by ·0 Comments

It was a busy month, this is going to be hella long!!

Carrying on the gingerbread house tradition with new friends. :) Carrying on the tradition of having WAY TOO MUCH candy! Building gingerbread structures in very high humidity is not ideal.. there were some struggles. It took a while to figure out which icing would work. But in the end we got there, mostly. Fun was had.

Poor Ash’s house already collapsed by the next morning due to moisture issues.

Scott and I decided that instead of getting each other Christmas presents we would finally get ourselves a stand mixer. I did some extreme couponing and we ended up getting a great price on a fancy Kenwood mixer on Black Friday. It is AWESOME. It has a scale built into it!! I made strawberry cupcakes to break it in.

We had our work Christmas lunch at the Espy this year. There was so much food this year it was ridiculous. I screamed when they brought out an entire dairy free pizza for me as a substitute for the little pieces of deep dish pizza, hahaha. We all brought so much stuff home.

I went to SO MANY Christmas parties. They were all great! Christmas BBQ at Sonika’s, Christmas pool party brunch at Naomi’s, Christmas dinner at Scott’s bowls club, and English Christmas lunch at Maz’s. So much eating. So much fun. I especially liked playing in the pool with Sonny’s kids, and duck fat roasted potatoes at Maz’s.

Some delicious party meals.

Pre-Christmas crochet time with Ava. #summeroflyingdown

Maybe a new Christmas tradition… cinnamon buns for Christmas morning. Next time I’ll use yeast that didn’t expire 4 years ago. They still turned out pretty delicious though!! I stood next to the dough being kneading in the mixer in awe for the entire 8 minutes.

Luca seemed to like the mimic that Scott made for him! He was going around chomping everyone’s limbs.

Christmas Day was the usual in Boronia, an insane amount of presents, an insane amount of food, backyard cricket, chats with family, pictures. No waterslide this year as Shaun’s family had gastro and no one wants that combination. :D

Our December #SMAJ was going to Day 2 of the cricket with Da Boys. I did enjoy the Boxing Day Test this year but I found it hard to see the ball and follow what was happening in real life. Plus it was very crowded. Scott did bring us thermos hot dogs though! We lasted four or five hours before both of us really needed to leave, and we got to see both teams batting and several wickets, so overall a successful outing.

Still playing heaps of pickleball all around the city. I checked out the Eastern Indoor Sports Centre which has actual pickleball lines, for a drills and structured play session. It was good!

Churning out Lake Reed cable knit hats. Fun to learn a new technique! I finished the pink/burgundy one in 2 days for a Kris Kringle gift.

Lake Reed cable knit hat, before and after blocking. Makes a big difference, doesn’t it?

Rosemarie’s sweater, finished! Before and after blocking. Really pleased how this one turned out.

Vacuum packed Bingo and sweater for travel to Squamish. I don’t think Bingo has fully recovered yet.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Scott has had many MRIs and doctors appointments. The good news is that he’s not concussed and at least we know what the problem is now, and it’s fixable, the bad news is that it’s going to take a little while to get through all the steps, and he might need surgery. He’s still uncomfortable but I guess he’s learning more how to balance lying down time and doing some activities. We’re hoping that we’ll get some updates this week or next week, after all of these public holidays.
  • We went to trivia at a new place, which is always a novelty, but it was very loud and the seats have no backs and my (vegan) pizza was very wet.
  • Our belated November #SMAJ was going to see the new Wallace and Gromit movie at the theatre with the Lonard’s. Ava was giggling the whole time. I loved it too.

by ·0 Comments

We had a fun board game day at our house where we played Lords of Waterdeep with all the expansions and had a mega sandwich buffet with good bread from Baker Bleu, and Golden Soup with crunchy chick pea topping.

We were going to have another boardgame night the following weekend with different friends but ended up having to cancel because I got mega sick. I thought it was just a bad cold at first, then started to feel better mid-week, even well enough to go to training on Wednesday morning, but then I got much much more sick after that and ended up taking the entire week off work. I completely lost my sense of taste and smell for about a week as well. But tested negative on several different covid tests! Weird.

Luckily I was well enough to go to watch the Geelong-Brisbane finals game with Scott and Donna and her whole family. (I mega bundled myself.) We had great seats. The kids were a bit devo when Geelong lost but Scott was elated as that meant his team was making it to the Grand Final again (and he had a connection to get a ticket).

Then Scott started to feel sick! I was worried for him because it took me a full 9 days to feel well enough to do anything and he had just spent $800 on a Grand Final ticket that was about 5 days away at that point. But out of sheer will and determination, he seemed to have cured himself in time and he had a great day at the Grand Final (Brisbane won, by a lot).

He did not feel well enough to go to the showing of Wallace and Gromit Wrong Trousers with live brass band with me during the week, so I took my friend Charlie instead and we had a great time. The band played a a bunch of random amusing songs at the beginning, and then they played the whole soundtrack along with the movie on the big screen. I LOVED IT SO MUCH. And then we got Japanese food for lunch near by and it was an excellent day overall.

Rosemarie’s sweater progress! That thin blue tubing (barber cord) can attach right onto the ends of your needles so you can make the circumference big enough to try stuff on as you go. I ordered it for a few dollars off Amazon. Neat! I decided to do the neck and sleeves before I continued on with the body, which is different to how the pattern is written but I think helps with keeping motivation up by getting the harder parts out of the way sooner.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Scott took Myles to see Transformers One at the movies for his birthday. I was still sick so I stayed home, which deeply concerned Myles at first… until he remembered that I could watch it on Disney Plus later. Hehehe.

by ·0 Comments

Agh I’m super far behind again.

I turned 38. The day before my birthday we went out for dinner with a couple friends at Rasa, of which I took no pictures. But we had a tasty meal and good chats. Then on my actual birthday I had the day off, so I had time to go to Chaddy and get my free Boost juice and free doughnuts. :D Then I went into the city to meet Scott who had told me we were going to be doing an adventurous maze at Marvel. It was more like an art exhibit though and we were in and out in like 20 minutes. At least I got to get the train home on the same ticket? Then Scott cooked up perogies for dinner, my favourite.

We had a family lunch in Boronia. Jemma got lots of pastries from Drom which we chopped into bits so we could try everything.

The next week the Lonards were in town! Everyone came to have brunch around the corner from our house before Scott had to go play bowls. And then the next day we went to Luca’s birthday party. It was cold and rainy, but he seemed to have a good time anyway.

Our July #SMAJ was going to a food convention. Scott thought it was in a completely different location. Once we made it there, we got to try A LOTTTTTT of samples. We bought a few things… some low-lactose cheeses, seaweed mayo, vegan cheese sauce, and a slice of tart from Tart Anon. And we got some onigiri too.

Date night sushi train and fro yo. These kind of things stress me out a bit because it’s hard to keep track of how much you are spending, but we were very responsible. I love mochi.

We went to a games potluck at Bis’s of which I have no pictures, again. We played Pollen, and The Fuzzies (like silly jenga with pompoms), and Vivid Memories (which we abandoned). I made a big tray of kimbap but not many got eaten, so that’s what Scott and I had for dinner. I was pretty happy with them!!

Ash, Scott and I took a day off work to go the Bendigo Wool Show. We thought we’d take the train so it would be low stress and we could knit the whole time. Unfortunately due to me cutting things too close, we had to run all around the station trying to find the platform and missed the train on the way there. Oops. Anyway eventually we were on the way and the train was nice and quiet and comfortable (and full of knitters!).

Sheep!

After a long day of looking at sheep products we got on the train to go home. The train was a lot more full but at least we got seats together. While we were on the way back we started to hear about this Blue Screen of Death/Crowdstrike issue that was happening back at everyone’s work. And then the train stopped at Clarkefield Station and they announced that they had no idea when they would get going again and we should feel free to arrange our own transport from there. Unfortunately we were still like 80km from home in the middle of the country!! After like an hour of waiting Ash asked her partner to start driving towards us but that was going to take a while from their place and also he’d just worked a super long shift. Eventually the train started moving again and J picked us up from Footscray and eventually eventually we got home, and all vowed that next time we will just drive.

I easily could have spent $1000 haha. But in the end, most of what we got was from trusty ol’ Bendigo Woolen Mills.

I stress-knit a good chunk of this hat on the train, haha.

July was a big knitting month. The pink thing is a modified Musselburgh hat (ribbing in the middle section), which I somehow managed to trap a Mike & Ike in the inside heheheheeee. And the funfetti thing is the start of a sock. So fun!

Unpictured things:

  • We played so much pickleball I started getting a sore shoulder. But the best cure for any injury is to book a physio appointment because by the time you are in the waiting room for your appointment, you will definitely feel much better.
  • We did a pickleball tournament at GESAC. I didn’t really talk about it much because we lost every single game. We played a little bit worse than usual but everyone else was a lot better than us. It was… moderately… fun.
  • I got called into work. That would not be exciting at my old job but it’s so rare these days. (Fine by me.)
  • The Olympics started and I watched all of it. The timezone suited us very well here in Melbourne. We watched a lot of gymnastics, table tennis, badminton, BMX, and of course weightlifting.

by ·0 Comments

Jemma invited us to go to the roller rink with her family. It was the first time I’ve been on rollerblades since I was about 12 years old I think. It was fun! I didn’t fall at all. Myles was so funny on his rollerskates… he is very brave, but doesn’t glide much. Instead he sort of runs, quite fast, in a perpetual state of Almost Falling Down. He did fall down about 9000 times but he just gets right back up and keeps going. He was a sweaty little boy.

Another Birdlife photography outing. This time we went to three different spots in Altona, and Scott came too! It was a good photography day for once. We saw lots of birds, including quite a few new birds, and the lighting conditions were great so I actually got some good pictures. A pleasant day overall.

Black Swans
White-headed Stilts, Common Greenshanks, and some ducks
Black-shouldered Kite
Black-shouldered Kite and some mouse guts.
Golden-headed Cisticola
Little Pied Cormorant

We also saw a big Tiger Snake. Snek.

Melbourne v Hawthorn at the MCG. We won. Fun game. I love getting cheap General Admission tickets and sitting up close around the goals.

We went to see the Cirque du Soleil show Luzia. I really enjoyed it!!! It was just a lot of fun. My favourite part was the contortionist. That guy is so flexible!!!!!!!

We didn’t go anywhere for Easter but it was still an excellent weekend. Cirque du Soleil, many many games of Everdell, a family lunch with all of the nephews, Jen’s birthday gathering. And no traffic!

I finally stopped playing Stardew Valley and got back to work on my Petricor sweater. I just had to finish the second sleeve, so I bundled it up into a ball to make it easier to turn all the time.

We went out for Malaysian food to celebrate Scott finally getting a job. The restaurant was a bit strange but the food was great. We also had pickles and Hainanese chicken and rice. Funny story though, Scott ended up accepting a second job and quitting the first one after six days of work. Awkward but a good result. He is now fully employed and seems to be enjoying the new role. Scotty Two Jobby is now Scotty One Jobby.

Unpictured things:

  • I competed in the VWA Open #1 at Phoenix. I did kind of meh. I snatched 50kg, which is pretty good I guess, but then I only clean and jerked 56kg, which was disappointing. I’ve clean and jerked 60kg in the gym a couple times but have yet to pull it off in a competition. I was feeling strong and ready but didn’t execute. I was so frustrated afterwards.
  • Bis had everyone over on a really hot day to play games. I asked what time he wanted us to come over and he said 10:00AM!!! We played a game of Welcome To (it really is a good game for slightly larger groups, thank you Lesley for the recommendation) and then they were going to play a new game called Approaching Dawn: The Witching Hour, that could only have 6 players so Jen and I elected to just lie on the couches instead. I think we made the right choice because the game sounded painful. It took so long we had to leave after that. Even though I barely played any games and Scott got stuck playing a very long not-really-that-fun game it was still a good day because we could blast the AC in the common room as much as we wanted and I didn’t have to do chores.
  • Our March #SMAJ was a throwing lesson with instructor Scott. Because I don’t know how to throw properly. He did a good job, he had all sorts of drills written down. I didn’t know how to place my feet properly or anything. The next day I was quite sore through the side of my ribs haha. I guess I don’t do very many twisty exercises.

by ·0 Comments

So late. Oops.

January 2024

Scott’s school friend Jono came to visit and they got the whole gang back together. This picture makes me laugh because Scott looks so short.

Jono’s daughter really like the budgie that Scott crocheted for her.

Our January #SMAJ was going out for dinner and watching a drone show put on by the Aquarium in the city. I don’t know how well you can see it in the picture but they made different shapes like penguins and sharks and stuff that moved up and down the Yarra. It was kinda neat, although short.

And then (vegan) ice cream on the way home. I like Piccolina vegan pistachio ice cream because it’s actually a bit creamy, rather than most of the other dairy free options around here which are just fruity sorbets.

For the Australia Day long weekend I went to the Phoenix BBQ and then headed straight from there to meet my friends in Phillip Island where we just played games and ate food for the entire weekend. It was extremely chill and nice.

Still going to trivia about once a month. We had a really good run where we kept winning and didn’t have to pay for our dinners for quite a while. The venue is very cold though haha. Can’t believe Scott wouldn’t give me his sweatshirt.

Unpictured things:

  • This year was a Small Christmas, but Jess and family came to visit in early January so we did the whole Christmas again with them. Actually it might have been bigger than actual Christmas. I enjoyed making friendship bracelets with Ava. I did not enjoy having to go to work the next day.

February 2024

I organised this Big Day where I got to eat a delicious Cubano sandwich for lunch, then go to a crafternoon with my friends all afternoon. Then Scott came and met me and we shared a vegan banh mi pizza, then went to pickleball, and then got vegan ice cream on the way home. FUN!!

More Palestine rallying with Pitty and Rob. I enjoyed this poster.

We were lucky to be invited to Doreen’s house for Lunar New Year. It was SO DELICIOUS. We did that tossing salad thing for luck (the higher you toss the better!) and her husband and friends made an amazing spread. My favourite was a Singaporean dish they called Carrot Cake which is like taking the turnip cakes from dimsum and stir frying them with eggs and sauce, making it even more delicious. There was also pork belly, wings, noodles, bao, desserts, and a million other tasty things. I am so spoiled.

I went on a Birdlife photography outing to The Basin. We didn’t see that many birds but the Nankeen Night Heron was a new one for me.

We went to Kathy and Mischa’s to have dinner and play games. It was the first time we’ve seen their house that they’ve been building. It’s really nice! They made delicious homemade ravioli for dinner and we played two games: Portrayal, a game that someone has to describe a picture really fast and everyone else has to draw it, and Welcome To. Kathy was a pro urban planner.

February #SMAJ was going out for peking duck on a very very hot day. Was tasty. I made Scott reenact this gif which made me cry-laugh.

I went to the button shop and a 90-year old salesman helped me pick these buttons for my cardigan. It took a long time. He kept rejecting all the ones I pulled out and he moved verrrrrrrrry slowly. However, in the end, I think we made a nice decision.

Unpictured things:

  • We played pickleball at like 4 new locations. Every location has its pros and cons. Location, parking, temperature, scary ceiling fans, confusing floor markings, weird people, etc. Luckily pickleball is really growing here and new venues are popping up all the time, including one extremely close to our house.
  • Scott did about 15 interviews for different jobs. Things really picked up a lot once the holidays were over.