No Resolutions, Thanks

It's that time of year again... the time of year where everyone is writing their New Year's resolutions. I don't really like resolutions. They're kind of a joke. Everyone says that they're going to work out more and eat better, and do this or that better. They work really hard for about two weeks, and then all the excuses that they usually have not to do those things take back over. Very occasionally, I have seen some people be successful on a longer-term basis with their resolutions, which is a feat to be proud of. 

On the one hand, I suppose the purpose of writing resolutions is self-reflection, which is a good thing. My issue is that self-reflection shouldn't be something that you only do once a year. And if you really want to make real changes in your life, they should be sustainable and realistic changes.

Our 2015 was pretty awesome, despite the negative news headlines 99% of the time. I'm thankful for everyone and everything we have. I am thankful that every year I get to go new places and have new experiences. I hope 2016 is just as great, if not greater. Don't we all hope that? 

Fun in the Sun and Under the Stars

We had a nice picnic and with friends and then watched Spectre at Moonlight Cinemas. I'm not the biggest James Bond fan, although I have seen several of the movies. I think they just pick a few fancy locations where they want to film, a few fancy cars and product placements, and then build a loose storyline around them. In this particular film, I think they did a poorer than average job of making it clear why Bond was doing what, when and where. It's always a pleasant experience to see an outdoor movie, nonetheless.

We also recently spent two days up in Palm Beach, which is the very northern part of the northern beaches of Sydney. Even though the weather was cooler than usual, and on-and-off rainy for one of the days, we had a good time hanging out with friends, hiking, swimming in the pool and in the ocean, and the boys even did some surfing. 

Orphan Christmas

A traditional Christmas for us back in states would include one family meal after another, and maybe another one with some friends. Last year we spent the holiday in Chiang Mai having a touristy Christmas. 

This year we had our first true Aussie Christmas. We started Christmas Eve festivities by visiting the beginning of a 12 Pubs of Christmas crawl, an Irish tradition. We met up with our Irish frisbee friend and Aussie his cousins and had a drink with them. We weren't even going to try to keep up, so we then went to Coogee Beach to have a beach BBQ with Michael's coworker and some of his friends. It was lovely and relaxing during sunset until I simultaneously got a bad headache and something I ate didn't agree with me, so we called it a night early. 

Sleep cures all ills and there was much facetiming with family, watching some movies, and opening gifts on Christmas morning. Michael had already received his big Christmas gift (a new GoPro, after the old one got partially broken a few weeks ago), but he also received a GoPro filter and some other stocking stuffers. His favorite gift, however, was Zen Magnets, from a friend. He literally played with them all day long, as we watched movies and as we were hanging out with friends. I got a patterned Modcloth dress and some fun Nikes. 

For all the latter half of the day, we celebrated "Friendsmaskuh" at our friend, Alanna's house. She had already celebrated an early holiday with her parents and chose not to travel with them to see extended family, so she hosted a few of us where she was house-sitting. Three other frisbee friends joined us, as well as Alfie the dog. Alfie is a resident at the group house two of our friends used to live at, and since all the current house residents had Christmas plans, we took Alfie so he could also enjoy some holiday festivities. He was a pretty adorable addition to the bunch, running around on his stubby little legs and doing tricks for food scraps. The weather was gorgeous - perhaps in the 70's all day. The house had a lovely back patio where we ate and spent most of the day, some grass Alfie could run around on, and even a chicken coop and nice vegetable and herb garden. There was some kind of minor oven disaster that made the chicken take four hours to cook, but luckily we had brought ample cheese and crackers to tide us over while we played some low-key party games. 

It has been a fun few days, and the relaxation continues with Boxing Day festivities. Ordinarily Boxing Day is the day after Christmas, but since that's a Saturday this year, it's celebrated on Monday, so it's kind of Boxing Long Weekend. Happy Boxing Long Weekend, everybody!

Busy Bee

Since it's school break, I've had some free time on my hands. I've used it quite productively: working out, cleaning, running errands, making more home-cooked meals, crafting, Christmas shopping, going to the dentist, etc. 

I suppose I always say this, I'll continue to say it: the weather doesn't match the season around here, at least not how we're used to it. When you can an enjoy a sunny day at the beach, it doesn't feel right singing, "Oh, the weather outside is frightful...". Anyway, it'll be our first true Aussie Christmas since we were travelling in Thailand this time last year. We have some plans with friends and I'm sure we'll make some long distance facetime calls too.
Should be fun!

The Longest Day

Yesterday we played in The Longest Day, a one-day beach ultimate tournament in Narrabeen. It is appropriately named for the Summer solstice. We played on a team with some friends, and ended up doing better than we thought we would. We only lost one game out of seven, to one of the top ranked teams. It was hot, but we managed to jump into the ocean between games for maximum refreshment.

One thing that set this tournament apart from all the others: all of the beautiful, endless fruit. It's common for there to be some apples and bananas available for each team at just about any tournament, but for some reason at this tournament they go all out. There were boxes of cherries and lychees, mangoes, peaches, plums, bananas, and sliced watermelon, honeydew, pineapple, and canteloupe (aka rockmelon). I think we each ate our tournament fees' worth of fruit. 

We finished our day in the sun with a team Thai meal for dinner.

'Tis the Season

'Tis the season for holiday parties, three days in a row. From frisbee league white elephant gift exchanges to work parties, it has been a busy week with more events to come. 

This week we also had time to see the new Star Wars movie with some friends. We really got lucky that tickets were still available. We had to sit at the very front of the theater and we left with stiff necks, but I suppose that's what we get for waiting until the last minute. I won't go into great detail about the movie, since I'm sure there is an overabundance of info already on the internet about it, but it was an enjoyable experience. 

Escapism

Last week we did our favorite room escape yet, Mission Sydney's "Dr. M". We went with a group of eight friends total, many of whom had not done a room escape experience before. 

This past weekend we made a super short trip down to Melbourne for the annual Melbourne Hat Tournament. We played frisbee with and against some new friends and some old, and the weather was gorgeous. This year nobody on my team set their hand on fire, so I guess that's a win by itself. The party was Rubik's Cube themed, which means everyone had to go wearing articles of clothing or accessories that were white, blue, green, orange, red, and yellow. You had to trade with other people to end up with all of the same color by the end of the night. Mission accomplished. I now own reflective orange safety vest that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with now. 

Last night was trivia as usual, and then we checked out Frankie's, which was quite unique. It's not the typical night hangout place we would go to, but it was highly recommended by a friend. The pizza was divine and the music was loud. 

And so the week continues.

A Day at the Hawkesbury

This past weekend we tried waterskiing for the first time. Michael was a complete natural, got up right away, and was turning and going over the wake. He was even able to get up on one ski too. For me, it felt like someone was trying to rip my limbs off while simultaneously spraying me in the face with a firehose for as long as I could stand. I got very close to standing up, but alas, it was not meant to be this time. 

Regardless of our abilities, it was fun to spend a day on a boat with some friends. 

Weekend Butterflies

The first 24 hours of this weekend has been very social. I had a happy hour with some teachers at Coogee Beach, then Michael and I had a low-key but fun evening with some frisbee friends in Newtown. This morning I helped out a friend of mine with her yard sale in Surry Hills and was able to get rid of a few small things of ours too. I only made $7.50, but it's $7.50 more than I had yesterday. It was also just a gorgeous day out to sit on the stoop anyway. Then we went to a nice BBQ in Prince Albert Park with more frisbee people. 

Good times!