Currently... August

A few days late, but here are a few of the things I’ve been up to in August.

Reading The Signature of all Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. I picked this up as I’ve read her other (very famous) book: Eat, Pray, Love. This book is historical fiction, so a totally different genre. I’m really enjoying it - much more than I thought I would given that the main character is a botanist and there is a lot of detail on this subject at times. But somehow that hasn’t bored me to tears, in fact I find myself struggling to get one more page in as my tired eyes try to close each night. I also read The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee. It is told from the point of view of three expat women in Hong Kong, whose stories and lives intertwine. I was expecting it to be fluffy chick lit, but it actually explores some very emotional themes around friendship and motherhood. I loved it and read it within a few days. And at the very start of the month I read The Dry by Jane Harper, an Australian crime novel. It was an easy, engaging read. I am actually finding a lot of time to read lately, which is awesome. It is one of my favourite “treats”, being stuck in a good book, and I am tend to choose reading over TV watching as a way to unwind lately. (Not always of course, as you’ll read about in the next section…)

Watching The Handmaid’s Tale. It is so dark. I love it. I’ve never read the book - which is weird, as I feel like it was on every high school English booklist in Canada when I was growing up. We also watched Season 7 of Game of Thrones. I enjoyed the very short season (only 7 episodes!), but didn’t love all of it, like I have in the past. I found some of the story lines very unbelievable/borderline stupid (I won’t go into any spoilers here), but I did like seeing how some relationships developed between key players. For me the best scenes were not the epic, often drawn-out fighting scenes, but rather the quieter, tense dialogue involving only two or three characters at a time.

Enjoying slow, simple weekends. As you may have noticed, I haven’t updated the blog a lot lately, and that is mainly because our weekends have been pretty quiet. They normally consist of coffees, brunches, and playing in one of the many nearby playgrounds (or an indoor play centre when it’s raining), and a long afternoon nap from Ella as she catches up on sleep after a full week at daycare. It’s been nice to just relax and let the weekends happen, rather than trying to cram too much in. It’s also probably the reason I’ve got so much reading in, as I mentioned above!

Loving my new water bottle. Andy got us these memobottles which are Melbourne-designed and slip very easily into a handbag or backpack. I’m trying very hard to not buy bottled water so this helps! The sizes are based on standard paper sizes. Mine is the A6 size which is nice and compact, while Andy got the next size up, A5.

Wearing these HeatTech thermal leggings from Uniqlo. I bought them for the school camp I went on in May and they are sooooo soft. I wear them around the house and to bed and they keep me nice and warm in our chilly house, without being too warm under the duvet at night. I’ve just seen that they are on sale for $20 so I may need to invest in a second pair, or even a long-sleeved shirt to go with them. I totally recommend these thermals, they kept me warm while camping and are much more affordable (and comfortable) than ones I’ve had before from Kathmandu.

Cooking some yummy new dishes lately. I love, love, love this squash risotto, cooked in a dutch oven instead of standing over a stove, slowing stirring for 40 minutes. I did have to go out and buy a dutch oven to make it (and try not to giggle immaturely at the name “dutch oven”) and managed to find an inexpensive version that worked perfectly at Kmart. Gotta love Kmart! I also tried this Kale and Coconut Stir Fry last week, which again was a huge winner. So much so that I’m making it again tonight.

Missing riding my bike to work. Now that Andy works with me we drive to work together, which is great when it’s cold and rainy. But I miss the exercise and am struggling to get in the same amount of exercise with another activity. As the weather gets warmer I am going to try and ride once or twice a week again, provided Andy is happy to do the daycare drop off and pick up on his own!

Looking forward to the school holidays in three weeks. As teachers, we are forever looking forward to the next holidays. We have five nights in Noosa booked for the three of us, so definitely looking forward to some relaxing family time in the sun.This term seems to have hit us especially hard, with lots of illness in the family during the first five weeks, a change in job for Andy, and a stressful internal job application for me. It’s all worked out though, and we have found a better groove over the past two weeks. It definitely helps that we are all getting a full night’s sleep at the moment!

Pic of the Month: Loving the swings at the park!