Author: Katrina

September 2021

October 9, 2021 by Katrina·0 Comments

Not the best month tbh. Still in lockdown. Everything still closed and still can’t see anyone. Although it was exciting when our radius doubled from 5km to 10km. :/

I still decided to take a week off from work, and Scott took a few days too. Even if we can’t really do anything it’s still nice to have a break from working. We spent the week cooking elaborate foods, doing a lot of crafts, watching ER.

Here is a bunch of jumbled pictures from the last month.

Making chicken wontons in my dumpling sweatshirt.

At home hotpot with leftover wontons, lots of mushrooms, tofu puffs (didn’t like them though), and veg. The broth was sooooo spicy.

Ottolenghi harissa eggplant and beef kofta. This was very very good.

Rice paper rolls with basa, mango, lots of veg, rice noodles, coriander and mint, with peanut dipping sauce.

I decided to paint the wall in the garage on my week off. I wasn’t sure how hard it was going to be so I kept my plan pretty simple. I kinda think it looks like a public library now though…. I’m not that happy with it. I might add a bit more to jazz it up a bit more maybe. Or maybe I’ll just paint over it and start again.

Scott’s parents sent us a card and some money to buy something to make us feel better. We decided to spent it on Caverna, a board game we have been wanting for a long time. It’s a bit like Agricola 2.0. I like it so far.

Scott trying to attract birds?

We were trying to find tawny frogmouth but all we found were a lot of rainbow lorikeets and mynas.

I fell off my bike. By biking straight into the boom gate at work. It really hurt.

However the Dees winning the Grand Final cheered me up after my accident. It was a great game. We started off strong in the first quarter, then the Dogs pulled ahead in the second quarter creating some tension, then part way through the third quarter the Dees kicked approximately 1000 goals and absolutely dominated for the rest of the game. By mid way through the fourth quarter we actually could relax because we were so far ahead.

Of course I’m sad that we couldn’t go to the game either here or in Perth. I’m really hoping that they are still good next year and we can actually go and experience the excitement in real life. The games should have great crowd atmosphere next year with all the Melbourne supporters coming out of hibernation.

The fam sent us an awesome charcuterie box for the game.

What I thought was going to happen when Maxy hoisted the cup with Goody after the win. (Or that Goody’s arm would get ripped out of its socket.)

I sewed myself an apron because I splash food on myself while cooking all the time.

I ordered a cheapy weaving loom off ebay for fun. It is pretty relaxing to use and works up way faster than a lot of my other types of craft hobbies. Dunno if it’s my new favourite thing or anything but it’s alright. Anyone need any coasters?

Nice flowers on a walk around our neighbourhood.

SITTING IS ILLEGAL.

Scott figured out how to crochet adorable baby hats! He has a new project in mind but the yarn is backordered and the postal system is paralyzed at the moment so it might not happen for a while.

Other unpictured stuff:

we planted some of our summer crops: carrots, zucchini, herbs, spinach, lettuce, sorrel, chinese eggplant, beans, chilis. It’s all started ok except the eggplant still hasn’t sprouted.
I did an online trivia night with my internet friends. It was fun. We won.
Still squatting a lot in the garage. Strength program is going pretty well.
I actually got called in to work. My third time in three years, lol, super different than my old job!! I just need to get called in three more times and then I can buy myself the RF 100-400mm lens I have my eye on. Might take three more years….

August 2021

September 9, 2021 by Katrina·0 Comments

We had five days of freedom at the beginning of August and then have been in strict lockdown (#6) since then. :(

My weightlifting friend gave me a snapper! Her husband likes to fish and stayed up all night fishing between lockdowns. It was so fresh and smelled so good. It was my first time cooking a whole fish, so I kept it simple and just stuffed it with lemon and herbs and roasted it. Served with a side of pasta puttanesca. Fingers crossed for more fish in the future!

I spent a lot of the beginning of August in this position, quad-screening the Olympics. I have never watched so much summer Olympics in my life. But we didn’t have much else to do.

This is golden wattle, Australia’s national flower. Wattle in bloom = engage antihistamines, spring is here!!

I always feel a bit guilty taking pictures while out for a walk. Technically we’re only allowed outside for exercise, not for leisure, so I feel bad when I stop for more than a minute.

More illegal activities: eating sandwiches in a park. We walked to Saul’s in Carnegie for porchetta and cubano sandwiches and I didn’t want to walk all the way home before eating. They were both very delicious.

Scott made profiteroles, filled with custard. They were very very good. It’s a good thing I still work with other people because there were a lot. My coworkers were very pleased, except for our receptionist who exploded one all over his shirt.

We finally finally finished our joint granny square blanket! I think we started it in 2017!! The most procrastinated step was tucking in all the yarn ends. THERE WERE SO MANY. I like that (I’m pretty sure) there are no exact repeat squares.

Scott’s really into crochet now. He made a simple hat for himself, and then immediately started another hat: an adorable baby hat with ears!

Sophie dropped Gelato Messina goodies on our doorstep. That was an especially nice treat as we are outside their delivery radius but I still follow their instagram account… to torture myself?

Backyard photography.

Our backyard is like 2 meters wide. I’M SO BORED OF IT. At least we have one though. UGHHH.

Sugar snap peas are growing like crazy. They’re the only thing left at the moment, but we just planted a bunch of new stuff for summer: lettuce, spinach, sorrel, carrots, zucchini, Chinese eggplant, beans, herbs. And we started tomato and chilies inside.

Unpictured things:

I also went on an illegal walk with TWO friends. Wow this post is a real confessional. It was an emergency walk for mental health… essential care… don’t arrest me please.
Our boardgame friends organised a virtual birthday party for two of them. We played Jackbox games which I was mostly terrible at. I need like 5 hours to come up with funny things, not 5 seconds!! :P
We got Lune delivery croissants again. They were amazing. I dropped some off at Sophie’s. I’m watching and waiting for Mork delivery next.
Training is going well. I am on week 3 of a squat program and surviving so far. It feels like a good use of garage time, less overhead stuff, more growing my tiny legs. Hopefully the program gets me some gains.

First Year Of Our Garden

August 21, 2021 by Katrina·0 Comments

Here is a whole bunch of pictures of our veggie garden over the last year.

September 2020. Dirt delivery!! Scott did all the shoveling. We still have a significant amount of mulch leftover. I put skewers around all my seeds to keep track of where I planted.

October 2020. Seedlings! Zucchini, spinach, rocket, lettuce. We decided we didn’t have enough space so we ordered one more smaller box for herbs and tomatoes.

November 2020. Things really started growing well. The zucchini got HUUUUUGE!! Tomatoes looking good, carrots and silverbeet growing fine. The bean plants were much shorter than I expected.

November – December 2020. We had a very steady stream of zucchinis going. Never overwhelming. I think next year I will still grow two plants but maybe I’ll start the second one about a month later, rather than at the same time, to lengthen the amount of time we can harvest. Colourful carrots! We never had much success with them other than that particular harvest though.

December – January 2021. It wasn’t all good. I only harvested about 3 beans before the plant got fungus or something and Rosemarie told me to get it out of there ASAP. I also maybe over-pruned our tomatoes and they got crispy and died well before the end of the season should have gone.

February 2021. After I got rid of the beans I planted cucumber. It grew very nicely at first but then also got fungus and died suddenly. That’s rhubarb from Scott’s aunt’s garden.

February 2021. Really nice harvest again. Cucumbers, salad greens, lemons, limes, kale, and tons and tons of basil.

March 2021. Sticky boy. I had no idea what these fungi were. Turns out they’re Bird’s Nest fungi and they spread their spores by putting them in little cups so that when rain drops fall into the cups it splashes the spores out. Cool eh??

May 2021. Herbs!! Basil, chives, coriander and heaps of dill. Way too much dill. Our lemon tree has a few problems but still produces ok.

June 2021. It blows my mind that we could grow things over the winter. We planted sugar snap peas, cauliflower and broccoli and they all grew. The kale and salad greens continued to grow as well, although much slower than in summer.

June – July 2021. The cauliflower started off beautiful but I didn’t know until a bit too late that you should bundle it up so it doesn’t get too much sun, so they turned a bit yellow and funny. Still ate it. Broccoli was great. It grew so nice and healthy and strong. I liked petting the velvety leaves.

August 2021. We pulled out the cauliflower plants and silverbeet plants and buried some compost to prepare one of the beds for this year. We’ll do the same with the close bed but at the moment the broccoli is still producing super cute broccolini and the spinach is still going even though the plants are the OG plants from last year!! (I put a net over the spinach to stop the possums from eating it.) About another month and we’ll start planting again. How exciting!

Escher Tessellated Creatures Cross Stitch

August 17, 2021 by Katrina·0 Comments

I had this amazing Escher cross stitch pattern favourited on Etsy for ages but it always seemed a bit too ambitious. Then came covid. And a very long lockdown. I remember rushing to Spotlight to buy linen and 20 skeins of 5 shades of grey thread was one of the last things I did before everything shut last winter.

First stitches. June 2020 – September 2020.

More progress. September 2020 – November 2020.

Cross stitch portion done! December 2020 – January 2021.

Backstitching is super satisfying. January 2021 – February 2021.

One of the last steps was tiny french knot pubes, heehee. March 2021.

Laced it around a piece of foam core to get it ready for framing. April 2021.

Finally was able to actually go to the framing studio. The piece on the left is a print we bought in Tofino a few years ago.

Detail shot. You can click the picture to see it even closer.

Finally displayed above our couch in the living room. August 2021.

It was my first time using linen instead of aida, which took a little getting used to, but I am now a full convert. I love how it looks. I can see a few mistakes but overall I’m very very happy with this project. I’m kind of tempted to make another one?