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We started June off by going to a Tubular Bells concert. It wasn’t Mike Oldfield himself, apparently he’s a bit of a weirdo. But these guys played all of Tubular Bells I and parts of II and III. There were two percussionists, a keyboard guy, two guitarists, a bass player, a singer, and an electric cello guy. They played sooo many different instruments each. It was fascinating to watch.

I loved this concert so much. It was so nostalgic. They came around at intermission and sold ice cream in little dixie cups too. All the oldies looked like they were having a great time.

Sweat bros doing a private drilling session with our prize vouchers.

Overstimulated bros doing trivia.

Brown Falcon
Black Kite

This month’s photography trip was back to the Western Treatment Plant. It wasn’t that long since I was last there, but the trip was planned in the winter to try and find some endangered parrots. Which we unfortunately didn’t see. But we did see lots of raptors somewhat close so that’s cool.

Garlic update. They all sprouted! Fingers crossed for a good harvest this year.

Lara’s younger sister is visiting Australia from the Ukraine for a few months so they had us over for a dinner and board games night to introduce us to all their friends at once. European kids are so much cooler than Australian/Canadian kids lol. I welcomed her to Australia by absolutely destroying everyone at Ticket To Ride Europe hahahaha.

Pic by @markelbourneshoots
Pic by @markelbourneshoots

Priscilla and I competed in the Pride & Paddle pickleball comp at Raya. It was a fun day but extremely tiring. We had to play six games to 15 with no bye, and then made it to the finals so we had to play a best of three to 11 for bronze. We won the first game of the finals but then ran out of steam and ended up losing the next two, so ended up in 4th place. Too bad, because the medals were really cute. We played well all day but just didn’t have the stamina to last the longer games… almost every game we lost we actually made it to 11 first, but then ended up losing like 13-15. We are working on this!!

It was super nice that so many pickleball friends came to support us through the comp.

Our #SMAJ event was trying out the new souffle pancake place at Chaddy. We got fried chicken and pancakes and Biscoff pancakes. They were redonk. Now I want to try and make them at home.

I think it is very funny that Lara wanted to take her Ukranian sister to a (unlimited) pierogi restaurant in Melbourne when she is FROM UKRAINE. But I guess pierogies are always great. I ate less than last time but it was great going in a big group, lots of laughs. Kira says I look like Mavis from Hotel Transylvania.

More sweater progress. I decided to work on both sleeves at the same time. I would do a step of the instructions on both sides before going to the next step. It made it easier to remember what to do so it’s very matchy matchy.

Unpictured Stuff:

  • I last minute planned us a weekend away in Moonambel for Kings Birthday since we didn’t have anything going on that weekend. I’ll write about it in another post.
  • I got botox in my jaw to help with pain from clenching. It’s great!
  • I went to a work trivia night and my department won cuz we are the biggest nerds.
  • We went to KBBQ with Gav and Aura. So nice to catch up with them again after not seeing them for ages. We learned so many things about teeth.
  • Scott worked ~55 hour weeks for three weeks during Semester 1 exams.
  • Then the day after exams finished he got made redundant. IDGI.

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May was a little bit calmer. I had to pull back on a lot of activities to try to recover.

This is the armour I put on to go out into the real world. Why is the real world so loud and bright.

We played a bunch of crokinole until Scott got too good at it and I had to put it away again.

We went to Noah’s 21st birthday party (Part 1) and got to meet their new puppy. Then when Part 2 began and all of Noah’s friends started arriving we all GTFO’d and left them to it.

Went out for dinner after pickleball with a few new friends and had a Korean junk food feast! Fried chicken, seafood pancake, two types of stew, tteokbokki, and banchan. It was great!

We saw Kooza. i thought it was great. We loved the big wheel thingy of course. I would love to try it (just the inside part).

New Holland Honeyeater
Nankeen Night Heron

I went on a bird photography outing to Blind Bight. We saw lots of birds in the morning and got plenty of good photo opportunities. I stayed for lunch and then headed home after that, and ended up getting called into work that evening!! A big day.

Scott organised for us to go to Dingo Ate My Taco which involved him leaving work early and lining up in an alleyway for an hour. I got to show up right at opening time and skip the line. :D Good work Scott. Love sitting at the counter where you can see into the kitchen.

We had escabeche and a bunch of tacos and a spicy margarita. Very tasty.

And then Kariton afterwards for some soy soft serve. The first bite tastes like tofu and then it tastes like regular ice cream after that. I love it.

I could see on the website that there were a lot of ladies signed up for the Saturday intermediate tournament at MPC for once, so Scott and I signed up, but then they put us in Pool A with ALL MEN!! And all the ladies and mixed teams were in the other pool. I was so annoyed. It’s not fun for me to play against all male teams, I just get smashed.

I finally made it to a crafternoon again. My margarita was extremely delicious and we had a variety of pickle flavoured chips to nibble on. I liked the venue (Nubilum), it was chill in there and the chairs have backs.

Finished my newspaper mittens! They are very soft. And chugging along on the confetti sweater.

Lil cartoon for Priscilla’s birthday.

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In February Yo-Chi had a promotion that if you did 25,000 steps by 2PM you could get $15 of free fro yo per person, so Scott and I decided to try and do it. It was a very funny day. We walked all morning. I took extremely tiny steps to try and boost my numbers. We played pickleball as well which took care of a big chunk. We mayyy have cheated a little by taking turns wearing both watches at once for a bit so the other person could have a bit of a rest… but at least we showed up to the shop tired and sweaty, unlike some of the other people who 1000% cheated because they didn’t look tired at all!!!

Anyway I enjoyed my enormous free fro yo that probably took a month off my life.

I went camping for a night by myself! Near Kinglake. The only part I was worried about was whether I’d be able to set up the tent on my own, but it ended up being easy. I DON’T NEED NO MAN. :P All I did was set up my tent, make dinner, knit for a little while, and then moved into the tent to read once the mosquitos came out. The next day was one of my Birdlife photography meetups which was nice, but we barely saw any birds and I only took two pictures, both of which were terrible. lol.

Our #SMAJ activity was watching Pretty Women at the outdoor cinema. A cute evening. I hadn’t seen it before. Big mistake.

Of course we ordered the Wingspan South America expansion as soon as it came out. It adds on hummingbirds, which mostly just make it easier to get resources, so you can build more birds, which is always fun I guess. Can get a really good engine going.

One (creepy) glove done.

Cable knit blanket coming along. During the summer I could only work on it when we had the AC blasting during Free Power Hours, haha.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Sally had the whole gang over for a crafternoon. We got Malaysian takeaway and had a lovely chill hang out.
  • I watched 70 million hours of the Winter Olympics. Love it.
  • So much pickleball. Still addicted.

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Holy late post Katrina. Oops.

NYE fireworks at Bis’s apartment. It was so cold out.

Wingspan with Michael and Gina. You can see the birdhouse that Bis printed for us because our cardboard one was wearing out.

We played free pickleball in Bayswater and then got suburban Malaysian food for dinner. Scott got asam laksa and I got sar hor fun, which was sooooo gloopy but… I love gloopy!!

Bis needed some help assembling his new shed so Scott and I went over for a day to lend a hand. It reminded me of my childhood at the cottage. He had to over-engineer it to stand up to the gale force winds they get on their balcony so there are a lot of extra pieces and A LOT of rivets.

We got the strangest pizzas I’ve ever seen for dinner afterwards from a Korean pizza shop. This one had corn shaped mashed potatoes on it.

The girls came over for a sleepover! We went swimming at the pool with waterslides, watched Wicked: For Good (so much squealing at the scene with Elphaba and Fiyero in bed omg), and ate chicken nuggets spaghetti and red velvet cake (with secret beets).

We had a Second Christmas at Jemma’s house. Many presents and treats. My brother-in-law looooves Nanaimo Bars.

We went to the outlet mall and bought five pairs of shoes at once. Scott’s Vietnamese fake Salomon shoes did not hold up.

I mistakenly bought tickets to Opening Week of the Australian Open which is actually the week BEFORE the Australian Open starts. However, Jemma’s family also had tickets so we all went in together on our day off and it turned out to be quite good!! And it only cost me $5! You can do all the AO activities with no lines, and there are still some good matches going on for qualifying. You can also watch the top people practice, but I found that quite boring. I also got to see a bit of the One Point Slam which was quite funny, and Myles and Damien got a free legit tennis racket each as well. Would Opening Week again.

I spent a whole afternoon building a collapsible lightbox for product photography. Why? I don’t know, but it was pretty satisfying and it works really well. I did a combination of about 4 different Youtube video tutorials.

Then I spent another entire day taking pictures of every little bit of wool that I have and cataloguing it on my Ravelry account. Again, why? I don’t know, but It tickled my neurodivergent brain just right. So organised.

I went to Phillip Island for a night of the January long weekend. Sonika had organised an Airbnb and we played tons of board games. 12 Rivers had a fun mechanism where you get to yank a barrier out at the top and all the balls roll down into different areas. Whirling Witchcraft had the worst rulebook I’ve ever seen but was actually quite funny once we figured it out. I taught the group Orleans, which they liked. And The Hobbit: There and Back Again was fun but quite difficult for me and Bis to play with our aphantasia.

I went to the Churchill Island farmers market for a focaccia and a fruit sorbet.

Always looking for vegan soft serve. This one was half ube and half avocado in the CBD. Not too sweet. I liked it.

I got Scott and I tickets to see the Hoodoo Gurus at the music bowl. I didn’t really know the band before but it seemed like they’re an Aussie equivalent of The Tragically Hip. It was a very pleasant evening of lounging around on the picnic blanket with snacks and margaritas and live music.

Summer knit projects! Socks and gloves. I still loooove making socks, but I didn’t really enjoy gloves. So fiddly.

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Didn’t have time to write this before my yearly wrap up post. Ah well. This is gonna be a long one, it was a busy month!

I did a lot of walking this month. I said I was going to do 10k steps every day in December, which is a lot for me! (Some days I get like 400 steps…)

We went camping at the free campground at Beauchamp Falls in the Otways. The campground was alright, the grass really needed to be cut, it was hard to walk through, but it also made the bottom of the tent really squishy and plush. There was a big Nepalese family there making lots of noise as well. But I saw a female Satin Bowerbird! I thought it was a pigeon at first, glad I decided to actually take a picture of it.

We drove down to Apollo Bay and I got to have Nerds sorbet! That’s pretty much my dream ice cream flavour, and it was dairy-free, like they knew I was coming.

Kookaburra
Australian Wood Ducklings
King Parrot

We also went to Kennett River in search of koalas but didn’t see any. There were lots of good bird photo opportunities though and I got lots of steps in.

Then we went home early because Scott’s work kept calling him and he had to go in and work on the weekend. :/

I made Scott promise that he would at least help me get my steps done somewhere interesting the next day so we walked around Albert Park lake and had enormous burgers and I had a dairy free gingerbread ice cream that was really nice.

Fancy new pickleball paddle. :D

I got Scott the Wingspan nesting box for his birthday. Rosemarie thought it was a lame gift but he loves it. It fits all the expansions (including future expansions!) and makes things super organised. It’s extremely satisfying.

We tried to go our for birthday brunch at a Thai brunch place but they didn’t actually open when it said they would and we ended up having to go to McDonalds instead!! LOL. Then Scott played bowls all day and went to a concert with his friend in the evening.

Our new PET camera got installed at work and makes me feel like I work in a space ship or submarine. It’s pretty fancy! We didn’t get to start using it until January though so December was a very slow work month. I had a lot of time to walk the hallways and get my steps up while working, which was great.

I spent a couple hours pulling apart the lead pots that things get delivered in so we could bring the lead to the scrap metal recyclers. We harvested 60kg and got $120 for it! (I wore gloves in case you are wondering, dad.)

We never remember to take a proper picture but Maz and Ty cooked everyone an epic UK-style Christmas dinner a few days before Christmas. Their turkey was SO MOIST and the roasted parsnips were incredible. Everything was great really, except the bread sauce… England you can keep that.

They also have a carpet python.

Actual Christmas was quite chill this year, relatively speaking. It was Small Christmas so there weren’t that many little kids around. The nephews are all pretty much adults now!! We had cold chicken and ham and tons of different salads. There were many presents, and many balls accidentally hit over the fence.

We went for a walk around Jells Park afterwards so I could get my daily steps. I was surprised how many other people were out doing the same.

As is tradition, we crashed Donna’s family campsite in Walkerville for a night. It was great, it’s nice down there and we love spending time with the cousin-nephews. We splashed around on the beach, talked about birds, played Uno No Mercy and Bananagrams, built a dam, ate cheese, went for walks.

I even got to go tubing!

Our December #SMAJ was making mosaic coasters. We got to put as many designs as we wanted together and then at the end you pick your favourite two to grout. It was fun!

We had too many tomatoes so I made salsa for the first time. I can’t believe I haven’t done that before, it’s so easy! And delicious! We had epic nachos for dinner.

Bis’s apartment faces the city so they always have NYE at their house so you can see the fireworks. I don’t normally stay up for New Years but we decided we would go this time and I’m so glad I did because he also prepared the most epic hot pot meal I have ever experienced. It was like being at a nice restaurant and also unlimited, because any time we got close to finishing something he brought out another!! Lara also got a HUMONGOUS honey cake. We are so spoiled. I ate so much I had to lie down from like 9pm to 11pm.

One of the final fittings to check the length. And pastel tank top after blocking! Thankfully blocking relaxed the armholes and top part so it’s not so tight any more. I haven’t actually worn it out yet.. I was planning on wearing it on New Years Eve but then it was like 12 degrees that day.

Lauren’s Musselburgh hat. Finished! No Mike & Ike’s trapped inside this time, pretty sure.

Unpictured stuff:

  • I did manage to do my 10,000 steps every day. I don’t know why I get so many less steps than Scott even when we spend the whole day together. I ended up having to do a lot of extra laps around our neighbourhood and house sometimes. One time I had to bail out of the car at a red light and walk the rest of the way home. I didn’t really notice any changes to be honest. I haven’t been doing it now (in January) but I am considering doing it again in February. Maybe every second month.
  • Scott worked A LOT. He racked up an extra like 40 hours of time in lieu. Crazy. It’s because in December there are graduations AND supplementary exams. At least now we know not to plan any trips in December next year, too busy.
  • Our pickleball friends put on an awesome Christmas party with pickleball (of course), games, door prizes, and awards. It was lots of fun!
  • I got to take a full two weeks off from work over Christmas which was so nice. I had a big list of things for us to get done around the house but we only did like a third of it. But I’m not mad because we filled every day with a lot of fun things, like playing games of Wingspan with Rosemarie AND Lauren, getting together with friends, playing pickleball all over the place, watching movies, helping our friend build a shed, hanging out with family, and more. We did also do a big garage clean out and pantry reorganisation, so at least we got a couple big jobs done.