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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.

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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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I went to a birding outing to Cranbourne Botanic Gardens. My first time there. It is quite an elaborate place.

There were plenty of birds around, including tons and tons of New Holland Honeyeaters, but again I didn’t get any fantastic pictures. Still feeling a bit rusty after not really using my camera much over the last winter.

I like the background and perch of that New Holland Honeyeater picture but why does he only have one eye??! And this galah picture really made me laugh… you want as much foreground as possible in a bird picture, yes? I submitted it to Crap Bird Photography on Facebook and got a pretty good response, hehe.

I do like this picture though.

After a pleasant morning of wandering around looking for birds I headed over to Ash’s house, who moved out to the boonies over a year ago and I hadn’t visited yet. After chatting for a few minutes I looked up how long it would take to get to my pickleball drills session and realised it started half an hour earlier than I thought it did and I only had ten more minutes to visit. OOPS. Well it was enough time for a tour and a cookie. My bad.

We played Critter Kitchen with Nick and Lara. Nick made chilli and Scott made lemon tart. We also played Wayfarers of the South Tigris which was a little bit confusing, and took us most of the game to figure out what was going on, but then was ok, but we’ll probably never play again because there are always new games to try, lol.

We watched the AFL Grand Final in Boronia with Vicky and Brett. It was a good game, extremely even until half time for excitement, and then Scott’s team (Brisbane) dominated the second half and won convincingly.

I got some new ear plugs made and spent the hour waiting time at Bonbeach. Was pleasant until it started pouring.

Post Pickleball Pizza Party. Our usual Friday night pickleball sessions at Ashburton have come to an end, so we had one last dinner out together. Fun group. Hoping they migrate over to the new session at the venue right around the corner from our house.

Good lunch, bad lunch. Diane brought me Kraft Dinner powder!! Happy Katrina. Another day I completely forgot I was cooking a gozleme on the stove until I smelled a lot of smoke… oops… Sad Katrina.

This is probably only interesting to me but whatever. My pickleball coach kept telling me that the handle of my pickleball paddle was too thick for me, but I also needed to put overgrip on it because I am so sweaty. So I took a risk and peeled off the factory grip that it came with, and added overgrip directly over the bare handle…. and it’s ok!! It took a session to get used to it again but now I feel One With My Paddle.

Finished budgie paint by numbers. I kinda want to add a little speech bubble… what should it say? Something short.

I started making a hat with the neon hand-dyed yarn I got at the Wool Show. I had to split the ball into two balls and learn how to do alternating skeins to avoid colour pooling.

Unpictured things:

  • We also had a games day with Michael and Gina but I guess I took no pictures! Scott made pulled pork for lunch and we played Crokinole and Empires End.
  • Scott came to pickleball drills sessions a couple times because they were in the evenings during school holidays.
  • We saw One Battle After Another at the theatre as a #SMAJ activity and I did not like it. Three hours of bad people and someone banging on the top keys of a piano… it gave me a headache.

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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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Pat turned 70 and the whole family got together for a succulent Chinese meal in Boronia. It’s always nice to have the family together (only missing Michael and Luca), and I think Pat really liked it because he teared up a bit when he thanked us all for coming.

We had the girls over for a sleepover before Ava and Jess’s flight back to Sydney. We played some games and watched a movie and had snacks. I heard a lot of thumping and bumping coming from the living room over night!!

An elder millenial giving up her skinny jeans (for now). Ava is my style inspiration.

Geared up for an excursion into and onto the roof. A lot of the insulation had been thrown around during the renovations so we spent some time nestling them all back in place. It felt like doing every single hip mobility exercise in a row. I think it’s worked though (along with some of our other draft reduction projects) because this winter hasn’t felt quite so miserable as the last few.

Michael and Gina had us over for an excellent lunch. I felt like we were at a Japanese restaurant! We played Critter Kitchen and Nekojima. Critter Kitchen is really fun! Lucky that we won that from Sonika’s raffle.

Dumpling dinner in the city. Scott was very brave wearing his brand new hoodie, I definitely would have dropped something on myself.

Scott organised for us to do a printmaking class in the city for one of his #SMAJ activities. It was fun, although I felt very rushed, but maybe that is good for me, to not try to perfectionize every activity.

Scott and I did a pickleball tournament at Eastern Indoor Centre and managed to come second! The tournament ran very far behind schedule and we had to wait AGES in between games so it was a weird evening of warming up and then getting cold and having to warm up again. We only finished second in our pool to make it into the semi finals, but played very well in the semis to make it into the final! And then we got smashed in the final, haha.

We had a family birthday dinner at Jemma’s. Myles and I made lots of origami shuriken, which he later combined into a ULTIMATE SHURIKEN. Love it.

Tiny bit of progress on the cable knit blanket.

Unpictured stuff:

  • So much pickleball. Social sessions, drills, and private lessons. I also did a DUPR session at Eastern Indoor with a random old man partner to try and get used to the courts/balls before the tournament. Good thing I did because I was hitting everything out of bounds that day. Sorry partner.
  • Scott worked hella overtime running exams. Very long days for him. He has a lot of TOIL.
  • I went to a Discord meetup. Was nice to see everyone again and meet a few new people as well. The highlight was the apple caramel slice that one person brought. Delicious.
  • I started doing Bodypump classes at the gym near my house. It’s a bit silly and I spend a lot of time flailing around, but it’s also fun and at least I am doing something. Gym motivation is very low these days.