So many good things this month:
- A fabulous few days in Umina beach
- Brekkie Rolls. I’ve had a number of good ones this month, mainly when we were staying at Umina. The latest was at our regular post-Saturday-morning-run place. The food can be variable there, but the brekkie burgers on Saturday were outstanding.
- Consolidating my RSS feeds, substack and email newsletters into Reader. Cleans out my email and means I have all my online reading in one place.
- My finger finally healed (I sliced it open while we were in Noosa) and I got back to some keys practice.
- The City2Surf weekend
- Giving the garden some love. The snow peas are going well.
- Coming home, sleeping in my own bed, seeing the kids and Riley
- Elsternwick Park, our local and a fantastic off-lead dog park.
- We finally finished the puzzle. I think it was our hardest one yet.
- Ned’s Bakehouse banana bread. They put choc chips in it.
- Sunny winter days. Icy in the morning, rising to high teens and sometimes even 20C in the afternoon.
- A haircut. I went too long because of the travel, but got it done this week. I’ve booked in my next cut in 8 weeks because I worked out that if I get it done every 8 weeks until the wedding, I’ll be due the final one in the week before the wedding.
- Giving my future self a gift by cleaning the house before we left for Sydney
- Traveling back to Sydney for the Sydney Marathon. G is running. I am cheering. Unlike the City to Surf weekend, Sydney is turning it on for the marathon. The weather looks perfect.
- Catching up with our friend B who we haven’t seen for ages. Her son has grown so much. Watching him lick out the little dish of Vegemite like it was Nutella—hilarious. Meeting B’s brother who is also doing the marathon.
- A beautiful run along the harbour. Checking out the sites on my way.
- Finding replacements for my puffer jacket (broken zip) and one of my T-shirts that has holes in it.
Do you have a go to cafe order? What’s been good in your life lately?
Comments
16 responses to “List #31: Good Things Friday August 2025”
I tried Vegemite when I studied abroad and thought it tasted awful! I think it’s something you need to grow up eating ‘I think their marketing slogan is something like ‘it’s part of growing up!’’
I love the pic of the Sydney opera house. I did a tour of the building on one of my visits to Sydney and it was such a great tour. I learned that it was designed when the architect was eating an orange. He arranged the peels and that inspired the design!
Cuts on your finger are so very painful. I am glad it has healed.
I can have a light smear of Vegemite on toast; I don’t know how people eat more than that. I want to do the tour of the Opera house, but haven’t got around to it yet. I think G would like it so I’m waiting until we are up here at a time that he could do it too.
My favorite weather is cold at night and warm ish during the day. I don’t want to be COLD, but I like when it’s cold enough that we can sleep with the house closed up tight, cozy under the covers.
Beautiful pictures! That puzzle looks really difficult, congratulations.
I sleep with the bedroom window open all year, otherwise I overheat during the night. In winter, we shut it during the day, and in summer, we leave it open all the time.
Wow, that is a lot of wonderful things, Melissa! I’m glad the weather is going to cooperate for the race. The weather is gorgeous here right now, high 20s, low 30s, and down to the high teens at night. It’s perfect!
Your current weather sounds like my ideal weather too. The weather here turned out to be great, cooler than you, but perfect for the race.
I put chocolate chips in my banana bread too, and my gluten loving family loves it. Eek on the cut finger. When we got our new knives, I did some damage so consistently Coach was ready to toss the knives out. (One cut ended in stitches -first time I’ve ever had stitches). I don’t have a regular cafe order, but when we go to breakfast I usually get a Denver omelet and hashbrown potatoes with a GF pancake. (maybe this is a cafe order? Maybe that’s what you call breakfast out?) Yum. Life here is moving along at a decent pace as we adjust to the new normal of having only 3 kids home, but so few drivers than we did all summer. Plus the daycare is back on. I’m struggling a lot with time – no time to do anything and I blame my very long workouts. Because of my back issues, I’m walking 4.5 miles every day vs running every other. Plus I want to do strength, so I do a strength video and the time adds up. I see a spine doc on Tuesday. I’ll be interested to see what he says.
Exercise time does add up, especially if you’re trying to fit in strength and cardio. It’s hard adjusting when things change. You are always so busy, when I read what you’ve been up to I feel like I need a nap just thinking about it.
Oh, the Sydney Marathon! How exciting! I just saw on Strava that Jeannie Rice ran it – she’s 77 years old and ran it in 3:37, which is incredible.
Have you ever ran it?
That is an amazing time at that age—wow, plus it’s a pretty hilly course. G (my husband) and several friends did it this year. I’m hoping to do my first marathon next year around this time. I started training last year for one and got a stress fracture, so I’m going to be more careful this time.
What a lovely week. I am surprised you coin this puzzle the hardest yet. It doest look it and I would think I have seen harder ones on your site.
Sydney looks lovely.
My go to cafe order. mhm I don’t know if I have one. But I do like avocado toast/bread or the eggs Benedicts. Or a salmon bagel. But I am open minded so it mights be something different.
We were surprised how hard it was too. The dark bits were very hard, plus because it was an older puzzle the photography wasn’t as clear as some of our newer ones which made it more difficult.
A great list!! So many wonderful things to be thankful for.
For us: the kitchen is done! Just all minor things- mopping, dusting, cleaning the house overall.. I love our new refrigerator, so much space, I just went grocery shopping and filled it yesterday. Not entirely but with space between the items.
My friend Kristina came to visit today- she was in Russia pretty much all summer. On Friday night I had dinner with my sister-friends, our little group. Lastly, I am waiting for fall…
That’s exciting that your kitchen is done. Improving such important rooms in the house can make a big difference to how everything functions. How wonderful that you got to catch-up with your friends too.
Great list, Melissa. I am glad you went to Sydney for the marathon, even if you didn’t run it. I hope it went well for your husband!
My friend’s husband works at the Sydney Opera House! It’s such a stunning building!
I think G was happy enough with the marathon. He hoped for faster, but I think that’s usually the case. I want to do a tour of the Opera house one of these days, but it will have to be when G is up for the walking.