Happy Birthday to Me, Australia Day

 

January 26 is always a double barreled celebration in my house. I love that my birthday is on Australia Day, for starters, I never have to work on my birthday and who wouldn’t love that? For me, Australia Day is an opportunity celebrate everything that is great about Australia rather than dwelling on the mistakes of the past. And there is much to be proud of! This year unfortunately Mr SFH had to work (the perils of being married to a shift worker!) so we shifted our celebration to Saturday. We kept it super casual with a backyard gathering with a few friends, some home made pizza (thanks Ted & Tiana!), plenty of drinks and of course lots of red, white and blue. 

I love occasions that allow you to throw the fashion rules out the window and just have some fun. I kept my outfit very casual and of course in keeping with the colour scheme. My ridiculous hat and toenails cover the red, my white Joe’s Jeans denim shorts and of course my blue target halter top. Shoes were not needed but holster thongs came in very handy when the deck heated up to a million degrees. Add my Collette cuff, Prada sunnies, David Lawrence belt, Gucci watch and I’m done. But then just because I can I added some pom poms lol. Although I had to fight the smaller party guests for these later on! Clearly the last photo was taken before my ill fated cartwheel that resulted in a hamstring injury that still has me limping!

Of course every good party carries the theme through to decorations and food so I strung up some bunting, blew up some balloons and red, white and blue’d the food as much as possible with Australia shaped gingerbread cookies, mini pavlovas with strawberries and blueberries, chocolate mousse cups and blue velvet cakes (I ran out of red food colouring!) which served as my birthday cake.

   

• You are secretly proud of our killer wildlife and love teasing overseas visitors about it.
• You understand that Wagga Wagga can be abbreviated to Wagga but Woy Woy can never be Woy.
• It makes sense to have a $2 coin half the size of a $1 coin.
• Melbourne is pronounced Mel-bin. 
• Virtually every word is improved with the addition of an O e.g. servo, bottleo, rego, muso, metho, garbo, combo, goodo, righto, boyo etc
• You can’t hear The Angels “Am I Ever Gonna See Your face Again” without shouting out certain words that cannot be printed here.
• You never drink Fosters because it tastes like sh*t and you think it’s hilarious that we export it to the world.
• “No worries” is part of your regular vocabulary and it’s also perfectly acceptable in work emails.
• You’ve swallowed at least one fly … maybe even through your nose.
• Aeroguard is a perfectly acceptable substitute for perfume.
• You are constantly frustrated when online shopping because a) they don’t ship to Australia (Urban Decay) b) they don’t accept Australian credit cards (Michael Kors)  c) they charge triple the price to Australians that they do to US customers (J-Crew) or d) they charge an arm and a leg to ship (The Limited)!
• You literally laugh out loud every time your hear an American refer to “rooting” for someone or getting their “fanny” pinched.
• Tim Tams make perfectly acceptable straws with which to drink milk (or tea or coffee) through.
• Maccas fries always taste better dipped in chocolate sundaes.
• You think Jimmy Barnes’ Khe Sahn would make a better national anthem than Advance Australia Fair.
• Discussing Ford vs Holden can get heated and take all day.
• Football refers to NRL not soccer or gridiron.
• You know that “Woop Woop” and “The Back Of Bourke” exist but you rather not go there.
• Extreme fun can be had in the back yard with a hose and a hills hoist. Even more so if you add some plastic smeared with dishwashing liquid. Although this is now highly illegal due to water restrictions!
• Third degree burns on your hands and a seat belt branding are just par for the course when driving in summer.
• Men cook the BBQ … Women make the salad. This is not sexist, it’s just the way it is lol.