10 years of marriage

Today marks the 10-year wedding anniversary for D and me.

It’s hard to believe that only 10 years ago, I was waking up in a hotel room, accompanied by my best friends, my cousin, and my sister, preparing for one of the best days of my life. We had breakfast, with our nails and tans already done a few days earlier, then settled in for hair and makeup.

For the first time in my life, I arrived at an event early.

“Do you want me to turn and come back?” our driver asked, watching some of our guests sprint inside, worried they were late.

“God no, he’ll think I’ve bailed! We’ll just go hide in the dairy.”

It was such an amazing day.…

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The Pilates Board helping me to up my strength game

This year, one of my 52-in-52 goals is to use my Pilates board more regularly. To explain what my Pilates board is, it’s basically a big, thick folding plastic board with rails. You can lean on the arm pads and slide in and out, either together or individually. It also comes with resistance bands and handles that attach at either end.

My folding Pilates reformer board
Credit: Amazon.com.au

It’s an attempt at a convenient home version of a Pilates Reformer board – you know the ones, with the springs and stuff, that look super intense and take up a bunch of room. The ones you’d more likely see in a Pilates studio than at home.

Credit: Leap Pilates Studio

I first bought this board back in May of 2025.…

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52-in-52 Roundup: The final stretch

My planner reminded me that we’re in week 45 of 2026, which blew my mind. I can notice all the Christmas decorations and discussions around the end of the year, but remain blissfully ignorant that 2027 is fast approaching, right?

I didn’t think so.

If you’re new to my blog (hello NaBloPoMo folks), every year I write a list of 52 things to do in 52 weeks, creatively called my 52-in-52 list. There’s not a rule that says I have to get them all done, the point is to just have some cool stuff to do during the year. I’ve only ever finished the list once that I can recall, so for 2026 I decided I wanted to try and achieve them all for a second time.…

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What I Read in October 2026: 5 Books and 1 rare DNF

Header image of books and tea for What I read in October

Thanks to our cruise this month, I managed to log 5 books, plus a DNF. It’s super rare that I quit a book, but I felt like this one I just had to walk away.

Let’s take a look.

Total sidebar – I realised that I published my Cruise Day 6 post earlier today, but because they’re backdated, I don’t feel like it counts as such for NaBloPoMo. So, I guess you’ll just have to put up with me publishing twice some days!

Though that means it’ll take me longer to finish off my cruise posts. Thank goodness I’m on the back half of the trip now.

That makes this one the official first post for NaBloPoMo 2026!

The books I read

Poison Daughter: Sheila Masterson

Cover of the Poison Daughter by Sheila Masterson

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (and a half)
Link: amazon.com…

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Get ready for the NaBloPoMo spam

White hand-drawn doodles of a calendar, pencil, cruise ship, books, camera and renovation tiles on a navy blue background, with the title “Get ready for the NaBloPoMo spam”.

So…this year I’ve decided to do something a little crazy. Which is unlike me, I know. I very rarely do anything spontaneous or bite off more than I can chew.

Jokes. That is exactly like me.

Anyways, this year I’m participating in NaBloPoMo – National Blog Posting Month. Or, in other words, write a blog post every day for the month of November.

National Blog Posting Month 2026

About NaBloPoMo

San, from the in between is mine, has an excellent rundown on her blog. The short version is that in 2006 Eden Kennedy tried to participate in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, and found that writing a novel was too hard. She decided to write blog posts instead, and NaBloPoMo was born. BlogHer hosted it until 2016.…

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5 things for Friday (vol. 15)

I’ve survived my first week back at work after two weeks of holiday! Truth be told, it was great to get back and see everyone, sit still, and just feel productive again.

Orange Nails

I had painted my nails a hot pink glow-in-the-dark colour before leaving for the cruise. By the time I got home, they were removed and I was ready for my next set.

I decided I’d go with orange, partly because I’m inspired by all the fall/autumn colours I’m seeing online, and partly because of Halloween this weekend. It’s on theme!

The colour I chose was actually a colour-changing colour, which I only remembered halfway through. My sister-in-law had the same one and it barely changed colour for her.…

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10 years of marriage
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