And just like that , it’s the last day of February. February is a special month for me, as it my birth month.

I turned another year older and wiser( atleast I think I am wiser!) and my blog turned another year older. I have been blogging for 14 years now.

As much as I want to blog more regularly, life gets in the way.. and .. yeah..

Anyway, here’s some cake to celebrate the blog and me 😊

I start Uni again tomorrow. I have 4 more subjects and one more year of studying to complete it order to finish this course.

Sometimes I am tempted to shut down the blog but I can’t.. active or dormant, the blog is a big part of me, a big part of who I am today – my identity. So, I will just keep posting sporadically as and when I can.

Looking forward to a fun March,

❤️❤️Trish

The announcements were made around 1PM Friday afternoon and as I heard our Premier announcement the lockdown, my heart just sank.

I understand the logic behind it and am grateful to be at home with my family but I couldn’t help but feel this sense of dread- this sense of helplessness.

My first thought was MsA, MsAn was at home sick, so she was fine. But along with MsA, I had to figure out workforce plan for my team for next week. I took 5 minutes to take some deep breaths , collect myself before logging into planning meetings.

Taking deep breaths really helps when you are feeling overwhelmed or anxious. And getting busy – like jumping in headfirst into your work, pushes the anxiety away- at least that’s what it did for me.

Now, with all that work done,sorted- I have the next 3 days off. 3 days at home – doing nothing but relaxing. All sports have been cancelled. The schools will remain closed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

I hope this circuit breaker lockdown is exactly that- a circuit breaker and things go back to being normal again.

Sending lots of love and strength to all Victorians… we have got this !

❤️❤️❤️ Trish ❤️❤️❤️

Mr Mowgli turned 4 on the 1st of Feb. He is still on special diet, so I just made a pretend cake for him. I say pretend because it was still his everyday food, but I put it in a new container and added a blob of peanut butter as a special treat, lit a candle and we sang Happy birthday to him.

I don’t know whether he knew that it was a special day, but he loved all the attention & loved it when I kept saying “ Happy Birthday” to him in a singsong.

Love my gentle giant😍

This is the first time we have all been at home for his birthday. Here’s to many more.

❤️Trish

By 10 am today, I felt like I had already been at work for the whole week. The day got progressively more and more hectic. I felt a stress headache coming on & after logging off for the day, I moved to the couch, to stay there staring aimlessly at my phone.

It took every ounce of energy in me to drag myself off the couch to get changed to go meet a group of local ladies to try and set up a book club. I am glad I went though – meeting new people and being out in fresh air helped with the headache.

Although, we swapped today’s school lunch & dinner to lunch order and pizza, I came home refreshed from my meeting and whipped up a batch of mini pancakes for school tomorrow. MsAn is in for a surprise tomorrow morning 😊

How was your day? If you reading this, thanks for stopping by. Leave me a comment, say hi or hello 😊

❤️ Trish

Meal planning is a tool a discovered in the last couple of years, especially since I started working full time. I cook once a day – have been doing that since MsA was born – usually in the evening. Lunch is almost always either Leftovers or a salad/ Sandwich.

I have spoken about my need to cook everyday and stressing about meals, so I will spare you the drama today. Instead I will just share our weekly menu with you 😊

And a quick recipe for Noodles :

This recipe is quick because I used a couple of shortcuts.

1) Substituted fresh vegetables for pre-prepped ones – A bag of pre-cut coleslaw mix instead of cabbage and carrots ; pre-cut & Frozen Green beans

2) Fresh Hokkien Noodles from Aldi instead of boiling dried noodles.

Recipe:

2 packs of Fresh Noodles 1 bag of coleslaw mix 1 medium sized onion 1 medium capsicum 1/2 cup frozen beans 1 pack of hotdogs. 4 eggs Salt,pepper,soy sauce, vinegar- as per taste

Preparation:

Slice Onion and capsicum thinly. Stir-fry onion, capsicum, coleslaw mix, frozen beans in some oil. Season with salt and pepper . Prep Noodles as per instructions on the pack – cover the noodles with boiling water for 2 minutes- fluff it up with a fork and then transfer to the wok with vegetables. Cut up sausages into smaller pieces and lightly toss in a hot pan. Scramble eggs and add to the wok. Add a dash of Soy Sauce, vinegar & adjust salt. Serve hot !

Quick recipe- simple no fuss dinner- winning!

#Blogathon2021 #Quickrecipe #familyfavourite

Yayyy my birthday month is here! Yes, I still get excited about my birthday month. Some years I go into a funk just before my birthday . This year I am excited , sad, anxious -all at once.

I found this old photo from 2011, when I was pregnant with MsAn and I love it how SP had captured my happiness in that particular moment. MsA and I were playing, I was hugging & tickling her and she was trying to escape. I love the pregnancy hair and glow too.

Today is the last day of my short break .. I am still sad 😞 I will start work again tomorrow but like MsAn says – “ I will do it but I won’t enjoy it!” 😃😃 so, today being my day off, I took the girls to school and MsA’s drop off is almost an hour after MsAn’s. So we were sitting in the car chatting & I noticed this young family with their little girl going to school.

They stopped for a minute and mum took a quick photo of the dad and daughter. And then they were going to swap places. The mum and I made eye contact and I couldn’t help myself. I got out of the car and asked if they would like me to take a photo of them all . ‘ Oh! Yes, please’. They kept saying thank you 😊 I was only too pleased to help. MsA was laughing, when I got back in the car. “You are like Santa” , she said 😃

I did feel like Santa- spreading cheer on this important day when their baby aaa starting school.

Little things make me happy. I am glad I could make them happy too 😊

#Blogathon2021

I am so sad.. my break is coming to an end.. one last day tomorrow and then I resume work.

I don’t know how ten days passed so quickly. I am already looking forward to my next break – whenever that is . I had taken the last week off, as the kids were starting school. MsAn started Grade4 on Friday.. time is flying 🙂

In other news, SP and I will be working from home for at least a couple of days for at least the new couple of months. So, we I have decided to convert our spare room into a home office for us to share. I don’t know if it’s a good idea or bad. But it’s time to reclaim our living spaces.

Currently, SP’s office is set up in the upstairs lounge & mine is set up in a corner in my bedroom. The only time we will struggle is when we have calls/ online meetings. But it will nice to leave our work behind in the office, even if our office is in our home. I am hoping to set up our desks in opposite ends of the room, facing each other. Most home office setup I have seen have the desk facing the wall but I am not thrilled about facing the wall, so let’s see.

Are you currently working from home ? If yes, what’s your home office set up like?

Looking forward to hearing from you..

❤️ Trish

Happiness is Pink Moscato & dinner with friends . Today I met two dear friends for dinner. They are my ‘no time lost’ friends. COVID lockdowns made it hard for us to meet and we met after a year… but it felt like no time was lost. We quickly caught up on the year past, kids, husbands, life – everything!

#Blogathon2021

A friend forwarded this to me a couple of months back 😊 ! I can’t believe that I obsessed over losing weight, then. I wish I could be that size – now.

I love it that we are both smiling here.. it was a year after we lost our mum.. I am glad that we had people around that cared 😊

On another note, MsA started Year 9 today!!! it’s Bizzare.. as MsA likes to say – “ I still can’t comprehend that this is happening!”

Still reading Diary of the Crap Housewife .. LOVING it!

More later,

❤️ Trish

#Blogathon2021

.. is my treasure! Technically , not really junk .. just something that someone didn’t want.

A lovely lady was giving this pot away on my local ‘Buy Nothing’ Group. It’s just right for my fresh ghee. And today I am especially grateful for this, as I was really struggling to come up with something to write about 😁

#Blogathon2021