October Favorites – PLAYWORKEATREPEAT

Hi, friends! I hope you all have a great week. I’m excited to get back to sharing some of my favorites in October. That’s a October Favorites edition! Which feels right, because (can you believe it?) it’s the last day of the month. Oh, and by the way, Happy Halloween!

I’m pretty sure I say this all the time, but boy, hasn’t this month gone by so fast!

We celebrate the first day of October with delicious snacks of salami, crackers and halloumi.

Spring School Holidays

In October, I enjoyed a relaxing school holiday and enjoyed the beautiful spring weather.

The first holiday agenda is gathering with friends for lunch.

Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens

I also took a day trip to the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, where my cute friend and I admitted we didn’t have a good sense of directions. To be fair, the park is huge!

We ended up using my phone to guide us to where we wanted to go. My iPhone has this feature where you hold it and a giant blue arrow appears to show you which way to go. They remind me of the arrows in the Mario Kart game, hehe.

Here are some photos of the beautiful garden.

Pamela Allen Exhibition

After the Botanic Gardens, we went to see the Pamela Allen Exhibit.

Pamela Allen is a children’s author from New Zealand who is well known in Australia. He wrote Who Sinks the Boat? And Alexander’s excursion. We read to kids in preschool all the time. What a classic!

After a long day, you can’t go wrong with chicken and leek pie. It’s so nice to sit, eat and chat.

Cousin Connection

In October, my aunt hosted Cousin Connect. Most of us managed to get together before some of our traveling cousins ​​went overseas.

October is Birthday Month

Our youngest son is 21 years old! We got lucky, and the five of us, the three of us plus my oldest son and his fiancé, got the afternoon off work. At the birthday boy’s request, we went to see a movie and then had burgers and chips for dinner at a place called Mister Gee.

We saw a Leonardo DiCaprio film One Battle After Anotherand it was so good that I didn’t fall asleep even once!

In October, my oldest son turned 32 years old. He came with his fiancé, and we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, Lilong. Then back to our house for cake. Let me tell you about the funny cake incident.

Since Luke moved in, he’s always come over for his birthday dinner — but this year, our communication hasn’t been so good. I didn’t want to assume he would come in case he had other plans, and he thought I automatically knew he would come.

So when he called me while I was at work and said, “Hey Mom, I’ll be over at 7,” of course I was super excited… but we hadn’t actually planned dinner or cake yet. I called my husband and he made a plan: we would go out to dinner, and he would ice and decorate the banana bread he baked and make it a birthday cake. No one will know.

Yes… everyone soon found out. On first bite: “Hey, isn’t this Dad’s regular banana bread? He just puts candy and chocolate chips on it!” Hahahahaha!!! “He thought we wouldn’t notice!!”

It was so cute, and now that we’ve made it official, Luke will come for his birthday dinner every year, and next time he’ll get a treat. spectacular birthday cake!

Action Day

In October, some of my co-workers and I went to a day of action in the city. We stand up for fair pay for preschool staff and oppose NSW Premier Chris Minns’ proposal to turn community kindergartens like the one where I work into long-term child care centres.

If that continues, I know I will seriously consider my options.

Community preschools are different from long-term day care centers. They operate mostly during school hours and only during semesters, with a focus on the year or two before school.

They offer more structured play-based learning, are non-profit, are usually run by parent committees, and have smaller groups with long-serving staff. One of the reasons why we have less staff turnover is because we have semester breaks. There was no way I could work in such a demanding environment without valuable breaks. I really don’t understand why the Prime Minister would want to mess with something that is working so well.

Some of the signs I saw at the rally were very clever!

Mochi Run

Last weekend, Mochi, our house cat, ran away! He went out into the yard and hid behind some potted plants. We didn’t realize it and accidentally left it out there, which gave it the perfect opportunity to hop into the neighbor’s garage and disappear into the neighborhood. We walked up and down the street, knocking on doors, but he was gone, and we were very sad.

I googled “how to get your runaway cat back”, and it suggested going out late at night or early in the morning when everything was quiet and calling its name. So at 2 in the morning, I went out and did that thing, and he showed up. I waited until he came to me and then gently picked him up. Well, I might gently reach for it because my heart is pounding! Phew, what a relief to have him back home again.

And that’s a quick look at some of our October highlights. Thank you so much for stopping by today. I hope you have a great weekend.