Yay! It's Friday!

Dinner is in the oven, work is done for the week, hubby will be home shortly, I love Friday's!

I figured as I sit here smelling the fish, potatoes, and veggies I have roasting in the oven I would type a quick update.

Seems I have been on pinterest a bit too much looking at ways to better stay on top of things.

We now write out a weekly list of meals for dinner. Two of which have to provide enough left over to be reheated for lunch throughout the week. So far this is working very well, it's nice not having to get home and think about what to have for dinner. The only problem that we keep running into is having lunch for Monday's since most of the time we are not home for dinner over the weekends, or if we are hubby only wants chilli. Only way thus far I have found to fix that is to make a meal some time on Saturday/Sunday just for lunches. Now, when we will try that will be other story.

Healthy eating has been on the brain a lot. Sugar is the run to around here if we are stressed or tired so it's about time to fix that. I would not say it's a "diet" so much as it's just watching a bit more what we eat. Less dairy, sugar, and starches, more veggies and fruit. Thankfully coffee is not on the list of what hubby wants to cut back on :P Thankfully summer is almost here since that's when I normally like to have salads more. I still have the american brain when it comes to winter food means heavy, starch filled with a side of bread type of food.

Thankfully it's Friday though, so we do get some Ice cream and strawberries for dessert :) Though I really want a chocolate chip cookie to go with it....

Hair care

After hearing many good things (as well as a few bad) about natural hair care I decide to do some research on it to see if it was really worth it. After many hours of reading one site or another, I decide to give it a go (mind you this was after I just stocked up on shampoo and conditioner since it was half off.)


That was well over 6 months ago.

I will never go back to shampoo and conditioner again. My hair has never felt so healthy. I had a major problem with to many oils, washing once a day just to keep the oils down. Now after 6 months I can get by with washing one day, and just rinsing the next! Yes, this makes me excited. Everything I read said after the first 4 weeks or so that it would be really oily, but for some reason this really didn't bother me. I just fixed my hair as it was wet, and left it up for the day so I never really noticed it.

I have all my baking soda and vinegar pre mixed so it's ready to use, which makes it just as easy as shampoo and conditioner are. I did finally get some sort of essential oil to mix with the vinegar rinse since hubby complained that some times I did smell a bit like vinegar. :P But other then that everything is all good with it!

I would say to anyone who is thinking of trying it to go for it! It was well worth it for me.

BTW hubby has yet to use up a full bottle of normal shampoo and conditioner. At this rate he will have the bottles I bought for the next 5 or so years.

It's Finished!

Okay, so really I finished it about 2 months ago. I have just been lazy and had not taken the photo yet to prove it. Some of you may remember last year I done a post about a cross stitch I was working on, well it is finally finished :) I'm very happy with how it turned out, took a whole lot longer then I thought, but it was well worth it.

Office organizing

For the first 6 months of living in our apartment, our spare room was set up as a bedroom since my sister was living here for the time being. Since she has now left and moved back to the States, we now have a office. Which means that after over a year and a half I now get my own desk, as well as somewhere to put all my crafting stuff! Mind you, after that long of being stored in suitcases under a bed or in a closet, I've not really got my touch back for crafting. Think I just need the right thing to get me started again :) In the mean time though, I get to enjoy looking at it all nice and organized. 

Or should I say organised to keep all those out side of the USA happy? ;)

Latest work update

After the first 6 weeks at my job I finally got the phone call I had been waiting for. I would be getting transferred to a different store, working Monday-Friday, 11am-5pm.

6 weeks in at my new store and I have to keep telling myself that it will get better. Right now the store is under huge renovations. The floors have been ripped up, aisles closed, stock moved from one end of the store to the other. Departments closed for weeks, we have been without a bakery for 4 weeks now. Needless to say, it's just one big mess! First few weeks were all right, but now everyone is tired of dust, noise, and things moving. Seem everyone is on their last straw.

But on the good points, no more night work, no more trolleys, and no more Saturdays. And, once all the renovations are done, I will have a like new store to work in! :D

Easter- Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday

Saturday we went down to Killalea state park for a picnic lunch and some fun. The day was just a slight bit chilly, but over all not to bad. Once you get in the sun it does warm you up pretty good. Most everyone played soccer and Frisbee, other then me since I had to work that night, and didn't want to wear myself out :p But I still got to get some sun and enjoy the beautiful day :)

Sunday started out good, we were up on time, all dressed up for church, even left on time! Have to remember me and Jeremy hate to be late to anything, so on time, does not mean we are always late, just later then we like to be ;) Got about 5 minutes from the church when Jeremy's phone went off, some number that was not saved and we didn't get to it in time. We get closer to church and I check my phone, missed call from Faith. I quickly call her back, to hear a very nervous/sobbing Faith on the other in of the phone. She had been in a car crash, not her fault, and both her and Luke were fine. But I could tell my the way she sounded she should not be driving. So we pulled into the church parking lot, told Jeremy's dad of what had happened and took off back towards home. The car was not that bad off, by looks anyway, but not the thing anyone wants to deal with on a holiday!  All things said and done the car ended up a ride off, since it was not worth fixing. We had a wonderful day after that. All of Jeremy's family came over for dinner so we spent most of the evening enjoying the company.

Not much to write about as far as Monday goes,  left the house about 10 that morning to help a friend move. Finished with that about 4 or so, then came back home and relaxed :)

Over all it was a very interesting weekend, thankfully me and Jeremy both had the Tuesday off as well. We went up to Sydney for some shopping. 

Driving up

I thought this looked very pretty :)

How we spent most of our lunch, looking at facebook :p

Some of the best ice cream I have ever had! This was banana spilt :) yummy!

Now I didn't take any photos of the shopping "damage" but lets just say there was a lot of it! It was a very fun day and a nice way to end the long weekend :)

Easter-Good Friday

Better late then never right?

It seems around here whenever Easter rolls around it means a hiking trip, this year was no different. We decided to do the Mt. Keira ring track, which is about 15 minutes drive from where we live. Me and Jeremy had done part of the track sometime last year, and wanted to do the rest of it.

The long orange track would be the one. Should take 4 hours, and we would be walking 5.5km.

The 4 of us at the start, with lunch packed we headed off.

After about an 1 1/2 hours we stopped for lunch at the only table along the way.

Once finished it was back to walking. Seeing as we had a bit of a time crunch to finish the walk and head back home and get ready for church. 

We got the the fork in the road where the yellow and orange track meet. Since me and Jeremy had done this before we went down the yellow track which would take us back down to the car.

Some of the photos taken at a look out.

What me and Jeremy forgot was....the fact that once you are on the yellow track, there is another fork in the road (you see where this nice walk in heading right?) We took what was clearly the wrong one.

Me and Jeremy trying to find a way to get back on track...without going back up all the stairs.

At this point we knew for sure this was not the right track, but we decided to keep going, can't lead us too far off right. All we have to do it find a road, that will take us back to the car.

We make it down to the end....find a sign that says where we are...yep the track took us to the next town over! We are now somewhere between where the car is parked and my house! Very much off track.

After sitting down in order to think of how we are now going to get back to the car, we found the only way was to go back up the mountain. Coming down it was bad enough! So me and Sarah said we would wait down at the bottom and send the guys back up and around to find the car....about an hour later they showed up with the car.

So that turned our nice "peaceful" hike, into one very tiresome day. But we did enjoy ourselves, so guess that's what matters!

The past month

So just an update to let everyone know I'm still around! This month has been so busy, even my house is starting to fall apart. (I promise I'm going to get to cleaning it after I finish this post :)

So the main reason for being so busy is...I got a job! I have now been employed part time for 4 weeks now, and I love it! The job is a cleaner for a big supermarket here is Australia. They have made me work every shift in my store, even the early morning, have to be to work at 4:30 shift. Trust me, I'll be happy to never work that shift again!

Now as it goes with almost anything, there is good and bad. The bad here is I have to work until 9pm at night, which I do not enjoy since hubby has to make his own dinner half the time, and I have to work Saturdays :( But a few of the people with the company are working on changing that for me, and since they love me (Yes, hubby thinks I'm getting a big head since they are always saying how much they love the work I do :P) I should have it changed to more daytime hours, and no weekends.

Now, working part time you would think I should have time to clean my house, right? Well if I ever get a week that I work only my contracted hours then I'll let you know. See, this company is new to our state, so everyone who is hired on is new. I started with the first group of cleaners. and already 2 have quit out of the 7 of us that started. So there being a big turn around, means when someone quits, they have to go through the processes of hiring more to fill that spot. In the mean time, they keep calling the rest of us in. Although 11 hours over time in a week is good money, will be nice to just work my hours so I can better plan things.

So I will try to get on here a few more times, since I do have some post that I would like to do!

Valentine's day

This is how we celebrated

Lunch by

And dinner by

And some of my favorite flowers from hubby

Lucky for him I'm not obsessed with roses...just calla lily's :)

A Saturday Drive

So who does not love some time with the one they love out in nature? On Saturday, being that it was busy for both of us, each going our own way (Jeremy to tennis, me to a baby shower) we decided to take a drive up north. Most of the time when we take road trips, we go south, so going anywhere north for me is interesting in itself! We ended up at Stanwell Tops, found a place to park and spent the next hour enjoying the view. :)

We did have one thing bug us, this huge ant who would not seem to get away!

Australia day

So this is a bit late, since Australia day is Jan 25th, but I still need to post on it! So here it istradition within the church that all the young people go camping over this holiday weekend. My first thoughts when I moved here was that I was never, ever going to be doing that! But this was my second camping trip, and I have to say I really enjoy it. So relaxing to just get away from everything.

First up is the camp site, this year we picked a beach, about 2 hours south from here. We drove down on Wednesday night after church, in the rain, lots of fun, lol. Thankfully we had some others who were already around there, and had taken the tents and set them all up for us! So all we had to do that night was find the spot they had set up and head to bed, seeing as it was about 11 by the time we got down there.

Here is the beach we were near, about a 3 minute walk out from the camp site.
That's all the photos that I had taken, camera died after this :( But the next few days were a blast. We did get some rain, that's always fun. So everyone went into hiding in the tents until our always well packed friend arrived with the tarp for for everyone to gather under :)

Saturday morning we had breakfast then started packing. As fun as camping is there is nothing like coming home to a nice clean shower! And although we did have a few bumps getting home (Sarah and Dave breaking down) We all had a wonderful time. now the wait until next years trip :)

Australia vs America

Baking Powder - 1 Can (10 oz) Australia$2.48-America$1.55

Betty Crocker Cake Mix Devils Food Australia $5.55-America $2.99

Kelloggs Froot Loops Cereal (17 oz) Australia $8.45-America $3.49

Store brand Brown Sugar - 1 Bag (16 oz) Australia$1.83-America$1.17

Store brand Confectioners Powdered Sugar - 1 Bag (16 oz) Australia$1.52-America$1.17

Store brand Pure Granulated Cane Sugar - 1 Bag (4 lb)Australia$3.57-America$3.09

Store brand All-Purpose Enriched Flour - 1 Bag (32 oz) Australia$0.95-America$1.44

Hellmanns Mayonnaise - 1 Bottle (16.5 oz) Australia$7.39-America$3.39

Frenchs Classic Yellow Mustard - 1 Bottle (14 oz) Australia$3.36-America$1.55

Heinz Tomato Ketchup - 1 Bottle (32 oz)Australia$3.24-America$2.54

Jif Peanut Butter - Extra Crunchy - 1 Jar (28 oz)Australia$8.67-America$4.79

Barilla Fettuccine Pasta - 1 Box (16 oz) Australia$2.50-America$1.34

Colgate Total Advanced Whitening Toothpaste - Max Fresh - 4 oz Australia$5.20-America$3.09

Dove Sensitive Skin Solid Anti-Perspirant/Deodorant - (2.6 oz)Australia$5.92-America$2.76

Garnier Fructis Family Size Fortifying Shampoo - 25.4 oz Australia$9.75-America$4.74

Garnier Fructis Family Size Fortifying Shampoo - 25.4 oz Australia$9.75-America$4.74

Gillette Venus Womens Refill Cartridges - 4 Count Australia$14.75-America$11.29

Gillette Foamy Shaving Cream - (11 oz)Australia$4.27-America$1.72

Softsoap Ultra Rich Shea Butter Creme Moisturizing Body Wash - 18 oz Australia$6.81 -America$3.79

Kleenex Basic Colors 2-PlyTissues - Assorted - 1 Box (184 tissues) Australia$2.48-America$1.57

Cottonelle Toilet Paper - 1 Pack (12 double rolls) Australia$10.24-America$7.49

Store brand Block Cheddar Cheese 32oz Australia$7.58-America

Store brand Eggs Free Range brown 12 pack Australia$3.60-America

Store brand Butter 1lb Australia$2.95-America

Store brand Chilled Juice Orange half gallon Australia$4.34-America

Store brand Milk Full Cream Bottle 1 gallon Australia$4.00-America

Store brand Sour Cream 10oz. Australia$2.82-America

Kraft Philadelphia Cheese Cream 1 package Australia$4.32-America

Back into the swing of things....

Lets just start with an iced coffee and think about it later!