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!
In February Yo-Chi had a promotion that if you did 25,000 steps by 2PM you could get $15 of free fro yo per person, so Scott and I decided to try and do it. It was a very funny day. We walked all morning. I took extremely tiny steps to try and boost my numbers. We played pickleball as well which took care of a big chunk. We mayyy have cheated a little by taking turns wearing both watches at once for a bit so the other person could have a bit of a rest… but at least we showed up to the shop tired and sweaty, unlike some of the other people who 1000% cheated because they didn’t look tired at all!!!
Anyway I enjoyed my enormous free fro yo that probably took a month off my life.
I went camping for a night by myself! Near Kinglake. The only part I was worried about was whether I’d be able to set up the tent on my own, but it ended up being easy. I DON’T NEED NO MAN. :P All I did was set up my tent, make dinner, knit for a little while, and then moved into the tent to read once the mosquitos came out. The next day was one of my Birdlife photography meetups which was nice, but we barely saw any birds and I only took two pictures, both of which were terrible. lol.
Our #SMAJ activity was watching Pretty Women at the outdoor cinema. A cute evening. I hadn’t seen it before. Big mistake.
Of course we ordered the Wingspan South America expansion as soon as it came out. It adds on hummingbirds, which mostly just make it easier to get resources, so you can build more birds, which is always fun I guess. Can get a really good engine going.
One (creepy) glove done.
Cable knit blanket coming along. During the summer I could only work on it when we had the AC blasting during Free Power Hours, haha.
Unpictured stuff:
Sally had the whole gang over for a crafternoon. We got Malaysian takeaway and had a lovely chill hang out.
I watched 70 million hours of the Winter Olympics. Love it.
November was more exciting! It seems like every year my November is actually way crazier than December. Everyone wants to get the celebrations started early.
We had my work Christmas party like a week and a half after our Halloween Bake Off haha! It was delicious. I picked steak for my entree for the exact opposite reason our boss doctor didn’t pick the steak: “I could have steak at home!” (We never have steak at home.)
Our second pickleball tournament went better, but it didn’t get recorded in DUPR so did it even happen?
And then our third tournament went very bad. We lost every game and it was quite discouraging. I was a bit pickleball depressed after that. (Better now.) We haven’t signed up for any more tournaments yet.
This group of friends had been talking about going out for peking duck for literally years and we finally went. We went to Hua Lu in the CBD and it was amazing!! As usual I was too busy stuffing my face to take any pictures of the epic amount of food. We had duck pancakes of course, plus the extra two duck courses, a mushroom dish and two types of tofu. Yum.
Naomi had the old work crew to her place again for a Christmas catch up gossip and pizza lunch. It was too cold for the pool this year but the bird show made up for it. :D
Scott planned a #smaj where we went to the driving range and then got Vietnamese food. The last time I hit a golf ball was with the Monnon’s when I was probably like… 11. Scott is a pretty good instructor but I was still extremely awkward. I missed the ball a lot and hit the ground many times. I can see why people think it’s fun though.
I got my hair cut and then went to a meetup with Discord friends. It was a pretty small gathering compared to some other meetups and I already knew everyone so it was pretty chill. Someone was talking about Caesar salad earlier in the day and then I had to order it for dinner. Hit the spot.
I had a really big fun day where first I went to an anime movie with Maz and Candace. I haven’t watched much anime before but I said yes to this outing because I’m Taking Charge Of My Saturdays (Scott always has bowls) and also it looked quite cute. It was called The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store and was about a department store where all the customers are different animals.
After the movie we got delicious Indonesian sandwiches for lunch and then walked to the Design Market. There was tons of cool stuff and I was able to get a lot of cute Christmas presents. Quite enjoyable.
Then we caught the bus to Bis’s for games, crafts, and dinner. I opted to do hand building with Jen and made a cute sturdy scalloped ash tray dish.
We got fish and chips for dinner and then I finally headed home. A big day.
We got a Ninja Creami from Costco during Black Friday sales. (I sold the big compressor ice cream maker because we weren’t using it much.) I think the Ninja Creami is fitting our lifestyle better. My favourite mixtures so far have been strawberry sorbet (pictured), which was just cooked strawberries and a bit of maple syrup, sticky date protein ice cream, and mango sorbet. It’s nice that we can make them with healthy and lactose free ingredients.
It rained A LOT and then we had a couple random super hot days so everyone’s yards went bonkers. Love how we have more stuff growing outside the garden boxes than inside.
Flying along on the pastel tank top. I really like the way she designed the neckline and sleeves. Took a while to do the sewing but it’s sooo neat and tidy.
Nanaimo bars ready for Christmas! I used a new recipe this year and I was quite pleased with how they turned out.
Unpictured stuff:
We had lunch at Jemma’s on Melbourne Cup Day for April’s birthday.
I went to the Western Treatment Plant with the birdwatching group but I’ll make a separate post about that.
We had another #smaj where we went to The Jar and rented a pickleball ball machine and tried to practice our drives (I am still quite bad at forehand drives.)
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.
