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November was more exciting! It seems like every year my November is actually way crazier than December. Everyone wants to get the celebrations started early.

We had my work Christmas party like a week and a half after our Halloween Bake Off haha! It was delicious. I picked steak for my entree for the exact opposite reason our boss doctor didn’t pick the steak: “I could have steak at home!” (We never have steak at home.)

Our second pickleball tournament went better, but it didn’t get recorded in DUPR so did it even happen?

And then our third tournament went very bad. We lost every game and it was quite discouraging. I was a bit pickleball depressed after that. (Better now.) We haven’t signed up for any more tournaments yet.

This group of friends had been talking about going out for peking duck for literally years and we finally went. We went to Hua Lu in the CBD and it was amazing!! As usual I was too busy stuffing my face to take any pictures of the epic amount of food. We had duck pancakes of course, plus the extra two duck courses, a mushroom dish and two types of tofu. Yum.

Naomi had the old work crew to her place again for a Christmas catch up gossip and pizza lunch. It was too cold for the pool this year but the bird show made up for it. :D

Scott planned a #smaj where we went to the driving range and then got Vietnamese food. The last time I hit a golf ball was with the Monnon’s when I was probably like… 11. Scott is a pretty good instructor but I was still extremely awkward. I missed the ball a lot and hit the ground many times. I can see why people think it’s fun though.

I got my hair cut and then went to a meetup with Discord friends. It was a pretty small gathering compared to some other meetups and I already knew everyone so it was pretty chill. Someone was talking about Caesar salad earlier in the day and then I had to order it for dinner. Hit the spot.

I had a really big fun day where first I went to an anime movie with Maz and Candace. I haven’t watched much anime before but I said yes to this outing because I’m Taking Charge Of My Saturdays (Scott always has bowls) and also it looked quite cute. It was called The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store and was about a department store where all the customers are different animals.

After the movie we got delicious Indonesian sandwiches for lunch and then walked to the Design Market. There was tons of cool stuff and I was able to get a lot of cute Christmas presents. Quite enjoyable.

Then we caught the bus to Bis’s for games, crafts, and dinner. I opted to do hand building with Jen and made a cute sturdy scalloped ash tray dish.

We got fish and chips for dinner and then I finally headed home. A big day.

We got a Ninja Creami from Costco during Black Friday sales. (I sold the big compressor ice cream maker because we weren’t using it much.) I think the Ninja Creami is fitting our lifestyle better. My favourite mixtures so far have been strawberry sorbet (pictured), which was just cooked strawberries and a bit of maple syrup, sticky date protein ice cream, and mango sorbet. It’s nice that we can make them with healthy and lactose free ingredients.

It rained A LOT and then we had a couple random super hot days so everyone’s yards went bonkers. Love how we have more stuff growing outside the garden boxes than inside.

Flying along on the pastel tank top. I really like the way she designed the neckline and sleeves. Took a while to do the sewing but it’s sooo neat and tidy.

Nanaimo bars ready for Christmas! I used a new recipe this year and I was quite pleased with how they turned out.

Unpictured stuff:

  • We had lunch at Jemma’s on Melbourne Cup Day for April’s birthday.
  • I went to the Western Treatment Plant with the birdwatching group but I’ll make a separate post about that.
  • We had another #smaj where we went to The Jar and rented a pickleball ball machine and tried to practice our drives (I am still quite bad at forehand drives.)

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October was a pretty routine month… lots of pickleball, trivia, a lot of appointments. We had two catch up #smaj events, one was a wine tasting evening at Scott’s bowls club, and the other was writing wills, lol. I didn’t take pictures of either.

Scott and I signed up for three successive pickleball tournaments. The first one was in October and we did… fine. We won two games, and lost three games including getting pickled in one. We didn’t make the finals. Some fun was had.

We went to a pen convention with high hopes of seeing cute stationary and picking up some Christmas gifts. In reality we barely saw anything because it was sooooooooooooooooo crowded. And Scott battled through the crowds to finish the stamp rally but they had already run out of prizes, like an hour after it opened. Then we got heavily rained on. Not the most successful outing.

I started knitting a tank top. It’s a 4-ply blend of merino wool, alpaca, and silk. Rosemarie thinks a wool tank top is funny but it’s actually very light feeling!

I finished the neon barf hat. This one is hand-dyed merino wool and it’s super soft and cozy.


My first time cooking with jackfruit. I made a jackfruit bulgogi bibimbap, which would have been vegan if I didn’t plop a fried egg on top haha. It was delicious!

My work held a Halloween Bake Off and this was my entry. It had a brownie base and spiced butter cookie tombstones, with Oreo dirt and coconut grass. I thought it turned out pretty good! I got a lot of compliments but didn’t win any prizes.

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August was a busy month. Scott worked his first graduations days, and we went to Vietnam for a week, and in between we squeezed in lots of activities and some tasty meals.

We went hot air ballooning, and then went out for breakfast at Warung Coffee. We got a beef rendang toastie and a mie goreng toastie and they were ridiculous and salty and delicious. Yes that is a sandwich full of noodles.

I made Scott come with me to a birding photography outing to Muckleford and Newstead Cemetery. It was a cold but pleasant day. We saw a few new birds, but I didn’t get any particularly great pictures. At least now I know where to come back to try to see the rainbow bee-eaters this summer though.

Australian Pipit

We knew the steam train would be passing through around noon so everyone stopped birdwatching and changed their camera settings and got into position to best photograph the train… and then waited… and waited… and then finally fifteen minutes later it slooooooooooooooooooowly came around the corner. I think you could walk faster than this train haha.

Trivia. It was so loud. We didn’t do well.

Malaysian food all day every day. We went to Pappa Laksa again and had Pappa Special Laksa and Beef Rendang Nasi Lemak. Delicious.

RTE Pork Adobo and cucumber salad. Tasty, and affordable!

Trying out different methods of Brain Off time. Paint by numbers was pretty fun. Good ol’ Kmart.

Tiny bit of progress on the cable knit blanket.

Slow progress on Lauren’s hat. I only manage to get a couple rounds done at a time on my lunch breaks at work. And the pink thing was a project for Lara which I have now abandoned. Knitting it was going way too slowly, and crocheting was turning out way too heavy. I think a sleeve scarf would be a better project for someone with a knitting machine. (Can I buy a knitting machine??)

Unpictured stuff:

  • We took my whole work team to play pickleball at Pickle Play. Almost everyone came! We had to rent three courts! It was chaotic at first trying to teach them all how to play, but once they got the hang of it it was very fun. And no one hurt themselves. Success.
  • Scott took Beau to open day at UniMelb. They went to a bunch of science lectures and had KFC and had a good day together.
  • I’ve still been going to Bodypump pretty regularly. It is kind of stupid but at least it’s something.
  • And of course, still pickleballing. I usually do one drills session, and two social sessions per week. Still loving it.

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Back when I thought we were going to go to Vietnam the first time in 2024, before Scott poked a hole in his spinal canal, I spent a long time going through Instagram posts and guide books and blogs finding all sorts of delicious food places to try and saving them all onto a Google Map. This very much came in handy for this trip because it gave us options when we didn’t know where to eat. We ended up checking off a lot of the ones I had saved in Hanoi.

Scott tried all sorts of different coffees. He had this classic Vietnamese coffee very early in the morning on the street with people on their way to work. It came out of an esky. Rated it 10/10.

(Since our trip was so short, and we had to go straight back to work after getting back, we mostly stayed on Melbourne time, so we were up early a lot.)

Couple of egg coffees. The first time he didn’t know it had two layers so he kind of ate the top part by itself, and thought it was too rich, but then realised there was super strong coffee underneath. The second time he mixed it a bit. He said he liked egg coffee but it was more of a dessert than a drink.

The other drink was one of the most delicious mocktails I have ever had, it was a iced peach tamarind drink, that came with crunchy peanut and toasted coconut bits on top. It was a flavour and texture sensation.

Scott also tried coconut coffee, which he liked, said it wasn’t too sweet, and salt coffee, which wasn’t that salty.

A bowl of beef pho that I added too much chili to, and some stir fried morning glory with garlic.

Bún Cá. Fish noodle soup with two different types of noodles, and a deep fried fish nugget on the side. The soup was loaded with fish chunks. It is funny trying to eat long noodles with chopsticks in front of a strongly blowing fan.

Bún Đậu. This restaurant was hidden away in an alleyway. We weren’t given any menus, just told to sit down, and then about 3 minutes later they brought out this big platter for us with a little ticket saying 80k ($5AUD). Fine with me! It came with all sorts of fried bits, some tofu-y, some fish-y, some meat-y. We bundled the pieces up with herbs and noodles and dunked in the sauce. Delicious. Although as I’m looking this dish up now, I think it is supposed to come with shrimp paste dipping sauce and they didn’t give us that. I guess they decided that whiteys wouldn’t like it. Ah well, still very good without!

Sticky rice with pork and fried shallots. We didn’t really understand how this restaurant worked… in hindsight I think we were supposed to add more toppings.

Our hotel had an expansive breakfast buffet but we didn’t eat there often because there was more delicious stuff to be found outside!

Like Bánh cuốn!! Freshly made rice sheets rolled with pork and mushrooms, generously sprinkled with fried shallots, bundled with herbs, and dunked in nước chấm. Eaten on tiny stools on the side of the street.

We had it twice! The first one was huuuuuge and also came with fatty delicious sausage. The second one was smaller, but cheaper, and we also got a fried egg. Fried shallots are the best.

Bánh mì. Slightly different than Melbourne-style banh mi. It had lettuce and egg, no cucumber, and was more saucey, and they smush the bread in a press at the end. Pretty tasty, especially for a couple of dollars.

We bought a small segment of durian to try. I actually kind of like the smell of durian on the street, but once it gets close to your face it smells wayyyyy worse. It has a real hint of gasoline and bin juice to it. Neither of us liked it at all. I think there are much better creamy things to eat in the world.

Now this is a fruit I can support. I loooooove mangosteen. We bought a kilo of it for about $8 AUD, which seemed very expensive at the time, but we went to the Queen Vic Market the other week and I saw it for $60/kg!!! LOL! The lady selling them picked out all small ones for me, which I thought was rude at first, but then I found out the small ones have less chance of having those big seed segments and she was actually being kind. Delicious.

Big bowl of soup with a crunchy thing to break up and mix in. Don’t remember what that was called.

Bánh Khọt. Lil savoury shrimp pancakes. Wrapped in herbs and dipped in nuoc cham of course. (Everything is dipped in nuoc cham.)

Nộm thịt Bò khô. Dried beef salad. This popular restaurant was very big and busy. But actually I didn’t like this salad that much. Too sweet.

Bún chả. A Hanoi specialty and I understand why. This was my favourite meal of the trip. Delicious fatty pork pieces in a delicious broth. Grab a piece of pork, some pickled vegetables and herbs, some noodles, and shove it in your mouth, delicious sauce dripping down your chin and splattering all over your clothes. Worth doing extra laundry. We also had some epic spring rolls. And all for like $5 or something ridiculous.

We had it again at a different restaurant. This place the pork was even thicker and fattier. Washed down with ice tea. Incredible.

A friend saw that we were in Hanoi on Instagram and sent me a message saying I need to go find this doughnut lady on her behalf, because she still dreams about these (vegan) doughnuts. They did not disappoint. We got two of each: glutinous rice savoury, glutinous rice sweet, sesame, and sugar. They were perfectly crispy on the outside, chewy like mochi on the inside, and had crunchy bits in the middle. Amazing. Also they were ten to fifteen cents each.

Bánh xèo is not popular in Hanoi but I still really wanted to have it so I found one restaurant that specialised in it. We just got the base model, with pork and prawns, and it was huge and delicious. For this one you take a sheet of rice paper, add a piece of crispy rice pancake and some herbs, fold it up, dunk in nuoc cham, and shove in mouth. Crunchy and yum.

One last thing we had to check off our Hanoi Food Bucket List was Bia hơi, a fresh draught beer that they brew up every day without preservatives, and sell for about $0.50 a glass on the street. It is not very strong. Comes with peanuts. I didn’t mind the beer but there was a very annoying American guy there that made the experience kind of annoying.

We didn’t eat at this lady’s shop but I was very impressed by her mise en place.

So much veg prep required every day. Back breaking work.

It looks like we ate so much stuff but most of the time we only ordered one dish at a time and split it, so we could try more things at different places. The fresh vegetables balance out the fried food well and overall it didn’t feel super unhealthy. Luckily we didn’t have any GI problems either.

Writing this post has made me very hungry!! Please forgive me if I made any mistakes with the names. And let me know if you are going to Hanoi and want some specific restaurant details!

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A busy month, but I mostly only took food pics? Oops.

We went out for gnocchi for my friend Jen’s birthday. Our group took up almost the whole restaurant. I had vegan gnocchi and it was a fun and delicious evening.

One of Scott’s #SMAJs was to take us to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. We walked around a lot and saw lots of stuff, like the elephants, hippos, zebras and gorillas… but we didn’t go on the safari bus! Which is apparently like the best part of the zoo!! Because we didn’t know that it was free!!!

(The key part of SMAJ activities is that Scott is supposed to do all of the planning and research and I just get to show up, so I had not talked about the zoo with anyone ahead of time because I didn’t know we were going.)

So a little bit of a SMAJ fail. We still did have a nice enough time, but maybe didn’t see everything there, and definitely not as close. It did make for some funny conversations at work the next day when they told me that the bus was free. I guess we have to go back some other time.

We went to see the Crash Test Dummies! I thought it was funny when they asked “Who listened to us in the 90s??? Who are the adult children of people that listened to us in the 90s???” (Me.) The dude still has a super low voice. They are one of the few bands that I know most of the words to their songs.

I voted in the Canadian Election. At least I think I did. The envelope has one of those Postage Paid printed stamps… I don’t know how high priority that gets sent through the postal system.

I woke up on a Saturday morning desperate for a cold cut sandwich. So we headed to Saul’s Sandwiches for lunch and had a lil picnic in the sun. It hit the spot.

Damien cooked up an epic Easter lunch for the whole family, with lamb and potatoes, and we all brought salads. Jemma made a delicious carrot cake. I feel spoiled.

Another #SMAJ! This time he took us out to try Burmese food, under recommendation from his new Burmese coworker. We just ordered things that we hadn’t heard of before. Everything we tried was tasty!

We had a very spontaneous afternoon games sess with Michael and Gina. Maybe it’s better to do it this way? Short and sweet and no pressure to clean and prepare everything perfectly. We played Finspan.

KNITTING UPDATES:

I started a pair of fingerless gloves because I wanted to try knitting with mohair, and finished the pair of slightly tweedy ribbed socks. I really like how the mohair looks, and how the socks turned out.

I nearly finished the drab sweatshirt, and then ordered a bunch more wool for a blanket and a cardigan and realised that maybe I am always drab.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Between Scott and I, approximately one million medical appointments. There was some concern that my heart was going too slowly but turns out everything is fine, I am just healthy.
  • I went to Hawthorn to watch the Oceania weightlifting comp. Enjoyed how supportive (aka LOUD) the Samoan team is of each other. Nice to catch up with a few of my old weightlifting buddies, but they did not manage to convince me to start weightlifting again.
  • Scott started working!!!!!!!!! He is enjoying the job and they seem really good and organised!
  • We planted 50 bulbs of garlic. If they grow properly, you may receive garlic as part of your Christmas gift.
  • I started going to pickleball drill sessions where we just do drills for two hours. Some might find it boring but it’s been really helpful for me and it’s very physically and mentally challenging. Ana is very strict about technique. I now do 2-3 social sessions a week and one drills session.
  • We went to watch the movie Sinners which I enjoyed quite a bit! I think it was good that I went in blind as well.