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Good things that happened in 2024:

  • We saw the Aurora Australis twice, kind of.
  • We saw the Cirque du Soleil show Luzia and was shocked and awed, mostly by the contortionist.
  • We went to a restaurant where you could eat unlimited pierogies, what a dream.
  • I went on an epic trip to Christmas Island where I saw amazing wildlife and learned a ton about photography.
  • We went on a pleasant weekend away in Torquay.
  • I saw a performance of Wallace and Gromit Wrong Trousers with a live brass band and it made me cry with happiness.
  • I competed in the Victorian Weightlifting Championships and nearly had a perfect competition.
  • I played a heck of a lot of pickleball.

Favourite Books:

I watched a lot less TV this year and instead started listening to audiobooks, which works a lot better with knitting as I never used to look at the TV enough to follow what was happening. That plus bed time reading.. I got through a lot more books than last year! These were my favourites:

  • Solito by Javier Zamora – intense true story of a little poop-obsessed kid trying to get from El Salvador to USA
  • In Memoriam by Alice Winn – man, WWI really sucked
  • Know My Name by Chanel Miller – the world is so exhausting and unfair
  • Five Little Indians by Michelle Good – another pretty sad book about kids that had to go to residential school in British Columbia
  • Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin – at times frustrating, but interesting story about friends that make video games
  • Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – multi-multi-multi-generational story about a family from Ghana to USA, my favourite part: when they said segregation wouldn’t have been so bad if the white people just left them alone
  • Greenwood by Michael Christie – another Canadian book, makes you grateful for nature
  • Educated by Tara Westover – shocking, fascinating story of a girl with insane Mormon parents

In summary, the more depressing or disturbing the better, especially if also set in Canada.

Board games:

I played 21 games this year, with 26 different people, in 11 locations.

14 were new games! Everdell, Unfair, Empire’s End, Scribbly Gum, Inis, Pollen, Brass: Birmingham, Disney Villainous, Portrayal, Quadrapolis, Habitats, Vivid Memories, Zoo Vadis, and The Fuzzies. Definitely not all of those new games were good. Brass was so confusing, Villainous was torturous with 6 players, and Zoo Vadis was SO annoying as a quiet person. But I really enjoyed Empire’s End, Pollen (going to make my own travel version), Quadrapolis, and even The Fuzzies (Jenga with pompoms).

Our most played game, by far, was Wingspan. Mostly on Steam with Scott and Rosemarie on the weekends. I played 39 games with Rosemarie over the year! (Of which she won 48% of them!!!)

PBs:

No snatch PBs. Clean and jerk 58kg -> 59kg in comp. Total 108kg -> 109kg. No other PBs on squats, deadlifts or presses. No wonder I felt like retiring.

Pickleball game has improved heaps but not as easy to measure.

Great new recipes:

  • Everything that you can put in an air fryer
  • Brussels sprouts are actually tasty!
  • Dumplings like you can get in Chinatown (I used peanut butter instead of sesame paste)
  • Dense bean salads, like this one

Favourite bird pics:

Because it was HARD WORK to get this picture.

Because it looks like a moody painting.

Knitting:

Year of the beanie, apparently! Learned colourwork, continental knitting, intarsia and cable knitting.

2024 goals: Use camera more!!! (That dusty thing in the corner?) Design bird sweaters. (Started this, then abandoned after I realised designing clothing patterns is an extremely difficult task due to people coming in many many different sizes.) Be more comfortable being me. (Maybe a bit TOO comfortable, jk.)

Last years thoughts: “Hopefully Scott ends up getting a new job soon so that we go back to traveling and doing more fun stuff again.” HA HA HA. :(

This years thoughts: While it mostly didn’t seem that bad at the time, upon reflection, 2024 wasn’t our best year. Unemployment x2, injury, chronic illness, saving up for trips that might not actually happen, and leaving weightlifting. But alas, we truck along. Hopefully we can get things back on track again in 2025.

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OMG I’m so behind in blogging I can’t really remember what we did on this trip. So how about I just show you some pictures.

Winkipop
Bells Beach
Amazing ENORMOUS seafood platter
White-faced Heron
Spicy momos at the farmers market
Boardgames at the Airbnb
Ramen dinner
Entertaining ourselves while we waited for brighter aurora
Lil’ smudge of aurora
I like that the signpost looks like a microscope pointer. Exhibit A: Milky Way
Knitting in the sun

Scott did a good job of planning the whole weekend (other than picking another Airbnb that has no bathroom door). It was a nice relaxing weekend away with delicious meals.

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Crafternoon knitting at Bonehead Brewing. With birria tacos from La Tortilleria. Plus Emi hooked us up with a replacement tv after ours broke (during the Olympics!!! PANIK!!). A+++ afternoon.

Back in couch potato action. Thank you Emi!!!

I went to a photography outing in Christmas Hills in the Yarra Valley. It was nice and lush and our group were the only people there.

Scarlet Robin
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

It drizzled quite a bit so I had to keep my camera in my jacket a lot. I called it a day after lunch.

I got free tickets to a comedy show through work so I planned a KMAJ. We went out for dinner at Epocha, which was closing. We had a lovely treat yo self dinner and then went to the comedy show. We wondered if we would know who any of the comics were, and while yes we did, it was probably one of our lowest ranked choice of who would be there (Hughesy). Ah well. It was ok.

I am over real plants. But this fake one from Ikea looks great in the adorable pot I got from the family for my birthday!

A particularly bountiful veggie box delivery. Pretty excited for it not to be orange season any more though… we’re not an orange family.

Ash loaned me her swift and I wound all the wool for Rosemarie’s sweater and my future sweater. It definitely worked better than Scott’s arms waving around.

Funfetti socks finished. Same as with every other pair of socks I’ve knit, I have some issues with them and learned a few lessons. I’m annoyed that each sock is a different colour. But the lesson I learned from that is maybe I should divide the balls in half and knit from the inside of the ball out. Or just wind them into several smaller balls and mix them around a bit. And maybe alternate skeins every couple rows. Hand dyed yarn is fun but has quirks.

Unpictured stuff:

  • We went to Torquay for a weekend, which I’ll make into its own post.
  • I had some kind of allergic reaction, possibly to mosquitos, where my face got all swollen for a couple days, especially my eyes, despite A LOT of antihistamines. Kind of worried that it might become a thing.
  • Scott’s friend Jarrod started playing pickleball with us and now he’s addicted. He plays more than us! It’s been fun seeing him more often again.
  • A very big day where we went out to Belgrave for Myles’ birthday lunch, then drove all the way to Macleod for an early dinner cooked by Sonika and her mum visiting from India, and then drove back in to Auburn to play pickleball. The best parts were seeing Myles’ face light up when he read his birthday coupon for going to see Transformers at the theatre with Uncle Scott, and Sonika’s mum’s famous homemade samosas with spicy dipping sauce.

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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.

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Last couple days.

Day 7

This day we switched with the other group. Boat Team went out on Hama’s boat to go snorkeling in four different locations. The first one was in a big cave (Hama was telling us about all sorts of crazy caves underneath Christmas Island.. they sound incredible. Some you have to scuba dive to get to, but then there are beaches INSIDE THE ISLAND). The second was over a shipwreck that has been reclaimed by coral and looks very interesting, and the third was just a place with epic coral and fish, very accessible. Saw a reef shark pretty close. When we stopped at the fourth stop I could see something dark in the water and Chris and Hama were telling me to get in quick, then they were throwing food into the water and like 20 HUUUUGE Giant Trevally were all around me. It was so cool. They’re like 1 meter long and THICC!

On the way back Hama dangled a orange float on a rope out the back of the boat and lots of boobies and juvenile frigatebirds came down to look at it. It was really cool and fun to try and get pictures while also trying to hang onto the boat.

They use these signs to help control the traffic during the crab migration.

After showers and lunch we went to look at this enormous strangler fig. You can go inside of it! There were tons of crabs in the forest. And tons of mosquitos. I did not stop moving.

We ended up at the Blowholes boardwalk at sunset. Funny how everything was perfectly timed to get epic photos eh? :D Because the whole island is made of limestone there are blowholes all along the coast. Hard to capture in a picture how neat it was. I love a good geological feature.

That evening we had a special fish dinner back by the pool at the hotel. Alex showed us the trip video that she had been secretly making of us the whole time… it was such a sweet surprise. Part 1. Part 2.

Day 8

Up before dawn again, why not, for one last sunrise shoot, this time at Margaret Knoll lookout. My sunrise pictures are a bit meh but we got some great last wildlife shots.

Abbott’s Booby. They sure didn’t seem endangered with how many were flying over! But this is one of the only places to see them. Very special.

Christmas Island Flying Fox. LOOK HOW CUTE HE IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t get over it. How lucky that they fly around in the daylight there and I happened to have my camera ready when this one flew RIGHT OVER US. This is my luckiest photo of the trip.

The elusive Golden Bosun. Quite far away again but I just like the composition of this photo.

A very curious juvenile Christmas Island Frigatebird checking us out.

Then we had a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs down by the pier, which tasted especially delicious after so many breakfasts of of thin white bread with Vegemite the other days.

Our last excursion was going to The Dales to see the blue crabs. They’re really cute, and really blue!

We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then we had a bit of time in town to buy souvenirs and snacks for the way home.

It’s not easy to live on Christmas Island!

The flight back to Perth stops on Cocos Island first, which adds another 1.5 hours onto the trip. I had my own row though so I was able to lie down. Cocos looks crazy from the air, it’s like a ring of teeny tiny islands with a lagoon in the middle. And we somehow landed an airplane there. I was surprised how many people got off and on.

Our flight was pretty delayed so I didn’t get to my hotel in Perth until like 2AM. It was very comfortable though (woohoo, good use of Qantas points) and I slept in very late. Then I spent the day wandering around Perth, dodging rain and looking for new birds. I only managed to see Western Wattlebird, and a couple Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, but no pics of either. I took myself out for a nice sushi dinner and then went back to the hotel for another big sleep. Finally the next day I took the train to the airport (so easy!) and flew back to Melbourne.

Overall the trip was extremely super awesome. I had a great time and saw so much cool stuff. I feel really lucky that I got to see Christmas Island as it is now, pretty much untouched by tourism. It’s such a beautiful place I’m sure it’ll get discovered/ruined some day. Chris’s tour was awesome and I hope I’m lucky enough to be able to go on another one of his some day.