October 2022 - Page 2 of 2 - PLAYWORKEATREPEAT

halloween pumpkin for Halloween in Australia post

Halloween Costumes

8 Comments / Entertaining, Planning and Hosting Tips

Hi, friends I’m happy to be joining Erika and Shay for this month’s edition of Let’s Look. It feels like only yesterday we were looking at how we organise our closets! And now we are already in the second week of October talking about Halloween and ‘How We Select Halloween Costumes.’ I have to admit that when I saw the topic I was a bit stumped and I thought to myself. Well, this will be my shortest post ever. And the reason for this is that here in Australia Halloween is no way near as popular as it is in other parts of the world. Reasons Why Halloween Isn’t Mainstream In Australia I think that there are three main reasons why Australians haven’t totally embraced celebrating Halloween Halloween has supernatural themes like ghosts, spooks and magic. So this puts many people off. The idea of encouraging children to go to strangers’ homes asking for sweets is seen as unsafe. It’s seen as a tradition that originates in America. So Aussies don’t feel inclined to celebrate it. But every year it seems to be gaining more popularity and now more Australians are having parties and decorating their homes. Some parents are now also letting their kids dress up in Halloween costumes and go trick-or-treating. Here in Sydney where I live there are a few suburbs that really go all out when it comes to celebrating Halloween. But they are not common and so they can be hard to find. So if you want to find a good area to go trick or treating in Sydney. The best thing to do is google “places near me to trick or treat”. This is the easiest way to find where to go because in general, most suburbs are very quiet on Halloween night. I only ever get a handful of kids knocking on my door. Our street isn’t really into celebrating Halloween. How We Select Halloween Costumes I guess the simple answer to how we select Halloween costumes is………we select them at the very last minute! I quickly threw together a Halloween party at my house last year. This was the first time that we had ever dressed up and we simply used things that we already had and came up with some simple costumes. For example, my younger son used to practice Taekwondo so he dressed up as The Karate Kid. He just wore his uniform and I printed and stapled a Miyagi logo on his headband. I dressed up as a dead doll. And my older son was supposed to be the kid from the Disney movie ‘Coco’. Except we used really cheap face paint which cracked and peeled off after 5 minutes. He looked more like a ghoul so he just went with it. I had a kid’s crown from a previous party. So I made a sash out of an old happy birthday banner to go with it and my mum was Miss Universe. The rest of my family also came up with some very simple and clever Halloween costumes too. There was a Jedi, Wally from ‘Where’s Wally’, one of the guys from ‘The Three Amigos’ a glamour queen and a harlequin clown. This was the first time that we had ever really celebrated Halloween as a family. We went all out that night with a big dinner, a fun Halloween cake and Halloween costumes. It was such a great night! You can read all about it here. Halloween 2022 Costumes Inspired by last year’s fun. This year we are planning an even bigger Halloween night. Because for the first time ever we are all going to dress up in Halloween costumes and go trick or treating as one big family. We will be with our two youngest cousins who are 10 and 12. So we figure that if we have some kids with us then it will be perfectly acceptable to get dressed up too! Furthermore, we already have our costumes so we are all fully prepared this time. Earlier this year my cousin Terry had a super fun surprise birthday party. The theme was Star Wars so we all have the costumes that we wore on the night. And it’s a perfect opportunity to wear them again. I used to feel conflicted about whether or not to celebrate Halloween but I’m not anymore. Now I see it as a great night to get together with my family. I am so excited to dress up and I know that we are all really looking forward to a fantastic night together.

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Term Four 2022

6 Comments / Hello Monday

Hi everyone it’s so great to be here for today’s Hello Monday link-up with Holly and Sarah. I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend. After having a fantastic two weeks off from work now it’s time to jump right into Term Four 2022! But first, I’m really glad that you are here today and I’m excited to share with you a bit about my weekend. SATURDAY It was a cloudy day right from the morning. The sun was desperately trying to get through from behind the thick clouds and there were tiny patches of blue but in the end, the clouds won. Friends, I think that spring has totally left us! It has been raining nonstop and it’s still quite cool. I hope that this doesn’t mean that we will start term four stuck indoors at preschool. Before all the rain set in I woke up really inspired to get moving. I was determined to squeeze in a bit more holiday fun so I went to our local farmers market around midday. I parked the car and walked through the park to get there. It’s been raining for days so the grounds are soaked and there was a massive puddle of water amongst the trees. I saw a couple of ducks enjoying a swim in the big puddle. There is a walking track that I should investigate one day when the weather is good. The farmers market is only about a 10-minute drive from where we live. Because the weather was so uncertain there were a lot of stalls missing. Some were even packing up when I arrived. They were trying to beat the rain for sure! MY FARMER’S MARKET HAUL The good thing about getting there later was that the stall holders were trying to get rid of their produce fast and they were offering reduced prices. So I picked up quite a few bargains. Here’s my haul I got some mangoes, dips, and pink-lady apples because they are everyone’s favourites. They’re sweet, crunchy and a tiny bit sour. I also bought some tomatoes and picked up three bags of small avocados. They were $5.oo a bag but the nice man at the stall sold me 3 bags for $10.00. They’re a good size to take to work for lunch. I bought a chicken, mushroom and leek pie that I put in the freezer to have later on in the week. I love washing all my fruit and veggies before I pack them away. Aren’t they good-looking fruit and vegetables? I was super excited about the beautiful red capsicums. They have been so expensive in the supermarket but I got a bag of 5 for $5.00. They are normally $3.00 each! SATURDAY EVENING In the evening I worked on the blog for a while and I also made some Pinterest pins. I am also trying to remember to post on Instagram. I am hopeless on social media but I have set myself a goal to post at least one thing every day. Here’s a link to my Instagram and Pinterest if you would like to follow me. I started watching Maid on Netflix and it is really good. My lovely friend recommended it to me ages ago but I wasn’t in the mood back then to watch it. It looked a bit sad and intense and I was right. I’m in a better frame of mind now so I really am enjoying it. We had so much leftover pulled chicken that I made the other day so I didn’t have to cook. We have been having it in burger buns with coleslaw for lunch. For dinner, we had it with rice. I’m lucky that non of us are fussy eaters and we will happily eat leftovers any time. SUNDAY I went to my aunt and uncle’s house for lunch. My aunty made the most delicious fall-apart lamb shanks yum!! One of my cousins was there too so it was great to catch up with them. It was my aunty Vicky’s birthday last weekend so I got her a small present. I bought her some nice-smelling handwash and a couple of soft white hand towels from Bed Bath and Table. It’s hard to know what to buy for birthdays sometimes. But I figured that everyone washes their hands and it did smell lovely. In the evening I did my meal planning and online grocery shopping. I went to bed at a reasonable hour and I am doing everything I can to love Mondays because they are a fresh new start to every week. I even wrote a post all about reasons to love Mondays that you can find here. I guess that wraps up my last weekend of school holidays. Thank you so much for stopping by to have a read. You are all one of the big reasons to love Mondays! Now it’s time to embrace term four and enjoy the final term of the school year!

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Hosting Tips

10 Comments / Entertaining, Planning and Hosting Tips

Hey everyone it’s so good to be a part of this month’s Not Just A Mom link-up. Today we are going to talk about ‘How We Host’. I love having people over to my house but life and lack of energy after a long working week can sometimes get in the way. I have found seasons in my life when we have hosted dinner parties and get-togethers regularly. At the moment we are not really in that season. Except for when it’s my turn to host our fun monthly family dinners. But I am sure that eventually, we will go back to hosting more frequently. So for today’s post, I thought that it would be fun to share some hosting tips that I have found very useful when I have people over. JUST DO IT! Even though my house is small and the whole layout of my place is kind of awkward for entertaining. I don’t let that put me off because there are so many ways to get creative and make any space work. I did a post on How To Entertain In A Small Space it has some simple hosting tips that you might find helpful if you live in a small place as I do. So I always keep in mind that at the end of the day friends and family really don’t care what my house looks like or whether it’s big or small. I’m pretty certain that they are more than happy to be invited over to spend time sharing a meal and just being together. When it comes to hosting I stick to the Nike slogan and JUST DO IT! START WITH A GREAT CHEESE BOARD Have a cheese board for when your guests arrive. This is the one thing that I always make sure that I have ready. Gathering around a board made up of cheese, nuts, cold meats and dried fruit makes everyone happy! It’s the most perfect way to start off the gathering and it is probably number one on my list of hosting tips. I then offer drinks and I can swoosh off into the kitchen to organise the final touches. I know that everyone is entertained and enjoying drinks and cheese while I get everything ready to go. MAKE IT SIMPLE Don’t stress! Try and make everything as simple as possible so that you can enjoy the moment too! I know that when I host I want to be part of the fun conversations and laughs too. There is no way that I want to be stuck in the kitchen stressing because believe me I have been there and done that before and it was no fun! FOOD I guarantee that everyone loves and appreciates any kind of food. As my family has grown to include partners with food intolerances I try and cater for everyone while still remembering to keep the menu simple. One of the most helpful hosting tips is to have maybe one or two dishes that include meat, a big salad as well as a couple of vegetarian/gluten and dairy-free dishes. For sides, I will always have plain rice (for my little cousin Ella) and bread rolls or garlic bread. Easy peasy!! USE DISPOSABLE PRODUCTS There are so many biodegradable plates and cutlery available now. So this is a great option. Don’t let the horror of piles of dishes after the fun event put you off from hosting. OUTSOURCE The perfectionist in me always wants to do everything!! But this is not always possible. So now I have learnt that it’s totally ok to outsource. When it’s my turn to host our monthly family dinners. I try and make my life easier and look at what I can buy that is ready-made. So I have been buying premade salads and it has made things so much easier. I am also not a great dessert maker so I will always buy dessert. Don’t stress about making everything yourself from scratch. Outsource and enjoy!! ACCEPT HELP If someone offers to bring something then go ahead and let them. It’s totally ok to accept help and people are more than happy to contribute. I have to remember that I am not up for the hostess of the year award and accepting help is perfectly ok!! HAVE A FUN PLAYLIST Make a fun playlist that includes some mellow music as well as some fun upbeat music. You never know if your gathering might end up turning into a dance party or a crazy fun karaoke night! So it’s a good idea to be prepared! SMALL GIFTS FOR YOUR GUESTS A fun thing that I like to do when I host dinner parties is to give my guests a small gift to take home. It’s never anything expensive or fancy. In the past, I have wrapped up things like chocolates, iced cookies, and personalised mini Nutella jars. I make sure to present it nicely by making up some cute gift tags to go with it. These are a few of my hosting tips! Thanks so much for stopping by to have a read. I really hope that you have a great day.

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Last Week Of Spring Break

6 Comments / Friday Favorites

Boohoo!! Yes friends it’s my last week of spring break. So it’s back to work on Monday. It’s been a fantastic couple of weeks. I have had the best time getting out and doing some fun things as well as hanging out at home. I have been able to relax and also do some chores that had been on my list for when I had more time (hello oven cleaning). It’s been absolutely brilliant not having to stick to a routine. And as I have mentioned many times before….. I have loved loved loved staying up late! But the days just went by so quick and I missed catching up with some lovely friends but that’s ok I’m sure we will get together soon! Even though I wished so hard. Time just didn’t slow down and the days just flew by in a flash! Anyway, such is life and I am lucky that I work at a great place with some lovely people and that we are going into term 4 which is my favourite term. Term 4 is my favourite not just because it’s the last term of the school year. But because to me, it’s the most fun term. All the kids are settled, we are all in a great routine and we get to do fun festive activities. Bring on Term 4!!! But before all that, thanks so much for being here where as usual I am linking up with Andrea and Erika for today’s Friday Favourites. Fun Favourites For My Last Week Of Spring Break #1 Monday night was our once-a-month dinner catch-up with our friends. To celebrate the last week of spring break I enjoyed a margarita!! We had some dim sims as a small starter and I had my usual steamed barramundi and rice. My friend Marianne always orders the same dish too. We were laughing about how we ordered the same meal every single month. Haha, it’s just so delicious and healthy! #2 Steve had the day off from work on Tuesday. Normally he has Wednesdays off but one of the other guys was away so they did a reshuffle. We enjoyed staying home all day. Then in the evening we had a small cheese plate and some prosecco and settled in to watch our favourite cozy show ‘ All Creatures Great And Small’. #3 Wednesday morning we went out for breakfast which was very delicious. Steve went off to get a remedial massage on his legs. Poor guy, he has dodgy knees and tight calf muscles from being on his feet all day at work. While Steve got his massage I got a pedicure and a manicure. This time I chose a colour called mulberry which I really liked. I always stick to neutral colours but look at this wall of colours. Maybe one day I’ll go home with a fluoro colour…….Nah I like safe neutrals too much! Before we went home I stopped off at Mecca and bought some BB cream and blush as well as a new make-up brush. I normally just use bronzer for my cheeks but I thought I would give this soft colour a try. #4 Thursday morning I went to visit a very dear friend’s father who is now living in an aged care facility. My lovely friend met me there and we spent a few hours with her dad. It was so great to see them. I have known this lovely friend and her family since we were little. Her mum and my mum were very best friends. They were inseparable and whenever they were together they were like two giggling school girls as you can see in this picture! Sadly my friend’s mum passed away many years ago and now her dad is 94. He is doing quite well but his short-term memory is not the best. So it was hard when he asked me a few times how my own mum was and I had to remind him that she was in heaven. What was even harder was when it came time to leave and say goodbye. I couldn’t help getting teary and of course, my friend did too. We had a lovely time during the visit though. After lunch, we played dominoes and boy oh boy my friend’s dad is as sharp as a tack when it comes to dominoes. He beat us every single time even though we tried really hard!! It was a very special day and I’m looking forward to the next time I visit. #5 I popped into some of my favourite shops on the way home from visiting my friend’s dad. The first stop was West Elm. I love all their homewares and decor but I don’t really love their prices! It is fun to browse and get some decorating ideas. I spotted this mirror and the price tag said it was $499. I have a very similar mirror in my small hallway that I bought from Ikea at a fraction of the price!! It goes to show that you really don’t need to spend so much to achieve a very similar look. They also had some fun Halloween plates and mugs #6 Then I went and had a look at Pottery Barn where they also had cute Halloween mugs. I love this all-white bed! #7 Finally, I went and had a look at Williams Sonoma and bought this delicious pulled chicken starter. It’s so good and it’s become an easy-to-prepare family favourite. #8 Sam finally turned 18! He has been counting down the days until he is officially and legally an adult. He did a little bit of studying for exams on Thursday morning. Then he went out in the evening with some friends to Karaoke followed by dinner at a burger place. All the boys or should I say young men came back to our place to sing happy birthday and have cake. We will organise some kind of family celebration once the HSC

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Super Easy Lasagna Recipe

10 Comments / Recipes

I absolutely love lasagna!! Nothing beats the delicious cheesy goodness, creamy sauce and classic meat sauce in between layers of melt-in-your-mouth pasta. It’s like cozy comfort in a dish. As much as I absolutely love eating lasagna. It can be fiddly and time-consuming to make. Not to mention all the saucepans you are left with to clean up at the end! But this recipe is super easy to make because it skips all the fussiness associated with making a bechamel sauce! The no-cook cheese sauce in this recipe is just too easy. Your family will love tucking into this dish any night of the week. It can also be frozen and it will taste just as good as the day you first made it! Super Easy Lasagna Recipe Ingredients Fresh lasagna sheets Tasty shredded cheese to sprinkle over the top before it goes into the oven Meat Sauce 2tbspn olive oil 1 clove of crushed garlic 1 onion chopped 500 grams of mince 700 g passata 1 chicken stock cube 1tspn dried oregano 1tspn dried basil salt and pepper Cheese Sauce 375g ricotta cheese 125g parmesan cheese 200ml cream Instructions Preheat the oven to 180ºC To make the meat sauce, heat olive oil in a saucepan. Add onion and crushed garlic and cook until the onion is soft. Add the mince and cook until brown. Stir in the passata, chicken stock, dried oregano and basil. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. To make the cheese sauce. Simply combine ricotta, cream and parmesan cheese in a bowl or small jug. Assemble the lasagna by pouring approximately half a cup of meat sauce into a lightly greased baking dish. Top with a fresh lasagna sheet and then add meat sauce followed by cheese sauce Repeat the layers until you have 4 layers. Finish by sprinkling shredded tasty cheese over the top of the final layer of sauce. Bake for approximately 35-40 minutes or until lasagna is cooked through. Allow lasagna to stand for approximately 5-10 minutes before serving. Serve with Garden Salad Garlic bread Easy Mediterranean couscous Notes If you don’t eat beef mince then you can always substitute it with chicken or even turkey mince. You can also make it with a combination of veal and pork mince. I prefer to use fresh lasagna sheets but you can also go ahead and use instant sheets. This recipe is so easy because the cheese sauce is just a simple mixture of ricotta cheese, cream and parmesan cheese. You skip all the effort of having to make the bechamel sauce but you still achieve the creaminess. If you want to cut down on calories you can use light cream and light ricotta to make the cheese sauce.

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Currently-October 2022

10 Comments / Family Life

Hi, friends I am really excited to be joining this month’s Currently- October 2022 edition for the first time. I am linking up with lovely Jennifer. And today we are looking at what we are currently anticipating, admiring, spending/consuming, wanting, purging/deleting. So let’s go right ahead and jump in with……… WHAT I AM CURRENTLY ANTICIPATING I guess that I am super excited about this time of the year. My favourite months are from September to December because that’s when all the fun things happen. I love being on holiday from the preschool where I work. But I have to say that going back to work is always easier in term 4 because it’s my favourite term. By now we all know the children really well and we have built lovely relationships with them and their families. Term 4 at preschool is all about getting ready for the big end-of-year concert and of course, there are all the Christmas crafts which I really love. And to top it off the weather is so much warmer so I will no longer be shivering and shaking during outdoor playground supervision. Amen! This year I am also anticipating that my family will have a fun Halloween. It’s a funny thing with Halloween in Australia. Some people really love it and get right into it. Others see it as a big no-no because it’s about witches and spooks etc. I used to be conflicted about it and then I gave in and decided that it’s all a bit of fun and a good reason to get together with family and dress up. I also really love it when kids come around trick or treating. So I make sure to put out some Halloween decorations as a sign to the neighbourhood kids that YES WE HAVE CANDY! WHAT I AM CURRENTLY ADMIRING I have been really admiring this lovely blogging community! I took a huge leap, went right outside my comfort zone and started this blog about a year and a half ago. It has been such a tremendous learning experience. From the technical side which had me nearly ripping my hair out in the very early days of setting up the blog by myself with the help of endless YouTube videos. Until now when I am getting to know so many sweet, kind and very encouraging bloggers and readers. I am always so grateful to everybody who takes the time to stop by and have a read. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart! Also, I am very relieved that I no longer have to deal with the difficult, brain-frying technical aspect of blogging. Because a very good childhood friend of mine has a clever son who runs his own digital agency and now he helps me out… Phew! SPENDING/CONSUMING I have been buying scented candles again lately because I just love a scented candle I do! I have taken a break from buying my usual Ecoya candles. And instead, I have bought a few Sand & Fog candles which I found at TK Maxx. I recently purchased this gorgeous blouse from Country Road. It’s not a colour that I would typically wear but I really liked it. Spring had me feeling very daring so I went ahead and bought it. I think that I will get great use out of it with all the fun festive events that will be coming up soon. WANTING We have a teeny tiny courtyard in our home. I mainly use this area to hang up our washing to dry. But I know that this small space has much more potential. So I have been really wanting to somehow give it a makeover. I have been looking for some comfortable outdoor seating that won’t take up too much space. The courtyard can get nice and sunny during the day so a market umbrella or some kind of shade would be really good too. Another thing that would really help this area to look much better would be to cover the colorbond fence with some faux greenery like this It would be fun to be able to use this area to entertain too. So I have been getting some ideas from Pinterest and have been busy pinning some ideas. PURGING/DELETING I have been currently going through my wardrobe again to make sure that I am not holding on to unnecessary clothing that I don’t wear anymore. The weather is slowly starting to warm up so it’s a good time to get rid of winter clothes that have seen better days. I accidentally shrunk my Uniqlo work jumper in the wash. I’ve had it for a few winters and it has served me well. Time to say goodbye. Don’t laugh but I have to confess that even though I have deleted hundreds of emails. My inbox still has 15,214 emails. I know I know…..how embarrassing! This is such an unpleasant task and my arm and finger hurt every time I have to delete them and yet there are still so many. My husband just shakes his head in disbelief. He is an email minimalist. I guess that wraps up what has been happening for me currently in October 2022. I really hope that you all have a great rest of the week. I’ll see you back here tomorrow where I will be sharing an easy version of a favourite recipe of mine. Happy Wednesday!

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My Weekend

11 Comments / Hello Monday

Hi, friends I hope that you all had a great weekend! It’s really good to be back for today’s Hello Monday link-up with Holly and Sarah. Thank you so much for stopping by to have a read and for letting me share with you a bit about my weekend. Friday Night Steve surprised me by coming home from work very early on Friday night. He said it was a slow night at work so he didn’t need to stay late. This never happens so to celebrate we had some wine and halloumi cheese! We also watched a movie on Netflix. I was keen to watch something light-hearted as I really wasn’t in the mood for anything sad or soppy. So I chose ‘Date Night’ with Steve Carell and Tina Fey. Neither one of us had seen it before. It turned out to be such a funny movie with just the right amount of action and we both loved it! Saturday We had our fun monthly family dinner at my aunty’s house on Saturday night. It was such a great night of fun, food and family. We also surprised Sam and Luke by having two birthday cakes. One for each of them. They are eleven years apart in age but they share the same birthday month. After dinner, we played a fun board game and we all got right into it even our two youngest cousins who are 12 and 10. Oh my goodness we were so loud too!! It really was such a great night. In addition to our monthly dinners, we have decided that it would be fun to do some kind of group outing every few months. We were thinking of maybe doing things like escape rooms, bowling, virtual reality laser tag or putt-putt golf. I’m excited for this to happen, now we just need to set a date and organise it. We also have big plans for Halloween to go trick or treating as one big group of 14. That should be great fun! Plus it will be another opportunity for us to wear our Star Wars costumes that we all bought for my cousin’s surprise birthday party earlier this year. Sunday We went to bed really late after our family get-together and then daylight saving started. So we woke up super late and I missed church. I love daylight saving but it takes a little while to adjust. I remember when my kids were little and it was still daylight at 7 pm. Trying to convince them that it was actually bedtime was a bit challenging. I remember Sam saying to me “Mummy why are you putting me to bed in the daytime?” But it was so nice to see the bright blue sky and the sun still shining at 6 pm. I always like to keep my weekend free from cleaning and housework except of course for the very basic things. But because I am on holiday from work I was happy to do some chores that I wouldn’t normally do during the school term. So on Sunday afternoon, I got right into cleaning the oven. Yeah, I know oven cleaning is up there as one of the worst jobs! But boy oh boy it really needed doing! Thankfully we have a pyrolytic oven so it cleans itself. But having said that, I still had to clean the glass, racks and shelves. They needed a LOT of scrubbing! I also have to admit that self-cleaning ovens make me a bit nervous. I mean how can they get so hot and still be safe? The instruction book said that I could take the oven door off to clean the glass. But there was no way I was going there. It just sounded too complicated. Plus I was a bit traumatised from the last time that I cleaned it. I put the glass back the wrong way and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it was supposed to go back together. I may or may not have ended up on the kitchen floor crying! It wasn’t one of my best days, that’s for sure!! Anyway, it looks so shiny and clean now so that’s good. I’m just so amazed how the oven just burns all the junk off and then all I had to do is wipe it with a cloth. I know that oven cleaning on a Sunday is not very exciting. But funnily enough, I found it very satisfying and now I can tick off that chore as done yay! This is before And after……what a huge difference!! That wraps up my weekend! A very fun Saturday night followed by an even more exciting Sunday afternoon of oven cleaning hehe! Now, this week is my second week of spring break and I am savouring every moment and wishing desperately for the time to go very slow!! Happy Monday!

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