Friday At Home.

It’s been go, go, go since the early hours today and I am so looking forward to having my head hit my pillow in a very short while. I was lucky enough to have a day off from work today so that I could have an extra 8 hours or so to run around like a headless chicken in Birkenstocks as I completed my final preparations for Preschooler SSG’s birthday party tomorrow.

I’d like to say that I began the day with a restful and mind clearing yoga sequence sedately followed by a steaming mug of herbal tea but that would be lying. Instead, I began it with luck very firmly on my side – I had just enough cocoa to bake the chocolate cake layers of tomorrow’s birthday cake. For the record, it’s Fat Mum Slim’s Epic Chocolate Fudge Cake. Easy, never fails me and has the most amazing chocolate frosting to go with. What more do you need for a birthday cake? Ah yes, a fondant cake topper. That’s what Etsy’s for…

Being an extra special pair of cakes, I took extra care with my lining of the cake tins. I never line all four sides of a cake tin. Never.

Then things went a bit pear shaped. Have you ever lost a hot cup of coffee at Kmart before? I did this morning. One minute I had it balanced on the child seat / bag holder of my trolley and the next it had gone. I looked everywhere. I retraced my steps several times. I patted down every shelf. I even checked over the stock trolleys that staff were using to replenish shelves. I must have looked odd but mostly I was in desperate need of my coffee. I gave up after ten minutes and got this replacement. I’m still curious about that first coffee, though. Do you think someone could have mistaken it for their’s and drunk it? It was a Campo’s and they’re highly prized around these parts…

The lost coffee set the tone for the rest of my grocery shopping excursion. I almost hyperventilated when I couldn’t find chocolate Freckles. For some reason, they’re on the bottom shelf of an area of the sweets aisle that is neither chocolate nor packaged sweets. It’s most strange…

At least my sausage roll prep went to plan.

Plate Got Ate’s recipe is my go to.

Aren’t foil trays with clear plastic lids genius? I found these for under $5 for a set of four at Woolworths this week.

All I need to do tomorrow to reheat is to remove the lid and cover with a bit of foil and I’m good to go.

Then it was gift bag assembling time.

Went down traditional gender lines a bit with the stickers that decorate the bags.

Will not be popular with any of the preschool mums on account of these plastic recorder party favours. They are loud. And shrill. And ironically the only indestructible party favour known to preschooler parentkind. I have, however, catered well for parents at the party so hopefully the food and drink will help dull the pain in their ears tomorrow night.

Decorating took a little longer than I thought it would. Tissue paper puff balls are the work of the devil. They might look as effortless as scrunching up tissue and tying it all up with string but the reality is that those layers take ages to separate and they tear if you’ve got impatient hands like me. They are also quite heavy so Blu Tak on the ceiling to secure them isn’t going to cut it.

Puff ball fatigue set in quite early, I’m sorry to say but we got there in the end.

Can you guess what our theme this year is?

Udon with tempura prawns and some salmon sashimi was just what I needed at the end of this rather eventful Friday. It was harder than being at work all day.

I really do have to get to bed now, still more to do tomorrow morning. But before I go…

Madonna and James Corden on this week’s carpool karaoke. Epic.

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