A huge thank you to Sydney Shop Girl for a lovely gift! I now have a post box and so I don’t access my mail each day. I picked up a parcel at 7.00 am yesterday morning and lookie! A package…

Nicely wrapped present and card…

And a lovely card and jewellery holder.

Sydney Shop Girl also has one of these. I can see it coming in useful for The Great Declutter of 2011 (so far two bags of clothes have been packed for the op shop!). I can’t wait to organise my bigger jewellery in here and hang it up. Thank you SSG!

I got up early yesterday and found I had so much time to do stuff. I showered, ironed, dressed, dashed to post office, came back and made a salad, made a smoothie and checked Facebook and emails. All this by 8.10 am!

My salad was so yummy. It had lettuce, cherry tomato, nectarine, red capsicum, mushroom and feta, and when I got to work I added dressing.

I ate my salad with this, a pork pie. One of the great foods of my English heritage.

Here is my smoothie. Half a punnet of raspberries, a nectarine, a banana, yoghurt, oats and milk. So yummy.

Dress from some cheap shop in Swanston Street ($30!), top from Sussan, cardi from Cotton On, necklace from Hobart, shoes are what I wore to my year 10 formal in 1997 (they’ve survived so many years, including a run through the washing machine!), Witchery headband and belt from Big W (‘bullshit!’ said a friend!).

I wore the blazer from the first suit I bought when I first moved to Melbourne in 2003 (the declutter is working – I am finding clothing gems from moons ago) – it is from Portmans. Also wearing dress by DeCjuba (another declutter find – bought for a wedding in 2008 – it’s one of those dresses I’ve relegated to ‘best’, so only worn twice. I decided to wear it to work. I love the sleeves.) Also wearing shoes by Diana Ferrari, headband from Mimco, bangle from Diva and necklace from Etsy.

The floods continue to devastate Queensland and northern NSW. It’s just so sad. I can’t help but cry. The floods are so far away from Melbourne but the news coverage hits hard.

Last night it was reported that 20,000 homes were under water in Brisbane. A restaurant, named Drift, set adrift down the river. Boats and household items are floating down rivers and out to sea. Animals swimming through floods trying to reach dry ground only to find a roof which was inaccessible. A dozen dead. I have been to Brisbane once – for 24 hours to see a Darren Hayes concert. The arts precinct of Southbank where I stayed is awash. There are disease risks. Water risks. Such a horrible, uncontrollable event.

This was the front page of a number of state newspapers yesterday: