Hello and happy new week to you,
I am writing from the spring sunshine, which is the best sunshine.
Once October hits in Aus, the silly season begins in full force. We have the AFL grand final at the end of September (our version of the Super Bowl) and then it’s just festivities all the way through the summer. My team, my home town team was in the Grand Final this year and lost in heartbreaking fashion. I don’t wanna talk about it.
October is also when I put my Christmas tree up. YES I know it’s early. But early for who? My neighbours have halloween decorations up, including one incredibly creepy Chucky doll. For me? I’d rather go straight for Christmas. The tree brings so much joy, so do Christmas carols. The lead up to Christmas, with all the community carols, Christmas events, beautiful services— is more joyful than actual hot sweaty Christmas day in my humble opinion. Although I bloody love Christmas day too. My middle name should’ve been FELIZNAVIDAD.
By December 26, I am ready to take my tree down but I feel full to the brim of a lengthy Christmas season. Some of my best friends are also Christmas mad, some hate the consumerist element of it too much and just have ultra eco recyclable trees in their house (depressing honestly). I also have some friends who don’t celebrate Christmas. It’s pagan, they say. I LISTEN AND I DON’T JUDGE.
I think I could own a Christmas shop, actually. I’d love that job.
It is our fourth Christmas in this home which I remind myself of whenever I think I don’t have it in me to be ‘grounded’. I do, oh I do. I just like new adventures every so often.
I’ve returned to my weekly Padel sessions which also bring me so much joy. I play with middle age and sometimes older ladies, many of whom were high level tennis players once. They are good, sometimes too good. Lucky for me I have young legs, a quick reaction time and a lot of bulldog in me when it comes to chasing the ball. They may be wearing a knee brace here and there but my golly they can splice a serve right to the corner of the glass and have me fighting for my life. I bloody love them. They show no mercy either.
You know what I love the most about playing with older ladies? They’re so far beyond the ‘nice girl fluffy language’ that millennials and younger gens still entertain. When we swap partners, they say ‘do you have a preference for your side Peta?’. I’ll say ‘no, I can play either.’ They’ll say ‘Good, I want the forehand.’ They don’t fill in conversations with fluff. They’ll cut a conversation off if I’m still yapping and they want to concentrate on the game. They’ve lived long enough to be so sure of themselves. But they’re perfectly lovely too. Just not over the top butt kissing lovely (this might give you a hint as to the topic of my new book).
Look, I’m a pretty confident person. I have no trouble leading people and even bossing people around if I need to (the Leo, Manifestor, eldest daughter combo is real)… but when I’m at Padel with my older lady friends, I happily sit behind their confident leadership. I love it. I never keep track of the score because I know Caz or Robyn has it covered. I do need to work on that though.
Racquet sports are vitality and longevity maxing, did you know that? This is straight facts!!
I mean even without the research I’m about to share, we already know why.
Firstly, it’s social.
Secondly, it’s (often) outdoors.
Thirdly, all ranges of movement for the fascia.
We don’t need science to back it up but let me give it to you anyway. Refs are at the bottom if you wanna nerd out some more.
The large mortality study pooled data on about 80,000 adults in England and Scotland, who were followed for 9 years on average. Compared with people who didn’t play, those who played racquet sports had a 47% lower risk of death from any cause and 56% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
Another study out of Copenhagen followed about 8,500 Danish adults for up to 25 years and compared life expectancy across sports against sedentary people. The life expectancy results were:
Tennis: +9.7 years
Badminton: +6.2 years
Soccer: +4.7 years
Cycling: +3.7 years
Swimming: +3.4 years
Jogging: +3.2 years
Calisthenics: +3.1 years
Health club/gym activities: +1.5 years
On the topic of vitality maxing… I caught up with one of longest friends (since we were 5) the other day. We see each other maybe once a year and just non stop laugh about all of our hilarious, unhinged memories. I have several ride or die girlfriends. Two of them, I have known since I was 5.
Most of my closest friends are not known to my IG followers. They have rarely featured in my content, even stories. They have known me since the beginning and same goes for me/them.
There is such a difference between performative internet friendships and your ride or dies and I am blessed to have always known this.
Moving on:
Now, you probably know I paused my paid subscriptions for a bit. I do this in seasons. I’ve learned to embrace this rhythm as a natural part of my consistency. There are high seasons and regular seasons.
I turn them back on when I want to deliver a paid series again. You can read my lengthy post talking about the paid subs dynamic and my case for a ‘pay per article’ feature instead.
From now until Christmas it’s busy busy for us— two of my kids have birthdays (you bet I throw at least one party… this year it’s a pool party disco), there are a lot of activities like the home school markets where we sell our famous home made bon bons (they sell out every year!).
And I am just itching to really make headway on my 6th book.
I also took a little break from the weekly honey, because we travelled. I don’t want to deliver the honey weekly, but I will deliver it regularly.
So, here is the newest edition— things I’m loving, reading, and working on.
Things I’m loving:
Padel.
4 x strength days.
Cooking bananas in butter and adding them to my porridge.
Listening to and watching Christmas Carols with my kids.
Early morning sunlight on the verandah with my kids listening to the insanely epic Australian bird song.
My Christmas puzzles are back out.
What I’m excited about:
The sun is out. I love this time of year. I am getting super focussed on plans for next year. New book. One of my longest closest friends is coming over this arvo with her four kids for a swim. Expansion. Getting back on my Neville Goddard train. Also… CHRISTMAS SEASON SORRY I AM UNSTOPPABLE.
What I’m working on:
a) Weaning my hilarious baby girl Figgy (She told me the other day that I dance like Raygun, so). She turns three next month and it’s the right time. Not because of the Raygun comment I promise. She went 36 hours without it just now, but we had a big feed this morning to ensure no engorgement for me. I find weaning hard emotionally, I won’t lie. But I know it’s the right time. She’s doing great and so am I. I made her a weaning book back in August 2025, but turns out, we wanted to go all the way til 3. Pax went to 3 years too… Sol went to 18 months. We’re undecided on another baby but I want a little rest for my boobs in case.
b) I’m working on a talk I’m giving In Brisbane next month for RMDY. I haven’t spoken at anyones event (or my own) for so many years so I’m dusting off the ol’ slide skills.
I’m really excited to get back to it. I have been preparing for this one in my head for many months. Once I know I have a talk coming up, the message starts forming in my head long before I sit down to make some slides. If it’s a conference, like this one is, I make very simple slides and use those as notes- giving myself a solid structure but a lot of freedom to read the room, trust myself, and go off path if needed. I’d say my speaking style is rogue.
If I’m speaking say, at one of my own events, I am so happy to just rip, no notes. This is my favourite setting. I miss it.
b) New book!!
I’ve been touching in and out of this book for a while. I find that happens. I will be preparing it for many years— writing about the topic online etc— before sitting to write the book. I am fanging to do another book tour. I haven’t one once since Earth Is Hiring which was just THE BEST. I’m still in touch with Lauren in LA who orchestrated all of that too.
I am open to an agent/traditional pub for this book, but am also planning a self publish launch for late 2027 anyway because as you guys know… I don’t like the long wait that often comes with traditional publishing. I want to write it, print it, tell you about it, then in this case, tour right away. Lengthy waits are a little painful. I like my energy fresh.
What I’m reading:
The Celtic Way Of Prayer— Esther De Waal. A absolutely love reading about Celtic Christianity, and how they merge the way of Christ with the spirituality/connection with land and ritual from times long before Christ. Also, I love connecting with anything Celtic because— ancestry.
I recently read ‘I Who Have Never Known Men’— 1995 dystopian novel by Belgian author Jacqueline Harpman. It’s heavy and beautiful. But hey. We have range.
I read ‘Everyone Is Lying To You’ by Jo Piazza which was a similar trad wife culture theme to Yesteryear but I enjoyed it more. Yesteryear— the ending was so dark. I like a good ending.
I read through a bunch of romance novels from the library— I took a photo of the book shelf, uploaded to Claude and asked for recommendations. I whipped through about 4 of them in a week, including one titled ‘Romantic Comedy’, another ‘Almost Life’. All of them were good and enjoyable.
Shows I’m loving:
I don’t usually give show recommendations cos truth is I don’t sit and watch shows much— I fall asleep with my kids before 9pm usually while reading or doing a puzzle book. But when I need to do nothing productive and just CHILL… like when Erik takes the kids to the park with the dogs and I know I should do laundry but there’s a macadamia loco love in the drawer and a cosy cough with my name on it then…. I WILL INDULGE no questions asked. What I’m loving right now is Morning Wars, on Apple. Keeps me gripped. I started it on the plane.
What I love watching with the kids is Christmas movies, and also Christmas carols! We always watch them on YouTube each year, we search for Christmas carols London and watch choirs singing in those gorgeous cathedrals. I miss London!
We always watch ‘Home for Christmas’ by Hannah Waddingham on Apple too, as well as Christmas With The Bocelli’s on Youtube (highly recommend if you do fam watch time— i know many readers do no screen time at all. Hats off to ya). Andrea Bocelli was my Nanna’s favourite singer and so I love him because she did. I chose one of his songs for her funeral.
Ok that’s it for now. Have a beautiful week!
Lotsa Love,
PK XXX
References:
The large mortality study: Oja et al., British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2016
The headline study: Copenhagen City Heart Study (Schnohr et al., Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2018)