Note: We’ve been having issues with the automated email sent out with new posts. The pictures are distorted or nonexistent for some. If you’re viewing this in your email and that is happening for you, please just pop over to the website by clicking HERE.

It’s the morning of the second day in 2026. The house is breathing deep (though echoey) after shedding the Christmas trimmings yesterday. The girls are sleeping in while they enjoy the summer school holidays and I’m scrambling to get school prepped and planned for the new school year. Each time this comes around it gets a little harder to face the passage of time. Gemma in Grade 3? Willa in 6?! Ray in 8???? I can’t cope with the speed, but I have no choice but to cope. So I’ll work away at getting the year planned and not think too much on how quickly we’re zipping through their precious school years.

We ended Christmas with our traditional Christmas swim and proper S’mores. My parents graciously brought over the right biscuit and chocolate for the event (nothing here compares to a standard graham cracker), and we got all ooey gooey listening to the jungle noises behind our house. Cockatoos squawking on the power lines, bats flying overhead, and butcher birds (yep, that’s a thing) burbling in the big bush. It’s weird and it always will be for me, but also a delight. And now a deep breath along with the freshly cleaned house as we enter into another year with many shared global unknowns.