October 2023

Fun Favourites

Hi, friends welcome to Friday favourites! The week just flew by and now it’s the end of the spring school holidays…boo! I have had a wonderful two weeks off from work and should say that I feel rested and excited to return to work. But no-I’m greedy and would love two weeks more! Anyway, here are a few fun things I got up to during the last week of the spring school holidays. Kmart Shopping No school holiday is complete without a shopping trip to Kmart to pick up some cheap storage and home decor. Look! Halloween decor! Most of the shops have tons of Christmas decor but I haven’t seen many Halloween things. Those pumpkins look a bit creepy. I prefer friendly-looking pumpkins like the mugs in the other pic. I spent ages deciding on which pot plant to buy for a plant that I wanted to rehome for the dining room. In the end after going back and forth, I decided on the white one with the black speckles. Choice sometimes stresses me as does lack of choice. Ha! On the way home I stopped off to water my aunt’s plants. It was such a hot day and I hadn’t watered them at all since she went on vacation. But they are succulents so I don’t think they need to be watered often (I hope). But on a hot day like Tuesday, they were probably thirsty and I didn’t want to risk my aunt coming home to dead plants! Lunch Catch Up I caught up with my wonderful friend for lunch. It was fun eating, chatting and hearing about her trip to Melbourne. I had the vegetable fritters and my friend had a dish called avocado heaven. They both looked so beautifully presented and colourful! I enjoyed the matcha latte and my friend’s hot lemonade looked so pretty with the orange and mint garnish. She gave me a sip and it was deliciously tangy and sweet. After lunch, we had a quick look around the shops in Westfield Miranda where we spotted some quirky Christmas tree ornaments. I wondered what a Christmas tree with all these tropical-looking decorations would look like. Very tropical I guess! It would be a perfect fit for our hot Australian Christmas but I prefer traditional Christmas trees with red, green and gold ornaments. A Trip To The Airport My cousins landed back home from Europe on Thursday and my other cousins came back from New Zealand today. It’s nice to know that most of my family are now back home. It felt so strange with all of them away! Anyway on Thursday I took two buses to the airport to surprise and welcome three of my cousins who were flying in at 8.15 pm from the last leg of their trip around Europe. Even if I had access to the car which I didn’t because my husband had taken it to work. There is no way that I would ever try and drive to the Sydney International Airport. It is so busy, congested and just plain frantic. With daylight saving, I felt totally safe catching public transport. I got to the airport before 8.00 pm and it was just starting to get dark. Inside it was so busy with people waiting for their loved ones. I felt like I was watching that famous scene from the movie ‘Love Actually’. People were hugging and cheering when they spotted their people. Then there were tears of joy and little kids running towards their grandparents. Husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends hugging and crying. It was really beautiful to watch and I was tearing up every time I saw a reunion! I waited about an hour and a half and then I finally spotted my cousin and his lovely girlfriend first. I did the big leap, happy dance and ” Hey guys, over here!!”. Then we waited for my other cousin who was further back and wooohoo we were all finally together!! We caught an Uber back and I heard a few fun snippets about their trip. It felt like a preview to our cousin connect gathering that’s happening tomorrow night. I can hardly wait! Sam Turned 19 Today is Sam’s birthday and the four of us got together for an early dinner. Sam chose a favourite Chinese restaurant that we used to go to every year for my mum’s birthday. He said he wanted to eat Chinese food in honour of his late grandma. How sweet! We even ordered all of the dishes that she chose every time. We had lemon chicken, chicken chow mein, sweet and sour pork and boiled rice. It was a fun time and here they are teasing their dad about something. These two make me laugh when they get together. We gave Sam a card with some money because he didn’t know what he wanted when I asked him. So now he can buy whatever he likes. We came home to sing Happy Birthday and eat cake. It was a great week that went by all too fast (I think that I say that every week). I’m excited about the weekend, especially our family get-together tomorrow night! Next week it’s the beginning of the last term of the school year. As hard as I find it going back to the routine and the early starts. I have to admit that term four is always my favourite. It’s not just because it’s the last term of the year, it’s also because it’s the most fun! Before we know it we will be right into all the Christmas crafts and end-of-year celebrations. Now I just have to remember this when Monday rolls around!! Have a great weekend friends and I look forward to being back here on Monday. Happy Friday! Linking up with Andrea and Erika              

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Currently

Hi everyone! welcome to the October edition of Currently hosted by Jennifer from ‘Overflowing With Thankfulness’. Today we are chatting about what we have been currently loving, excited about, watching, seeing and observing. Let’s go! LOVING At the moment I am absolutely loving our beautiful, bright, hot, sunny spring days! Every year, I find it incredibly hard to let go of the six months of the year when the weather is so good. I wish that I could embrace the Autumn weather as you guys do (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere). But during our Autumn months from March to May, nothing much happens over here. Sadly, we just don’t have fun events such as Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas to look forward to. All we get is cool, cold then colder weather and I’m not much of a fan of being cold! Having said that, my love affair with hot sunny days almost ended on Monday night at around 8:02 p.m. I was sitting at my desk and had just finished my Hello Monday blog post. When out of nowhere an ugly spider landed on my leg! I was wearing shorts and it touched me!! At that moment I remembered the one thing that I can’t stand about the heat….it brings out those darn scary bugs, spiders and flying cockroaches the size of cats…eewwww!!! EXCITED ABOUT My cousins are returning from Europe this Thursday and I’m beyond excited to see them. We have stayed somewhat connected through our Messenger family group chat. But I want to hear all the details about their trip in person! I can’t wait to see them, hug them and kiss them. I am also super excited to see a video of one of my cousins skydiving in Switzerland (or maybe it was another country). Jumping out of a plane is a courageous feat, no matter what country you’re in!! My other cousin and her family are visiting New Zealand at the moment and they come home on Friday. Our Cousin Connect get-together this weekend is going to be epic hearing about everyone’s trips and adventures! WATCHING I subscribe to a YouTube channel called Never Too Small and I have been currently enjoying watching their videos. Never Too Small features award-winning designers from around the world and their small apartments and studios. It’s a very interesting and informative channel focused on compact design and sustainable living and I just love watching their short videos that are usually around 7 to 10 minutes long. They also feature really inspiring and creative solutions for maximising storage spaces in small dwellings. I just love the whole soothing feel I get when I watch. You should check it out! SEEING I have been seeing a whole lot of photos on social media and group chats from my family and friends who are enjoying trips around the world. As I mentioned before my family is in Europe, and New Zealand and I also have friends who are holidaying in Greece. Lucky ducks!! Greece New Zealand Switzerland OBSERVING My little cat Sushi is getting older! She has been a member of our family for about twelve years since we got her as a teeny tiny kitten. Sushi is pretty small for an old girl but boy does she snore loudly these days. I guess we all do as we get older, my husband says I do but clearly he must be mistaken! Anyway, Sushi likes to hang out with me when I’m blogging away in my garage/office. She curls up on the bean bag and snores so loud, I wish you could hear her now, haha! But, the minute she hears my son Sam come home she jumps up and gallops (yes she gallops!!) towards him. So even though I have been observing that she is getting older. Boy can she move when she hears her favourite person come home! So there you have it friends! Thanks so much for hanging out over here and letting me share with you a few snippets of what I have been currently loving, excited about, watching, seeing and observing. Have a wonderful day!

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hello Monday link up

Hello Monday Link Up

Hey there friends! Welcome to the Hello Monday link-up with Holly and Sarah. I hope you all had an amazing weekend (seriously, why do weekends pass in the blink of an eye?). Can you believe it’s already the first week of October? Time just keeps zipping by! Thanks so much for hanging out with me as I chat about my weekend. Let’s get into it! Saturday My husband made an omelette for brunch and we had half each. I love his omelettes! He uses anything that is in the fridge that looks omelette-worthy, adds a bit of cheese and voilà! This time he added ham and leftover salad ingredients from Friday night’s dinner, such as tomato, red onion, baby spinach and avocado. Yum! Blue Bloods-Season 9 Finale Before my husband went to work we watched an episode of Blue Bloods and (spoiler alert!!) it was the episode where Eddie and Jamie get married. Aww it was such a great episode and I got teary watching those two favourite characters finally say I do. Except that we didn’t get to see them say I do. All we got to see was the bride enter the church and then it ended. I was all like….noooooo!!! I wanted to see the whole ceremony AND the reception! So I had to do what I usually do when I don’t get an ending that I’m happy with. I make up my own in my head, ha! Do you do that? Painting Steve went to work and I got busy painting the sanded back doorways and skirting boards. I can’t say that I was feeling overly motivated to paint. But while I was in the garage/office looking for the paint brushes etc. I hit the jackpot by finding a bag of Chupa Chups from last year’s Halloween. I figured a sugar hit would help! Having Virgin River playing on the iPad also kept me semi-entertained, and I managed to paint two coats of undercoat. Here is the before and after. You can still see some of the wood through the undercoat, where I got carried away with the electric sander! But I think that when I apply two coats of water-based enamel paint. Then it should cover it up (I hope). Our hallway is small which makes the painting process more manageable and bearable. Anyway, I’m aiming to get the final coats on either tonight or tomorrow and I can’t wait to see the results. Sanding and undercoating aren’t much fun! Sunday Swim Club Sunday we were back for the new swim club season. While my husband has been swimming with Oatley Amateur Swimming Club for years, I only joined as a social member last year. I really enjoy going along to their social events but I don’t compete because I don’t know how to swim very well. Plus I don’t think I have a single competitive bone in my body when it comes to sport. But I do eat like a champ and Oatley Swimming Club always puts on a delicious monthly BBQ. Another reason why I love going along to the swim club is because they swim in the river and not a pool. When I’m there it’s so relaxing and it feels like a mini getaway even though we are only about 15 minutes away from home. Pink gin and soda by the river…yes, please! Chores Late Sunday afternoon I got my online grocery order and I put that all away. I also sliced up the chicken breasts I ordered, pounded them and froze them ready for when I make chicken schnitzels. A couple of times I was lazy and bought the sliced chicken breasts. But at $22 a kilo compared to $9.50 a kilo when I slice the breasts myself. I think it’s worth the effort! It was such a hot Sunday! The temps got as high as 37ºC so when I hung out my washing at around 4 pm, it dried super fast. Then thanks to daylight saving it was still sunny at 6.30 pm when I went to get the washing off the line all crispy and dry. Football Grand Final We were still full from our BBQ lunch so we had a small bowl of vegetable pasta while we watched the NRL grand final. Well, I didn’t really watch, instead I played ‘Words With Friends’. But I oohed and ahhed when I was supposed to while my husband yelled and whooped after every goal…oops, I mean a try. In NRL football a goal is called a try. Well, that’s it for the weekend friends! It was a fantastic hot and sunny weekend, but as always, it went by way too fast! How about you? What did you get up to? I look forward to being back here on Wednesday. Have a great day!      

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