Month: December 2021

#2145 The story behind the beach

Let me tell you a funny story.

Rest assured, living at the beach means we have a WHOLE LOT of these ‘funny’ stories.

It’s the story of ‘how-the-shit-hit-the-fan-before-we-made-it-to-the-beach.’ 🤣🤦‍♀️

This story might almost trump the time Hubbie brought tuna, salad and feta to the beach and thought it’d be a good idea to make a sandwich there… true story. 😂

First, I wanted to be there nice and early for the good car park. The ‘good’ car park is a dirt car park with no lines, second closest to the beach. We park there because more often than not the spots are more spacious, and the cars aren’t squeezing into each other because of the no lines – it’s a free for all for parking.

We don’t park in the closer car park. Or really, Hubbie hates us to. This one HAS lines, and in peak conditions (aka beach weather) it can get really busy, and Hubbie is REALLY into his cars. He doesn’t want scratches, issues, NADA.

I thought being a cooler morning, that we’d be fine. So, we aimed for 10am to be at the beach. I wanted to make the most out of our beach visit, and so I was bringing the famed beach trolley.

It’s a $50 trolley from Kmart, and it’s awesome because it collapses flat when you’re not using it, but then when you want it to be used you just pull it out, and pack EVERYTHING in there, and just pull it… and it follows you. We were bringing the boogie board, the beach tent, beach chairs, towels, two bags, and even a bucket and spade.

We NEEDED the second dirt car park because of the trolley. It has a nice little boardwalk type path that leads right to the beach, and I had to have it. I was bringing the house after all.

First fail: We got there 10:30am.

No, I lie. I drove past the dirt car park at 10:30… to see it was completely packed. Full to the rafters. There was no point even glancing into the closer car park, though I did… it was also like a tin of sardines. No go.

So I drove into the street we head into when our dirt car park is packed, which is near the beach, but a bit of a walk away from the entrance to the beach 😬😬😬 and I kept driving, and driving, and driving…

Nearly three blocks in! It was also PACKED.

But, I persevered. We were going to have a great beach day, damn it!

So we got out. Packed the trolley. There’s no footpath on that street, so I walked alongside the parked cars on the road with the trolley, baby girl on the grass on the other side, safer.

Randomly, she fell! Lucky it was on the grass. Be careful, I said!

Almost at the end of the street… “ouch!” she cried.

She had just stubbed her toe on the concrete as she was wearing thongs.

“Ouch ouch ouch, quick there’s blood!”

Sure enough there was. She had hit the top of her toe so hard, she had scraped the skin and it was hanging a bit, but there was blood underneath as it was more than just a surface scab, it was deep.

SHIT.

She had a decent open wound and we were headed into sand and surf?

THE STINGING!

I was straight with her and told her it may just stuff up the whole day, but this time she was determined to persevere. We chucked on a band-aid and kept going.

So we walked… we had to cross the busy Esplanade road, and that was a feat with every Tom, Dick and Nancy trying to park and make their way there too.

We crossed the road, and again, NO FOOTPATH, I had to use the steep driveway down into the beach car park to pull the trolley down…

And I really thought my problems were over once we got there. The far away car parking, the long walk, toe stubbing and blood, steep driveways… surely the roadblocks were past us, right?

WRONG.

There were like 100 kids in fluoro orange on the beach, on top of the normal holiday summer visitors, and there were all these sectioned off areas where you couldn’t sit because they were doing training, drills, swimming…

Basically, the most accessible section of the beach, the first bit, with the access to taps and kiosk and toilets, were all taken away because of some Nippers holiday swim program.

So we had to walk.

No sorry, pull the trolley over sand… for ages.

And ages, and ages, and ages.

Sure the trolley is good in slightly wet sand, but drag it over dry sand and it is a NIGHTMARE.

And then finally…

After packed car parks, parking super far, baby girl falling, then hitting her toe, then managing traffic as we crossed a main road, then being ambushed by a trillion extra people and activities which made us have to go so much further than we had to, we GOT THERE.

I set up a beach spot, and when I was done I decided we weren’t leaving for at least 3 hours just so I could take advantage of all our prior turmoil in getting there. 🤦‍♀️🤣

Sure, these are first world beach problems, but I like to let people know, behind the pretty beach photos…

Lies something else! A very amusing story. 🤣😉

And baby girl’s foot? Amazingly, she was FINE. The sand and sea apparently helped her sore and she played happily for 3 hours. 🙏

#2144 Starting the day right on Main Street

We went out to brekkie/brunch this morning.

Baby girl had pancakes with ice cream, and then had the guts to straight up order a vanilla milkshake from the waiter herself (we gotta watch out for this one!)

We ate, then we went to the park. We said five minutes, but baby girl made a friend, and there was no way we were pulling her out of there then.

When her new friend left with her family, so did we. We walked up the Main Street, the strip BRIMMING, HUMMING, it had a magnificent happening VIBRATION. I overheard one lady say to her friend outside a ‘nice’ shop, “this is a lot like Port Douglas isn’t it?” and I shot an amused look to hubbie with the word “cujes?” (‘you hear that?’) It’s my favourite thing ever that we can use our respective native tongues with each other and no one ever knows a thing.

And at this nice shop, I randomly accidentally came across this gorgeous long summery turquoise gypsy-print dress, and I tried it on and IT LOOKED GOOD, which is amazing because you know how a lot of those gypsy dresses just look like sacks? Well this didn’t. So I bought the non-sack.

And it was the loveliest start to the day that stretched to midday, and I was just like this. 😁😁😁

Just like this 😁😁😁🤣🤣

#2143 Movie us time

Something we rarely have time to do is watch movies together.

So when we have any time off, it’s always so nice to be able to sit down for a lengthy amount of time and indulge in the screen.

I taped A Star Is Born off the TV a good while ago, and last night we started watching it…

…and tonight we finished it.

You know how everyone tells you they cried at the end of it, like it was SO sad?

Well…

That was me tonight.

As much as I was appreciative for the us movie time, I was just as glad that I had Hubbie’s arms around me for such a heart-breaking ending (I heard him sniffle too).

I had to immediately move onto something happy and light-hearted, and thank God we found this on TV…

Ahh, good ‘ol Aussie comedy. 🤣

#2142 Holiday vibes in (non/pre) holiday season

The above title is utterly confusing, and rightly so.

Holiday vibes – We are having massive holiday vibes in our household. It’s the days following Christmas, baby girl has holidays, I kinda have holidays in that work slows for me majorly where I have almost no work, and then Hubbie is also enjoying some post-Christmas slow-down with some public days off.

Holiday season – Well that is now isn’t it? It’s usually the time from Christmas to about a week, give or take, after the New Year. And we are smack bang in the middle of it.

Non/pre – What the hell is this you ask? Well it isn’t holiday season for us quite yet… we are still officially on work duties, even though they’re severely limited (speaking for myself here), hence the ‘non.’ But we are in the ‘pre’-holiday season also while still feeling all holiday-y, because our holidays don’t actually start ’til about mid January…

So we are still feeling the vibes, while not exactly on holiday yet… get it? 🤣

The main thing is, there are vibes, and we are feeling good!

#2141 Boxing Day chill and games

The day after a big day like Christmas, birthdays, any kind of event, brings with it a lot of lounging around, and also…

LEFTOVERS.

The 3pm coffee break came and I happily indulged in some dessert from yesterday. What was even better though was the games and fun we had, because it was a public holiday, and free from all the prep and rush and stress of getting things ready all week, we could now chill and play.

We participated in a headband “who am I?” type game that baby girl got from her aunty and fam yesterday, before engaging in some ‘green light, red light,’ another game we all played yesterday out on the deck, before playing some YouTube tunes loud after dinner.

It made my heart happy that it was only us 3, and yet we were making noise and having fun and laughing out loud, at really the simplest, easiest things.

And I love it. I love US. 💖🙏

#2140 Our Christmas

Today was the first Christmas that we hosted at our house!

It was a beautiful and festive day, and each year I am more and more appreciative and grateful, blessed to have such amazing family surrounding me who I love so much. 🙏💖

#2139 Christmas Eve prep

It was another busy busy busy day, but again, we had fun, and I think we did well.

It was the first time for our family that we opened our presents on Christmas Eve night and not Christmas morning, and that’s because tomorrow will be a tad busier with us hosting and all… baby girl for one loved the idea of getting to open them up earlier!

For me it wasn’t a huge stretch, as I grew up with this time-honoured tradition, as I used to open up presents with my family on Christmas Eve too, waiting until midnight hit to rip the papers open.

There was lots of love, lots of squealing, and what makes it better is knowing it will continue and only get better tomorrow in the company of more loved ones.

Merry Christmas Eve to all. 🎄🎅💖🎁

#2138 Dancing amidst the madness

Crazy, crazy, pre-Christmas days.

They are so crazy, I have to remember where my head is at. I was so edgy as baby girl and I finally found a park in the super busy shopping centre today, that when we got back to the car after a trolley full of Christmas shopping 90 minutes later, I couldn’t find my keys.

I searched, and searched, and searched my bag. Then something dawned on me…

I tried to open the car door… it opened.

I had left my keys in the ignition. 🤦‍♀️

Oh man. I am so lucky everyone else had lost their head like me today, and so no one took my car. 🤣🤣

But amidst all the running around, I found it really important to find moments to be silly with baby girl. To let our hair down, have fun.

Of course the Christmas carols were going on in the background most of the day.

I let her lick bowls of batter, because why the hell not? I joined in too.

We danced around the kitchen, and then when The Wiggles appeared on the carols on TV tonight, we danced to them too.

I found myself participating in these random moments throughout the day, where I would just break out in fun, and it didn’t only put a smile on her face…

It made my whole, craze-filled, lost-my-head day, feel so much lighter too.

What’s the phrase… fake it ’til you make it?

So in this case, dance ’til you’re actually dancing. 💃🕺🎶🎶

#2137 Surprise pancakes

Baby girl wanted tiny teddies today, but at my mum and dad’s place there were none.

Mum kept saying “I’ll go and buy them” and I was like “no no no, she isn’t even hungry (she just wants the sugar!)”

After stepping out to have a chat to my sister next door (😉) I walked back into my parents place to baby girl’s excited face.

“Baka’s making pancakes!”

And there was mum in the kitchen, stirring up some batter…

Of course she was making pancakes! 🤦‍♀️🤣

We therefore indulged in some delicious goodness this afternoon, and I mean, nothing hits the spot quite as much as a childhood treat and staple such as this.

It’s all in the palacinka. 💖💖 Thanks Mum. 😘😘😘