Too busy for child's play?

Life gets busy, yes? Well this is certainly the case in my and so many of my friends households, especially as most of us are trying to balance caring for young children and everything that goes along with that, work, social life (what's left of it) and in my case a renovation (or the tail end of one).

Well the last few days I have been hit with a virus and have had to stop as much as I can. This often makes me realise a few things as I finally stop long enough to think. And this time after hearing a story the other morning on the Today show, realised I was one of the parents they were talking about, who hasn't recently been spending enough time playing with my kids.

Now I don't mean the kids playing while you watch, distracted by chores or often in my case checking things on my iPhone (does this sounds familiar?); I mean actually getting out there with them and hitting the ball, jumping on the trampoline or playing their games of make believe.

So being sick and not having much energy I had to stop from rushing around doing chores and instead sat and played games, done jigsaws, built Lego and read stories with the kids, and you know what, it has been fun!

Also after talking about it this morning over coffee with Hubby (who has been very busy painting the house recently), on this beautiful day he decided to stop and spend time outside with the kids, focused on them. This has resulted in happy children who have stopped their whinging for a while and are now off playing quietly by themselves as they have had good quality time with us.

Now the trick will be to remember this and try and keep a good balance of quality play time with our two beautiful children.

Cold snap

The weather is certainly the topic of conversation at the moment with it being unseasonably cold here in Melbourne and in other parts of Australia. I had a number of chats about it in the lift at work, office and over coffee today.

It has felt like Winter has come early that's for sure, with not only the cold but wet and miserable weather plus the fact daylight savings has finished and it is now dark when I get home from work.

What is surprising me though, is as a hater of Winter how much I am enjoying this cold weather! I am loving snuggling under my Winter quilt at night with a heat pack and good book, cuddles with the kids in their flannel PJs, loving getting my favourite jackets and boots out to wear (love Winter fashion) and tonight smelling the wood smoke as I walked home.

I know however that once June hits I will be completely fed up with cold weather but for now at least it is great, especially as the weekend promises to be warm again and it still Autumn for a while with all the gorgeous colours it brings.

And the most livable City is ......Melbourne?

The most livable City in the World is a title that Melbourne has won recently (Melbourne-tops-livability-survey) but I read an article the other day that was questioning whether it could maintain this.

Melbourne is my adopted city, moving here 11 years ago from Adelaide (which I am pleased to say came in at eighth) and having lived in various places I am probably a little more objective then some of my Melbourne friends.

I do love Melbourne for many reasons - its European cafe culture, with little laneways full of hidden bars. I also love the fact that Melbourne embraces both the arts and sport.

When we first moved here we lived near Port Phillip Bay and enjoyed the outdoors lifestyle of riding around the bay, having a coffee, beer or wine on the esplanade, while watching the world go by.

Plus there is all the fabulous markets and just shopping in general is fantastic especially for someone like me who loves interior design.

Even though we now live 16k out we still find it relatively easy to get into the city on the train and since we have had kids have discovered just how many parks and playgrounds Melbourne has, not to mention beautiful gardens.

On the flip side though as the article I read in The Age Last week said, the suburban sprawl is starting to become an issue. There is a huge strain on public transport and the system isn't handling it too well, the roads are getting busier and busier making it harder to get around. On top of all this real estate is very expensive making a lot of areas unaffordable to buy in. These things are what could certainly tip Melbourne of the perch of one of the most livable cities.

To those Melbournites out there, what do you think? And to others what do you love about your city, maybe it should become the most livable?

Are you free for coffee?

This is a question asked a lot in my circle of friends and work colleagues and one I readily answer with a yes!

I love coffee and even more the social side of it, resulting in many great conversations about the hot topic of the day. These range for me from, "wow I really need this coffee, my little boy kept me up half the night" and then the resulting topic of child's sleep, to "did you read that article in the paper today or did you hear about ....."? So the topics are very varied and I often learn a lot over just one cup of coffee, either the latest gossip or the latest in politics or both.

This blog is the place where I and other fab guest bloggers will share topics of conversation and ideas that come from these regular coffee chats. Hope you can join me.