Jules Robinson will wake up on Sunday, Mother's Day, just a couple of months away from becoming a mum for the second time.
She and her husband Cam Merchant and their three-year-old son Ollie are planning to have lunch together but they haven't yet settled on any firm Mother's Day traditions.
"At the moment, I just get a little creation from kindergarten, a little splatter of paint," she says with a laugh.
Those traditions will come when Ollie is older and after the new baby has arrived. At the moment, there is too much to do.
Jules, 42, says she has "taken nesting to the next level" with bathroom renovations, a playroom, the nursery and a new bedroom for Ollie to be finished before Baby No.2 arrives.
"I actually really enjoy that feeling of nesting," she said.
"It's really something magical, something just comes over you and you need everything to be perfect. Not that the baby can see for six months, but I'm like, 'That fence has to be painted!'. You should see me, I've got my overalls on and I'm just paintin' it!"
When we talk, Jules and Cam are on Hayman Island, belatedly celebrating his 40th birthday.
"We haven't had time by ourselves since our honeymoon, so it's a little bit weird. My son is with my parents but we're just here for four days," she said.
Her Instagram feed was full of gorgeous scenery, luxury accommodation and gourmet food - but also the moonboot she had to wear to the beach after an ankle mishap.
It's that mix of the aspirational and authentic that has probably made Jules - and Cam - such a success since they found real love, in 2019, on the Channel Nine reality behemoth Married at First Sight.
FINDING LOVE ON MAFS
While the show in recent times may have sunk deeper in the mire, with some contestants seeming to be looking for subscribers to their Only Fans account rather than true love, Jules and Cam were the real deal.
The hairdresser and professional cricketer were in their mid-30s when they appeared on the show genuinely wanting to progress to the next chapter of their lives - marriage, family, the works. The fact that they "married" on television the very first time they met made that goal seem, at best, unlikely.
But they did find love. They were the first couple on MAFS to get engaged as the season wrapped. Five years later they are still going strong - married on air in January 2019, they married "for real" in November that year and welcomed Ollie in September 2020.
And now, you can read all about their love story - and the incredible businesswoman Jules was before and after MAFS, in her new book, Ask Jules, Love Yourself and Live Your Dream.
The book is a love letter to her "beautiful, loyal community", including more than three-quarters of a million followers on Instagram.
It's her life story, the background to her unshakeable confidence and optimism, but also contains lessons on style, family, motherhood, self-love, well-being and "manifesting and practicing gratitude".
It's an easy-to-read, engaging book, that's honest.
Take the historic moment Cam did propose to Jules - for real - in their MAFS finale.
"Just a few minutes after that beautiful moment, the cameras stopped rolling and Cam and I stood shivering, huddled together as the evening shadows settled across the Blue Mountains," Jules writes in the book.
The crew had got what they wanted and were now more interested in packing up and getting out of there.
"It was so weird the way the joy and energy surrounding us had dissipated in an instant," she writes.
"We had just spent nearly three months filming with these people, so we'd obviously built up some sort of relationship (or so we thought). Everyone said congratulations. But it was all so transactional in the end - 'Got the shot? Great. Pack down, bye! We are out of here'."
Afterwards, the couple FaceTimed their parents to tell them the good news and the next day moved into her apartment in Double Day, left to their own devices as their television romance would play out in public months later.
When MAFS did eventually air, they didn't leave their apartment for two days, "except to film a segment on the Today show".
"There were paps outside our place constantly and the noise they were creating was unbelievable," she wrote.
And then, Jules was trolled. Incessantly. The online hate ranged from comments about her weight to questions about why she didn't include another MAFS contestant in her bridal party. Cam ignored the noise. It took Jules a bit longer.
"It was probably a solid year before I could really stop myself from reading what people were saying about me online, but I don't anymore," she writes.
"I stopped a couple of months into my [first] pregnancy, because I just didn't have the mental or emotional strength to withstand it ... If I don't see the nastiness and the bullying, they simply don't exist for me."
TEAMING UP WITH STEPH AND GIAN FROM THE BLOCK
Since MAFS, Jules has launched her shapewear brand Figur, fashion label Moira Muse and hair and make-up bar Status Co. She is also co-host of the The Juggling Act podcast.
And she and Cam have teamed up with another much-loved reality TV couple, Steph and Gian Ottavio, from The Block.
"We are actually doing a TV pilot together. It's really exciting," Jules said.
"I can't say too much but it's like a modern-day Trinny and Susannah with a more wholistic approach. So Cam's doing the inner game, I'm doing the outer game and they're [Steph and Gian are] doing the exterior of their environment around them.
"We have a really nice connection with them and we're working with some really great people, people who the Australian public already know ... I'm really excited about it. It's just got a lot of heart to it. I feel like there's a bit of a movement towards joy television.
"We've been working on it for probably a year and it's a really exciting little project. It feels really good."
As her book reveals, Jules already had an instinct for business way before MAFS. She spent 14 years working in London, at Harrods, doing hair and make-up for the city's elite and doing make-up for brides at "absolutely exquisite, big-budget weddings". She also worked with male clients in the barber shops of Selfridges and Truefitt and Hill.
Back in Sydney in 2016, she managed a luxury blow-dry bar at Barangaroo. In 2018, she was accepted on to MAFS and the next year, she was in the show. In late 2022, she bought the same blow-dry bar and renamed it Status Co. ("The vibe is luxe but it's not too posh".) She still works there at times on the weekend.
"They call it Jules on the Tools," she says with a laugh. "I can't help it, it's in my blood."
Jules proudly says she's "always had a big life". That doesn't look to change anytime soon. She can binge-watch Netflix with the best of them. But that doesn't mean she can't have another goal on the horizon. Always working towards achieving something else.
Jules keeps a gratitude jar, adding observations throughout the year, and reading them out with Cam every Christmas Eve.
"I would always create a few when we came home from a big night out, which are always funny to read at the end of the year."
Jules - always keeping it real.
Ask Jules by Jules Robinson is available now (Simon & Schuster, $29.99)
