Happiness Is Found In Little Things

The title of this post is borrowed from my childhood Hollie Hobbie mug which I took on a picnic with Grace earlier in the week and it sums up my week (post trolley incident) perfectly. After a few mishaps, the latter part of the week was free from plans so Grace and I have been enjoying time together outdoors in the sunshine.



Yesterday we packed our rug, thermos and morning tea and had a picnic at a park together. We enjoyed our goodies, fed the ducks and played on the swings. Grace's comment of "Mummy, I so like having picnics" has made this outing something I hope to do more often.



Today we headed to the river with our beach towel and bucket. Although the water was choppy, Grace loved running up and down along the sand collecting shells in her bucket and I soaked up the sunshine as I enjoyed a milkshake and watched her.

Another thing that has made me happy this week includes my slightly cleaner house. My Mum came over on her day off to help me clean and organise our place as I had gotten myself into a bit of a rut and had the 'where do I start' dilema. Mum was fantastic. She got stuck into things, had me feeling motivated and left my place looking much tidier than before. Now I just have to keep it that way.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend...

Grocery Shopping Disaster

Photo by Graham Yelton

Last week, I was thinking about how I should try online grocery shopping and do a big bulk buy up pre-baby. I've been finding my usual grocery shopping task has become too hard as trying to lift Grace into the seat at the front of the trolley as well as pushing and unloading heavy bags with my belly has become very difficult. An incident this morning confirmed this.

It started out as a good outing. Grace was happy in the trolley and I scooted up and down the aisles as quickly as possible. Heading back to the car however, the sloped paving plus my heavy load suddenly made the trolley impossible to steer and it began veering towards the kerb. With visions of Grace toppling out, I tried with all my might to re-correct it, also wary of not straining my belly in the process, but it was no good. I crashed into a car on the verge, the trolley ended up on it's side against it and I hurt my shin in the process.

No one came to help me.

So I came home, unloaded my shopping and sat down with a cuppa to watch Grace playing happily and to try and calm my nerves. I'm still getting belly kicks so it looks like all is okay in that regard which is all that matters really. Fingers crossed it won't cost too much to fix the dent in the other man's car.

So after all that, I'm definitely going to look at my grocery shopping system a bit closer. I figure if I can do an online shop once a fortnight or so for packaged/canned stuff, then I'll be able to get away with a quick visit to the green grocer, bakery and butcher each week.

How do you do your shopping? Do you do a weekly or fortnightly shop and have you tried online grocery shopping?

Freezing Meals

Photo above by Ralph Anderson via Southern Living

I’ve decided I’m going to give myself the next three weeks to get all the essentials ready before our bub arrives, that way I can spend the remaining month taking things easy. One of my ‘essentials’ is stocking my freezer full of meals for us to use in those first weeks when we arrive home from the hospital. Our freezer isn’t all that big however so I need to find an efficient way of storing things so I can cram as much in as possible. I’m keen to find the perfect storage containers, preferably ones that are BPA free. I bought a few Pyrex dishes the other day as then I can reheat meals straight from the glass dish but these tend to be pricey.

In my searching for meal freezing ideas, I came across a few handy resources. I love the idea of the labels below as I think it’s important to have the date of frozen meals labelled. I will definitely be printing off a little batch of these to use. The link for the PDF file for these labels is here.

Image above from Martha Stewart

Another useful find was a table listing the freezer life of different foods. I’m always phoning my Mum asking her questions about freezing or reheating dishes, so this table will be handy for me. I might put it up somewhere inside our pantry. This article on the Taste website is also handy for knowing the best way to store particular dishes.

I’m keen to know which storage containers you all use. Do you use different ones for different dishes? Are you too avoiding any plastics with BPA? Which meals do you find are the best for freezing? So far I’m planning on freezing spaghetti sauce, lasagna, muffins, cookie dough, pesto, soup and perhaps a curry (although I’m not sure this is the best idea with breastfeeding?) What else would you add to my list?

Excuse This House

As I looked around my house this afternoon at the dishes sitting in the sink and the pile of washing waiting to be folded and put away, as well as the other endless household tasks I had yet to tick off my to-do list, I thought of a poem I’d come across recently here:


Excuse This House

Some houses try to hide the fact
That children shelter there
Ours boasts of it quite openly
The signs are everywhere

For smears are on the windows
Little smudges on the doors
I should apologise I guess for
The toys strewn on the floor

But, I sat down with the children
And we played and laughed and read
And if the doorbell doesn't shine
Their eyes will shine instead

For when at times I am forced to choose
the one job or the other
I want to be a house wife but
FIRST I'll be a mother

Author: Unknown

Image above found via Gingerella

Friday Flowers

As I heard the noisy rubbish trucks early this morning (our sign that it is Friday), I couldn't believe that it was already the end of the week. I don't know where this week has gone, I feel like I've kind of fumbled through it and not really achieved a lot and so I have a big 'to do list' for this coming weekend of things I hope to achieve.

Our garden has been a bit bare over winter so today, I thought I'd share this little posy which is currently in our laundry. While I haven't actually planted any freesias, we get the occasional ones popping up amongst our agapanthus plants so this week, I picked all that I could find and placed them here on the window. They have the loveliest subtle scent.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.