Hi friends — and hello to all the new people this week! I’m Catherine Greer, author and compulsive baker, lover of little dogs, mother to two adult sons in uni, wife to a guy who loves beach walking like I do, eater of chocolate, Sydney-sider 🇦🇺. Lovely to have you here for a quick hit of inspiration and fun…
If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll remember this hot pink tankini I found online. I promised I’d report back about whether or not it was worth it.
Well…see that crazy strap on the top? I took this suit to Adelaide, South Australia, with me a couple of weeks ago, and I could NOT get into the darned thing. Really. I couldn’t figure it out. My brain was all, “WHAT goes WHERE??” Then I got in…and it was so tight I couldn’t get out.
My husband looked at me with these quizzical John Howard eyebrows and said, “Um, I think your HEAD is in the wrong place?”
(I am almost crying and laughing while I type this.) It’s true: my head was in the wrong place, the suit was SO unusually tight for a size L, and I was stuck. In my own new tankini.
So anyway, I tried again…and if felt like building IKEA flat pack furniture. Too many parts, too few instructions. 🤣 That shoulder strap is surprisingly complicated. But in the end, I think it looks pretty good. The ruching is lovely…and here I am, in all my imperfect glory, modelling my new swimmers in a hotel bathroom after getting them on right.
But what’s the point of this crazy story?
We need to laugh.
And we need to be real, online and in our lives…so I’m sharing beautiful and crazy, imperfect me. Laughing at myself. At my age. In midlife.
Here’s what I learned from my new swimmers…
We need to love ourselves where we’re at. You are who you are. I am who I am. No matter where we want to go, or who we think we’ll be when we get there, our future selves will still be us.
Whether it’s good news or bad news, a fresh start or a setback, a move to a new city or a new job or a new relationship, our selves come along with us.
If we don’t learn this, we’re not going anywhere.
This is why we need to love ourselves where we’re at.
I don’t know about you, but I always flip-flop between sizes — sometimes up and sometimes down. I have a serious problem with directions and pattern recognition, and it really hit me when I tried to get into these swimmers.
But I honour that Catherine—with all her crazy flaws and funny ways and inabilities. And strengths!
And I hope you honour yourself, too.
Sending you so, so much love this weekend. Have fun loving all the people you’ve been given to love…including your one-of-a-kind, remarkable self.
Catherine x
PS. The fun stuff!
The tankini is here and it’s worth it. Cute, right?
Roses—especially grocery store roses — I never knew we should do this to make them last.
About half of you aren’t Aussie…you’re Canadian, American or British…but have you heard about Pip Willian’s beautiful book, The Dictionary of Lost Words? Pip’s an Aussie NYT bestseller, and we’re so proud of her! Her new novel is here…I don’t have it yet!
I’m trying to avoid microwave popcorn for the family, so I got this silicone popper and it’s fab.