Tag: pickleball

2022 In Review

January 2, 2023 by Katrina·3 Comments

2022 was pretty great. I managed to have two whole months of sister time!

Good things that happened in 2022:

Rosemarie came to Australia! It was so nice. We did so many fun things, ate so many delicious things, played so many games. We went to Wilsons Prom and Fraser Island. I wish she could come every year.
Solidified friendships with Discord pals. Lots of fun parties, games days, crafternoons, and meals out.
We finally got to go to Canada and see family and friends after more than 3 years away.
We went on a few small trips to Flowerdale, Sydney, and the Grampians.
We learned to play pickleball and became slightly obsessed.
I learned to knit sweaters.
I committed to lactose free life and feel a lot better.
I went on an epic trip by myself to Queensland. Already brainstorming another one…
We got invited to quite a few BIG parties: three weddings, two 40th birthdays, and a 1st birthday that was just as big as a wedding!
Got binoculars and saw many new birds.

PBs: Snatch 47kg –> 48kg in comp, and 49kg in training. CJ 58kg –> 58kg, but I did 60kg one time in training. Back squat 73×1, Front squat 58×2, Deadlift 80×1, OHP (in Sotts position lol) 34×1.

I didn’t improve much on paper in weightlifting this year. But I think I still did improve. I think I’m due for some bigger PBs in 2023.

Also I didn’t have any major problems with injuries so that is something to be very grateful for.

New board games: Viticulture, Concordia, Wingspan Asia, Mahjong, Kingdomino, Azul Summer Pavilion. We played 31 different board games with 29 different people!! We played A LOT of games in 2022 compared to other years due to spending so much time with Rosemarie.

Books (in rough order of favourite to worst):

Pachkino by Min Jin Lee – A book about multiple generations of a Korean family living in Japan. Enjoyed.
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah – A kind of sad good book about a family going through a terrible life in USA in the 1930s. Why are people so awful.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – A somewhat depressing book about the oppression of women in Afghanistan.
Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles – Kind of cute. Some clever funny writing.
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner – Made me sad and hungry.
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue – A clever nurse working during a pandemic. Emma’s books are always very readable.
The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes – Who wouldn’t like a book about fierce lady librarians.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett – Good, about two sisters who go totally different ways.
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell – This is written by someone I used to be in an Livejournal community with! Reminded me a lot of what happened with the music teacher at my high school.
The Push by Ashley Audrain – Didn’t really like that the book was written in 2nd person, but overall a very thrilling story about a psychopath child.
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid – A bit lighter, made me want to go surfing in California
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel – Weird to read a book that has covid in it. Some nice Canadian descriptions.
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker – Very pro-sleep, even naps. I skimmed through a bunch of chapters because I already knew the stuff from my BSc Neuroscience days.
In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead – I thought it was a pretty stupid book. Kind of immature. Written in annoying alternating chapters.

Great new recipes:

Pinch of Yum Pistachio Loaf – Such a good loaf. Everyone loves it!
Minimalist Baker Mediterranean Baked Sweet Potatoes – Delicious healthy side to have with like… steak!
Recipe Tin Eats Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce – So tasty. I make this a lot.
Recipe Tin Eats Beef Stroganoff – Super rich. Makes heaps.
Serious Eats Kimbap – So fun! You’ll have to go to an Asian shop to get some of the ingredients though.

Favourite bird pics:

2021 Final Thoughts: This year is finishing off pretty nice… the weather is great, we got to have a normal Christmas, and it’s summer fun times all the time. The government has completely changed their stance on covid and now we’re just letting it rip? We’ll see how this goes. I’m just hoping it lasts because we have a few big things planned in 2022 and I REALLY hope they don’t get cancelled.

Nothing got cancelled!

Last years goals: I dunno. Not get covid? (Nope, Scott and I got covid separately, in May and August. Thankfully very mild, and we didn’t have to miss anything important.)

2023 goals: Use my good camera more. Become more athletic. Eat more protein. More knitting. Start volunteering in migrant services.

2022 Final Thoughts: We are so lucky to be able to do all the things we got to do in 2022. I am very grateful for my friends and family, they really enrich our lives. I will be very happy if the next year continues on like last year.

October 2022

November 6, 2022 by Katrina·0 Comments

OK well in October I took plenty of pictures! Long post ahead!

We have been playing lots of pickleball again. I even got an upgraded paddle! We have been playing with the Bayside Pickleball Club and have been improving every week.

Another one of Scott’s (belated) #SMAJ activities was dinner at Serai in the city. It’s a fancy Filipino restaurant with a lot of stuff cooked over wood fire. It was all lovely if you didn’t think about the price. We had coral trout, broccolini, calamari, and hashbrowns with peanut sauce. The highlight for me was the dairy free dessert called Taho. It is made with soy ice cream, brown sugar syrup and tapioca pearls. The girl told us to stir it all up. Delicious!

Our friends Jen and Robert ran a private pottery workshop for a small group of friends. It was epic. We started with making some pinch pots, then did a bit of wheel throwing, and then did some large pieces where we painted coloured clay onto newspaper and then transferred it onto the slabs of clay which we layed over big molds. We got to pick what glaze we would like them to put on each piece and they are going to finish them all up for us. I can’t wait to see the results! It was a lovely afternoon.

We stopped in Box Hill on the way home for dinner. We randomly picked this Uyghur restaurant called Dolan On Silk Road because it seemed to be quite busy, and it turned out to be great! We ordered this massive lamb and bread platter which had a nice flavour and lots of vegetables and sauce. Fun to try a new cuisine. Everything the people around us were eating looked great too.

My work did a Medical Imaging Bake Off and it was pretty much the best day ever. I made a lemon blueberry yogurt cake that was decent but not prize-worthy. It was so moistly that the icing sugar I sprinkled on top got absorbed almost immediately.

I tried nearly everything. Even though we took tiny slivers of each thing it still put everyone into a sugar coma.

I went birdwatching with a bunch of oldies in Corinella. It was a weekday outing so I think the age group was extra skewed towards… retired. I didn’t get any good pictures but we did see lots of birds. The highlight for me was the Crested Shriketit, as I had never see one before and they’re pretty cool looking. It was nice to get out on a particularly lovely day.

I thought the birdwatching was going to finish at 12pm like it said on the website so I didn’t bring a packed lunch. Ohhhh I was so jealous of everyone’s delicious looking sandwiches when they stopped for a picnic lunch before continuing on to site number two and three!! Instead I bailed after site two and got Maccas on the way home. This is what a burger looks like if you ask for +2 pickles. Pickle overload!!

I did a quick volunteer session on the computer at the tiny girls session of Victorian Senior Championships. Always inspiring. It rained a lot.

Speaking of rain. Snails absolutely decimated our garden. We pretty much had to start everything again after snails ate all of our seedlings (two coriander, four cucumber, three eggplant…) The snails ate $15 of marigold flowers in one night.

After that we ordered the green garden box tent and these plastic cones which have been helping. Mesh food covers also help. And every night after dark we go out and stomp snails. In one week we killed NINE HUNDRED SNAILS. Our backyard isn’t even that big!!! They were literally everywhere, all over the sides of the garden boxes, the ground, the side of the house, the fence. It’s like the grossest Easter egg hunt ever. If you want to see a disgusting picture of mass amounts of gross snails, click here.

We are possibly winning though, because this week there have only been a few every night. We’re hoping the constant rain has ended and we’ll be able to uncover stuff soon, because we also need to let the bees in for pollination.

Gardening is hard. I can’t believe the first year we basically just chucked everything in and did almost no maintenance and everything grew very well.

I got quite a bit of hair cut off. It’s a bit crazy. But I re-remembered that it actually only takes like 2 minutes to blow dry my hair when it’s this short so I’ve got it semi under control again.

Doreen have me a couple snapper which I attempted to filet with my fish knife from last Christmas. I think i did ok considering they were quite small! I also learned how to gut the fish this time too.

I went to watch Scott play hockey before going to a Diwali Halloween party. Diwaloween.

I tried candy corn for the first time and I thought it was fine? I don’t get the hate. The party had a lot of delicious food.

Rosemarie mailed me some clothing and some cascatelli!!! She is the best! We had it with a sausage pasta and it really did have great forkability, sauceability and toothsinkability! If I lived in USA I would use it as my go-to pasta for sure.

True love is Scott making me a tiny container of gravy to go with my lunch tourtiere when he hates the stuff.

Lactose free ice cream with chocolate coated pretzels and a fudge ripple. I just used (expensive) lactose free cream and milk to make it.

Korean gochujang bbq short ribs. They took 4 hours in the oven!! Worth it, this was delicious. Can’t link the recipe because it’s from Nagi’s new cookbook.

Scott says I should have just stopped here.

I finished my sweater!!! It’s super warm and cozy. I just finished blocking it so I’ll take better pictures next time I’m home during the day. The forecast for this week is 25-29°C… so might not get much use out of it any time soon.

Unpictured stuff! This is the post that never ends!

I risked doing three different activities on an on call day: an online CPD seminar mostly about brain PET, afternoon weightlifting training, and post-training pizza with weightlifting pals. Thankfully I didn’t get called in and got to do everything!
That same day Scott went down to Tarwin for his cousin’s wife’s birthday bash. I enjoyed my alone-y evening.
We had a nice lunch at Dean and Ness’s new house.
More trivia with Ash and Charlie.

Canada Week 4

June 4, 2022 by Katrina·0 Comments

Week 4 was very very fun. We crammed in as many BC experiences that we possibly could. This is gonna be a massive, non-chronological, post!

We went to Vancouver one day for a massive day of seeing people and eating things. Let’s see if I can even remember everything…

started by going to Bulk Barn to buy more zingy zaps
met up with Kevin at Meat & Bread for porchetta sandwiches
bought a few treats from Purebread for later
met up with Phil for ice cream at Earnest Ice Cream
stopped at a random sushi restaurant for one yam roll
went to Terminal City Training while Rosemarie and Scott went to Parallel 49
met up with Liz, Tom and Kevin for Japanese BBQ
followed it up with some late night bingsu

A big thank you to Rosemarie for facilitating this ridiculous day.

We had a bit of time to kill in between eating things so Rosemarie suggested we check out the Bloedel Conservatory. It was neat! There were a lot of random types of cool birds in there. The highlights were:

Kramer, an insane parrot that danced and screamed
the four suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper high boys that were fascinated by everything in there including leaves

OK back to Squamish. AKA where Rosemarie and Lauren live now.

Squamish is scenic AF.

We put together the Hogwarts model that dad gave to us. And by “we” I mean 95% me. :D I enjoyed it.

Trivia night. Lauren was probably trying to cheer me up because I had THE WORST MARGARITA OF MY LIFE.

Calculating how many lactaids we need to take.

Lunch with Lauren at an amazing Japanese place near his work. SOO YUM!!

Lauren made us epic okonomiyaki. So many shrimp. I was in heaven.

Even just regular neighbourhood walking in Squamish is scenic AF.

Of course we played more Pickleball. The Squamish courts were luxury, with those fences to divide the courts up so our rogue balls don’t go rolling into other people’s games.

No one wants to see a pickleballer from above!

Not the best pic but I had Nadal shoulder from falling off my bike the day before. I looked jacked… on one side.

I was trying out Leslie’s weighted blanket.

Leslie and Kyla came up to stay with us for the whole last weekend and it was awesome. We had so much fun.

We are so spoiled. It was the very beginning of spot prawn season so Kevin brought up fresh prawns from Vancouver. They were still squirming in the sink. He poached them, made a delicious sauce, and taught us all how to shell them. They were so sweet and delicious. I had about 12. :D

Liz and Tom came up and we had a backyard sausage sizzle with everyone. The weather behaved for us. Kevin ate 9 sausages.

One last meal together before Leslie and Kyla had to leave.

Scott pushing my bike up the hill for me because I am a whiny baby. <3

We went mountain biking twice. The first time we borrowed a bike from Rosemarie’s friend. Despite Rosemarie picking a route that involved the absolute least uphill biking, we still had to bike uphill for 90 minutes for 5 minutes of downhill riding. I complained the whole time. I hate uphill anything. I was unconvinced that this is a fun sport.

So the second time all four of us rented e-bikes. Now that helped! We were flying up the hill compared to everyone else, and it really didn’t require much effort. We did three big laps in our half day rental. However, it was terrifying!!! Lauren is a good teacher but I found it really really scary and hard. Yes I know I used to do skeleton racing, but skeleton doesn’t have sticks and rocks and pointy things all around you! Scott was much less scared and did much better than me, he was pretty fast.

My main problem was being a big chicken and not keeping enough speed to get over the bumps. I’d slow down too much and then have to pedal and then the bike would shoot me off too fast I felt like I was not under control. Also I really did not like the bridges. Lauren kept telling me to look more ahead and not down at the ground in front of me, and to relax more, but I probably did the exact opposite.

I fell off my bike twice. The first time I kinda just fell over, that wasn’t so bad, but the second time I had a bit of speed and it actually hurt a lot. Rosemarie was supposed to be helping me but she was long gone!!

Also Scott didn’t fall off his bike but managed to do a mini-crash where the spikes on the pedal tore the shit out of his shin.

I am still unconvinced that it is a fun sport.

Our final BC activity was doing a yam roll crawl in Vancouver on the way to the airport. I found an area that had 4 different sushi restaurants within about 10 streets (near Commercial Station). We parked in the middle and then split up and hit each place for a yam roll, and then met back up in a park to eat.

I think the cheapest one ended up being the crowd favourite? It actually was probably one of my favourite things we’ve ever done.

And the final few pics you already saw on Facebook:

Canada Week 3

June 3, 2022 by Katrina·0 Comments

The third week involved a bit of traveling.

We somehow crammed 5 adults and luggage into a rental sedan. Poor Diane had to reduce her bag down to like 20% of what she started with. It was TIGHT. Dad couldn’t even fit his box of Shreddies.

It felt like it took 90 hours to get to Listowel. This pic was from one of our bathroom stops. Rosemarie was so desperate to make the time pass quickly in the car that she even agreed to play Agricola on the ipad.

Anyway we made it. This time we all stayed at my aunt and uncles new house which was a lot of fun. Terry is always on top of constant beverages. One night we had dinner at my grandparents house (first time them having guests inside in two years!), and the other night Terry, Rosemarie and I destroyed Joanne’s kitchen making pizzas for everyone including our cousin and their kids. The kids loved it when they arrived and the smoke alarm was going off.

Dad, Scott and I played Wide World with Violet, which she won, and proclaimed “I CAN’T BELIEVE I WON AGAINST TWO OLD PEOPLE AND ONE TEENAGER!”. Hehehe.

Many robins around trying to tell us it was spring, but the temperatures said otherwise.

The biggest ball of yarn I’ve ever seen.

Of course they played some Pickleball in Listowel too. Also Listowel had probably the second best gym of the entire trip? It was huge! The owner was super nice and even let me train the second day (for free!) even though the gym reception wasn’t going to be open.

We left early on the last day because we were planning a special detour to surprise Scott. We only told him that dad wanted to go somewhere specific for lunch.

I thought dad blew the surprise when he pointed out that we could see Toronto on the other side of the lake but actually we got nearly all the way there before Scott was like “Wait… are we going to Niagara Falls?”. He has been wanting to go there the entire time we lived in Canada but we never managed it.

I also hadn’t been there since 1999! PS did you know that the falls recede by a METER every year?!

It was a nice day! We parked way down by the casino and walked all the way up along the falls to the crazy tourist area. We had lunch at Wendy’s and looked around at all the attractions while dad walked back to pick up the car. We were going to ride the rollercoaster but it was too expensive and also possibly broken. There was a 6D cinema?! I don’t even know what that means.

Thankfully our journey back to BC was much less exciting than the one to get to Ontario. We got treated to a beautiful mountain sunset and clear skies into Vancouver where Rosemarie reminded me what everything was as we flew over.

Lauren (remember him?) picked us up from the airport and we made a quick late night yam roll stop before spending one night at their house in Squamish. The next day Scott and I borrowed their car and headed to the Sunshine Coast to visit Lesley.

In typical us fashion, we had some ferry related stress. We got to Horseshoe Bay plenty early planning to park the van and walk on to the ferry, but the parking was completely full. We drove around and around trying to find a space. I was totally stumped what to do, tbh. I called Lesley and she suggested just paying a little bit more and taking the car on the ferry, which thankfully still had space. But to get on the ferry you have to drive way up the highway to turn around and join the ferry line. We got to the ticket booth with about 15 seconds to spare and were one of the very last cars to board. It was hectic.

We had a fun chill afternoon/evening with Lesley and fam, playing games and eating snacks and hanging out. It actually ended up being pretty convenient to have the van with us because we were able to explore a bit the next morning after Lesley had to go to work. We went out for breakfast and looked at the water and checked out a cidery before heading back to the ferry. It was a short, but nice visit.

Smiling because it was still the beginning of the road trip.

Canada Week 2

June 1, 2022 by Katrina·0 Comments

We spent most of the second week doing chores at the house during the day, and then fun stuff with friends in the evening.

I spent two days scanning old photos so that we can throw out the mouldy albums. That was kind of fun. I found all sorts of funny stuff. Then I varnished a table. Scott did lots of pressure washing, which wasn’t very fun because he got wet and it was freezing out. And he helped dad carry lots of stuff. Rosemarie did a lot of kitchen stuff sorting. We took apart some cabinets and cleaned them so they can be re-used.

Writing that out it doesn’t sound like that much stuff but we filled up all the areas where we could store stuff and dad seemed pleased with his checklist, so I guess that’s good.

Unpictured:

Scott did get a day off one day when he went to Montreal to go to a metal concert (Mastodon) (by himself, because none of us wanted to go with him). He took a bus and stayed in an Airbnb and had a great time! And he came back with kouign amann and bagels!
That evening Rosemarie and I met up with Sarah and Lauren (different Lauren) for dinner and ice cream. This is the one time I forgot to take a group picture. :(

I swear the whole trip we never had more than two hours of free time, but that is partly our fault because any time we did have free time we were like “LET’S PLAY A GAME!!!”.

Bill and Suzanne invited us all over for dinner at their house and pickleball. We had tacos and then drove to the court and they taught us how to play. We were hooked! Especially Rosemarie. We played until it was too dark to see anything. Rosemarie asked when they were going to play again and they said “Tomorrow!”.

So we drove all the way back to Constance Bay and played again the next day. :D

We went to the Nordik Spa at night with Jackie which felt fantastic after all the work at the house and pickleball. It was awesome going with Jackie because 1. she’s like a spa expert and 2. we hadn’t hung out with her in ages!! The spa was great. I was surprised that there was an area that you could bring your drink right into the water. Crazy. We stayed at the spa for a loooong time, soaking and plunging, exfoliating with salt, broiling ourselves etc. (sounds like cooking a turkey, doesn’t it). We had a nice spa dinner too. The only thing we didn’t do was try the heated hammocks!

The next day I went to the gym and Rosemarie and Scott tried indoor pickleball. (I tell you, Rosemarie was obsessed.)

The next day was crazy busy. We went and saw Helenka again (post-babbies, although sans-babbies because they were in the NICU), ate another shawarma and poutine, and then drove back out to Constance Bay again to… you guessed it…. play some more pickleball. :D Then we came home, cooked hot pot for a quick family dinner, and then went bouldering with Sarah, and then met up with Sara for a drink. Whew.

PS that poutine, with the exorbitant amount of gravy and cheese curds, made me feel sooo sick, despite Lactaid. :( I feel un-Canadian.

Our final night in Ottawa we went to a Sens game with Stephko. It was one of the last games of the season and had no consequences in regards to the play-offs, but was still exciting because there were a lot of goals and even went into overtime for maximum drama.

Again, more pictures that you probably already saw on Facebook:

Grated Expectations

everything is better with cheese