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Me and Ava reading Rudie Nudie. MAN, she loves that book. Also Ava is very cute.

Cristoforo’s sweet ute and house that he is renovating in Adelaide. He’s pretty much gutting the entire place, it’s crazy. Lots and lots of work to do still.

7 Wonders, all the time.

Me with the birthday treats from the flight attendants on our flight back to Australia. We got champagne, cheese, ice cream, pastries, chocolate etc. Pretty nice!

Most of our haul from Canada. Yeah….. we did a lot of shopping. But all of these things are either not available in Australia or significantly cheaper in Canada. Example: embroidery thread is $1.29/skein here, and with a coupon I got them for $0.50/skein at Michael’s. Another example: a hockey helmet that fits Scott’s giant head… not easy to find here.

Jemma did a really nice job on the cake and decor for Vicky’s 60th birthday party. I really like the icing succulents!

I stole this picture from Facebook. The finalists from the Carcassonne tournament that Scott and I competed in. We were very confident going in, but didn’t end up doing that well. I beat Scott though, so all is well. It was so so so intense, my heart rate was probably 150+ for the entire day. We will be much better prepared for next year, and ready to get aggressive on turn #1.

Scott got me this cup and supplies to make Moscow Mules for our copper anniversary. What a delicious drink.

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Scott and I had lunch at Pokéd during the break from our boardgame tournament a couple weekends ago. I thought a good protein and omega-3 fatty acid filled meal would be good for our brains, which were feeling pretty taxed after a stressful morning of competition Carcassonne.

We both had The Hawaiian, which has sashimi salmon and tuna, pineapple salsa, pickled cabbage, edamame, seaweed salad, wonton crisps, roasted sesame over rice, except I switched out my pineapple for more cabbage (should have asked for more seaweed salad but I got paralyzed under pressure at the register).

I thought it was pretty nice! It definitely could have used more fish, but that’s not surprising. The small bowl was very filling. The seaweed salad and edamame were my favourite toppings (other than the fish, of course).

I also tried kombucha for the first time! It tasted interesting. Kind of burned my throat that was already very sore though, so I didn’t have much.

Pokéd Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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We went out for thin crust pizza on our anniversary this year (#7!). I had work and weightlifting training that day so I just picked somewhere close by to our house. I’d had Pizza Religion on my To Eat list for a while, but when I checked the Zomato page the night before I saw a lot of mediocre reviews, due to bad service. Ah well, we still wanted to give it a try.

Garlic Prawn – prawn, confit garlic, cherry tomato, fior de latte, basil, lemon

Nice and zippy from the lemon and basil. Nice thin crust. Could have used more cheese imo.

Lamb – pulled lamb shoulder, olive tapenade, oregano, tomato, feta

Very meaty! Pretty tasty. Scott loved it, not surprising because he really likes lamb. We couldn’t taste the olive tapenade at all.

It did take a while to get the waiter to actually take our order, and get our bill at the end. The pizza was nice, but not life-changing. Drinks are cheap, but small.

Pizza Religion Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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About a month ago I had a very bad case of analysis paralysis. As I often do, I frantically messaged Rosemarie.

She helped me solve all my little problems, and also figure out that in general I need to:

  1. Do more new and scary things.
  2. Meet some more people.
  3. Take more advantage of only working part time while it lasts.

Isn’t she wise.

So I did! I’ve got a few new things on the go at the moment.

First I signed up for a picture framing short course through Scott’s mum’s work. I thought it might be useful because all my cross stitch projects come out in random non-standard sizes, and as a result almost all of my finished stitches are rolled up in a box under my bed instead of displayed.

The first class we learned about materials and cut mat boards, second class we cut more mat board bevels, and foam core and mounted things together. This week we cut the wood for our frames and glued them together, and the last week we cut the glass and put everything together. It was fun! I finished two frames. The instructor is very knowledgeable and gave us a lot of info. The tools to do it on my own would be a bit of an investment though.

Have you ever seen 2.5 kg plates before?? Lol.

Second I joined an Olympic weightlifting club. It is very intense and scary there. Everyone is extremely strong. There are people training for the Commonwealth Games and stuff. The first night I went, THIS GUY was there!! He is so awesome. Anyway so now I have a coach who is teaching me snatch and clean and jerk from scratch. It’s very cheap and I can go as much as I want, which is pretty cool. And everyone I’ve met so far has been very friendly. I think it will be good for me to have some goals again, now that I don’t have skeleton in my life. Hopefully I can do some local competitions at some point.

I also thought maybe I could try and cook more elaborate meals? These were homemade pork and shrimp siu mai. They were yum. I got a library card too so I could get a bunch of fancy cookbooks for some new ideas. Any ideas for labour intensive but not cost intensive meals would be very welcomed! (Just typing that out makes me realize that I should make perogies v soon, especially since they don’t really exist here.) (brb crying)

So life is very busy these days. This is good.

Next weekend I’m going to Adelaide for Cassia’s baby shower. I don’t think they actually expected me to accept the invitation but flights were only $33!!! So… YOLO, I’m going.

And then a couple days after that we go to Ottawa!!! We are very excited to escape the cold here and get some quality family/friends/cottage/Canada time in.

PS fish and chip shop deep fried Mars bars are amazing. We shared a few at work the other day. :D

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Not dead, but yeah…

I’m just going to do a point form recap of the last couple months.

  • We went to Ballarat for an afternoon to hang out with Jono, and two fellow KJ’s, Kirsten and Kiera, who were visiting from Scotland. Was fun.
  • Jess and Michael and Ava came to visit. Twelve of us went to go see the Lego Batman movie. We took up an entire row and the movie was actually really funny.
  • Scott got his sleep apnea machine and now he doesn’t twitch every 30 seconds while sleeping.
  • Scott and I, and Jemma, Damien and April drove to Sydney for Easter weekend family shenanigans. We ate lots of delicious foods, did some touristing, lots of playing in parks, a bit of shopping. It was a fun long weekend.

A & A on the ferry to Manly.

This statue was actually burning hot.

  • Scott and I did a small chunk of the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk. We planned on doing more but forgot about things like sunset and darkness. At least we got some nice pictures in the magic light and the part we did walk was very nice.
  • I had a pretty good interview for a full time job at a different hospital but didn’t get it. :(

  • I babysat April while Scott, Damien and Jemma went to the rugby on Anzac Day. We played some games and read some books and watched videos on the iPad. I got her to go to bed but she didn’t sleep. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Still getting the glitter from her boots out of the couch hahaha.
  • We bought a BBQ.

  • Scott got us tickets to watch footy in a VIP box through work. It was awesome!!! I drank all the free ciders and we ate all the food. Dees won too, although apparently it was a terrible quality game (didn’t notice/care). A+ would VIP box again.

  • It was also one of those rare times you get to go out on the oval when the game is done for a kick to kick. There are footies flying everywhere and it’s hella scary. But you do what you gotta do for a selfie, right?
  • Scott had a couple interviews and got a new job!!! He is much happier now. And he gets free juice!
  • I hosted a Stitch and Bitch at our (tiny) apartment. It went well though. I made (pressure cooker) pulled pork, and mac and cheese for lunch, and finished a few more squares for our granny square blanket.
  • We went to my friends 30th birthday party and ate her amazing chocolate cake and hung out with my new friends.
  • Many many trivia nights.
  • Many many yoga classes.
  • Masterchef AU started again so that’s television sorted every night. It’s on five days a week this year, but each episode is like 1 to 1.5 hours!!!!! The team challenge episode that we went to was on the other night but I couldn’t see myself. :(

I have a few more recent things to talk about but this is getting long so I will leave it for another post. It’s already written though so it shouldn’t take two months to post this time. :D