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July was busy!!

For my 40th birthday we rented out Pickleholic and invited every single one of my friends to come and play pickleball. So many different groups all made an effort to come and it made me feel very special. We had tons of family, including the Lonards who came up from Sydney, work friends, weightlifting friends, pickleball friends, Discord friends, board game friends, old friends, and new friends.

Unfortunately I only remembered to take two photos on the day.

Almost everyone had a try at some point!! Love it!!

We got banh mi delivered in and had tons of snacks as well. And a Costco cake. Scott made a speech, and I disassociated while they sang Happy Birthday to me. Please do not perceive me. :P

Overall I had a blast and felt very spoiled and I hope everyone else had fun too. A good start to my 40s.

The next day we celebrated Luca’s birthday in Boronia. The kids smashed the pinata that we forgot to do at the party. It’s probably a good thing we forgot to do it at Pickleholic because the pinata was very durable and the candy got a bit pulverized and made a huge mess.

The fam went to watch Scott at hockey. It was fun to see him play and see how much he’s improved since the last time I went, but everyone’s favourite part of the game was when he got a penalty and had to sit in the penalty box.

We did some dogsitting while Priscilla went to Adelaide. This is Fanta. She spends most of her day lying down on the floor or the couch. A very chill doggy. She has pyjamas! I am not really a dog person but I didn’t mind this dog. In fact I did feel quite sad after she got picked up.

Quest For El Dorado
Everdell Silverfrost

I got a bunch of new board games for my birthday! The Quest For El Dorado is right up my alley as it is relatively simple but can get strategic! I also like that it is El Dorado when that’s where we used to live in Vancouver. And Everdell Silverfrost is great as well, as I always sort of thought that the original Everdell was a bit too simple, and this version adds a bunch of chaos elements that make every game slightly different. We still have a couple more new games to try as well!

I attempted to make a red velvet cake for Ash’s birthday but accidentally added BLACK food colouring instead of red!! It came out a really appetizing shade of swampy green. But it tasted great and was still probably my most successful layer cake ever. We won at trivia that night too so overall that was a great evening.

This year we decided to make a whole weekend of the Bendigo Wool Show. We booked an Airbnb and had a great little weekend away. We went to the wool show on two different days, which took a lot of the urgency out of the shopping. We scoped out options on the first day, and then figured out exactly what we needed, and then went back with a plan the second day.

Highlights for me were all the beautiful hand dyed sock yarns, beautiful gradient packs of mini skeins, chips with cheese and gravy (as close to poutine as I’m gonna get here), the little wooden drawer thingy I got from the woodworkers association, craft cinema, Dani using a chair as a swift, pattern sharing, the immaculate lawn at the airbnb, and the fix for the car breaking down only costing $33.

This was my haul. Mostly sock yarn and the blue wool will be for a shawl.

Scott organised a blind taste test event for me as a #SMAJ activity. They do stuff like this on Masterchef Australia all the time and we always thought it would be fun. He had different categories and I had to name the flavours/types. Like cheese, Pringles flavours, Oreo varieties, juice types. And dark chocolate that I had to guess the percentage. I did better than I expected! The only thing that really confused me was the apple juice, it just tasted like pure sugar but I couldn’t figure out what flavour.

Priscilla and I did yet another pickleball tournament, at Pickleholic. It was a tough tournament! We only won one game and lost three. Was still fun though and we know lots of stuff to work on.

I love double hand backhand but it’s starting to hurt? I’m not sure what to do about this.

I finished my second Anyday Sweatshirt! It still needs a final blocking but I’ve been wearing it heaps already. It came out bigger than I intended but is actually so cozy like this I don’t even mind. I raced to finish it in time for a chance to win prizes in a knitalong, but unfortunately I did not win anything. I suppose the motivation was good though otherwise it probably still wouldn’t be done.

I made this little onigiri pouch as requested by Rose. It looks cute in this picture but in real life it’s not great.. it’s way too thick and the top can’t even close. I will make my own version sometime… maybe in 2029.

Unpictured Stuff:

  • 50 million physio appointments
  • Scott finished working

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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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Locking in and getting caught up on blogging.

We went to see Book Of Mormon. I am not a big musical person but it’s pretty unique, we enjoyed it! (Maybe not as much as the lady next to Scott who was laughing hysterically the entire time lol). I wore my knitted cardigan that I made two years ago and never wear.

Momofest was the best day out I’ve had in ages. I LOVE THIS FESTIVAL. There were at least 30 different stalls selling all different types of momos. We went with a group of friends so we each would go buy a plate of momos from a different place, and then regroup and share everything, so I got to try sooo many different types. Everyone was super friendly, it wasn’t crowded, and the lines were very manageable. A dude explained every single item on the menu at a dessert stall for me, and we decided to try one that was made of carrot, almonds and raisins. Always neat to try something new. Excellent day.

Jen organised for a bunch of us to go to a watercolour workshop where we painted some muchrooms. I haven’t used watercolours in agesss so it was great to get a bit of a refresher. We went out for brunch afterwards as well.

We went to watch the Melbourne-Brisbane game at the MCG. We sat with Scott’s Brisbane friends in the Brisbane section, so I felt even more weird in my new EXTREME PUFFY Melbourne coat but Melbourne won and also I was very cozy so yay. :)

Priz and I did an outdoor evening tournament in Noble Park. I forgot how nice it is to play pickleball outside. It’s way quieter and if it’s not windy it’s really calm and serene. I think I will try to play more pickleball outside this summer. We didn’t make it to the finals but it was still an enjoyable evening.

We got our travel vaccines for Borneo and went out for laksa afterwards. We have sooo many anti-malaria tablets.

I felted my slippers! I thought they came out too small but after squeezing my feet into them they actually sort of molded to my exact foot size and actually they are sooooo cozy and I never want to take them off any more. Some people put grippy stuff on the bottom of their slippers but I love to slide so I’ve not bothered. I don’t get to slide in pickleball any more so at least let me slide into the kitchen.

I also started making a pair of mittens with wool from last years Bendigo Wool Show. It’s 4 ply held double and I love how the variegation came out! It reminds me of newspaper.

I realised I had made a mistake on my cable knit blanket and had to undo several hours worth of knitting. Devastating. All fixed now though.

I think I’m about 70% through. Getting there!

My favourite dairy-free soft serves in Melbourne at the moment. Miguelitos ube soft serve Oreo sundae sub vegan coconut drizzle. Not so sweet, vaguely healthy. And Kariton soy soft serve Biscoff sundae. Super rich and satisfying.

Not very photogenic but radish cake and shrimp rice noodle roll. Really nice.

We had some nice food at home this month too. I roasted some pork for cubano sandwiches. Doreen messaged me out of the blue and asked if I would like some freshly caught tuna. UM YES. It was soo nice, really melted in the mouth.

Finally figured out how to make Fannie Farmer cookies in Australia and not have them spread out too far. It’s my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe but I don’t know if the brown sugar is different here, or if it is the differences in measuring spoons, but it took a while to make them work again.

Unpictured Stuff:

  • We had a casual Easter lunch in Boronia.
  • We went to the craft cinema with Ash and watched Muriel’s Wedding and My Big Fat Greek Wedding whilst knitting.
  • We went out for dinner with Michael and Gina while Gina was about the pop with babby. It was a nice dinner except for when I thought I’d put our order through on my phone but it actually hadn’t gone through and actually Scott was eating Gina’s meal. LOLOLOL.
  • We planted garlic in the garden boxes again.

This month looks really fun on reflection but actually rapidly went downhill and I ended up in burnout and ended up feeling absolutely horrible at the end of the month. But I learned a lot from this and am doing much better now.

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Scott took me to the night market at Queen Vic for a #SMAJ. We had a Sri Lankan roti stir fry, a lobster roll, some Filipino skewers, and a strawberry lemonade. It’s kind of fun to be able to have so many different cuisines at the same time, although it wasn’t cheap! We went at 5PM so at least there weren’t any lines.

We had a big weekend of pickleball at the Pickleholic Autumn tournament. On the Saturday Scott competed with Jarrod in the morning, and then I competed with Eloise in the afternoon. We went up a category so it was pretty hard!! Especially because my OG partner got injured the day before and Eloise and I only got organised at the last second. But fun was had. Then on Sunday Scott and I competed together in the lower division and we made the finals but lost both final games and finished 4th. We were happy that we played pretty well together that day though (doesn’t always happen).

A couple weeks later I did another tournament at Pickle Play Dingley with Priscilla and we crushed it!!! We squeaked into the finals, but then won both final games and came home with a gold medal! The final game was our first time playing with an umpire and a bunch of people watching, which made us very nervous at first but eventually we remembered to talk to each other again. It was a very fun day with lots of laughs and making friends, as Priscilla is very friendly.

Scott won a different tournament with Jarrod that evening as well, so it was a very good day of pickleball for our household!

We went to the Melbourne – Carlton game with low expectations, as everyone expected Melbourne to lose every game this season, but we won! Also, Scott stood up and caught the ball in a perfect mark and it was very funny and exciting. Everyone around us cheered.

I got drenched in a surprise Melbourne rainstorm while pumping gas and had to show up to my hair cut appointment looking like a drowned rat, haha.

I think my team might have a bit of a sugar addiction…

Chocolate is too expensive so I decided to try and make marshmallows for the nieces and nephews for Easter. It was pretty sticky and messy but they came out great and the kids seemed to love them!

I also tried making homemade pasta for the first time. We’ve got a pasta roller attachment for our stand mixer but not a cutter yet so we have to slice the noodles freehand. I also made a slow cooked beef ragu and it all turned out extremely delicious if I do say so myself.

I finished my scrappy stripey socks while on our Guildford trip. As per usual I am not that happy with the way the variegated yarn worked out. I probably should have just skipped over the weird brown section of the wool.

I used duplicate stitch to stitch two loons onto the cashmere gloves. I designed the loon pattern using my old cross stitch software, with the grid modified into rectangles instead of perfect squares. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out although it was not easy to do on a pair of gloves! I had to use a cookie cutter to keep the wrist opening open enough to be able to reach inside. I am planning on using this technique in the future on some kids sweater designs. Eventually.

I also worked on a pair of felted double layer slippers using chunky 100% wool. It was kind of a fun project although the (free) pattern sucked. I should probably write my own version.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Jono visited from Scotland and they went golfing and he came over for a very impromptu dinner.
  • April interviewed me for a school project about growing up in another country. I talked about having to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow of course.
  • We saw Project Hail Mary. Both of us enjoyed the audiobook. The movie was fun too.
  • Went to Braeside for a bird photography outing with my new lens and saw enough birds that I’ll make that it’s own post.
  • We went to Guildford for a #SMAJ weekend! I’ll write it up in another post too!