Friday Favourites

Hello, friends! I hope you’ve all had a fantastic week, and I’m sure you’re just as thrilled as I am that the weekend is finally here! Now it’s time to share some birthday favourites as well as some other favourites that brightened my week, let’s go! On Monday, I shared some of the birthday fun I had over the weekend. Today I’m excited to share some sweet and thoughtful gifts I received. I have been wanting a Lululemon Everywhere Belt Bag for ages and my cousin surprised me with one on Saturday night at our cousin connect. I adore this belt bag because it has enough space and compartments to keep all of my essentials and a fantastic adjustable strap. Meaning I can keep my hands free while I go about my day. So functional and stylish! I also love love love the colour that my cousin chose for me as it’s neutral (my favourite) and goes with everything. These bags come in so many different colours and I know how indecisive I can be so I’m glad my cousin chose it for me. My bestie gave me a gift bag with some of my favourites. Dark chocolate, more gingerbread men for my Christmas tree, stickers for my diary and wooden spoons. ( I have a thing about wooden spoons, they make me happy!) I love how she knows me so well and knows what I love. Probably because I’m always telling her whenever we are out shopping together. Haha!! She also very generously gave me a Lululemon gift voucher and I have my eyes set on a cute lightweight jacket, but now I have to decide which one! Decisions, decisions. My work buddy whose birthday is the day after mine gave me a pretty sun catcher. I love what she wrote on the box because she’s only 29 years old. But hey, age is just a number right, so we can totally be birthday twins. This cute birthday card from another friend made me laugh. So many kind and unexpected birthday presents! Moving onto some other non-birthday related favourites. I bought this coconut and lime multi-purpose cleaner that I use for the kitchen from Aldi. And guess what? It smells just like the delicious frozen coconut margarita that I had last Sunday when we went out for lunch! Now if that’s not an incentive to clean the kitchen, then I don’t know what is!! Another favourite for the week was this bag of avocados that I got from Woolworths. See how they are all different shapes and sizes. Well, Woolworths sells a line of produce called ‘The Odd Bunch’ that doesn’t look perfect or pretty but is still totally tasty and healthy. A big bonus is that it’s also cheaper! I unboxed my beautiful candle and glass cloche that one of my cousins gave me for Christmas. It looks so good on my coffee table and every time I lift the cloche, I can smell the gorgeous scent. I will light the candle eventually, but not just yet. I thought I’d give these Pantene miracle shots a try. I’ve got dry ends that are making me crazy! I used one shot and it did make my hair feel less crispy. So I’m going to keep using them and hopefully, they will work miracles. Fingers crossed! My husband brought me home this beautiful rose earlier in the week, isn’t it pretty? I put it on my kitchen window sill and it’s still going strong. That wraps up some favourites for the week. Boy oh boy, I sure am feeling exhausted! I thought last week was tiring, but this one feels just as draining. I’m looking forward to some downtime this weekend. Relaxing isn’t my strong suit, so I’ll likely have to remind myself to take it easy. Anyway, thanks so much for stopping by today, I really appreciate you guys reading and your comments always make my heart sing. Unfortunately, something is going on with some comments not going through. Lovely Joanne from Slices of Life very kindly sent me an email to let me know. It’s another technical issue that I’ve tried to work out but can’t so I’ll need to ask my friend the web genius to fix it for me. In the meantime, can you do me a favour? If you’re experiencing any issues with comments not going through and you get a weird message popping up, could you please shoot me an email to let me know? Any feedback you have would be super helpful while I tackle this. Thanks so much for your support! I hope you have a wonderful weekend and Hooray for Friday!! Linking up with Andrea and Erika    

Hi friends it’s time for Friday favourites and I’m excited to be here today to share a few things that made the week brighter. I know that it’s only week three but I’ve been enjoying my days at work. Of course, going back to work after the long summer break is always a bit of a shock to the system. But on the whole, everything is going well (I don’t want to jinx anything by saying this!). There have been so many improvements on so many different levels and that’s a big favourite! Last year was a challenge and I was worried about a repeat. Fingers crossed, so far so good. I was craving a strawberry milkshake. So after work on Monday, I walked up to the food court in my local Westfields to buy one. Usually, I’m happy to make them myself at home but in honour of it being birthday month. I decided to treat myself. A big bonus was getting in about 3000 extra steps than usual for the day by adding on the extra walk to the shops. I finally tackled the not-so-fun task of giving my oven a good clean. It was meant to be a school holiday job but I never got around to it. While scrubbing an oven is not my favourite activity, cooking in a clean one sure is! Despite having a self-cleaning feature, there is still the tedious task of removing all the racks and scrubbing them, as well as the glass door. One of the good things though is that unlike the old oven we had for years and years. I don’t have to contort myself and stick half my body inside to reach every corner. After this major effort, I’ve made a promise to myself to clean it more regularly. It’s incredibly satisfying to see it clean now, and I can finally check this task off my to-do list. Yay! I made an apple and berry gluten-free loaf. It’s been ages since I had baked anything and I think the couple of cooler mornings we had earlier in the week must have given me some major autumn vibes.   My fun work friend gave all of us a Lunar New Year Lottery scratchie and I won a $2.00 ticket! No further winnings though, better luck next time.   Finding this cute surprise in the fridge on Tuesday afternoon was a favourite. Haha! The anticipation of waiting a whole day to open my card and favourite chocolate bar on Valentine’s Day was a treat. This year we celebrated a lovely low-key Valentine’s Day at home. Some prawns and oysters plus a bottle of Prosecco. So good! I’m so determined to keep up with my meal planning this year and I’ve finally found a good routine that works for me. In the past, I used to meal plan on Sunday evenings. But I really disliked doing it on a Sunday because for me it was a big annoying chore planning for the week ahead. I think that Sunday evenings should be for relaxing and not even thinking about the new week! This year I’ve switched things up. Instead of meal planning on Sunday evenings, I now do it on Saturday mornings. For extra motivation, I have my coffee in my favourite cup. I pull out my beloved diary/planner and I use some colourful glittery pens and a cute notepad. I also light a scented candle and I find it’s actually quite pleasant to plan for the week ahead on a Saturday. Then I do an online grocery order which gets delivered on the same evening and I’m done! That wraps up a few favourite things for this week. Thank you so much for stopping by and I look forward to being back here on Monday. Have a wonderful weekend! Linking up with Andrea and Erika  

Hey friends! Can you believe how quickly the week has flown by? I’m happy to be back on this scorching Australia Day – 39ºC and counting! Thank goodness for air-conditioning and the joy of staying at home on this public holiday! Now it’s time to share some summer favourites! My First favourite has to be this beautiful silver nameplate necklace I rediscovered during a recent cleaning and organising session. That’s the upside of doing this chore, you sometimes find little forgotten treasures. I’ve had this gem since 1982, a thoughtful gift from my cousin. It’s engraved with our names and the year she gave it to me – how special. I have been wearing it a lot to make up for lost time! I bought contouring and highlighting sticks from Mecca. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with different types of makeup and watching some YouTube videos to catch ideas. Makeup has never been a big part of my routine, until a couple of years ago, I rarely bothered with it unless it was for a special occasion. Nowadays, I like to add a bit of natural-looking colour and highlights to my face. It not only makes me look more put together but also ensures that I don’t appear like I’ve been haunting houses. So, that’s a win! Sheet masks are my favourite especially when they are on sale at half price! They are such a relaxing treat and my face feels so hydrated afterwards. These wax strips are amazing and I’ve got the quick-rip-it-off-your-face-and-don’t-think-about-it technique down pat! I once went to a beautician who got carried away and ripped the hair and skin off my upper lip…ouch! I picked a shimmery bronze for my toes when I got a pedicure the other day. It seems that quite a few of this week’s favourites revolve around treating myself to some serious pampering! Long summer holidays are perfect for this. Sadly, the reality of returning to work next week means blissful moments like these are going to be super scarce. Shhh…let’s not talk about that. I got another jar of Speedy Spaghetti Spice from Gerwürzhaus when I went shopping in the city the other day and it’s the best. Spaghetti is my favourite but not my family’s. When I make it with this spice they all agree it tastes great. But they still don’t love spaghetti- I don’t get it, what’s wrong with them? I bought a couple of double-wall thermo latte glasses on the same shopping trip and I love them. There’s something about sipping from them that makes me feel a bit fancy Haha! It took me ages to decide if I should buy them because I’m being extra mindful of what I buy. Trying to avoid impulse purchases in 2024-not a resolution, just a goal. My hands got ridiculously dry recently. Not sure if it was the weather, hormones or just that I had been careless and not wearing gloves when I was cleaning. Probably a combination of all of these. Back in the day, I used to battle with terrible dermatitis, and I definitely didn’t want a repeat of that! So during my recent doctor’s visit to get a new script for thyroid meds, I showed him my hands and he wrote me a script for some cortisone cream. Now I know that cortisone is powerful and it clears up dermatitis in a flash but the downside is that it also thins your skin. So I used it for a couple of days and then continued with this CeraVe cream diligently. In the past, I have used heaps of other moisturisers. But either the perfume scent is too overpowering and makes my hands even itchier. Or they leave a residue that drives me nuts. CeraVe does neither of those and I’m so glad! Dry hands are not a favourite but smooth hydrated hands sure are! Time for some food favourites! Yum! These cheese crackers are just so deliciously cheesy. It’s summer but I still love comforting carbs so I made a lasagna with chips and balanced the heaviness with a light refreshing side salad. That’s acceptable, right? I had a great time in Marrickville with my friend. We spent the morning shopping for fresh produce at the fruit and veg shops. Then we got some tasty Vietnamese pork rolls from a famous local place. It was another hot and humid day so the ‘summer delight’ juice I got from a juice bar really hit the spot. Summer fruits are my favourite! I sliced the mango I got from a Marrickville fruit shop and oh my goodness, it’s the sweetest juiciest mango I’ve tasted in ages! Supermarket mangos just don’t compare and now I want to go back to the same place and buy some more. This coffee from Aldi is my favourite and no it’s not just because it’s from Peru hehe. It has a rich, bold flavour and aroma and I enjoy every single sip! That’s it for this week’s summer favourites, friends. A huge thank you for being here and reading along and I hope you have an amazing weekend. Happy Australia Day to all you Aussies out there! Linking up with Andrea and Erika        

Hi friends and welcome to Friday Favourites! Today I’m excited to catch up and share some favourites from the past few weeks. Between the holiday festivities and my brief blogging break. I’ve got a few faves that I want to tell you about. So let’s jump right into this Friday favourites catch-up post! It’s no secret that I love lots of delicious froth on my coffee and hot chocolates (in winter). My lovely cousin got me this frother for Christmas and I have been enjoying some deliciously frothy coffee breaks over my summer holiday. I’ve had my eye on this beautiful Marimekko tealight holder, and I finally decided to order it online. I came across it while browsing for Christmas gifts for my boys. Does this happen to you too? I often discover things that I love and get a bit sidetracked while shopping. Oops! Marimekko is a Finnish design company (for some reason I used to think it was Japanese!). Anyway, it’s well-known for producing vibrant iconic textile patterns and they also have gorgeous home goods. I love my tealight holder, it radiates a warm glowing light and it looks like a small lamp when I light it. Merry Christmas to me! I was excited to visit a Marimekko store in the city when I went shopping with my friend back in the first week of the school holidays. I’m still on track with ticking off some household chores and trying to stick to doing one thing a day. The other day I gave the fridge a good clean. I’m not sure if I love this method or if I prefer to smash out all these chores over a couple of days. But I am happy to get them done so I guess that’s a win! We had our first Cousin Connect dinner last Saturday and I cooked up some Italian food. Caprese pizza and cheese board for an entree. Meatballs and roast chicken (I forgot to take a pic of the chicken) for the mains. Panzanella and pasta (forgot to take a pic of the pasta) as sides. Baked nectarines with Italian trifle for dessert. It was fun eating in our small courtyard! I had a playlist full of fun Italian music playing in the background creating a lovely vibe. It’s ok that I forgot to take photos of all the dishes individually because here they all are! I tend to over-cater, maybe because I always have my mum’s voice inside my head saying ” Ruth! Are you sure there’s enough food?” Haha, she always over-catered too. We had leftovers for the next couple of days. We love leftovers! After dinner, it was our usual board game madness. One of my favourite things about summer is all the delicious fruit. We have been so lucky with the berries and grapes as they have been so sweet this year. Sam even commented about how this year’s summer fruits taste better than ever. I always think of Kramer from Seinfeld who claimed that “fruit was a gamble”. I totally agree because sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t! We played some super fun Christmas party games which I shared in my Christmas recap post. For the reindeer hands game, where every player had to wear red plastic cups on their hands and pass a ball. I needed some rubber balls or tennis balls. However, they turned out to be expensive and I needed quite a few. I had a lightbulb moment and opted for a bag of fresh oranges and they worked perfectly! Then about a week or so later I juiced all the oranges and we had delicious sweet orange juice! I’m going to finish off my favourites catch-up post by sharing with you someone very special and one of my most favourite people in the whole world. My uncle Bill. Today marks the tenth anniversary since he passed away suddenly, leaving us all utterly devastated and missing him every single day. He was my mum’s youngest brother and the kindest man you could ever meet. He wasn’t just an uncle; he was like my father, my go-to person whenever I had a problem and my hero. Words cannot describe how much I loved him. I know that I’ve been incredibly blessed to have had such an amazing uncle. I just miss him so much. Today, I am going to visit his grave with my aunt (his wife) and say hello to my mum too as she’s buried not far away. Then in the evening, we are getting together to have dinner with his kids (my cousins) and remember the good times we shared. Thanks so much for joining me in today’s favourites catch-up. I hope you all have an amazing weekend and please give your loved ones an extra big cuddle! I look forward to being back here on Monday. Linking up with Andrea and Erika.

Hi friends! It’s great to be back today to share some Friday favourites. My top favourite for this week was officially starting my summer school holidays on Tuesday at 3.46 (our weird finishing time). Oh my goodness we worked so hard on Tuesday cleaning and packing everything away. My coworker and I were assigned the not-so-fun task of cleaning out the shed. We keep all of our playground equipment in this shed and it had gotten so messy! Then we also had to move a lot of furniture from one classroom to the other. Because during the holiday break our preschool is getting new floors and a fresh coat of white paint. I’m emphasising white because at the moment it’s a whole lot of very bright colours we don’t really like. It will be great to start the year with a fresh new space. Tuesday’s work lunch was McDonald’s and a glass of Moet. It was hands down my favourite work lunch for the year! It was the best feeling not having the alarm go off on Wednesday morning. But I couldn’t believe that I still woke up at 6 am. We woke up to a very wet and cool day which was crazy because it had been scorching hot all week. To celebrate the start of the school holidays Steve took me out to lunch at one of our favourite French restaurants in the city. I was glad that I wore my combat boots. When I bought them a couple of months ago I wasn’t sure if I liked them because they are on the chunky side. I nearly returned them but I’m so glad that I didn’t because they are extremely comfortable and will be perfect for winter. As well as on random cold and wet days in summer, the weather is crazy! Lunch was amazing! We shared the mussels as an entree and the sauce was so delicious. It was full of punchy garlic so I was totally safe from vampires. As well as anyone else who came near me that day. For mains, Steve ordered the fish and I had the steak. Everything tasted so good! It was lovely being inside the cozy restaurant and enjoying a delicious meal on such a rainy day. Thursday I went out to do some Christmas shopping with my sweet friend. Our family is doing Secret Santa this year and we are only buying for one family member. But I still wanted to buy some presents for my immediate family. I managed to find a couple of things (phew!). Then we stopped off for lunch at one of our favourite cafes and I had my usual chicken and leek pie and a lemon meringue pie for dessert. We stopped to listen to some carol singers and admire the big Christmas tree in the QVB. Thursday night I had a mini panic because even though I am not hosting Christmas. We are all taking something to share for Christmas Eve dinner at my cousin’s house. I also had to work out which games we were going to be playing on the night. Buy the things that I needed for that and organise my food shop for Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Yikes! Luckily I got a food delivery time slot and all the stars aligned when my cousin called me out of the blue on Friday morning and asked me if I wanted to go to Costco and Ikea. My cousin shops at Costco like a champ and we were in and out in next to no time even though it was insanely crowded. We even managed to score a table and had an early lunch. Costco hotdogs with onion and all the sauces. So delicious! I needed red cups for our party games so I bought those at Costco and now we have enough red cups to last us forever. I also bought a shopping trolley at Ikea and it’s perfect! Much cheaper than buying a second car. Last year we went from two cars to one and this means that I do a lot of walking. Luckily we live within walking distance of my work as well as the shops. The only downside is that carrying things home can get very heavy. Although I mainly do my grocery shopping online I do tend to pop into the shops for this and that. In the late afternoon, I walked up to our local shopping centre with my favourite new trolley. After today, I feel much more prepared for Christmas. I bought the big 5kg ham that I am going to take to my cousins for Christmas Eve ( I couldn’t order it online). I’m excited to prepare my family’s favourite Lime and Macadamia Glazed Ham. Along with that, I grabbed a whole lot of things that I needed and I wheeled everything home. Tonight’s agenda involves wrapping presents and finalising our party games. It’s definitely a last-minute rush, but as they say, better late than never! That brings me to the end of some favourites for this week. Can you believe that It’s Christmas in a few days? Now that I feel on top of things and not so overwhelmed by my lack of preparation, I am feeling very excited about Christmas. I am going to pop in tomorrow for a quick post so I hope you’ll stop by. Thanks for being here and I hope you have a wonderful Friday! Linking up with Andrea and Erika    

Hello there friends, I hope you all had an amazing week and now it’s time for a few quick festive favourites. We met our friends at the local RSL club for our monthly dinner. This time I was a little more adventurous with my food choices and picked something different from the menu. Normally I order the steamed barramundi. But this time I went for chicken with cashews and fried rice. It was so delicious that I devoured this plate in no time at all! Now, I’ll probably be ordering this dish every time we get together for the next year! That night at dinner one of our friends was telling us about a spectacularly lit house that was nearby. So on the way home, we all stopped to have a look and admire. I’m always in awe of the effort that it must take to put this beautiful festive display together. I would truly love to know how they don’t get all the lights tangled up! We have a few solar lights for the front of our house and I always get them tangled even when I store them carefully. Argh!! I must have taken a thousand photos that night, here are a few more. Our preschool families are so generous. Here are some of the delicious presents we have been given this week. It’s been so hot! Today we reached 30ºC and tomorrow it will be 40ºC! I always wish that Christmas would happen for us in the winter. That’s why we celebrated Christmas in July this year but it’s not quite the same. As much as I love summer, celebrating Christmas in the heat isn’t my favourite. The other night after watching yet another Hallmark movie where everything was cold and snowy. I decided that I wanted the same cozy feeling so I put a YouTube video of a fireplace with Christmas music. I loved the atmosphere but after looking at the fire for about five minutes, I felt even hotter! My lovely friend organised for us to go to Ikea on Thursday night for a Swedish festive feast! It was so much fun and we both had the best time. We hope Ikea hold this event again next year because if they do we’re both in! We had three courses and it was all so delicious! As far as I’m concerned there is no such thing as too much gravy! The real Swedish Santa dressed in a blue suit and yellow trim was there too! After our Swedish feast, we walked around Ikea and it was so quiet! I have never been there when there is hardly anyone around. Normally I go on the weekend when it’s so busy. I think it’s almost impossible to walk out of Ikea without buying something. But this time I didn’t get carried away and just stocked up on white candles, lint remover, serviettes and zip-lock bags. I also found some cute red pots for my poinsettias that I bought the other day. I’m so happy with how the red pots look on the entrance table. Once Christmas is over I will replant them again into proper pots with drainage holes. Then wouldn’t it be a miracle if they lived until next Christmas! I’m going to try hard to look after them. It will be a challenge for me but I’m up for it! Oh my goodness I’m so excited that it’s the weekend! I’m going to jump off the computer, have a cool shower and watch a Christmas movie while I eat dinner. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and I look forward to being back here on Monday! Linking up with Andrea and Erika