October was a pretty routine month… lots of pickleball, trivia, a lot of appointments. We had two catch up #smaj events, one was a wine tasting evening at Scott’s bowls club, and the other was writing wills, lol. I didn’t take pictures of either.
Scott and I signed up for three successive pickleball tournaments. The first one was in October and we did… fine. We won two games, and lost three games including getting pickled in one. We didn’t make the finals. Some fun was had.
We went to a pen convention with high hopes of seeing cute stationary and picking up some Christmas gifts. In reality we barely saw anything because it was sooooooooooooooooo crowded. And Scott battled through the crowds to finish the stamp rally but they had already run out of prizes, like an hour after it opened. Then we got heavily rained on. Not the most successful outing.
I started knitting a tank top. It’s a 4-ply blend of merino wool, alpaca, and silk. Rosemarie thinks a wool tank top is funny but it’s actually very light feeling!
I finished the neon barf hat. This one is hand-dyed merino wool and it’s super soft and cozy.
My first time cooking with jackfruit. I made a jackfruit bulgogi bibimbap, which would have been vegan if I didn’t plop a fried egg on top haha. It was delicious!
My work held a Halloween Bake Off and this was my entry. It had a brownie base and spiced butter cookie tombstones, with Oreo dirt and coconut grass. I thought it turned out pretty good! I got a lot of compliments but didn’t win any prizes.
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.
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.
Delicious Malaysian food at Pappa Laksa for my birthday. We had Beef Rendang Nasi Lemak, Pappa Special Laksa, Ice Cendol and Teh Tarik. I felt like I was back in Malaysia (besides the price, lol). Now that I’m thinking about this meal again I want to go to the restaurant again.
Happy 15th anniversary! We just went out for a casual lunch after pickleball because the real celebration was coming later (I’ll make another post).
Even though I vowed to drive to the Bendigo Wool Show after our experience last year, Ash convinced me to take the train again, with some modifications. We drove to Southern Cross, made sure to allow more time to find the platform, and crossed our fingers there would be no global technology meltdowns on that particular day. It all worked out, we had a very nice day out in the country and saw lots of cool stuff.
Loved these cute lil amigurumi vegetables!
I bought way more stuff this time haha. The yarn stash is plentiful at the moment. I told Scott to tell me off if I try to buy anything more now. I swear I have plans for all of it!! (Just need to quit my job so I have time to knit all of it…)
Lara invited me to go to the Peninsula Hot Springs with her and her mum. Very glad she suggested we pay a little extra to go on the adults only bathing side because we had a really lovely relaxing day in there, despite the weekend crowds. Our spa lunch was yum as well. We stayed for a long time!! My muscles felt very relaxed after that day.
More Critter Kitchen! It really is a cute and fun game. And pretty unique mechanisms compared to our other games, but not too hard either.
Scott has to get glasses. He hasn’t picked a pair yet. Rosemarie thinks this makes him look like that shooter guy from the last Olympics. I see it.
I had to go into the city to see my allergy doctor, finally a chance to try one of the places on my To Eat map that is only open weekday lunch times. I went to Warkop and had the Beef Brisket Rendang and Pickle sandwich which had way more cheese on it than I was expecting, but was really tasty. I would like to go back to try the Satay Chicken sandwich, but I only need to see the allergy doctor once per year!! Long wait.
Finished these stripey socks for Scott. Self striping yarn is very fun and easy.
The start of a hat for Lauren. The brief was “colourful hat”. Hope he likes it!
I am experimenting with crochet again for a commission project, and while I have managed to get my crojo back, I don’t know if I like how the piece is turning out so I might give up on this project. Need to discuss.
Unpictured stuff:
Sally had a crafternoon at her new apartment and cooked us a FEAST!!! There was so much food, and she made pretty much everything lactose free so I could eat it all! My favourite was the lactose free cheesecake. We are truly spoiled. I knitted Lauren’s hat, and Scott ended up playing Magic with da boys.
I started using my fitness passport to go to the pool near my work to swim and use the hot tub after work. If I use my imagination, I can pretend I’m back at the Peninsula Hot Springs. :D
We went to see Jurassic Park as our July #SMAJ. It was very stupid.
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.
