Farewell September

We are now one month into our spring and I'm struggling with it, as a season.  The whole point of these posts was to live the seasons here in Queensland and to stop wishing I was living a northern hemisphere existence.  In the winter that's easy because cold means rugging up, long pants, warm drinks, cosy meals.  But what does spring mean and why can't we have pumpkin spice frapps?

Amazing how much having Daddy around on
two surprise days this month made us feel normal.

HOME
Loving most of all opening the house up and letting the light in.  I feel like we need much more natural light than our house offers and I try my best to tweak things during the day to improve it.  We have started to use the air con in small bursts this month.

New TV seasons are beginning.  That's our relax/treat time so I'm pretty excited.

Lapping up the sunshine.

WEATHER
Mostly great.  Warm often, a little rain sometimes.  The heat is tolerable and enjoyable, the kind that makes you want to be outside and enjoy it all.

It's lighter earlier and darker a little later.  The boys are waking just before 6am.

Very ill little boy.

HEALTH
We have certainly had a horrible year health wise.  September saw several days of fever for Simon.  It was scary and I was amazed that a one degree drop in his temperature equated to major relief from my headache.  This last week of the month has been even more horrible for all of us.  Kevin came home from work Monday lunchtime and has only been back once to attend a super important meeting.  If you're counting that's 2 half days and 3 full days off work in one week.  And if you know Kevin and his work/uni/life right now, this illness is that bad!  I was next, then Brian, and Simon might be following.  It's weakness, muscle pain, fever, the worst throat, coughing and for the kids runny nose.  I think today is our turnaround day.

WEARING
This month we completely ditched long sleeve pyjamas (except when we were suffering fever), long sleeve shirts and jumpers of all kinds.  We are now full swing into shorts and t-shirt season.  The biggest things I've noticed is that I missed seeing my kids little arms and legs.  Clearly it works both ways as I've caught both of them feeling my legs!  My other observation:  ironing little kids shorts sucks.  With the clothing change obviously comes the footwear change to sandals and thongs (flip flops, cause I know my Canadian family have horrible visions when they read that!!).  The kids are still yet to get their pair of summer shoes and I need one more.  I purchased some much anticipated Saltwater Sandals and love them but I've been a comfort shoe lover for many years and while the sole is comfy I miss the great grip and contour of a comfort shoe sole.  I literally spend half my year in one pair of shoes.

Yet to complete the transfer of winter out, summer in clothes into the chests of drawers.  It's more than overdue.  I've also been doing a tally of what we have and what we need in terms of clothes and matching shirts, etc.  I'm embracing sleeveless shirts for all of us this year.  I have never been a fan, but I need nicer arms (my motivation) and Brian rocked a beachy outfit (boardies and singlet) earlier this month, so a little extra suncream it is.

That unplanned winter undershirt and
boardies outfit combo that rocked on him.

Speaking of which, we are returning to our daily suncream application routine.  I've tweaked the products, amounts we have in the house and locations we keep them to make it quicker, easier and more practical.  We probably shouldn't stop as much as we do, but in winter I don't do faces when the kids wear hats at school.  Welcoming a few short bursts outside with no suncream (which for me is so wrong), but for sanity sake I need a balance.

My May-September meal plan ways:
Garlic aioli coming due = BLT dinner.

MEALS
Feeling like my non-meal plan days are coming to an end.  Maybe it's the winter laziness ending or the need to plan better with ingredients I can't freeze, namely fresh fruit and vegetables that are staples of warmer weather eating.  I have enjoyed working with what I have and making it happen but I'm also excited about creating a few of those meals from my magazines.

Real, natural, all fruit slushie magic.

DRINK

Hello slushies!  Buying them, making them and freezing them.  I'm doing it all.  I am also training myself to freeze any leftover juices or iced teas before they go out of date.  We are drinking more water.  Sometimes we forget how awesome a glass of chilled water really is.  It's my all time fave.

FRUIT & VEGETABLES
Still indulging in strawberries often, although I have tried to switch grocery store chains again and have found my new one doesn't have many strawberries available.  Interesting.  I took my strawberry philosophy a little further this month trying fresh raspberries and blueberries.  I had never had fresh raspberries by themselves before and I'd had the occasional blueberry but never stopped to take it all in.  My taste is most suited to the sweetness of strawberries but I enjoyed getting used to the other berries too and hope to indulge in them a little more often.  Raspberries were $6 for 125g (my own spending money on that, was a big deal!!) and $3 for 125g of blueberries.  Blueberries might get a tiny bit cheaper but for raspberries I think that's their best.

Other fruits around are watermelon, mandarins - just a couple of varieties, lemons getting cheaper (I love that!) and pears, which we haven't done much of this year.

Vegetables, this is where my easy/lazy cooking of late shows again.  I've noticed asparagus, which I'd like to try a few things with.  It's a gamble though because Kevin hates it, something about it being woody.  I'm a believer of everything is good if done well.  Lettuce seems to be getting cheaper.  And I'm a little too keen to test our left over lettuce this season in green drinks, after a recent discovery that you could indeed drink it!  Yay for that.

Waiting for Planes.  That's Brian's 'super excited and grateful' face.

LIFE
Life was busier again this month.  There were a few school activities on that made it busy.  As well as catch up gym and swimming lessons for the kids (making up for missing one week last month when I was sick).  It's amazing how a few little things in your week make it so much busier.  We have enjoyed a couple of friends birthday parties, for which again the weather was amazing.  And Kevin snuck in a few days off that he was owed, but didn't tell me until I thought he was running really late for work!

We are ending the month midway through the school holidays of which we have been able to enjoy only one day.  It was spent wisely with the kids first trip to the cinema to see Planes.  Very thankful to have my parents come along for my moral support.  The kids were great, all things considered.  Overall I had felt that I wanted these school holidays to be more about lots of little bursts of fun (beach, parks far away) with a couple of rest days thrown in.

Next year I'd really like to make a feature of attending a Brisbane Festival event, which runs for most of September.  We would have enjoyed the lights this year, I'm sure.

And we're done for September.

So while I'm figuring out that our spring is a welcome back into the outdoors and a return to a routine that I find is a better (less lazy) life, I still find the need for pumpkin.  I'm Pinning many a DIY pumpkin spice recipe and I'll let you know how my pumpkin frapp making adventures go.  Swings and roundabouts!