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Sight Seeing Eyes

Optometry / By

Moving to Bayside is a decision I make on a whim. As a travel blogger, the world is my canvas, but the serene charm of Bayside calls to me. It promises the allure of tranquil beaches, rustic parks, and a colourful local culture, everything a wandering soul craves.

In the first few weeks, I explore every corner of Bayside with keen enthusiasm, documenting each experience on my blog. But soon, I start to face an unexpected problem – my eyesight begins to fail me. The vibrant colours turn into blurs, the beautiful vistas into unrecognisable blobs.

It becomes impossible to continue my blog without fully experiencing the splendour of Bayside. I start feeling the anxiety of losing out on the breathtaking views that I love to capture in words. Frustrated, I decide it’s time to book an appointment with a Brighton eye doctor.

I’m directed to a peculiar clinic, one that seems to have appeared out of nowhere, but has a reputation for being extraordinary. There, an optometrist examines my eyes and hands me a pair of glasses. I put them on and in an instant, the world comes back into sharp focus.

With my vision restored, I start my adventures anew. Each sight is more stunning, each experience richer. I visit the Bayside beaches, now witnessing the sunsets in their full glory. I walk through the local parks, able to appreciate the subtle shades of green. I mingle with the locals, now able to see the warm smiles on their faces. My blog posts, consequently, become more detailed, more vibrant.

One day, while exploring a local fair, I notice a child struggling to enjoy the rides due to what seemed like poor eyesight. Remembering my own ordeal, I decide to help. I rush to find a pediatric optometrist near me, and of course, I am led back to the same magical clinic.

Bayside is beautiful, and I’m now able to appreciate every bit of it. My blog has become a testament to the beauty that Bayside is, all thanks to a mysterious optometry clinic and a pair of magical glasses.

Plumbing Nightmare

Plumbing / By

Purchasing a new home is exciting and stressful. For us, that excitement definitely dissipated into various stages of fear, stress and frustration. To put it simply, the real estate agents we were dealing with were a bunch of cowboys. There were a whole heap of promises made as to when we’d get the keys. They were great at communication, at the start, but once they received the payment, it very much became a ‘we’ll call you’ situation. Months went by and all we would get is dead-end dial tones and unresponsive emails. 

After a few threats and strongly worded letters from people of importance, we were finally able to move in. We only spent about a week in a new abode before all its flaws started unravelling. We noticed that the heating didn’t work, the hot water never lasted, the gas stove would take ridiculously long to get hot, the power switch would cut out and the stair rail had an obvious wobble. These are all things that we did not pick out at the inspection. It was clear to us that the real estate agent had blatantly lied about the condition of most of the utilities in the home. We tried to contact them to ask them to help pay a Melbourne plumber for hot water repairs. Melbourne gets cold and we thought they’d understand that. Instead, these rude so-and-sos proceeded to tell us that it was no longer their issue as we had bought the property from them. 

I couldn’t believe it. We had already spent a whole heap of money on the deposit, but now we were going to be stuffed having to pay all these repair fees. My lovely husband tried to do these repairs himself, but once he climbed onto the roof and saw the state of the gutters, he knew that we needed to book a roof gutter cleaning.

Even when the hot water repairer and the gutter cleaner came over, they were in total shock about the state of the home. Apparently, it’s not the first time they’ve seen this.

Fussy Home Dreamer

Builders / By

I am so proud of my children. I always thought that four bundles of joy was too many and that no doubt at least two of them would let me down, but nope, I was proven wrong. I had a four out of four strike rate for all of my kids being absolute legends. They’re all in their twenties and thirties now, moved out and doing their own thing. My youngest just got married three months ago and is in the process of building her forever home with her wonderful husband. 

Two of my other children have already built their homes with one of the best building companies around the Mornington Peninsula area. Both their homes have a lovely design and were built with the best building materials. It’s obvious these houses will stand the test of time. I often see a lot of horror stories about new build properties starting to crumble, but I can tell that won’t happen to these homes. I’ve made sure my youngest goes with the same builders, as they were also an absolute delight to deal with.

My youngest daughter is quite particular in her taste. She was always like that, even from a young age. She could never just make do with anything. Everything always had to be just so. Heaven forbid if I ever tried to dress her in her sister’s hand-me-downs – it would unlock tantrum city! Even now when it comes to her home, she’s making sure she gets a luxury home builder. She was telling me she has a clear vision for her new home and wants to be sure that the builder can successfully capture the vision of hers. I’m confident they will. There’s no way my daughter is the only fussy home builder in all of the Mornington Peninsula.

I won’t lie, I do believe my daughter got her fussiness from me. I have tried to let go of my fussy tendencies as I’ve gotten older as being fussy doesn’t always get you what you want.

 

Uncertainty About The Future

Community Nursing / By

Uncertainty is a terrible thing. Maybe others will disagree, but for me, someone who likes to plan things carefully, uncertainty makes me uncomfortable and not feel secure in my future path. I am facing uncertainty in both my private and professional life. Uncertainty is coming at me from every angle and it is stressful. 

Firstly, my boyfriend doesn’t know if he wants to live with me next year yet and is struggling to commit to me. This is obviously extremely hard and has made me feel like my life is up in the air and that I’m not good enough to want to settle down with. I am not a fan of feeling like this, but I can’t force him to live with me or he’ll resent me forever. I am powerless in this situation.

Secondly, I am considering a career change. I currently work in I.T. as I said before, but I’m considering becoming an NDIS provider in the Adelaide area. I think it would be a much more fulfilling job and I am seeking job satisfaction, which I’m not currently getting from my role in I.T. It’s sad that the career I spent years studying for and building is no longer what I want to do, but I guess that happens as people get older. My priorities have changed which is causing uncertainty in my life, but I am trying to ride the wave and control what I can and not stress about what I can’t. 

I will need to learn to deal with uncertainty if I am going to be a capable disability service provider. This will be a good test of my character and I look forward to the challenge. I hope that as time goes on I am able to learn to sit with my uncertainty and not let it consume me. Yes, I feel uncertain, but that is a natural part of life (or so I have heard).

My sporting accident

Dental / By

I still remember the day like it was yesterday. I was playing on the basketball field loving life. The weather was warm and I could feel the sun singing the fine hairs on the back of my neck. We were in the grand finals for basketball, up against our biggest rival team. The passion was felt both on and off the field. There wasn’t a single person there who didn’t have a heart pulse beating out of their chest. One thing I did know was that whenever that ball landed in my hands I had one job: run.

At one point I remember running so fast that it felt like my feet weren’t even making contact with the floor. I felt like I was almost floating across the field with a vivacious speed. Until suddenly, slam! I was face down and the ball flung out of my hands. I don’t remember what happened around me, but that’s because I didn’t care to look up. What I did know is that the game continued on for moments until a loud whistle sirened through to stop the game. I raised my head and felt the metallic taste of blood gush on my tongue. Everyone around me gasped. This was a sign I needed a trip to the dentist. In the Bayside area there was a local dentist five minutes away.

I still remember the horrific feeling of running my tongue against my teeth, only for my tongue to feel the pained gaps in my mouth where my teeth once were. I looked down at the floor and saw bits of broken teeth on the concrete. The game no longer mattered to me. I let out a loud wail and screamed. I screamed from the pain, and from the shock. I had no idea what I looked like. All I could think was ‘do I need dental implants?’ Soon after that thought, I must have collapsed because I remember waking up in a hospital bed feeling dazed. The thought of dental implants scared me but I knew it had to be done. 

Friends like brothers

Tattoos / By

 

When I was five years old I met my best friend in primary school. He was the most outgoing, fun and light-hearted kind of guy. Sadly, he didn’t have the best family life. He was constantly relocating between foster care as his parents could not look after him. We lost contact for a few years until he moved back to my school and we became the best of friends again. Our relationship over the last twenty-six years evolved from a friendship to becoming like brothers. Even my family welcomed him into our family. I remember it was his tenth birthday and he had no one to throw a party for him, so my mum decided to host his birthday party. We’ve been through absolutely everything together as we’ve grown up. We would regularly joke about what our lives would be like when we hit our sixties. Sadly, those days will now never come. My best friend, unfortunately, passed away a month and a half ago.

My biggest fear is that one day he will become a forgotten and faded memory. I want him to be with me forever so I’m looking into getting a portrait of him done by a realism tattoo artist. I have a few photos of him in the last few years that I think really capture his personality and I am hoping to get the artwork placed on my forearm with the dates of his birthday and passing underneath. I keep sharing photos of him on social media each week because it makes me feel as if I still have that interaction with him online. No one understands the feeling of suddenly losing someone with who you interact on a daily basis unless you’ve been through it.

There’s a Brisbane based tattooist near me who does amazing portraiture and really captures the person in their drawings. I have a consultation with them tomorrow to get this artwork done. I feel a rush of mixed emotions from excited, to emotional, to scared. I know it’ll be fine, but it’s hard coming to terms.

Future Painter

Painting / By

When I grow up I want to be a painter. I don’t want to be a painter of the paintings in the museums, I want to be a painter that paints houses. I think they’re really cool. I’m ten and my mum and dad just bought me a paintbrush. I’ve painted all the different spots on the wall in my room. My parents haven’t seen the paint yet. I don’t think they will like it. 

I used to want to be an astronaut but I’ve decided I don’t want that anymore. Being a painter would be a lot cooler. I saw someone on the weekend doing a driveway painting. The man was really good at it. I wanted to ask him if I could help but my mum made me promise to never talk to strangers on my way home from getting the newspaper. I’m going to ask my mum if we can go to his house together so that I can ask to paint the driveway too. 

I only have a small paintbrush so it would probably take me one hundred and forty years to paint the whole driveway, but maybe I could paint my section and he could paint the rest. I think that would be cool. 

My parents said they are happy for me to be the best exterior painter Melbourne has to offer when I grow up. They’re going to take me to art classes. We will all learn to paint and then be a family of painters which is cool. I wonder if my dog could learn to paint too? I know dogs don’t do much but they are good at being trained to do things. I taught my dog to play dead. I think I could teach my dog to put her paws in the paint and help me. I think that would be fun.

In four years when I’m grown up, I am going to be a painter. I know I am going to be the best.

Freezing During Winter

Heating / By

Okay, so I’ve been feeling extremely guilty about how much I used my heater in autumn. I pretty much used my entire year’s allowance before winter even started and now listening to the news and everything, I can see how much of a negative impact that has made on the planet. Because of this, I’ve decided to indefinitely turn off my central heating. In Sydney people usually only have their heater on in winter, and so to even out my insane heater usage in the last few months, I can no longer use my heater in 2021.

I’m writing this post from the comfort and warmth of my bed. My bed is essentially the only place I can sit these days without feeling as if I’m going to get hypothermia. The rest of my house is just so cold now that we’re in the dead of winter, and I can’t function properly when I’m cold. So, other than when I’m cooking and eating meals, I now spend the majority of my life in bed. I also work from home so I’ve essentially turned my bed into an office and have figured out how to make it look like a desk when I’m on camera. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to stay warm and save the planet – that’s how I see it.

I’m not going to lie, I’ve recently found myself dreaming about installing a massive central ducted gas heating in Sydney so that the entire state is always warm in winter. The dream makes me laugh quite a bit. My subconscious is obviously telling me what it wants, but my brain and conscience are too invested in stopping global warming to give in to my deepest desires. I have to make up for using my heater during autumn or else I am a part of the problem. 

I’ve got to go and put my hands in my pockets now. I feel like my fingers are about to fall off.

Tooth Fairy Troubles

Dental / By

You know, it really bothers me that everyone assumes the Tooth Fairy is a girl. In reality, there are about a thousand tooth fairies out in the world, of many different genders. What, did you really think that a single tiny fairy could collect all of the fallen-out teeth each night? In reality, it takes a highly trained team of fairies who know exactly what they are doing in order to collect all those teeth. It’s a tough job, and each of us is put through extensive training in order to prove that we are ready to go out into the field. Pet Evasion, Pillow Digging and Advanced Flying are just some of the classes I had to take before I could even be considered for tooth collecting. It’s intense, but our entire system would fall apart without such a rigorous program.

After graduating, I was assigned regular duties in the Bayside area. I’ve actually had a really easy time here, seeing as there’s this highly rated Bayside dentist doing such a good job that nobody ever loses any teeth. There’s a guy in his thirties who still has his primary teeth because he’s taken such good care of them. I didn’t even think that was possible. Seeing as each night is so quiet, you’d think I just slack off and have a great time, while getting paid to do nothing. Of course, that was the case when I first started. I’d fly around town and just hang out with all my other fairy friends, or sneak into the arcade to play some video games. After a few years, though, I’m starting to get bored with this. For once, I’d just like someone to not have dental cavity protection or clean their teeth in the morning and again at night. People are just way too good at protecting their teeth here.

I’ve been considering a change in career, actually. I think it would be good if I went and taught at the Tooth Fairy Academy. I’d be tough enough on the upcoming fairies, training them to be real professionals. Then one of my students can go slack off in the Bayside area instead.

– Bob the Tooth Fairy

Best Bathroom Design

Renovations / By

I’m a young professional, a bit younger than your average, and I’m looking to buy myself an apartment. Because of unfortunate circumstances at home, I don’t think I can live here with my family much longer. I would have to move out a bit sooner than I originally planned, but that’s fine. Life is unpredictable but luckily I can afford to move out because of my job.

I’ve been looking at some older homes that I can live in for a few years whilst I get established. I will knock the house down eventually and build a big family home, but that’s my ten-year plan. So it means I would have to live in this fixer-upper for the next ten years before I could change anything. That’s why I’m being very particular about what I find important in a home. For example, I’m looking for houses that have had the best bathroom renovations possible. I’d prefer not to live in a house with an old and ugly bathroom, so if the current owners have done up the bathroom, I’m more likely to buy the place.

I don’t need anything special in terms of the living room and bedroom space, but a decent bathroom and kitchen is an absolute necessity. Even though I would spend more time in my living room and bedroom than my bathroom, I think bathrooms need to be in better shape than regular living areas. I think it’s probably because you get clean in a bathroom, and I really like being clean. I will pay more for a good bathroom design. Melbourne is the most livable city in the world, but it’s also extremely expensive. If I want to live here, I’m going to need to invest properly. 

Being young, I’m worried that people will be able to take advantage of me. I just have to remind myself that I’m able to afford a house because of how hard I’ve worked.