Life is a Journey not a Destination

That’s the one word I can use to describe both Dralion and Billy Elliot.

We started our escape by driving to Sydney. Bondi Beach to be exact, where we stayed on Friday night. We had a lovely room overlooking the beach.

After Kevin did a bit of work - it is a work day after all - we drove over to Fox Studios where Dralion is playing. We had a wander around the shops, eventually stopping at Gloria Jeans for a hot chocolate.

At 4.30pm it was show time.

This is the forth cirque du soliel show that we’ve seen and we were still blown away. They take acts that you’ve seen before and totally transform them. The trampoline act (where the performers almost walked up the wall was amazing) and the hoop diving was unbelievable. One thing I know is that after seeing people perform like this you’ll never need to go to animal circus again.

After the show we had a hot corn cob and bought some pasta to take back to our hotel room.

We spent the night watching music videos (there was NOTHING on TV and we didn’t feel like paying $17 to watch a movie we could rent for $3) and eating dinner in bed.

On Saturday morning, with no little puppy to wake us up, we managed to sleep in till about 6.30am. We lazed around for awhile, had some cheese on a roll for breakfast, played on the laptop and later went for a walk over to the beach.

We got a cup of tea and a friand and sat and people watched. Such a busy place - even in Winter.

After an hour we headed back to our room, checked out of the hotel and drove into the city. We parked our car next to theatre and walked, first to Haigh’s chocolates, then to a coffee shop Kevin wanted to visit, then to Borders. We had some lunch in a food court and on the way back to the theatre bought a new printer. How’s that for an impluse purchase. This is a little one for me to print photos -  a Cannon Selphy ES2 - it’s sooo cute!!!

It was rather cold so I got a tea at Gloria Jeans before the show. We were seated much closer to the stage than the last time we saw Billy Elliot - which was really great for me as I could actually see people’s faces. The show was just as fantastic as last time and I’m so glad we got to see it again.

We left Sydney and arrived home around 6pm, after picking up some Chinese to have for dinner. It was nice to see the kids and dogs again. We finished up our day watching The Water Horse with the girls.

Kevin and I are escaping for 2 days and 1 night. We’re staying at the Swiss Grand in Bondi (where I don’t think I’ve been since I was a teenager) and going to see Cirque Du Soleil - Dralion this afternon and then Billy Elliot (yes, again - my birthday present from Mum) tomorrow afternoon.

Kevin has a work meeting this morning and I have a few things I want to get done (including going to the gym if I have time), before our planned time to leave at 11am.

This is a job I’ve been wanting to tackle for a few weeks now. I’m pretty good and do go through our wardrobes on a regular basis. But this time I was ruthless. If something didn’t look good or is never going to look good, out it went. Some were thing I bought as I was losing weight and actually never wore cause they didn’t really do much for me. Amy was off school today (sick) so I got her to look through her wardrobe and we got rid of anything she doesn’t like (later we and go through and check what’s left actually fits). I also went through bins of Amy’s old clothes to see what might fit Christy for Summer, so she has a pile of clothes to try on. Later I’ll do a list of what I need to buy for the girls. I think all I need is some dressier pants (have plenty of casual ones). Oh, that bottom row of clothes are clothes that “almost” fit.

This is what I got rid of. I love those red shoes but they are NOT comfortable.

And this is from the girls

I also tidied and cleaned all the bedrooms so I’m feeling VERY tired now. It took from 9am till about 2pm.

Todays offering included :

Corn Relish dip, Carrot, Rice Crackers, Drumsticks,Laughing Cow Cheese, Marshmellows, Chocolate biscuits, Watermelon, Lamingtons, Strawberries and Banana bread (made by my best friend, Leanne)

To see more muffin tin Monday ideas this week visit Kiddio.

Missed a few meals last week. It was a funny week with the kids sick and Kevin late a few nights.

MONDAY : Pasta with Mushroom Sauce (Cheese sauce for kids)

TUESDAY: Baked potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, cheesy cauliflower

WEDNESDAY: Chili Con Carne

THURSDAY: Sour Cream Quiche

FRIDAY: AWAY (without the kids!!!!)

SATURDAY: Nachos or mexi-bean wraps

SUNDAY: CHeese on Toast or from freezer

SOUP : Pumpkin, Cauliflower Soup

…. staying away from the computer.

Having kids home from school and feeling lazy this week has found me sitting on my backside in front of the computer for far too many hours this week. In fact according to rescue time I have already logged over 26 hours since last Sunday (and it didn’t count Thursday for some reason). That’s a whole day on the computer - mind you Amy has been using it a bit as well so it’s not ALL me. But today I am going to turn it off (now that’s I’ve read most of my blogsa and checked my e-mail). Instead I plan to do some scrapbooking, maybe start work on my Christmas Notebook (since quite a few bloggers have started talking about Christmas in recent weeks and I’ve already bought a few presents). I also need to vacuum, help the kids tidy their stuff up and get a few groceries for lunch tomorrow (we’re having visitors). Okay, I’m hitting the shutdown button as soon as I publish this. And I won’t be back till much later this afternoon - I PROMISE!!!

UPDATE : I managed to stay away from the computer until 4.45pm but for some reason I still didn’t seem to get much accomplished. I did have a nice day though.

Well, love might be too strong a word, but I can’t be the only woman who likes ironing. Or am I? I actually don’t think I know of anyone else who does. Please let me know I’m not alone…

I was introduced to ironing by my Mum. She PAID me to do it. I used to do the ironing every Saturday morning while watching music videos. So maybe that’s why I enjoy it - it has memorable connotations - money and music!!! Funnily enough my Mum doesn’t like ironing and she irons EVERYTHING. I too used to iron everything, but when my girls were young a fellow flybaby pointed out the fact that some things really DON’T need ironed. So I don’t iron everything. I don’t iron DH work shirts (they go straight on hangers after washing), I don’t iron PJs - unless they really need it, and I definitely don’t iron sheets (though will occasionally do a quilt cover). Everything else gets ironed. I find all up it takes less than an hour a week.

At our old house I used to iron outside (well, it was a flyscreen room under our house). The girls would paint or play outside while I did my thing. This worked well as it was right beside our laundry. I then carried all the clothes upstairs. I miss being able to that. But I do LOVE my current laundry…well, I did design it afterall.

Nowadays I use my ironing time as my thinking time. My mind is free to think about whatever. Kevin recently got me an I-Phone so yesterday I actually listened to a flylady podcast while ironing, which was quite motivating.

Last Summer I taught Amy how to iron and it was a novelty for a about a fortnight before she got bored with it. Maybe when she’s older I’ll pay her too…. but I personally I think I’d miss my ironing sessions.

Tina over at Housewife Hiccups was kind enough to give me this award - Blogging Friends Forever - how sweet is that?

The rules are simple.

Only 5 people are allowed to receive this award ,4 of them followers of your blog.
One has to be new to your blog and live in another part of the world.
You must link back to whoever gave you the award.

I’m giving the award to Kez’s Blog, Jumping on Beds, A Vision Splendid, Still at Home and Belinda Moore.

Yes, I know that’s 5 but I had to include all these wonderful ladies.

And for my new reader in another part of the world I give the award to Rural Writing.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that I love to entertain at home. We seem to go through phases of doing lots, then not anything for a while. Winter is a quieter time and this year it was extra quiet with us being away for 3 weeks. But we had friends last Sunday and some other friends coming this Sunday. And there a few more friends I need to organise a day with. We will soon be starting our busy time. We have Christy’s birthday in Sept, our Halloween Party in Oct, then Christmas Eve (with friends), Christmas Day (with family) and New Years Eve/Day (with friends). That’s on top of the normal entertaining we like to do.

A lot of people are surprised by how much entertaining we do and how effortless it seems. But I really don’t find it too hard and I think part of the reason is that I don’t get stressed about it. I plan out what I’m serving/making and write a to-do for the few days before the event to make everything run smoothly. I like everything ready when guests arrive and don’t want to running around madly on the day. In the case of last Sunday we were out all day Sat so we had a BBQ and a couple of side dishes. I usually make my own nibbles and desert but due to lack of time didn’t do that this time. Normally I clean the house the day before with the wedding on, Mum & Dad were kind enough to come and help tidy and clean in the morning.

A part of entertaining I particularly enjoy is setting a nice table. With most of our friends having young children we tend to eat outdoors if possible. Having 5 adults and 6 children on Sunday I set a special kids table. The girls usually help to do this.

All the food was ready before the guests arrived.

I lit some candles and even had time to sit down for about half an hour before they arrived. When our guests arrived (2 girls that I grew up with and their families) we welcomed them inside and I put some spring rolls in the oven to cook. Later Kevin cooked the organic meat on the BBQ and I heated up some side dishes.

We had a great afternoon. Amy had organised some activities for the kids.

And I had a lovely time catching up with old friends. I have known these wonderful ladies (who are sisters) since I was 3 years old. They lived behind us growing up and our parents used to pass us over the fence to each others homes. Later we had a gate cut in the fence. It’s impossible for me to think of my childhood with out thinking of them and I’m so very glad we’ve not lost contact (even if we don’t see each other that often these days). Michelle & Terri thanks so much for coming to visit us.

Well, it’s time again for Muffin Tin Monday. The girls loved doing it last week and Christy in fact made her own snacks using muffin tins a couple of other times during the week - which is great for a fussy eater like her.

Todays theme was breakfast. Monday wasn’t the best day for us to it but I managed (after getting back from an early morning workout at the gym) . We had french toast fingers, pikelets with jam and cream, babybell cheese, fruit and a few chocolate biscuits (well, the kids did). There was also yoghurt for Amy but she didn’t eat it. Once again the girls thought it was great fun and have already asked if we can the snack one on Tuesday afternoon as well.