait for the other gardeners to see it, another happy jiggy dance :-)

Will Be Loved By Many - Not Destined For Landfill.

Waiting to be Filled with fresh Produce.

I love Freecycle it keeps stuff out of landfill and allows you to take and give from like minded people. Tomorrow I'm giving away Dolly's porta-cot to a Freecycler. I've had an amazing week with lots of really good happenings, have a couple of Giveaways in the pipeline and have lots and lots to tell you. But for now I'm signing off and off to bed. Goodnight :-)

Did anything good happen to you this week?

Being Good and Frugal in October

I'm being really good so far. The only frivolous stuff has been a little junk food from the super market at my desk (chocolate and chips).

I menu planned for the week and my groceries were only $75 (including a $12 bottle of laundry liquid).

Layer of ratatouille, egg and topped with cheese. Mmmmm.

I have shopped at the garden plot 1st. One of my garden neighbours is off travelling Nepal for a few weeks and told me to help myself in exchange for me watering the garden. So this has allowed me a few more goodies then usual.

Shopping at my plot 1st. Dolly snacking on Snake Beans.

Dolly was on school holidays for 1 week and we went to lots of FREE activities including arts & crafts, out door Life Be In It activities, computer games at our local Officeworks and a movie under the stars (Rango).

Outdoor Life Be In It team encouraging kids to be active.

15 minutes on the Computer Games at Officeworks Kid Station.

Free Movie - we took our blanket, drinks, pop corn and lollies.

Our lastest couchsurfing couple included a qualified hairdresser so I received a hair cut & dye whilst Dolly had her hair done each day in exchange for the couch.

Ready for School Rapunzel style.

And tonight I commenced work on a 2 year old Birthday gift out of old clothes and scraps. Dolly was invited on very short notice to a party this Saturday morning at 9am. Not much time to create but pushing myself along. My mum picked up the Softies Magazine for only 30 cents at a local op shop, just for me :-) Of course the mags instructions are all with new fancy pantsy bits and bobs. But I'm repurposing old stuff that needs a second chance and hopefully it will turn out looking presentable.

Creating on a Tight Schedule - Yet Again.

How is October fairing for you?

Tonight We Have A Surfer On Our Couch

Tonight we have another couchsurfer sleeping on our couch as I type this.

Dolly has been thrilled to bits having such a fun, lover of life, energetic hoola hooper staying with us.

I haven't accepted as many people onto my couch lately. But when a gem like this comes knocking it's an opportunity for some goodness on the frugal couch.

Any fun guests at your place lately?

Goodbye September, Hello October!

September has been an expensive month for me. I've been loose with cash more then usual. I had a couple of big ticket items to pay for and big bills too. And worst of all I was lazy, which causes wastefulness and stress. 

Loose with Cash:

Ate at a nice restaurant with some girlfriends - $36 (This was a rare catch up with special friends)

Went to the cinema with partner and our daughter - $58. (There will be no next time at that price - If I really want to go, I'll search Australian Groupon or the likes for heavy discounts.)
Art for Dolly - $120. I've wanted to buy it for ages and really want to support artists. If no one had ever supported my partner he would not have been able to continue his passion of photography as a profession.

Big ticket items:

I purchased a mobile telephone plan at $29 a month for 2 years. (It was time I got a mobile and used it properly). 

Purchased a computer hard drive $79 and hard case to store it $10. (My USB stick wasn't enough anymore I needed a bigger storage device to share and transfer files).
4 new car tyres and wheel alignment. Our tyres were worn and dangerous $328.

Lazyness:

I didn't formalise my menu plan or stick to budget and have found it stressful many evenings with "what will we eat tonight" thoughts and wanting to get takeaway. I didn't bulk cook. I've become disorganised, wasting precious time.

Bills:

Paid Council Rates for 1 year for our flat - $ 1,107.00

Paid our 2 month Power and Water Bill - we reduced it by $30 since last time. We are below the national average, paid less then this time last year, but much higher then 2 years ago since the cost increase - $210.89

Paid our 3 month Unit Block - Body corporation fees and levy - $897.00

Welcome October!!! This will be my pick up my game month. Back to the menu planning and counting the pennies and looking at the bigger picture. (We have new windows being installed in November $12,000 - painful, but we have both saved weekly over 1 year for this). This is not a cosmetic or a luxury item to our flat. This is a need, as our present louvers, screens and frames are all loose, old, not to regulation and very dangerous.

Today I started by spending at my local op shop for a couple of sellables. I spent $40 and I hope to make a profit of over $50 after all costs. This is what I picked up: 

• 3 pairs of True Religion Jeans; 2 still have price tags ($240!) bought for $10 each -Sell $20 to $80 each?
• A preloved, like new silk top with owls for $6 that retailed for over $100 - sell $15 to $20? 
• Sweet girls Country Road top for $3 - sell $10 - $15?
• 2, 2010 vogue magazines for 50 cents each - sell $5 for both? (One of them has Aboriginal model Samantha Harris on the cover) If they don't sell I have someone in mind who will enjoy them.

Op Shop Goodies

After this we had sandwiches for lunch with our left over ham and bread. Then we spent 2 hours at our garden plot weeding, pruning, harvesting, placing a cheap water timer on the sprinkler and moving hay bales around. Here's a shot of my harvest basket. I've placed a fork next to the snake beans and winged beans for you to get an idea of the size.

Fresh Produce from my Garden

Tropical Snake Beans and Winged Beans

Lush Egglants.

I harvested:

• 7 egg plants, 
• basil, 
• lemon grass, 
• ginger, 
• snake beans, 
• winged beans, 
• brazilian spinach,
• red leaf spinach. 

We ended the day with our 4 year old Dolly making us a pizza each for dinner. She was so proud. Chapatis used for the base and covered with tomato sauce, cheese, ham, salami, capers, olives, basil and fresh tomato.

Our little Chef

Today was a great day. I loved spending time with my family in a non rushed manner. It was frugalistic and it will reward us in the next few weeks with fresh produce.

As for the decluttering to replace anything new stuff coming in. 

In:

• hard drive, 
• phone
• toy pram (FREE, from the footpath hard rubbish collection). 

Out:

• Going on Monday: 2 large Spanish learning books and CD for a friend, 
• Gone: 1 plastic toddler bike for a baby in the block of flats next to ours.

(I'm not including my sell stuff I purchased as this will be gone within 2 weeks)

In: Pram, mobile phone and hard drive/case. Out: 2 large books and CD.

Out: Toddlers Bike.

How was your spending in September? Any specific aims for October?

Buttons and Books

I was posting give-away Guppie Fish and Brazilian Spinach Cuttings on Freecycle. As we needed a few more variety of coloured buttons for Dolly's crafting and new year gift projects, I also posted a request for buttons.

A lady came by to pick up Guppies and Spinach and dropped off these lovely buttons for us.

Beautiful Lolly and Jewel Like Buttons.

They're a great collection of just what we were looking for. Dolly spent a good hour playing, sorting and admiring them. It was a win win all round. I love days like these. Someone also gave us a bottle of champers in exchange for Guppies, I tried to say no but she refused to take it back, so I'll just have to enjoy it :-)

Freecycle is a wonderful way to obtain stuff in a cashless manner that cares for the environment. I've had 8 people come by my home in the past 24 hours to collect guppies and spinach and it's interesting to note they were all women. Is it women who count the pennies and take the opportunities for fabulous frugalness more then men? Or are fish and gardening a gendered domain full of women?

As for my rule of: Whatever new stuff comes into our home the equivalent size - plus some, must leave our home... I followed through by selling a book (bigger then the whole lot of buttons) on Fishpond and posting it. I'm doing well so far with my rule. Lets hope it's not another one of my crazy rules I break off.

Sold a Book - made back the money I had spent to purchase it.

Did you find anything you wanted recently for free and with a good environmental outcome?

Look! I Received a Wonderful Gift Today!

Hello lovely readers. Today is just another day. No birthdays or special reason to celebrate. However when I arrived home today I found this surprise on my doorstep...

Bananas, Zucchini, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Green Beans, Winged Beans, Okra & Home Made Chutney!

Today's gift made me very happy, thrilled me to pieces and gave reason to feel like life is one lovely celebration. It fits with my want of Eco, Simple, Frugal and Local. Thanks Kelly and Carl! The gift was useful, delicious and beautifully presented too. A really really really nice surprise!!!

To know their labour and skills went into producing all of the fruit, vegetables and eggplant chutney made it even more special. Have you received anything this great before? Or placed a surprise like this, on someones doorstep? It's now tucked away in my brain as a great gift giving idea.

Please feel free to comment about your gift receiving and gift giving experiences. It's so interesting to know what your thoughts are. Your comments can be in any language you want. I know I have lots of readers from around the world (including many from France). So don't be shy.

Have a great day everyone :-)

Frightening

I'm feeling Guilty for not having blogged in over 12 days. I've been busy doing lots of different bits and pieces. I also fell off the bandwagon as I didn't menu plan last week or buy my lunches for the week, instead I went to the supermarket day by day. Feeling very frustrated with myself as I was disorganised and chaotic. And as I have said many times, disorganisation means wasteful tendencies. And so, I wasted, but it wasn't over the top.

Anyway to get back into the spirit of blogging I thought I would share one of the lovely activities I completed with Dolly at our bottom garden plot on the weekend.

Taddah!!! A gorgeous scarecrow girl. Not very frightening, but very entertaining.

Ready to Twirl and Dance.

I decided to create her with Dolly when my neighbour Mr T told me he had purchased new pillows and thrown out his old ones. So dumpster diving he went and we gave his pillows a second chance to shine. We looked around our home for items we could use to make our girl and found everything within 5 minutes. Old tights, 80's dress from dress up pile, old fishing hat, gloves that have been collecting dust (we live in the tropics) and an ugly purple thermal top that I wore in France January 2011 to keep from freezing. We filled it all with pillow stuffing and viola! Created a lovely girl to entertain the crowds and the birds.

Within 2 hours, I saw 3 visitors to the Botanical Gardens shoot photo's of the scarecrow with us and without us. So I was really feeling the 5 minutes of fame and glory :-)

Mothers Day 2011

The day before Mothers Day I purchased croissant for Dolly to bring me breakfast in bed. She told I wouldn't be allowed out of bed because her teacher told her so and that I would have to drink a cup of tea. So before the event I told her that I would just stay in bed for breakfast and that I don't really enjoy tea so she could just bring me water. She was agreeable to this.

On Mothers Day morning Dolly proudly brought me croissant in bed and gave me a gift she made at school - lovely chocolate and coconut balls. The Rambling Expat gave me a new cooking knife. I wondered to myself when did it change from gifts for pleasure, to gifts for chores. But I realised I preferred a useful gift that was not wasted money after all.

We then headed out to a FREE Mothers Day Family event at the Waterfront. There were lots of FREE activities for kids and a craft fair for mums to browse around. We had a lovely relaxing time.

There were 2 Free Jumping Castles and No Long Queues!

Free Beading for Children to Make Jewels for Mums!

Free Face Painting by Chantal the Fairy

And something super exciting happened!!! I heard my name and when I turned around there was Melissa from Clothwork - a blogger who I had communicated with in the past but never met. I think my attention seeking eye wear makes me recognisable:-)
It was so great to meet her and I'm sure we will all catch up with her again!!!

After all the activities The Rambling Expat, Dolly and I headed to lunch at a Irish Pub/Restaurant at the waterfront where we ordered burgers and fish & chips. That cost us a whopping $39.00. Not frugal at all - But hey I'm a mum and deserve to be officially celebrated once a year!

Our Lunch

We ended the day with chores and gardening. The Rambling Expat then put Dolly to bed while I went out! Melissa from Clothwork was given (or won) a 2 for 1 movie ticket for the Deck Chair Cinema that night at 7:30pm. She lives far from town so gave it to me. At 7:10pm I decided to take myself out with my 2 for 1 ticket. I offered a total stranger in the car park of the cinema that we split the 2 for 1 ticket so that the cost would be $7.50 each instead of $15 each. The stranger was thrilled as she was short on cash, but insisted she pay $10 (who am I to say no?). So I got into the movies for only $5.00. The Deck Chair Cinema is under the stars near the sea. Not only do you get a movie but you also get possums, flying foxes and the sea breeze.

Thanks Melissa!

Have you had Mothers Day in your country this year yet? If you did, how was your Mothers Day this year?

I Made a Glorious Error

Monday was a public holiday that I miscalculated. So I had 11 days off!!! Not just a lousy 10. Happy Dance....

I didn't do too much, as I wanted to do things at home and get ready for the work week. What a waste! It's not like I had to write a report for work or balance the books. Why did I waste my precious minutes on a little cleaning, some cooking, some sorting, some nagging, some more cleaning, more nagging and some more cooking.

Amongst all the boring activities I dropped off our Helpx Jiri at the airport as he was heading to Vietnam for 2 weeks. I gave him 2 magazines (that I picked up for FREE) for a friend in Vietnam who is a village girl working in the big smoke as a domestic aid and learning English in night classes. So ecologically the magazines are having a nice long life. They were read by a person(s), then donated to an op shop, then picked up for free by my mum, then given to me, then Jiri read them on the trip, then given in Vietnam where a whole lot of other people will read them. What a great long life instead of read once and binned.

Dolly and I also went for our weekly grocery shop. My fun girl always wants to come with me.

Playing Facial Games.

I bought some "wasted money" items:

• A Eco magazine (Because I wanted to see what it was all about)
• A bottle of cordial (which dropped and smashed as we got it out of the car).
• A manual egg beater (I could have waited to find one in an op shop).

But... I also purchased 2 toothbrushes on special for $4.88 which scanned wrong at $5.76 so I got them for free. Yeah!!! Love the FREE stuff.

I purchased 3 bottles of laundry liquid as it was a discontinued line and reduced from $8 to $4. So I stocked up.

Groceries shopping not yet completed.

My groceries total was $86.95AUS - my aim is for groceries to stay under $100 a week. I still have a few shopping items to buy at latter in the week, which may take me over.

How did you do with your groceries? Within budget? Out of budget? Smashed all your eggs and bottles?

10 Days Off - Day 9 Saturday 30/4

This was a day of busyness. We went to see a free movie at the local university. It was a kids movie in German and then there was a adult movie in French but I had gardening I wanted to get done at my plot so didn't stay for the 2nd movie and now regret it. Boohoo.

The event was totally free, which included movies, delicious Indonesian finger food and soft drinks. They also had giveaways of German Flags, Pens, Pins with the Australian & German flag together and key lanyards.

Why do kids love flags so much and collect them everywhere they go?

And yet only about 15 people turned up! I don't get it???? Many times I've turned up at free events like this and there are hardly any people. When you have to pay $$$ to attend a International Film Festival there a queues of people.

I felt bad for the organisers. They had an article in the NT News, they advertised on the NT Department of Education Website and had posters up around Darwin.

This once happened to me at university roughly 10 years ago. I was the Women's Officer for my Campus in Melbourne, with the unpaid job came a bucket of money $2000 for spending on women centred activities. One evening I showed a current movie called; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; it cost over $300 to show the movie to a public audience. I advertised on campus and handed hundreds of leaflets for the free screening with lots of positive feedback. Only 3 people turned up :-(  It was highly embarrassing and disappointing. It made me disheartened to organise any other "free" activities.

Today was a Spend Free Day. Yay for me!

Any interesting Free Activities in you area? Do you go to them or do you think they're not worth your time? Love to hear your views.

10 Days Off - Day 3 Sunday 24/4

Sunday morning was a Easter Egg hunt for Dolly. There wasn't too much as I knew she would get a more from various places and quite frankly I think that the whole chocolate overload at Easter is extreme nowadays. Even thought we do not follow any religion the Easter Bunny, Bilby (Australian) and Bells (French) came and hid mini eggs, 1 medium egg and 1 large egg.

Eggs in Sunshine.

Dolly was inside when she heard the bells clanking and she screeched in excitement and pushed past me to get to her goodies while looking up at the sky to search for the bells. I encouraged her to be quick as the sun is not forgiving here in the tropics.

On the radio I heard a health organisation discouraging people from purchasing more then 2 eggs per child and said people could buy cheap toys instead. I cringed at the thought. More cheap toys that break within minutes and clutter the home. I think we are all about consumerism in festive times and wouldn't it be great if we trained ourselves to stop listening to the blah blah blah and just spend quality time with each other instead. After the chocolate mutiny I headed to Boss Lady's office with my mums 4 Wheel Drive to take another load of goodies home which included:

• 2 beautiful shiny black and chrome stools (my mum took them for her new counter),
• 2 office chairs (much needed - Yay!),
• Clothing and shoes for my market stall,
• And more useful Bits and Bobs.

I then headed to the airport to join Boss Lady who was catching a flight. I was ahead of time so stopped for a 5 minutes on the side of the road with engine off, music on and aircond on! Yes 5 minutes latter the battery was flat! By then I was pushed for time. So what to do that is Frugal and Fast when I have no wheels??? I locked up the car and hitched hiked to the airport which was only a 5 minute drive but a 20 minute walk in the sizzling heat.

At the airport I chatted to lovely Boss Lady and enjoyed a Free Lunch and Drink with her at the Qantas Club. I had tomato juice and then a tonic water and ate a ham sandwich, salad and 2 small pieces of cake. I also rang The Rambling Expat and Dolly to come and pick me up and charge up the battery with our new, second hand car.

Once Boss Lady flew off into the sunset, The Rambling Expat and Dolly arrived, a quick charge and my mum's car worked fine. Then home to unload my goodies, then mum's to return her car, then watered my plot at the Botanical Gardens and once Dolly was fed and in bed, I set up our "new" craft/sewing/homework area. Click Here: To see what it used to look like. Such happiness for a nice new workstation.

New draws, desk and office chairs.

It was nearly another spend free day except that I purchased a new card reader for my Blog Posts at $17.

How did you go?