World Cup
I am really loving following the World Cup this year! My son is really getting into it as well, and it’s a highlight for me that first thing in the morning we turn the TV on and watch whatever game is playing at the time.
We’ve set some hard rules around tech at home this year, which means my son only gets tech Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays. That includes TV! So this feels like a huge treat for him.
My sister also convinced us to do a Fantasy Football competition, so we’re very much watching for the scorelines and who plays well. It seems like I’m doing something ok, because I’m currently winning the competition. My son is right there behind me, but as for my husband? Yeah…we’re beating the pants off him.
Also, hooray for Australia making it through to the first knockout round!
As my uncle would say, “go get em!” 🇦🇺 ⚽️
Crafting…not?
I started the month with this grand plan of using up my craft supplies this month. I threw a few tanties, got a couple of projects done, and…then nothing.
I was busy this month, and it feels like we blinked and it’s over.
So much for that monthly project, huh?
I think I’ll roll this over to next month. I want to stay focused on using up my craft supplies and decluttering my office. But it’s another busy month coming up so we’ll see how that goes.
My body hated me this week
Somehow, my body knew that I was on holiday at the end of this week, so it decided to throw everything at me early.
I’ve been fighting a cold all week, and then yesterday, I hurt my back.
Picking up my pyjamas off the floor.
I will say that again, because of how mortifying and uncool that is.
I hurt my back picking up my pyjamas off the floor.
Anyways, long story short I’m super grateful my body picked this week to get it all over and done with. The cold and flu tablets have been keeping everything at bay, and I’ve ramped up all the vitamins. As for my back, it’s been just under 48 hours now and I can feel it coming good.
I’m sure by tomorrow night it will be fine. I’ve got places to go, people to see, things to show! I’m so, so excited for the holidays, and absolutely nothing will be getting in my way.
It’s holidays time
One of my favourite people in the world is coming to Australia for just over a week, and I’m so excited. She’s a pocket friend, that I got to tour America with in 2024, and we’re finally getting to see each other in person again. She’s bringing her family, and I cannot wait to show them around!
They’ll be on the coast for a week, and we have so much planned. Bluey’s World, wild dolphin feeding, Bunnings, Australia Zoo, markets, fairy bread, sausage rolls.
All the coffee.
I plan on ruining her so much for coffee that she will go back to America and not be able to drink the dirt-drip coffee ever again. I have been spamming her for months now (years even) of Americans drinking coffee in Australia. Just the look on their faces when they realise even the instant coffee from our “servos” (petrol stations/gas stations) is better than American coffee.
I also realised I’ve never been there when someone is discovering Australia for the first time. I can’t wait to see their reactions to driving on the left, and…whatever else we do that’s weird.
I can’t wait to find out how weird we are! Or that there aren’t animals waiting around every corner to kill us all, or…is there? Ever heard of a drop bear?
I can’t believe it’s almost time for her to arrive. I hope this next week is the slowest week ever, and we get to do all the things.
I’m going to be so sad when it’s over. But no time to think of that now, it’s only time to be excited!
Reading
I finished another good book this week, Conditioned. It’s a psychological thriller about a guy who kidnaps a coffee barista. He’s built a replica of her workplace under his house, and forces her to deliver him the same coffee every morning, and every afternoon.
So creepy.
It was a pretty good book! I was a bit slow getting into it, but I blame that on having a cold and falling asleep almost as soon as I got into bed. But I binged the last 50-75% of it.
But now comes the time when I have to hunt for the next book. I’m using Kindle Unlimited a lot more, but I’ve finished a few of my series I’d been working on, so it’s never as easy as just moving “onto the next one”. I have to figure out what I feel like, what looks good, what’s actually on Kindle Unlimited and not a book I have to pay for…blah blah blah.
Thank god for Storygraph and my TBR list.
Anyways, I did miss a few nights here and there this month so I don’t think I’m on a very impressive reading streak, but it’s still way better than last year, where I’d be on my phone in bed all night.
So that’s it for my week!
Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s done something this embarrassing to their back, or a lame injury in general? And if you have more book recommendations, I’d love the help to shortcut the process!
What is a pocket friend? 2. Is your coffee really that much better? What makes it better? I am skeptical. I know mannnnny Americans drink shitty coffee, but I feel that I am an exception. haha. I can’t believe we’ve never chatted coffee before! We will definitely have to change that ASAP. 3. How did I now know you do StoryGraph?!?! I do too! I have been intentional about not seeking friends on the app because I don’t want judgment of the books that I read, but I know you wouldn’t judge me!! How does one find a friend on there? How does that work? Miss you, friend!!
You’re one of my pocket friends!! Met online, and chat all the time. But we’re yet to meet. This friend was one of the ones I did the trip in the states with in 2024.
Ohhhh it sounds like I’m going to have to do a deep dive on the coffee. Long story short we make it on milk, no creamer. So if you’re having flat whites, cappuccinos etc, you’d be having similar to what we have. The difference is we don’t do drip coffee anywhere, so even our shitty petrol station coffee is better than the American drip stuff.
Put it this way – the Australian soccer team travelled with their own barista – we are that snobby about our coffee!
We, uneducated Americans, call your football soccer, because for some reason some idiot decided to invent a different game and call it the same thing as an internationally popular game. insert eyeroll Anyway, the first match I watched of the World Cup was USA vs. Australia. It was a good game! My son and I missed the beginning, and was surprised that such a good team as Australia scored for the USA on accident! Anyway, I have a hard time watching games (of any kind) with teams I don’t have an affiliation with, so the only other one I’ve watched is USA vs. Türkiye (we lost).
I’m excited that some of the games have been in Seattle, but holy cow, the prices are crazy!! (also, I wish FIFA had pulled the World Cup from the USA because of the ridiculousness that the US has been doing. Anyway, good luck to Australia! Go USA! (even if we suck politically) 😉 (That’s awesome they travel with their own barista!)
I don’t even have to bend down to hurt myself. I can do it while sleeping, I’m that special. I think it’s age.
I also have been trying to read more this year. I love to read, but for awhile, a long while, I couldn’t find anything good. I read Incredibly Bright Creatures a few weeks ago, and it was wonderful! I loved it. I’ve read more since, but that one is maybe my favorite book for 2026 so far.
I’ve heard the prices were astronomical, such a shame. But I love how so many areas of the states have embraced the countries they were hosting, and showed incredible support for them. It’s so wonderful!
I’m looking now for “Incredibly Bright Creatures” to add to my TBR, is there any chance it might be called “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt? I’m having problems trying to find the book haha.
If it makes you feel any better, my husband’s cousin put his neck out by brushing his teeth. He was in pain for weeks! BRUSHING HIS TEETH!
I have never been to Australia, and I am worried that I would get spoiled for coffee. I am a huge coffee addict and I don’t know if I WANT to have a fancier/ nicer coffee, know what I mean? Or do I?
Oh my gosh, putting your neck out by brushing teeth sounds incredibly painful, but also, hilarious. Lame injuries are the worst when you have to explain how you did it haha.
You most definitely will get spoiled for coffee, and we’re not sorry about it. From what I’m told the good coffee exists in the US, you’ve just gotta find it. But flat whites for the win, and if you don’t like a lot of milk, you want an espresso or long black. Hopefully one day you make it down under to compare!
If it makes you feel better, back injuries seem to be cumulative injuries, so whatever you were doing when your back finally said “welp, guess I’m broken” was not the sole contributing factor to your back malfunction. I’m no doctor but hurt my back really bad quite a few years ago, and I couldn’t figure out what on earth I did to hurt it so bad, and my doctor told me it was many actions, over time, until there was one last action that did me in.
But, for the record, that one last action that did me in was trying to get up from the couch! 🙂
Oh no, I hope your back is feeling better now! But knowing that it’s cumulative definitely makes me feel better, although it probably just means I did lots of silly things without bending properly to support my back haha. Note to self – don’t do whatever I was doing.