Pokémon nostalgia hit me hard this week. While my brother was at a wedding in Spain wearing a suit and clinking champagne glasses, I was on leave in South Africa: watching Pokémon Season 2 on YouTube, falling asleep mid-episode, waking up to tell literally everyone about my new bathmats, and eating popcorn drowned in sweetener like it’s my new religion. 🍿

Two different versions of adulthood – and honestly? I know which one I prefer.

🛁 The Bathmat That Changed My Life

This bathmat glow-up started very innocently. I was just scrolling for something not horrendous. 🛍️

I found a bathmat labelled “quick dry,” the photo looked like a soft chamois.

Perfect, I thought – floppy, absorbent, inoffensive. 🤷🏻‍♀️

What arrived was not that.

What arrived was a solid slab of diatomaceous earth, which, yes, sounds like a Marvel villain, but is actually a natural mineral. It looks like a bathmat-sized piece of slate. 🪨

At first, I was confused. Then I stepped on it after a shower and… game changer. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

It sucked the water straight off my feet, was bone dry again in minutes, and suddenly I was a bathmat evangelist.

I immediately spammed everyone: my family group, my friends, my boat rotational partner, and my boyfriend. 💌

No one asked, everyone received.

It was treated with the fanfare of a royal birth. 👑

And if you too want to join the cult of dry feet, this is basically the one I ordered. Consider this my official bathmat recommendation. 🫶🫶

🚪 The Great Bathroom Hostage Situation

I am also now the proud owner of fluffy white towels. My bathroom now feels like a spa. However, the towel upgrade was not aesthetic – it was survival.

One of my old towels was killed in action during what will forever be known as The Bathroom Siege of 2025.

Here’s the scene:

Someone (no names mentioned) managed to trap themselves in the bathroom by shutting the door while a towel was still hanging over the top. 🫠🥴

The towel wedged the door shut. 💀

Meanwhile, I was in the other bathroom, calmly getting ready for bed, when I noticed several missed calls from said hostage.

Absolute comedy.

The towel ripped during the rescue attempt.

A dramatic end for a very shabby towel.

RIP to the pink soldier – you died a hero. 🪦

😬 Composite Bonding Glow-Up

This week, I also got my final two teeth composite-bonded, which means I now officially have the perfect smile I’ve wanted forever. I’m basically starring in my own Colgate ad every time I walk past a window. 😬

If you see me admiring my teeth in a toaster, please look away.

(Yes, composite bonding teeth = worth it. Life-changing, 10/10 recommend. 💞 Read my journey & review of Invisalign & Composite Bonding here)

📺 Pokémon Nostalgia: My Comfort Show

Pokémon is my number one nostalgia trigger. I loved it as a kid, and every now and then, I think “hmmm, I really feel like watching cartoons.”

Enter ✨Pokémon ✨.

Last year, I binged all of Season 1 (Pokémon: Indigo League) and loved every second. It felt like reliving my childhood. ✨

I still have my original Game Boy Colour and Pokémon Yellow, which still works. 🎮💛

Though, confession: I’ve never completed it.

I beat the Pokémon League with my Blastoise (favourite child), but I got lost in the caves afterwards and… twenty-something years later, still lost.

I started watching Pokémon Season 2: Adventures in the Orange Islands on YouTube (I fell asleep 5 minutes into episode one, but I shall resume next week).

Anyway – it’s free, it’s all there, and it’s glorious.

Ash, Misty, Brock and Pikachu – it feels like stepping into 1999 again.

Also, there’s a Blastoise tattoo on Pinterest that I think is really cool (see below). I’m nearly 34, my brother thinks it’s great, everyone else thinks I’m joking. Is this cool, or midlife crisis behaviour?

For context: I also think my fluffy Harry Potter dressing gown is really cool, so I might not be the best judge here.

📺 Bonus TV: Modern Family & Netflix Binges

I’m on Season 5 of Modern Family (never watched it before!). Can I finish all 12 seasons before I go back to work?

Almost certainly.

Thoughts so far:

• Mitchell = my soulmate. King of eye rolls 🙄👑
• Luke & Cam = both make me laugh out loud
• Phil from Season 4 onwards is lovely (no longer weaponised incompetence, just kind and funny).
• Gloria = fabulous 💃✨

And then there’s Nobody Wants This on Netflix, which I inhaled in one afternoon after Parkrun. The chemistry, the messy family drama, the slightly unhinged vibe – obsessed.

🏋🏻‍♀️ Back in the Gym

I’ve been consistently training for about 5 weeks since I got home from the boat, and my strength is finally coming back:

• Seated row: 95kg (100kg next time, mark my words 💪🏻)
• Single leg press: 90kg
• Bicep curl machine: 20kg (machines only – if I tried that with dumbbells, they’d roll me into A&E).

Bench press isn’t back to its peak, but that’s because I don’t have my usual hype man pushing me.

🏃🏻‍♀️ Parkrun Glory (10km Before Breakfast)

This week’s highlight: Parkrun.

I rocked up Saturday morning, smashed my 5km, and after thought “I still have energy??? What’s wrong with me?” – so I drove straight to the beach and ran another 5km.

That’s 10km before breakfast.

On a Saturday. 😳

Who am I?

The type of person who voluntarily runs extra?

Does this make me a professional long-distance runner?! 🏃🏻‍♀️✨

(Photo credit: My local Park Run Facebook group)

🎶 Current Obsession: G Chill 2025 Playlist

If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll know my playlists are basically part of my legacy.

I don’t just throw songs together – they end up as full chapters of my life. 🎼

(Basically like Taylor Swift with the Eras tour. But me with my yearly three playlists – G Faves 2025, G Workout 2025 and G Chill 2025).

Case in point: my G 2014–2019 playlist, which I talked about in this post – Botox, Curtains & Stroopwaffles: My Chaotic Glow-Up Week. That playlist is still unmatched, a true masterpiece, and honestly deserves to be studied in schools.

But my latest one, G Chill 2025, is coming in hot. This week I added a few new songs and, I cannot stop playing them:

• Sally, When the Wine Runs Out – Role Model
• Daisies – Justin Bieber
• Wonder Woman – Kacey Musgraves
• The Best – Nicotine Dolls

It’s giving main character soundtrack energy, and it’s basically been on loop during my whole leave.

If you want to hear what I’m talking about, you can listen to G Chill 2025 here.

🍿 Snack Phase of the Week

Snack personality of the week: popcorn with far too much sweetener. 🍿

I have an addictive personality and when I fall in love with a snack, it basically becomes my entire food group until I can’t stand it anymore. 🙃

I’m still waiting for the day I don’t like stroopwaffles anymore, because honestly, the lack of self-control is embarrassing. 🧇 I buy them “to last the week” and two days later I’ve inhaled 2 packs.

Hoping the phase ends soon, but until then… send prayers. 🙏

And let me just say: do not introduce me to new snacks. 🚫

If I like it, I will only eat that for weeks on end. My boyfriend is fully to blame for most of the recent ones – he casually suggests something at Woolies, I get hooked, and suddenly I’m living off chicken BBQ pancakes or honey mustard pretzels.

For everyone’s safety, I now avoid trying new things in case I like them. ⚠️

Snack obsession timeline so far:

• Woolies chicken BBQ pancakes 🥞
• Dairy Milk Top Deck 🍫
• Stroopwaffles (currently running my life) 🧇
• Popcorn with sweetener (this week’s reigning champion) 🍿👑

Meanwhile, the soup I lovingly batch-cooked has been completely ignored. She’s still in the fridge, sitting there like an understudy waiting for her big break. 🎭

🌮 Sunday Nachos & Wholesome Moments

Sunday was ✨perfection✨.

A few weeks ago, I had brisket nachos at the mall, and I’ve been thinking about them ever since.

This morning, I hopped in the car intending to go for a solo breakfast date nearby, but drove straight past it, and drove 40km to the mall, and ordered nachos at 11 am, while everyone else had eggs on toast.

Zero regrets.

They were as incredible as I remembered (also delicious coffee!) ☕️

I then tried on a MICRO mini skirt in Cotton On to see if I could still get away with it.

The answer was no.

My entire butt was basically out – a tragic day for me and for fashion.

(I will be sticking to the Millennial uniform of yoga pants and a shirt – today’s OOTD 👇)

Afterwards, I went for lunch with my neighbour and then caught up with friends via long voice notes.

Some people text. We send voice notes that last longer than an Uber ride.

It’s just how I talk to my besties. 👭

My boyfriend thinks it’s outrageous.

I think it’s friendship done right. 💕💕

(Bathmat update included, obviously.)

💕 Wrapping Up

To conclude, my adult week looked like:

• Buying bathmats and announcing them like breaking news.
• Losing towels in a dramatic bathroom hostage situation.
• Grinning at my new composite bonding teeth.
• Reliving my childhood with Pokémon Season 2.
• Running 10km (because apparently I’m an athlete now).
• Eating popcorn like it’s a food group.
• Ending with 11am brisket nachos and a wholesome lunch with my neighbour.

Wholesome, funny, nostalgic, a little unhinged – in other words, a perfect leave week. 💕

Tell me – what’s your version of a “Blastoise tattoo”? The thing everyone side-eyes but you secretly love? I want to know I’m not alone here. Drop it in the comments!