Ruth(playworkeatrepeat), Author at PLAYWORKEATREPEAT

How To Make Your Home Smell Amazing

I am always looking for ways to make my home smell amazing. I just love coming home after being out or at work, opening the door, and catching a nice welcoming fresh fragrance. Here are a few simple tips that I use often to keep my home smelling great. Open Your Windows The most obvious way to keep your home smelling fresh is to open your windows to circulate some air. This can be a bit tricky during winter but I find that opening windows is the best way to get rid of any musty or cooking smells. Then you can go ahead and scent your home in various ways and you won’t be just masking unpleasant smells. Scented Candles Burning a candle is a quick and easy way to keep my home smelling good. Over the years, I have tried a variety of brands and scents. So far, my favourite candles are soy candles from Ecoya, and the fragrance that I like the best is called French Pear. Use Cleaning Products That Have A Lovely Fragrance I love using cleaning products that leave a lovely fresh smell and I have a real weakness for citrus or any fruity smells. I clean my bathrooms with this Earth Choice Shower cleaner. It is free from nasty chemicals and it leaves my bathrooms smelling divine. The gorgeous subtle orange smell lingers for ages, It’s just the best! I keep this Method multi-purpose cleaner in the kitchen to wipe the countertops. I’ve tried other Method sprays but I love this scent the best, it’s called Wild Rhubarb. Add Essential Oils To Your Vacuum Cleaner Filter Next time you vacuum add a couple of drops of essential oils to your filter or vacuum bag. Then when you run your vacuum cleaner the scent of the essential oil will diffuse around your home as you clean. Stovetop Potpourri Another way to make your home smell amazing is by making some easy stovetop Potpourri. You can boil just about any food that leaves a beautiful aroma in your home and it will smell so good. Things like orange peel, lemon peel, cloves, cinnamon, vanilla, mint, rosemary, and apples. Manage Dampness In Your Home Dampness and moisture in your home can leave it smelling less than pleasant. We’ve just had so many weeks of rain recently and so I made sure to get some pots of DampRid. These pots are great as they absorb a lot of dampness and I am always amazed by how much liquid I will always find in the bottom of these pots after only a couple of weeks. You can also get some DampRid sachets that you can hang inside your wardrobe. This will keep your clothes smelling fresh and avoid that damp funky smell. Keep Your Bathroom Smelling Amazing Avoid leaving wet towels and washcloths in your bathroom. Anything that is left damp will smell unpleasant in no time! Another trick I like to use to keep my bathroom smelling fresh is to spray some perfume that I don’t use anymore on the inside of the toilet roll. It’s such a simple trick and you’ll find that every time you spin your toilet roll you’ll catch a nice scent. Sprinkle Bicarbonate Of Soda On Carpets Or Rugs You can sprinkle Bicarbonate of Soda or Baking Powder (both are the same thing but with different names) on your rugs or carpets. Bicarb will absorb dirt, oil, and odours. You need to leave it on for a minimum of 15 minutes. But the longer you leave it on the more effective it will be. I like to sprinkle some on my living room rug at night before bed and then vacuum it in the morning. Put Some Vanilla In The Oven Your house will smell like you’ve been baking yummy cookies if you use this trick. Just add about a cup of water with a good dash of vanilla extract into a small oven-proof dish. Then pop it in the oven at 170C for about 40 minutes. Clean The Garbage Bin Take out the garbage and clean the bin regularly. Food scraps can very quickly release unpleasant odours. Keep the bin smelling nice and fresh by wiping it with some disinfectant. Diffuse Essential Oils Essential oil diffusers are a great chemical-free way to make your home smell fresh. Essential oils can also have some pretty amazing benefits for your health and mood. Indoor Plants Indoor plants look beautiful around the home. In addition, the great thing about indoor plants is that they also clean the air. These are just a few tips that I like to use regularly to make my home smell amazing. I hope you find them helpful! Some Other Posts You Might Enjoy How To Make A Home Feel Cozy

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July Recap

6 Comments / Family Life

Hi everyone! Well, I can hardly believe that it’s the last week of July and here we are back again for this month’s fun “What’s Up Wednesday” link-up with Sheaffer and Shay. I’m so excited that you have stopped by to have a read of my July recap so let’s jump right in and have a look at……… What We’re Eating This Week I finally got my act together this week and put together a meal plan! Yay, go me!! Sunday night I also made a big quiche that I sliced up and have been taking to work for lunch along with my usual salad. Sam has been having some when he gets home from school because he is always starving!! I usually make it with baby spinach but I didn’t have any so I used frozen spinach instead. It came out a bit greener and not as good-looking as usual but it still tasted great! What I’m Reminiscing About We spent a long time planning a surprise birthday party for my cousin’s 30th. For about two months my aunty, her son’s girlfriend, and I were super excited about pulling this off. Thankfully everything worked out and we had such a fun time. It was a Star Wars theme and because our whole family is nuts about Star Wars it was extra exciting. You can read all about it here and check out our fun costumes! What I’m Loving My freshly painted walls!! I’m so glad that I just went with white, not any white mind you. It’s called Casper white haha!! The house just looks and feels so much brighter. I’ve added a couple more plants in the dining room and lounge room and I’m just loving the fresh new look!! I still have the living room to paint so I have to go ahead and tackle that soon before I lose my motivation. What We’ve Been Up To It was fantastic to have two weeks off from work for the winter holidays. I’ve been back at work for a week and a half and the holidays almost feel like a distant memory now. I did a lot of painting during the two weeks that I was off from work but I also enjoyed a couple of fun outings too. The last weekend before I went back to work I visited Wollongong with my lovely friend. Wollongong is a coastal city about an hour away by train from where I live. We walked around the shops in Wollongong and we were having a really nice time until I realised that I had lost my wallet. We quickly retraced our steps and luckily I had left it in David Jones and a very kind shop assistant had found it and handed it in to the lost property. I was so relieved!!! After I had calmed down from running around frantically trying to find my wallet. We had some delicious burgers for lunch. On the way back to the train station we ate some ice cream. It was a fun way to end the school holidays. What I’m Dreading Sam starts his HSC trials next week. Gulp!! What I’m Working On I celebrated one year of blogging and I was so excited about that! I really enjoy blogging and have been working towards posting more often. What I’m Excited About A close friend of ours is having a birthday party this Sunday at St George Motor Boat Club. She’s such a fun person so I’m sure there will be lots of dancing. What I’m Watching I just started watching a British series called “The Split” It’s a legal drama and I’m really enjoying it. It was a bit slow going at first but I’m right into it now and it’s definitely worth watching. I have also been watching movies that I have watched a million times before like I love re-watching old favourites. What I’m Listening To I like having some soothing background music when I am at home. Because it’s winter it starts to get dark pretty early, usually around 5.30pm. So when I get home from work I like to light some candles and play chilled jazz on Spotify. Soft soothing jazz and glowing candlelight makes me feel cozy. What I’m Wearing All the coats and layers to keep warm! What I’m Doing This Weekend We are hoping to go and look for a new car. If you have been reading along you’ll know that my husband wrote his car off after swerving to avoid running over a couple of cats. Fingers crossed we find one we like and we don’t have to go on a waiting list. I’ve heard that new cars aren’t readily available at the moment. That wraps up my July Recap. As usual, my head is spinning because I can hardly believe that it will be August next week. I hope that you have the best Wednesday! If you live in the Southern Hemisphere stay warm and if you live in the Northern Hemisphere stay cool friends!

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First Week Back At Work After The Holidays

9 Comments / Hello Monday

Hi, friends, and happy Monday to you! I was super happy to see the end of last week. It wasn’t a great one for a bunch of reasons. But I think that the first week back at work after the holidays is always the hardest so by Friday I was done and so excited for the weekend! I really hope you all had a relaxing weekend and are ready for the new week ahead. As usual, I am happy to be linking up with Holly and Sarah for today’s Hello Monday post. And excited to share with you a few things that I got up to this weekend. Still Doing Lots Of Walking A little while ago I shared with you that Steve crashed his car into a small wall trying to avoid two cats sitting in the middle of the road. Well, on Friday our insurance company confirmed that Steve’s car is a write-off so we will have to get a new car. We’re both very excited about getting a lovely new car as we’ve had the old one for a long time. Now we just have to find the time to go looking for one. For now, Steve is squeezing into my tiny Suzuki Alto and driving it to get to work. Being over 6ft tall can have its disadvantages haha!! I’m really lucky that I’m within walking distance to my work so that’s a huge help and I have honestly been really loving the walk! Luckily there’s a fruit shop along the way and a few petrol stations where I was still able to pick up some Friday night snacks! It’s been raining this whole week and the other day I heard that it will be like this until November! WHAT!! I took this pic on Friday on my walk home. See the grey sky? We are usually so spoiled with brilliant blue skies in Sydney even during the winter. Saturday I had the best Saturday and I think that I appreciated it even more after having had such a busy week. Steve and I headed to our local Westfields together. He went off to get a remedial massage and I went to a nail salon called Nails Boulevard to treat myself to a pedicure. I think that I got the better part of the deal because I’ve had a remedial massage before and they hurt!! They’re very effective but I don’t find them particularly relaxing. A Yummy Brunch Steve and I met back at a little cafe after his massage and my very relaxing pedicure. We had a really delicious brunch and enjoyed a much-needed catch-up. His evening shifts and my day shifts mean that we don’t get to spend a lot of time together. So it was really lovely to enjoy some time eating and chatting. We’ve been married 32 years and he still makes me laugh a lot with all his funny stories about his workplace. I had a lovely frothy cappuccino and THE best eggs Benedict I have ever had! The eggs were poached to perfection, they came with lots of delicious smoked salmon and the Hollandaise sauce was divine! Steve had a Chai latte and the big breakfast. He said his was really good too. Saturday Afternoon I painted my nails in the afternoon. I didn’t get a manicure at the nail salon because working in preschool means that a manicure just doesn’t last very long. I’m constantly washing my hands and just too involved in cleaning up after fun messy play. So I’ll wait until the next holidays and get a manicure done then. Meal Planning I also finally did some meal planning. Hooray!! I used my meal planner from Kikki. K and decorated it with some cute stickers. I’m thinking that if I make it pretty then I might do a better job at sticking to it. Here’s hoping!! Sunday I was so excited to wake up to sunshine and a glorious blue sky on Sunday morning. So I made a quick trip to Bunnings to pick up some plants. I’m just hanging out for spring and I had a real urge to add more greenery around the house. I bought a couple of plants with some pretty colour for the courtyard. I also bought a pot with this cute hanging green plant that I have put on top of the cabinet in the dining room. Can you tell how clueless I am when it comes to what these plants are actually called !! In the evening I made some tortellini for dinner with salad and garlic bread. Then after dinner, I plonked myself in front of the TV to continue watching “Cold Feet”. I’m up to the latest seasons now and I just love this show so much I’ll be so sad when it ends. If you haven’t watched it you totally should it’s so good!! Well, I guess that wraps up my really relaxing weekend after my first week back at work. What did you guys get up to, hope it was a great one! Only nine more weeks until Spring break for us. But who’s counting. 😉 Happy Monday friends

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One Year Of Blogging

15 Comments / Friday Favourites

Happy one year of blogging to me!! Wow one year already, that sure went by so fast!! I actually forgot that I wrote my first post back in May of last year. So it’s really one year and two months since I first started blogging. I had been toying with the idea of starting a blog for many years before I actually plucked up the courage to just go ahead and do it. I have always really enjoyed reading blogs from so many lovely ladies living in all different parts of the world. I loved hearing about their day-to-day lives and seeing their kids grow up was so much fun to read. I almost felt like I was reading about a friend living out there in the big wide world somewhere. So a really big reason why I was keen to blog was that I saw it as a fantastic way to document some special moments in my life. I also thought that it was a great way to have a record of the average day-to-day stuff that happens in life too. Sort of like keeping a journal. So after a very long time of just thinking about it, I finally plucked up some courage and jumped in. COVID Lockdown 2021 was a year of restrictions and lockdowns. So I found that this was the perfect opportunity to get really get serious about starting a blog. I honestly think that if it wasn’t for COVID lockdown I might not have been able to give blogging a good go. Because it just took way longer than I had ever anticipated! And I’m really not at all sure that I could have managed to get my head around the technical side of blogging as well as work full time. Start A Blog In Five Minutes They Said I had no clue where to start so I did what I always do when I’m trying to decide something. I asked Google. Some articles that I read assured me that it was easy peasy and that I could get this blog up and running in five minutes. Ahem……no!! Yes, I could download WordPress but that was THE only thing that took five minutes. The rest was a whole lot of technical stuff and I have to admit. I really felt out of my league and my head was exploding with so many new things that I had never heard of before like widgets, plugins, template choices, web hosting, domain name…….aaaaaarrrggghhh!!! I watched a LOT of YouTube tutorials and I did a lot of reading. Bit by bit things started to make sense. And slowly and I mean very very slowly my little blog started to take shape. I had envisioned myself setting up my blog quick as a flash and then starting writing articles and posts straight away. No way did that happen! So to find that I had to spend so long doing all the technical stuff was such a huge surprise! And not always a fun one. At one point I remember that I seriously had to resist the urge to pick up my computer and just hurl it out the window!! But on the plus side, I didn’t lose my mind, and I think that I may have even developed some more neural pathways in my brain. Win/win. Being Brave! Once the blog looked sort of ok I wrote my first post and my heart was thumping so hard when I hit that publish button for the very first time. I’m really quite shy and putting myself out there is such a huge deal for me! I wanted everyone to read my blog but at the same time, I wanted no one to read it!! haha, talk about being conflicted!! I didn’t tell anyone about my blog for quite a while and then one day I felt brave enough to confide in my bestie and she was SO encouraging. She cheered me on and made me feel like I could actually make this little project of mine happen. Everyone needs a friend like her and I am so lucky to have her in my life. Favourite Things About Blogging Blogging Is A Fun And Creative Outlet! Blogging has become my favourite hobby and it doesn’t feel like a chore or something that I have to do. I would love to dedicate more time so I could post more often. Way back when I first started I was posting every day! I loved it and had a really great rhythm going for a while. Sadly when I lost my dear mum I just couldn’t bring myself to even look at the blog. So I gave myself some time off and then I slowly started to post about twice a week. Just recently I am beginning to want to really get back into posting again more often and that makes me happy. Reading Other People’s Blogs Reading other people’s blogs was what actually inspired me to start my own in the first place. So I still love reading blogs from so many fantastic writers and getting to “know” them. A Great Blogging Community I feel like I am part of a really nice community of bloggers. I love how many of them take the time to read my blog and when I get comments they are always so kind and encouraging! I know everyone is busy so the fact that people take the time to comment means the absolute world to me. Thank you so much!! So there we have it! My one year of blogging and happy blogging birthday to me! I am so glad that I started this fun journey and I am really excited for the future and to continue posting. Hopefully more often! I love you guys and like I always say and really mean it. Thank you so much for stopping by to have a read. Linking up with Andrea and Erika for today’s Friday Favourites

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A Fun Surprise Birthday Party

7 Comments / Hello Monday, Home

Hi, friends for today’s Hello Monday post I thought that I would do a quick recap and share some photos of the fun surprise birthday party we had recently for my cousin’s 30th. My aunty did such an amazing job organising such a great night. She recruited her son’s girlfriend and me to help her with planning and decorating. We really enjoyed being part of the whole process. A Star Wars Theme My whole family are huge Star Wars fans. We had this really cool tradition too. As a family, we would always make sure to go and watch the latest Star Wars movies together at the cinema. I have been a massive fan since I was seven years old when the original movie came out. I remember falling instantly in love with Luke Skywalker. So it’s no coincidence that we named our oldest son Luke! Don’t worry we didn’t call our younger son Han Solo haha!! So it was a perfect theme for my Star Wars-loving cousin. We the party planners had our own WhatsApp group. Where we would communicate all our top secret plans. I think we all did such a great job too because my lovely cousin had no clue and it was so fun to see her reaction when she opened the door. We all did the usual “SURPRISE” and then played the Star Wars theme. It was great!! Costumes I found our costumes online and my aunty bought one for my cousin to change into once she arrived at the house. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that we told my cousin that we were taking her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday. But first, we were meeting at my aunty’s house. Here are some pics of the costumes everyone wore on the night! Ooops this picture is blurry because the stormtrooper was having a great time dancing! A DJ We had a great DJ who played all our favourites too. It was a really fun mix of music my cousin liked as well as good old disco and of course some ’80s music for us oldies. Every time I went to sit down and take a break from dancing. The DJ would put on another song we all loved so up we’d go again. The Cake The cake was delicious and decorated with a whole bunch of Star Wars characters too. It really was such a fun surprise birthday party! Linking up with Holly and Sarah for today’s Hello Monday post Sharing on

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School Holiday Favourites

5 Comments / Friday Favourites

Hi friends, Happy Friday! Yes, I do love Fridays but this week I am a bit (a lot) sad because it means that this is my last weekend before going back to work on Monday. I haven’t gone out a whole lot during the school holidays. Mainly just a couple of outings here and there. But I have really enjoyed my routine free days. Still, I am very grateful that I do enjoy working at our little local community preschool. I work with a great bunch of ladies and it’s only another ten weeks before the next holidays haha!! So here I am again on this fine Friday and happy to share with you a few of this week’s school holiday favourites. A Super Fun Party Last Saturday we managed to pull off a surprise Star Wars-themed birthday party for my cousin’s 30th. I will get around to doing a recap soon. It was such a fun night and I think that I must have danced the whole time. I couldn’t stop, the music just kept calling and calling me! I dressed up as Boba Fett for the party! Painting I am so happy with myself because I did a lot of painting! A while ago I mentioned that I wanted to paint my bedroom during these school holidays. My goal was to paint my bedroom and maybe the small hallway. Well, I just kept on going and did way more than I had originally planned. I painted my bedroom, the hallway, the entryway, and the dining room. I painted in the afternoon and well into the night when I was home by myself. Sam went to the library in the afternoons with his lovely girlfriend and then back to her house afterward. They are both busy with schoolwork and upcoming exams. Steve was at work and painting is just so much easier when there is no one around. Now all I have left to do is the lounge room which I might do either this weekend or the next. I have to tell you that our house is small and that’s why I could get so much painting done. But still, there was a lot of prep work (ugh) and two coats on each wall. The walls in our house were painted with a colour called Grand Piano but this time I painted it with Casper White Quarter. Which is just white if you ask me but if you compare it to other whites it’s a different shade of white. My goodness so many whites to choose from!!!! I like white. it feels so fresh and bright!! We want to get the floorboards redone eventually. Which is a good thing because I was on my hands and knees cleaning up afterward. I used a drop sheet but I still managed to get some tiny annoying paint spots on the floor. Not Much Time For Cooking I was so determined to get a lot of painting done which meant that I didn’t have time to do much cooking. Normally during the school holidays, I like to bake some treats. And I have been really wanting to make my delicious jam drops. I didn’t even have time to make proper meals on some days. Steve would have cooked but he works afternoon/evening shifts every night except for Tuesday. So for a couple of days, we survived on pizza! oh yes, and coke (which is a school holiday treat). I did a whole post on Monday on how I keep healthy. But while I was busy painting this past week we really didn’t eat a very healthy diet on some days! But oh well, you just have to roll with it sometimes and do the best you can. The pizza was very delicious and a welcome treat!! A Delicious Breakfast I took Tuesday off from painting and Steve and I went out for breakfast. We went back to the local cafe that we visited a couple of weeks ago. Then in the evening, we binge-watched more ‘Line of Duty’. Such a great show, I really recommend it!! A Coffee Catch-Up I caught up for coffee with my friend on Wednesday morning. We went to a cafe that is not too far from where we live, maybe about a ten-minute drive. I have been there before but not for ages. This time we were seated in the courtyard, which I think might be a new addition. It was really cute and cozy. They had heaters there so even though it was a cold day we felt warm sitting under the heaters. A Quick Trip To Ikea I made a dash to Ikea to pick up some frames. I had some photos enlarged and wanted to hang them in the entryway. While I was there I picked up some bits and pieces that I needed. Like candles, storage things, clothes hamper and of course meatballs!! I guess that wraps up this week’s Friday favourites. Thanks so much for stopping by to have a read. I really hope that you have a wonderful weekend! See you on Monday. Happy Friday Linking up with Andrea and Erika for today’s Friday Favourites post.

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How I Keep Healthy

2 Comments / Health and Well Being

Hi friends, I am really happy to be linking up with Shay and Erika for this month’s edition of “Let’s Look”. Today we are talking about how we all keep healthy. Thanks so much for stopping by to have a read, I always appreciate each and every one of you! And I am always so grateful for your comments. So let’s jump right in and look at how I keep healthy! Eat Healthy Food Thankfully I am not a fussy eater and I can pretty much eat anything. I love food and if I’m not eating, then I will probably be daydreaming about my next meal. Like I’ve said before I try to keep my diet pretty healthy during the weekdays. But then on the weekends, I am more than happy to indulge in some yummy (not so healthy) treats. During the week I will usually pack myself a salad for my work lunch. Then add some protein like tuna, grilled chicken breast slices, or a boiled egg. I also like to eat avocado and salmon because….hello high cholesterol!! I also have a piece of fruit in the mornings at around 11 am. We have a pretty strict healthy eating policy at preschool for the children. So I will always eat a piece of fruit with the kids when they have their morning “fruit break”. Doing this sets a good example for them and it’s healthy for me. Plus they always get very excited when they have the same fruit that I have!! They’re so cute! For dinner, I like to cook meals (usually from scratch) that will always include either a salad or vegetables. We don’t eat much take-away food and I am always conscious of nasty hidden additives and preservatives in ready-made sauces etc. That’s not to say that I never buy them because I do. Working full-time means that it’s a good idea to have a plan B. So I will keep a jar of some kind of ready-made sauce in the pantry just in case. I Keep Company With Good People I don’t like drama or gossip! So I make sure to stay well away. I have a few very good, kind, and treasured friends. I keep healthy by spending time with these friends, they make me laugh, we have fun, share similar interests, and we can count on each other during the hard times too. I Have The Necessary Check-Ups This one is a hard one for me as I DO NOT like going to the doctor. But I do go to get the necessary check-ups and yearly blood tests. Ugh!!! Self Care I really try hard to incorporate some self-care into my day. Whether it’s something small like taking time to enjoy a cup of tea, stretch or do some breathing exercises. If I am able to then I really like to set aside some time to indulge in things like doing my nails or spending twenty minutes on the lounge with a face mask on. Self-care is definitely one of my favourite things I do to keep healthy. Stay Active Working in a preschool means that I am active all day long! Which is a good thing because I don’t go to the gym. I used to do Zumba which I absolutely loved but I don’t anymore because our fun instructors stopped holding the classes about two years ago. I can’t seem to sit still for very long and I am always doing something around the house. I like to have music playing when I’m doing my chores. If I’m home alone then I like to bust out and do some dance moves while I’m cleaning. Haha, but that’s only if I’m home alone!! Last term I started walking home from work. But that was only out of necessity because we were down to one car after my husband had an accident. I’m on winter break at the moment but I think that when I go back to work I will make sure to walk there and back more often. It’s a good twenty-five-minute walk and I found that I did enjoy it a lot last term. Be Sun Smart I also keep healthy by making sure to wear sun protection. The children at preschool have to wear a hat when they are playing in the playground and so do the staff. I wear a wide-brimmed hat, apply sunscreen and try to remember to wear my sunglasses all year round. I really want to avoid harmful UV light that can lead to nasty things like cataracts and macular degeneration. Drink Water I try really hard to make sure that I drink enough water! It’s a challenge and some days I am better at it than others. But I do try! I Brush And Floss Nothing feels better than a nice fresh mouth with clean teeth. I make sure that I brush morning and night as well as floss daily. Up until last year, I had no cavities and I was very happy with myself. But then a dentist check-up revealed that I had one small cavity…boo!!! ********** These are some of the things that I do or try to do to keep healthy. I’m sure that I could do plenty more. There is always room for improvement and I look forward to hearing any suggestions or comments. I really hope you have a great day and stay healthy! 😊

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Family Food Traditions

9 Comments / Family Life

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. Our family sure did, we managed to pull off a surprise 30th birthday party for my lovely cousin. She is a huge Star Wars fan along with the rest of us. So the theme for the night was…yep you guessed it Star Wars!! I’ll do a recap of that later on in the week. But for today I am excited to link up with this month’s edition of “Not Just A Mom” and talk about Family Food Traditions. When I was thinking about this topic I was a bit stumped at first and thought that we didn’t really have a lot of family food traditions. Except for the usual holiday celebrations like Christmas. But then when I stopped looking at the “big picture”. I soon realised that we do have many family food traditions in our ordinary weeks, birthdays, weekends, and even school holidays. Some of these traditions are ongoing and some were for a season in our lives. Sugary Cereal When my kids were little (which happened over a huge gap as my boys are eleven years apart in ages). I used to let them pick out a box of any sugary, preservative-filled cereal they liked during the school holidays. They used to always pick fruit loops until one year they discovered a small corner shop that sold American cereal. And they just about lost their minds with excitement. I have to admit that I did too!! We went through so many boxes of cereal during the school holidays. None of us could stop eating Lucky Charms, Reece’s Puffs, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Pavlova Luke, my oldest son, and I will always choose a Pavlova for our birthdays! We just love the meringue base, creamy topping, and fresh fruit combination. Yum!! Full English Breakfast On some weekends we like to indulge in a Full English Breakfast. Not very sure if it really is a true English Breakfast but this is what Sam calls it. This breakfast includes scrambled eggs, pork chipolata sausages, hash browns, cooked mushrooms, tomatoes, and toast. We also have orange juice and finish off with a steamy cup of tea. Weekend Treats Friday afternoons after work I like to pop into the supermarket and pick up some weekend treats for the family. These treats vary from week to week. Some weeks I will get some iced donuts, these are a very big treat because they are usually sold out by the time I get to the shops. I will also buy things like cheese, crackers, chips, chocolate, dips, and soft drinks. Without fail, I will always get my very favourite Bundaberg Ginger Beer. I try to keep our diet healthy during the week. But on the weekends we let loose big time!! Spaghetti Bolognese Nobody in my family likes spaghetti bolognese! How??? This is my absolute favourite dish and while I do make it during the year. I tend not to cook this very often because I know that they don’t really enjoy it at all. None of my boys or husband are fussy eaters so I’m not quite sure what they have against spaghetti. Anyway, on my birthday this is the dish that I will request. Actually, I don’t even have to request it anymore as my husband just makes it for me. And everybody has to eat it and smile!! haha. Once A Month Family Dinners Family food traditions are fun and I think that when we look back on the years (that go by way too fast). The best memories will usually involve the times when we came together with our families to enjoy a meal together. I think that one of the best decisions that we made as a family, including my cousins and their partners and children. Was to come together on the first Friday of every month and have dinner. We also take turns hosting to make things easier. Sometimes we will get pizza, other times we will have burgers, Mexican food, casseroles, or anything really. We keep it simple and boy do we have fun!! Sadly we only started this tradition earlier this year when my beautiful mum became very sick. This shook us to our core and we realised that we had let the busyness of our lives take over. We don’t live far away from each other yet we had slowly stopped getting together except for birthdays etc. I wish we had gotten together more often when my mum was still with us. But on the bright side, it’s never too late to start a tradition or a family food tradition and after writing this I am inspired to come up with some more family food traditions. Because it’s never too late!! ********** Sharing on Linking up with Holly and Sarah

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Five Quick Favourites

5 Comments / Friday Favourites

Hi friends, I hope that you have all had a great week and are looking forward to a nice weekend. When I’m on holiday from work I really want the time to slow down. But as usual, this week has sped by and here we are again saying hello to the weekend. Thanks so much for stopping by to have a read where I’m excited to share with you my five quick favourites for this week. #1 It was so lovely not having to worry about routine so I indulged in lots of Netflix and Stan, especially over the weekend. I stayed up late and got up late too. Last Saturday I was still in my pyjamas until midday and on my phone mindlessly scrolling. This is something that I rarely do, so when Sam saw me he laughed. “Good on you Mum,” he said, “so good to see you enjoying the break”. Haha!! #2 We kickstarted the week with our usual monthly dinner at our local club on Monday night. It was freezing cold and rainy night but my black pea coat kept me warm. We met up with our friends and enjoyed a nice cocktail before dinner. I had my usual steamed barramundi with broccoli and rice. #3 Tuesday was Steve’s day off from work so we went into the city! We had dinner at a cute little french restaurant. After dinner, we went to an underground bar called Mr Mings. My co-worker had recommended this place to us. She keeps us up to date on all the cool places to visit. The bar was a perfect place to go to on a cold winter’s night. It was all warm and lit up with Chinese lanterns. My cocktail came in a tall tiki mug with delicious calorie-worthy coconut whipped cream! #4 With all this rain it has been almost impossible to get any of our laundry dry. We haven’t had a clothes dryer for about 15 years. But getting our clothes dry has never been a big issue until this year. I always hang out my washing on the clothesline and we’ve managed just fine. But this year it has been raining non-stop. I don’t actually remember ever having so many endless days of rain. Getting our washing to dry has been almost impossible. So recently Steve has been practically begging me to agree to buy a clothes dryer. Mainly because he had to wear damp pants to work on more than one occasion…oops!! I wanted to wait until we got the laundry renovated first. But with the prices of materials going crazy, I don’t think that this is going to happen anytime soon. The damp washing was making me crazy too so by Wednesday I was more than happy to go pick out a dryer. We got our new dryer delivered on Thursday and it has been working beautifully. I had to rearrange our small laundry but it’s fitted in fine and I love it. I actually can’t believe that I took so long to be convinced. Yeah, crazy. I know!! #5 I finally started painting our bedroom. The prep work kills me and it’s the part that I don’t enjoy at all but I have been very careful to do it well. I was going to listen to a podcast while I was painting but instead, I thought I would try something different and so I borrowed an audiobook from the library. While I was painting I listened to my first ever audiobook “Becoming” read by Michelle Obama herself. This is such a great book and I have really been enjoying it. I have learnt so much about the Obamas and I think Michelle Obama is such a lovely and very classy lady. That’s it for my Friday favourites this week. Five quick favourites, I’m going to jump off the computer now and get back to finish painting my bedroom. We have a super fun thing happening this weekend and I can’t wait to share it with you on Monday. Hope you all have the best weekend! Happy Friday! Linking up with Andrea and Erika for today’s post

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Ten Winter Essentials

3 Comments / Health and Well Being

My Ten Winter Essentials! This week has been so cold, rainy, and windy! It was raining so hard the other day when I got home, I had to put up my big umbrella just to get out of the car and go inside the house. I was trying to save my hair from getting wet and frizzy because you know…….#priorities. Well, I kid you not when I say that I nearly got blown away!! It was actually funny and I couldn’t stop laughing, I was holding on for dear life, getting blown here there, and everywhere. I must have looked like a nut!! Aussie Winters I know that compared to many other countries. Australian winters are actually quite mild. Recently I saw a news article about a TickToker who thought it was hilarious seeing Aussies wearing The North Face jackets and woolen coats when it was 16C and sunny. Well, I was one of those ones wearing a wooly coat and gloves! I wasn’t laughing, I was freezing!! The thing about Australian winters is that it’s just three long months of being cold and this year very wet, thanks to La Niña. We also don’t have a fun festive season to look forward to either like they do in the Northern Hemisphere. I mean we sometimes celebrate Christmas in July but it’s just not the same. So I’m not a big fan of winter and I much prefer summer. I also haven’t yet found my love for “all things fall” or Autumn as we call it. Give me warm spring or even better, hot summer temperatures all year long! My husband thinks I’m crazy, he can’t stand the heat. Winter Essentials To Beat The Cold This year I am working on being more positive about winter even though this past week has been extra challenging because the weather is just so miserable. Plus, according to the bureau of meteorology, we have ten more days of solid rain coming up. Sigh! Anyway, enough whinging! I am trying really hard to focus on the nice things about winter because there are many. This year I am determined that winter is going to be all about being cozy and not just about being cold!! So I have put together a list of my ten winter essentials. These ten winter essentials are actually helping me to enjoy the winter months this year. And I thought that if you are anything like me and struggle with the cold weather. Then you might hopefully find this list helpful. 1. Nice Steamy Hot Drinks Find a mug you love. This year I am using a cute pink mug that my cousin gave me and it makes me so happy. I love the size, the chunkiness of it, and how I can wrap my hands around it to warm them up when I am drinking something hot. Yes, I really am having a love affair with my special mug this winter. Once you have found a mug that you really love then all your winter drinks will taste so much more satisfying. Trust me! Another thing that I have been doing is enjoying some of my favourite go-to hot drinks like Herbal Teas Camomile- for calmness and relaxation Ginger and Tumeric- The ginger adds an element of spice and mild heat. While the lemon tea is full of delicious citrus zing. Recently I was fighting off a cold and these teas were so soothing. Chai- Chai tea is my favourite winter tea. It’s so comforting to drink a delicious steamy cup of chai tea on a cold day. I really love the gorgeous aroma of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom. Mmmmmm!!! Hot Chocolate Winter is a perfect time to enjoy hot chocolate! I usually just use the Jarrah sachets but I recently discovered Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate sachets and oh my word. They are just divine!! Coffee I prefer tea but some mornings I like a cup of Moconna coffee with a splash of milk. If I feel like adding some sweetener to my coffee then I will add a dash of hazelnut syrup. I also really like these Moconna cappuccino sachets. They are creamy and velvety with just the right amount of froth. 2. Invest In Warm Clothes For years I shivered through playground duty in the coldest playground ever! I layered up but only ever wore a short thin hooded jacket over the top. And it just wasn’t enough. This year I was determined to find a more appropriate jacket. I thought about buying a down jacket from Uniqlo but I wasn’t too keen on the style or the price. Luckily I managed to find a really nice long Calvin Klein jacket this year. It has a nice shape as it inches slightly at the waist. But aside from how cute I think it looks, this jacket has quite literally changed my life. It is just so warm!!! Playground duty doesn’t make me want to cry this year. Because when I wear my jacket I feel like I’m wearing a quilt! 3. Enjoy Comfort Food I love cooking up delicious comfort food like beef stews, chicken casseroles, cottage pies, roasts with creamy mashed potatoes, veggies, and lots of gravy. Soups are also great for lunch or dinner, especially pumpkin soup! I truly think that probably the best thing about winter is all the delicious comfort food you can cook up and enjoy!! 4. Light Candles Lighting candles just cheers me up! So candles are one of the most important winter essentials for me. I love a scented candle, tea lights, or even just a plain old white candle. It starts to get dark outside at around 5 pm so that’s usually the time when I start lighting some candles. A couple of years ago I bought some candles from Pottery Barn and these clever battery-operated candles have a timer. I have set them so they automatically turn on every afternoon at 4.30 pm. 5. Read

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