January 2024

Hi friends! I’m excited to join the new ‘Share Our Lives’ link-up series hosted by Adrienne from Mom Life With Adrienne, Dara from Not In Jersey, Jen from Show Me Sweet Tea, Joanne from My Slices Of Life and Sarah from Toronto Sam. We are kicking things off by introducing ourselves and chatting about past jobs. So, let’s jump right in! I’m Ruth and I live in a suburb of Sydney Australia. I am married to Steve and we have two super tall grown-up sons. Luke who’s 30 lives with his fiancé (no wedding bells in the foreseeable future!) and Sam, 19, is studying nursing and lives at home (yay!). In case you missed it, I previously introduced myself in a post last year, which you can find here. Additionally, I shared ’25 Things you Don’t Know About Me’, and you can catch that right here. Now moving on to past jobs Babysitter While I was in high school and uni I would babysit kids from our church families. Sometimes I would get paid but mostly I would do it for free. Chicken Shop Employee I have amazingly fond memories of helping out at my uncle’s chicken shop during the school holidays whenever they needed an extra hand. While it wasn’t a job that brought me much cash – payment was always a hearty chicken and chips meal! I guess family gigs don’t pay the big bucks. But I was more than happy with my tasty rewards! Dental Assistant Straight after finishing school, I landed my first ‘real’ job working as a Dental Assistant. Looking back now I am very proud of myself and I can hardly believe that I did that! But back then nothing grossed me out. I was completely comfortable maneuvering the suction tube to clear away saliva and totally unfazed by the sight of root canals. Or even remotely disturbed by the massive amounts of blood during complex tooth extractions…eeewww! Early Childhood Educator Back in my uni days, I stumbled into early childhood education as a casual. Fast forward to today and I’m celebrating my 27th year at a wonderful local community-based preschool! If you want to dive into my early childhood journey, you can find it here. Additionally, I have listed six reasons why I love working in this field in this post which you can explore here. That’s a wrap for the first edition of ‘Share Our Lives’! Thanks so much for joining me today and reading my blog. I look forward to being back here on Wednesday for ‘Let’s Look’. We will be sharing all about how we clean our closets. I hope you have an amazing Monday!      

Hi friends! Welcome to the first edition of Currently for 2024 hosted by Jennifer from Overflowing With Thankfulness. Today we are looking at what we are loving, resolving, looking forward to, and cooking. As well as how we are staying cool over here because…hello summer! LOVING I am currently loving being on summer holidays! School returns on the 28th of January, after the Australia Day long weekend. So until then, it’s relaxed, carefree easy days for me with no alarms or schedules to keep me on track. Talk about bliss!! I was saying to my husband the other day how it felt as if I crawled to the finish line in term 4. It was so busy, incredibly draining and not always a fun time. Because you know ‘stuff’ happens in life and you just have to push through. But I’m grateful that I have a loving family, strong friendships and no thyroid. Haha……seriously! Ever since I had my thyroid removed in June of last year I feel so much more centred. RESOLVING I have resolved to go on another decluttering journey. Yep, things have started to accumulate and they need to be re-homed, recycled or relinquished. I have plans to go through my wardrobe, particularly my work clothes and say goodbye to some items that have seen better days. I also have my sights set on going through my kitchen cupboards as well as my garage/office. LOOKING FORWARD TO I’ve got an exciting rest of the week lined up! On Thursday I’m going to a basketball game with some of my cousins. Friday we have a delicious lunch outing planned at an Italian restaurant in the city. Italian food is my favourite! Then to top it off, I’m hosting our first Cousin Connect of 2024 this Saturday. What a great way to kick off the new year! HOW WE’RE  STAYING COOL THIS SUMMER The prompt is ‘What we’re doing to stay cozy this winter’ but it’s summer over here so I thought I would change it to ‘What we’re doing to stay cool this summer’. When we are all home we have the air conditioner on but if I’m home by myself then I will turn it off because I don’t feel the heat as badly as my husband and son do. Furthermore, I don’t want my electricity bill to be too crazy this month. My husband and son both wear these neck fans. Like ALL the time! They both swear by them and say they couldn’t survive the heat without them. I have also been keeping hydrated by drinking water as well as Bickford’s Peach Iced tea for a refreshing sweet change. These Calippos are really good too! COOKING I haven’t been doing much cooking over the last couple of weeks. Instead, we have been eating leftover Christmas food such as ham with salads. We have also been going out for meals and we went to our friend’s house for New Year’s Eve and enjoyed a delicious dinner she prepared. Then on New Year’s Day, we had prawns and oysters. Tuesday night I made chilli con carne and it felt like it was the first time that I had cooked a meal in ages. Those days between Christmas and New Year are so confusing. Then being on summer holidays means that I totally lose track of what day I’m living in. What day is it today?? One of the best things about being on holidays is that I don’t have to rush to get dinner ready. I can take my time cooking and so today I made a fall-apart lamb with salad and potatoes. I have also made hummus to go with the lamb and for dessert I have tried to recreate my mum’s creamy rice pudding. My lovely mum never followed a recipe so I am really digging deep into my memories and trying to remember some of the amazing dishes she used to make. I’ll let you know how I go with the rice pudding. It’s on the stove at the moment. I have been tasting it and thankfully it tastes like my mum’s but I’m just not so sure about the creamy consistency though. Stay tuned! That brings me to the end of what we have been currently up to. Wow, can you believe that it’s a brand new year? I think that it will take me a while to remember to write 2024 instead of 2023! I hope you have a great rest of the week and I look forward to being back here on Friday. See ya! *Please note that this post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you make a purchase though these links.