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I was finally able to make it out to one of the Birdlife photography group outings! They get together once a month and it always seemed to be on a day that I couldn’t go. But this time I could. We went to Lysterfield Lake. I was a bit scared to go, but there were plenty of friendly people, and at least there is an activity… so you don’t have to talk the whole time. It wasn’t the best conditions for birds or photography so I didn’t get any great pictures but it’s still nice to get out and get some birdwatching practice.

Scott got me tickets to Cirque du Soleil Crystal for Christmas last year and it was finally time to go! We liked it, it was neat to see the new stuff they could do with the added ice element… like big long swooping things while hanging from ropes and stuff. And Scott liked the hockey boys doing jumps and flips. I thought the actual circus stuff wasn’t near as precise as a normal Cirque show though. The story was pretty weird too.

We had galettes beforehand at Roule Galette. Scott had beef bourguignon, and I had a potato-y one and a mulled wine. Lovely.

My friend Bis’s birthday dinner wish was for us to go out and everyone had to pick a dish to share. It was great. This was half the food.. I should have waited until everything arrived to take a picture but at that point I was too busy stuffing my face. I picked a soft tofu dish.

Melbourne was playing Hawthorn so we sent a message to Shaun to see if he wanted to go to the game together (he goes for Hawthorn). He said sure, meet us at this park at this time. We arrive at the park and there are like 20 children there and many adults. Turns out it was Shaun’s son Finn’s birthday party and everyone was going to the game together!! Cupcakes were a nice surprise!

So we ended up watching the game with Donna’s family too. A fun day. And Melbourne won.

I saw this meal on an Instagram reel. It was delicious!

Bendigo Woollen Mills sock yarn socks are done! I’m quite pleased with them. Socks are a great travel project because they’re so compact.

I learned how to do two-colour knitting by making a vaguely Melbourne-themed hat. I tried making a pom pom for it but I tied it wrong and it exploded everywhere. I didn’t really like how it looked anyway. I would like to get a navy faux fur pom pom but haven’t found where to buy that yet.

My next project was to finish up a kids jumper that Vicky started about ten years ago for Beau. He’s about six feet tall now but luckily there are two other small kids that it can fit now. It was a fun challenge for me to figure out where she was up to in the pattern and finish it up.

Unpictured stuff:

  • I went to a nuc med day conference down on the peninsula with a couple coworkers. We saw a guy with a motorized golf bag!!
  • Used the movie tickets I won from getting a written compliment at work to see the Barbie movie. I liked the movie but I was annoyed that most of the punchlines had been spoiled already on the internet/TV/radio/literally everywhere.
  • My weightlifting friend came back from Canberra/USA and it has been so nice having her at training again. We even got the old Phoenix ladies out for dinner one night too, which was lovely.
  • We’ve been playing pickleball pretty much every Sunday. Scott and I did a lot of practice together to prepare for an upcoming tournament.
  • I actually got called in to work on the weekend. Quite rare. It was a tricky case too. Thankfully my boss is very nice and volunteered to come in with me and press the buttons on the computer for me so I didn’t have to get gowned and ungowned a bazillion times.
  • Apparently we went out for dinner for a #SMAJ event but we didn’t take any pictures and I can’t remember what it was.
  • Japanese brunch. Trivia. Knitting club. Weightlifting training.

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Microwaved saline bags make great heat packs for when you wake up on your birthday with crippling neck pain.

My first macrame. Except not really, because it’s basically just making giant friendship bracelets?? I was awesome at those back in the day.

I made a wall hat holder. Rosemarie said it’s ugly AF. Thanks sis.

I still made her a headband. It’s knitted in English rib and it’s super squishy.

Unpictured stuff:

  • We went to a potluck high tea at Bis’s house. Scott and I brought sandwiches… egg, chicken, and ham and cheese. We still have a big tupperware in the freezer filled with crusts. I didn’t take any pictures but it was fun!!
  • Crammed in 85 appointments before we left for Canada. Good news, my ears are fine, my teeth are fine, my hands are slightly less shakey, my allergy shots are ordered, etc. Feels good to get all sorts of stuff like that sorted out.

Then we left for Canada! More posts coming…

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The flooring got done! You’ll see a bit here, but I think I’ll save the actual pictures for its own post.

Breakfast of champions: Chiko roll (like a giant Australian spring roll) that Scott chucked in his parents air fryer for me before I got up, tropical juice with creatine, magensium and Telfast. Lol.

Sanding and wiping between coats of paint. The worst.

This is just like the cottage photo album… mom often took pictures while Rosemarie or I were actually doing work so it looks like we did everything.

We managed to get the baseboards painted in one weekend and then we were finally able to put our furniture and stuff back to normal. Felt great.

Snooping on the auction next door. It ended up getting passed in but it’s sold now and we have neighbours again.

We hosted Mothers Day brunch at our house. Terrible picture but it was a feast. Especially because we incorrectly thought Brett’s family was coming, so we had tons of extra food. We made cinnamon buns, bacon, a hashbrown egg casserole thing, and fruit.

Then MEP and Paul arrived! They stayed with us off and on in between various side trips to Sydney, Great Ocean Road, and the Rotary conference.

I took a day off work and we went to the new spa on the Mornington Peninsula, and then had Red Gum BBQ for lunch. A pretty good way to spend a wintery Melbourne day.

We went to Philip Island one weekend, which I will make into its own post as well.

Met up with some more distant family for a meal at China Red. I think everyone enjoyed the Melbourne dumpling experience. We got to order on a touch screen!

Of course we played games. We taught them Wingspan, Azul, and Agricola. I had been weary to teach people Agricola for a while but actually it was totally fine and they picked it up quickly.

Post-pickleball tourist stop at the Brighton Beach Boxes. We were not dressed properly. I think a group photo exists, but I do not have it.

I think they had a nice time however I don’t think they liked the temperature of our house, haha.

Finished a pair of Halfsies socks. They work up pretty quickly! However they’re not super comfortable tbh. Inside socks, I guess.

Unpictured stuff:

  • I poisoned myself with a soy milk bubble tea. I think I can add soy milk to the list of things that give me hayfever mouth and face symptoms (along with raw apples, carrots, stone fruits.)
  • Got our 5th covid jabs.

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April mostly revolved around painting our house.

We used to have this big crack in our living room ceiling, and the whole ceiling was sagging down quite a bit. Apparently the drywall was too old and damaged to push back up any more so Scott arranged for some plasterers to come and replace the whole ceiling in the living room area right before Easter. The plan was to buckle down and get tons of painting done over the long weekend after the ceiling was fixed up.

Unfortunately once they pulled the old plaster down they found that the ceiling joists were all coming apart. Some of them were only held on by the last centimeter of nail. Terrifying.

So the plasterers left and we had to find someone to help us push our ceiling back together whilst living in an extremely drafty, dirty, scary house. Thankfully Serge, our bathroom builder, was free on Easter Monday and thankfully the beams were able to bend back into the right place. Finally the plasterers came back and finished the job the following week.

After that whole ceiling debacle it felt like we spent every single spare moment of the rest of the month catching up on painting. I did a lot of the prep and cutting in, Scott did all of the rolling, including the living room ceiling, which took I think 4 coats all together and nearly killed him.

It was not the best time.. but we were trying to finish before the flooring people were booked to come.

Grey hair or paint? Who can tell?

The trim was the worst part. Hopefully it doesn’t all peel off.

We managed to get everything done in time. Well we still have to do the bedrooms. But all the main areas are done.

Still managed to fit in lots of knitting time. So many WIP pictures… but no pictures of the finished pieces. Will work on that.

Takeaway momo meal from Momo Shop in Hughesdale. Everything was delicious!!! We had four different types of momos (brisket, pork, chicken, and mushroom) and a really tasty side salad (sprouts and fermented greens). Would totally order this again.

Finally it was time for the flooring people to come. We moved all the furniture into the garage and bedrooms, and then headed out to Boronia for a few nights at Hotel Jorna.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Still keeping up with the usual stuff like knitting club, pickleball, trivia.
  • We went out for a friends birthday dinner at B’Churrasco, one of those Brazillian restaurants with unlimited meat. It was overwhelming, fun, and pretty delicious. I definitely had enough protein that night.
  • Met up with old work friends for dinner and comedy. We saw Wil Anderson. He talks very fast! We got good value out of our tickets, haha.

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I started going to the local knitting club at the library on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are my day off and the house was full of builders so I was trying to find ways to kill time outside the house. Knitting club is great. I’m not even the youngest one! There is a mix of ages and everyone is extremely nice. It’s also cool to talk to people that are extremely local and know all the stuff that is going on in the neighbourhood.

One of my coworkers moved to England so we had a good bye dinner for her at Pizza Religion. It was good. Funny, no one wanted to try my vegan cheese pizza…

Picture by Tristan

Scott and I went up to Bendigo for a day to go to the Lost Trades Fair with some Discord friends. The fair was huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge!!!! I don’t think we even saw everything. There was blacksmithing, wagon wheel making, wood turning, rocking chair making, weaving, watch making, lots more… all sorts of stuff. It was pretty cool. We didn’t end up buying anything from there, although I was tempted by a forged metal bottle opener.

We did buy stuff from Bendigo Woolen Mills though!! Scott got wool to make his crochet cardigan, which he is nearly finished now, and I got wool to match the speckly orange-red wool I bought during lockdown to make a knitted cardigan some day.

Nearly done, just needed paint.

The bathroom and laundry renos wrapped up. We had to spend a few nights in Boronia while they re-did the toilet, and had some minor dramas with a faulty laundry mixer tap. The painter came. And then done! I’ll post some before and after shots in a separate post.

Scott had a blood donation appointment in the city with free parking during Moomba, and I had just seen a targeted Instagram ad that said there was dairy-free soft serve vendor so I hopped in the car and went with him. I power-walked and people-dodged and got a cup of mango soft serve. It was nice! Especially for dairy-free!

Finished the infuriating socks. 1. They are too small once I stand up. I didn’t realise how much bigger your feet get when you stand up. 2. The colour changes!! I don’t mind the line on the right foot, because that’s just how the pattern works when you knit around the heel and then rejoin to the ankle part. But the left foot line is just because the yarn decided to suddenly change colour with no gradient!! WHY!!! All the other colour changes are nice and gradual. So it really annoys me that there is another harsh line at a different spot, and why did the entire foot part end up being boring grey. Argh.

If anyone is approximately size 7-7.5 womens.. you can have these.

I helped out at a special weightlifting comp. Not sure why I am grinning so much in this picture, maybe because Michael forgot what my name is during introductions and I was extremely uncomfortable.

My job was Loaders Assistant. Or World’s Laziest Loader. Basically George was extremely stressed out about being able to load fast enough (they were trying to make it a fast-paced competition) and wanted me to use the app and tell them what plates they were going to have to put on next and double check that they were doing everything right. I think I was helpful.

It was cool to see some high quality international lifting from up close. I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone lift over 200kg in real life before. And the Samoan team did a fun screamy shouty war dance thingy that was awesome! So many abs!!

Bis had us over for wood-fire pizza and relaxed games. I made myself a mostly cheeseless pizza (I did put a bit of parmesan) and got taught how to cook it myself. Yum!! My second one was a bit more burnt. We played a bit of Project L, a simple puzzle-y type game.

Couple more tasty meals. Swedish meatballs and quick pickle cucumber. And miso glazed roasted eggplant, with soba and smashed cucumber from Recipe Tin Eats cookbook.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Pickleball pretty much every Sunday. I am improving!!
  • Holiday planning with MEP and Paul. They are coming in May. Love having visitors!!
  • We got our car back, with a fresh new radiator and bumper.
  • We picked out flooring for the house. Next we paint, then get the floors done. Then done!