39

39 is hard. For six months now, I've been saying "I'm turning 40 next year", which is still true. I will turn 40, at exactly this time next year. I'm not feeling happy about this 39th birthday and I'd rather ignore it. Maybe I'm unhappy because it's an odd number? No, really it must be the lead up to 40. Most days I feel tired and every one of those 39 years.

I'm not sure why or exactly when I became so anti-birthday. I had fun birthdays as a kid, I spent my 19th birthday in London at a huge gig (featureing The Cure!), a surprise party in my 20s. I went on a cruise with my mum, aunt and cousin for my 30th birthday. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed those. Where did it go wrong? Why can't I allow myself to enjoy my own birthday?

I do feel uncomfortable being the centre of attention and I guess this is where it stems from. Within my tiny family, sing happy birthday and chocolate cake feels OK. Outside that circle? All wrong. Not good.

I've always felt uncomfortable at parties, and now as an "mature woman" I push myself hard to participate, speak up and at least look like I'm enjoying myself. If it is just my close friends, I'm OK. Otherwise I'm freaking out on the inside and mentally exhausted afterwards. I need to work on this, right?!

So, 40 next year. Mum and I share our birthday (my poor and we always said we'd go to Vietnam for our 100th. Wouldn't that be lovely?

Back in autumn...

On the last weekend of autumn, we rolled up our jeans (oh yes, we were overdressed!) and absorbed the sun. At the beach. because that's what we do.

 

 

We lay down and felt the warmth of the wood on our bellies.

 

We spotted tiny crabs and some one of us tried to get over our fear of them. Not me.

We had smoothies in little cups. The waitress in the cafe just got it when I asked for a spare cup, and instead she just split the drink in to two cool little cups instead. Thank you, Elephant Rock Cafe.

We loved the sunshine. Don't stay away too long, OK?

Sweet Sunday

Sunday started late for us - 6.45am! Rainy, dark and quiet. We stayed very close to home and proved that we can have lots of fun and adventures at home!

• Shakshuka for breakfast. I should post this recipe or at least a photo. So delicious! 
• ABC iView, love this feature of our new TV. We can filter what the kids watch.
• Painting, glitter and a clothesline out the back to hang the creations
• Two clean bathrooms
• One clean fish tank 
• A pretend campfire... And then...
• A real, actual fire in our backyard!
• Tent in our backyard, kids practice hammering, then snuggle in blankets. We're camping!
• Leek and potato soup with crunchy bacon
• Roasting marshmallows over the wok element on the BBQ. So good, haven't had these in years!
• Inspecting houses... Wishing the good houses could be on the good blocks on the good streets
• Sneaky afternoon naps (just me!)
• Passion fruit, coconut and vanilla puddings

Hope you had a beautiful weekend!

Blogs I love

I'm addicted to blogs. I'm pretty up/down/in/out about posting regularly in my own blog, but I read other blogs every single day. I love seeing snippets of other people's lives, the wisdom, the joy, the creativity, the inspiration, the everyday.

71 Toes

 

I love reading about Shawni’s full life, packed to the brim with five children. They just seem to fit so much in to their lives. I’m also fascinated by their lifestyle and their religion. I love her photos, the intense joy in family. Family is the focus. It’s a record of their life, and I guess that’s what I write about too. I feel amazed, slightly inspired and awed after I visit her blog. How do they juggle it all, how do they fit it all in? How is it that they have such strong relationships with their huge extended family?

 

A Beautiful Mess

This is a new read for me, but these sisters are just cool. I love their style, their playfulness, the mix of posts. Most of it is all out of my reach but I love their carefree style, the DIY and styling. I'm not even sure it is my style, in fact, it's probably not me. But I do love it, the vintage, retro cool. I don't have the time or inclination to make fancy, fabulous cocktails and sit on my porch drinking them, but I love to read about it!

A Blog About Love

 

This blog is so upbeat, so pretty and how is it that they are just so much in love? Mara's honesty about her fertility journey is very refreshing. her smile is brilliant and her take on life is so very positive.

Slow Your Home

Some of Brooke's posts make me almost want to jump out of my seat shouting "yes! that's it!". Sensible, affirming, simple and just inspiring.

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As I've said, I love reading blogs. On the down side, there are quite a few blogs that I click out of feeling… low. Bad about myself as a mother, my lack of creativity and motivation. Then when I attempt to write on my blog about how I’m really feeling, something holds me back. Who wants to read about misery or depression? My self loathing, disgust? No one. And that is why bloggers seem to focus on the good, the pretty, the lovely moments. Because who wants to read about the shitty stuff, right? That may be why I don't write much. Real life, nitty gritty washing dishes cleaning the toilet doing the washing getting the kids to school going to work five days a week paying the bills... Real life is sometimes not so pretty. Some blogs are just gorgeous, pure escapism! So there are quite a few facets to blogging, I must say.

 

Which blogs are you enjoying at the moment?

Plant life

Over the weekend I dragged the family to a huge second hand clothing sale. I was excited, imagining a very cool haul of second hand clothing to cover my kids over winter, at least. Unfortunately, I was sadly disappointed. About a million pairs of jeans in all sizes, many stained clothes (I'm just not that dedicated) and really, not much at all. I usually get more when I trawl the four shops very close to work on my lunch hour.

 

Anyway, the kids were desperate to play and ride their bikes, so we headed down to the broadwater, to a place we don't often normally visit. It's the suburb Itay and I both work in and we avoid it as much as possible on the weekends!

I didn't realise there was a little walk around a wetlands there, so we pedalled off, played on the beach and enjoyed the autumn sunshine. O showed us how he can ride down hills with his legs off the pedals, M was too scared at first but then figured it out (with an internal dose of "if my brother can do it, then I can too".

I don't often take photos of plantlife, so these were fun. We made it back to the car just before the rain started and headed home for a nap. I need that nap on the weekend. At least one, preferably two. No one else in my little family seems to need the afternoon nap like I do, but I'm sticking with it. It's part of my sanity.

Sparkle on your birthday

We've started a litte tradition for the kids on the evening of the birthday. We go outside and light a sparkler,  in the shape of their birthday number. Here's O sparkling with the number 3 last year.

He was a bit unsure at this point, and the sparkler was handed over to Itay. He was still very excited and loved this part of his birthday celebration!

My boy is four. I can hardly believe it!

Coconut

 

This girl of ours is just so in to new tastes, sauces, drinks and good food at the moment. She's slurping up spicy Tum Yum, she's spooning down the dressing in the Thai Beef Salad. She also licks tomato sauce off her plate (yuk!). She'd drink a bowl of tamari if we'd let her. This week's latest experiment was a fresh coconut she pounced on while we were doing the food shopping. She adored the milk, as you can see. The coconut meat, not so much. That's OK though, more for me and Itay! 



What have you tried lately? Do your kids try new foods? While M is in to new foods, O just will not go outside his comfort zone. He's a work in progress!

Did you notice my blog looks a little bit strange? I'm playing around behind the scenes and I kinda broke some stuff. Oops. HTML baffles me!