The day on which takeaway coffees magically balance on lift railings for a full five storey ride upwards without spilling.

Linen blouse – Uniqlo, necklace – Lovisa. Unfortunately, my $3 bargain necklace broke after taking this photo (the karma of selfies perhaps?) and is no longer.

And the day on which I can wear a white linen blouse without fear. Mainly because tomorrow’s Saturday and I’ll be doing my load of special care laundry first thing in the morning.

Yesterday was a day of catching up.

With Toddler SSG on the front porch over breakfast and a shared apple.

And then back in the kitchen where batch food preparation was the order of the day. Bill Granger’s Mix-and-Go Muesli from his ‘Everyday’ cookbook never fails me and I use it so often, I usually have the recipe written out on an index card in the pantry. Except that I lost my most recent copy so it got transcribed again yesterday.

I add way more dried fruit than the recipe calls for and the exact mix of fruit varies with the season. In celebration of summer, dried pineapple and mango made the cut this time round. As well as these home made apple rings that my Aunty sent over from Perth. I’m seriously considering getting a food dehydrator myself because her home made apple rings are so good.

I also made several trays of apple, carrot and sultana mini muffins for Toddler SSG’s daycare day breakfasts. Breakfasts can be complicated affairs when he’s faced with too many choices (such as the entire contents of the pantry) which isn’t ideal on a busy morning. So I’ve narrowed the options down to pikelets or muffins with yoghurt or cheese. It’s working so far.

I’ve made tentative steps into the world of creative sensory play. I’m following the Nurturestore website via Facebook and it’s a brilliant resource for all kinds of activities you can reproduce at home for children of all age groups. The best thing is that most of the materials you need are either cheap or things you were going to have to recycle anyway.

A recent project featured on the site involved the use of cardboard tubes, pom poms and washi tape to create a pom pom chute system from a wall. I managed to gather all the bits and pieces yesterday but unforunately, my cheap ‘washi style tape’ didn’t stick to my wall. So it’s back to the drawing board to source stickier washi.

Have you heard of washi tape? I’ve only just discovered what it is and what you can do with it. Better late than never, I suppose. I’m going to use this current roll for Toddler SSG’s ‘About Me’ poster so it doesn’t go to waste.

Washi tape appears to have cult status on Pinterest and Etsy. It’s a Japanese masking tape that’s embellished with every possible design you could possibly think of. People use it for paper crafts and interior decorating. You can get washi tape holders to house your collection of washi and I wouldn’t be surprised if you can also get your own custom tape made too.

I’m not going to lie. I’m a buyer of gender specific toys. I can’t help myself. I’m a child of the eighties and some of my happiest memories revolved around Barbies and pretend beauty salons. But then again there were equally cherished adventures with Lego, Crayolas and mucking around with my brothers.

This weekend is going to be an epic one of second birthday parties for members of my mothers group so I was at Target yesterday making sure everyone was accounted for in the gift stakes. One little girl will be receiving a pink themed set of Mega Bloks. Seeing as they are construction blocks, I figure I’m still being politically correct and helping in the development of gender non specific skills.

It’s Friday. I’ll spare you my thoughts on gender equality, which is esse tally what I see feminism to mean. My default answer / defence is that I turned out okay (I think). Not believing in a man being a financial plan. Aspiring and working towards whatever will truly make me happy. But also being confident in myself to occasionally succumb to a gender sepcific interest. Or two.

Have a lovely weekend.