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July was… variable. It started off ok, everything was open and no restrictions, then lockdown #5 happened, and then it ended again. We are certainly learning that there is no point of planning ahead, and definitely don’t procrastinate anything. Do everything you can NOW, because the rules might change a few hours later.

Poutine on Canada Day at the Catfish with my internet friends. I didn’t feel great about celebrating Canada Day, but… I really wanted poutine. :P (Cheese curds are illegal in Australia.) The cheese was good but the chips were too thin. I can theoretically make cheese curds at home now though so there will be more poutine in my future.

Had a few friends over for my birthday. We introduced everyone to crokinole.. it was a hit. Also played Wits and Wagers and ate tons of snacks and acted silly. I had fun.

Can you tell that the family got me a new lens for my camera?

I went on a photo walk with my internet friends. We didn’t plan it well, so ended just wandering around aimlessly taking pictures of random stuff in the city, mainly Chinatown. It was good practice for me.

Fun with longer exposures.

More games! We finally got to have friends over to play boardgames again. We made pulled pork and slaw and taught them Lords of Waterdeep. We had to use the expansions so that all six of us could play and it took 5ever but it was fun!

Mischa made us a beautiful loaf of sourdough. It was professional quality.

Then we went to Pyalong, which I blogged about already. The night we got back we went to trivia for Ash’s birthday/our anniversary, and then the next day we got put back in lockdown for two weeks. Sigh.

Backyard currawong.
Driveway berries. Anyone know what these are? They are pretty.

Delivery treats! I’ve been wanting to try Black Star Pastry ever since Jess told us about it ages ago, but it was only in Sydney. Then they opened in St Kilda, but only at funny hours. Then they had a pop up delivery event so we ordered their famous Strawberry Watermelon Cake, the Raspberry Lychee Cake, and the Chocolate Mirage Cake.

To be honest, we didn’t like it that much. They were TOO light. Mostly cream and flowers. The watermelon cake probably tastes better in the summer when watermelon is in season, because at the moment it was kind of bland. The chocolate one was good but not life-changing. I would prefer to have our wedding cake from Ganache instead.

Glad I got to try it but probably won’t go back.

I ordered us a hotpot feast from Little Hot Pot Heroes for a treat dinner. It came with the pot setup, broth, all the ingredients, 7 types of banchan and some drinks. I got an extra broth so we can make our own soup next time. It was a fun activity and pretty tasty. I liked everything except the rectangle ham pieces.

Does anyone know what type of banchan this is? It was super crunchy, like much more crunchy than cabbage. I loved it.

I accidentally bought these masks with stupid phrases on them. They were folded and had a sticker on the package so I thought they were just plain. :( I literally yelled out loud when I took them out of the package.

So I attempted to terrazzo them with acrylic paint and textile medium. I think they turned out ok, at least somewhat wearable. Unfortunately when I washed them some of the paint came off of the parts with letters underneath so they’re not perfect. Oh well. Still better than “SMILES ARE CONTAGIOUS”. Cringe.

No pictures but lockdown #5 lifted right in time and we were very lucky to be able to have more than ten guests for Scott’s Nana Jean’s funeral. They had a nice funeral service and then the close family went out for lunch afterwards. It wasn’t a good occasion but it was nice to see everyone, like a sad Christmas.

Afterwards Scott and I squeezed in a quick walk at Birdsland where we saw lots of purple swamphens, ducks, bronzewings, and a darter. Then I went to training and then out for a Vietnamese feast with my weightlifting friends. It was a very big and exhausting day.

Unpictured things/things rolling over into August:

  • The Olympics started and I became a professional Olympics viewer. I watched SO MANY SPORTS. Including, all of the weightlifting, gymnastics, athletics, trampoline, track cycling, BMX, skateboarding, sport climbing, diving and tons more that I am forgetting.
  • I screwed up my elbow and now I have to do weird rehab like things with weights dangling on rubber bands.
  • I trained terribly during lockdown #5. I wanted to cry many many times. Thankfully for the first time ever they re-opened gyms right away when lockdown finished, so I got to go back for a glorious FIVE SESSIONS before lockdown #6 started. :/
  • We went to Braz and Lisanne’s going away party. They are moving back to Canada. :(

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Eventually we got let out.

Out for 50% off burgers and Gelato Messina on Chaps.

Eileen, Dika, and Brenna were competing in an online competition at Phoenix, so I went to watch and also try to take pictures. It was a bit difficult with the lens I have, but I got a few cool ones. I love the placement of the mural in this one. Eileen is always awesome to watch. And Dika is about to go to her FIFTH Olympics!!! Incredible!

Scott enjoying a sunny backyard coffee in his handcrafted mug.

A decent winter harvest. We still have snow peas, cauliflower, more broccoli, more carrots, cilantro, and spinach growing, slowly, at the moment.

We went skating for a #SMAJ activity. Scott has gotten a lot better at skating since last time I saw him, he is much faster. He still needs to work on backwards skating and trusting his edges.

We went to Lysterfield Lake to try and find Swift Parrots, an endangered bird that breeds in Tasmania and migrates north in the winter. Unfortunately we ran out of time and didn’t find any. My ecologist friend said that the kids in the BMX park were scaring them away all weekend too.

We did find a couple Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo. We crashed around in the bush trying to get close enough to get a picture with my not-very-zoom lens. This picture actually looked terrible on my camera, it was totally just a silhouette, but because I shot it in raw, I was able to use Lightroom to turn up the brightness and all the features appeared like magic!! Cool!

Once the sun started to set we headed to Jemma’s for dinner. Myles was being a crazy boy!! This is him playing Cooking Mama. Can’t remember if this was pre- or post- him splitting his lip open by smashing face first into the arm of the couch.

Scott and I ordered wayyy too much food at Kimchi Grandma in Carnegie. I was so excited, it felt like we were back in Korea. We got goon-mahn-doo (pork and vegetable dumplings) and hae-mul chon-gol (seafood casserole with squid, octopus, prawn, pipi, ling fillet, bean curd, and mixed vegetables) plus banchan cuz why not. The stew got better and better as it simmered on our table. It was exciting digging around in it to find more seafood surprises underneath the surface. It was definitely meant for 3 or 4 people.

Kimchi Grandma Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Pretty sure that’s the exact dish that Rosemarie and I refused to eat in NYC back in 2002. I have memories of a tentacle flipping over in the pot as the clams opened up at the table in front of us, and a waitress coming over with a pair of scissors to cut things up. All we would eat was rice and the edges of the Korean pancake that didn’t have any bits in it. Man how my tastes have changed since then!!

Sophie invited me out for dinner at Dragon Hot Pot, a place where you pick out all your soup ingredients from the fridges, they weigh it, and then cook it up in a delicious broth of your choice. Fun! I really liked mine, although I put too much. Next time I know I only need about 400g of ingredients and it will be a nice cheap meal.

Unpictured things:

  • I got my 2nd Astra Zeneca jab. I had zero noticeable side effects, I even went to training that evening and the next morning. But interestingly my watch told me I only recovered 50% that night, when normally I get back up to 100%. Kind of the same as if I had alcohol, but I hadn’t had any. I dunno, I found this interesting.
  • Scott is playing hockey again and loving it.
  • They kept the gyms closed one more week than they should have, imo. At one point I could go to dinner with my weightlifting friends and sit close together with no masks on for as long as we wanted, but couldn’t go train at the gym where we use barbells that automatically keep people away from each other.

This post has too many pictures of Scott.

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We were supposed to spend the first half of June in the Northern Territory and South Australia, but ended up being restricted to a 5km radius from our house instead. Lockdown 4.0. So the month started off pretty bad, but I tried to make the most of it.

Instead of watching the Melbourne Demons vs Brisbane Lions game at Traegar Park in Alice Springs, NT, we watched it at home in our freezing house. :'( Dees won though. And we had delicious sushi bowls.

I had two weeks booked off work but cancelled the first week and worked instead. We were in strict lockdown so there wasn’t much I could do anyway. I actually got pretty depressed. It was just extremely frustrating that I was back at work, not on holiday, couldn’t reschedule the holiday, couldn’t go to the gym, couldn’t plan my training, couldn’t see my friends, couldn’t look forward to anything.

So I decided I needed a project.

I used that quiet week at work to plan and gather supplies for the following week.

My Saturday gym sessions currently have two exercises from blocks: block snatch and block cleans. I am very lucky that I can train in our garage, but I didn’t have blocks, which meant that I have to do the exercises from a hang position instead. I HATE HANG SNATCHES SO MUCH. Enough that I decided that I wanted to make my own blocks for home.

Originally I was going to make very simple criss-cross ones like I’d seen on the internet, but 1) I wanted to them to have two height options, and 2) I calculated that it would need around $150 worth of wood. So I emailed dad to ask if I could make them without the center supports because I don’t actually lift that much weight. He wrote back with a few questions and then 24 hours later he’d made me a brand new design in OpenSCAD! I could edit the dimensions to what is available here and it even generated a list of supplies. Very cool. Thanks dad. The new plan only used about $70 of wood!

It took me three afternoons to put them together, but I honestly found it very satisfying (other than stripped screws, which was remedied by replacing my screwdriver bit). I had fun using my new drop saw and circular saw, and didn’t even lose any fingers. Thanks dad for reminding me of when mom had to go to the hospital after a drop saw accident at the cottage AFTER I had finished cutting all of the pieces.

They work great! They nestle together perfectly and they don’t bounce or move at all. I’m very happy. I’ll probably add strips on the top to stop the bar from rolling off when I’m not holding it. I only used them one time so far though because the gym re-opened the next week lol. But there is covid in NSW at the moment so it’s probably just a matter of time before we are back in lockdown again. :/

Hide The Pain Harold Katrina.

If you’re in lockdown and don’t bake bread, DID YOU EVEN LOCKDOWN?

I made this bread with leftover whey instead of water, because the internet told me you could do that. But it tasted weird, I don’t think I would do it again. Or at least I would use 1/2 whey and 1/2 water.

Another lockdown cooking project: beef bourguignon. It took 3 days!!! And an entire bottle of wine!!! But it was dang delicious, and made like 8 servings, so in the end I think it was worth it.

One very good piece of news was that my citizenship test didn’t get cancelled. At that point we were allowed to go 25km from home and I guess they decided that it was essential enough that they could let the immigration officers work in the office.

They told me it would take 2 hours, and I had to bring in all sorts of documents. But the dude only asked for my passport and drivers license and I was out of there in 15 minutes, including doing the test TWO TIMES… because I failed the first time….. OOPS. (I got 95% but I failed one of the essential questions because apparently I am a monarchist. I got 100% the second time btw.)

So I spent a couple hours wandering the quiet city with my camera. I went to the Lululemon outlet, got bubble tea, borek, and popped into a whole bunch of shops too. It’s a good thing I didn’t get covid because my exposure site list would have been very long, haha. Most of my pictures didn’t turn out very well. I am definitely still learning how to use my camera.

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I only heard about Pound Bend near the end of the summer, so when Easter Saturday was supposed to be a freakishly hot day we knew it was the last chance to try it this year. The air was warm but the water was SO COLD. It takes a good 3 to 4 hours to float around so while I was OK up on the inflatable pizza, Scott was freezing his butt off on the water hammock. Plus some parts are quite shallow so he was also bashing his butt on rocks. It was fun for a couple hours but then became way too long.

We finally had a board game night with friends. Michael and Gina made an EPIC wonton feast!! It was soooo good. We played Tiny Towns, with hilariously bad results by some. I think Michael’s final score was NEGATIVE ONE in his first game hahahaha. (He did much better in the second game btw.) It is totally different experience playing with six people instead of 2 or 3.

We heard that our favourite game store was selling crokinole boards and were pretty much like START THE CAR, LET’S GO!!!!!!!!!! What a fun game. RIP everyone’s fingernails.

I competed in another weightlifting comp. I did snatch: 44/47/49x, and C&J: 52/55/58x. The 47kg and 55kg were equal comp PBs, which together gave me a 1kg total PB. I have never even tried anything heavier than those, even in training, which freaked me out a bit, but those third attempts went better than I expected. Hopefully I can get them next time.

Volunteering at State Champs. It was nice to see some good lifting in real life again. Maybe some day I will qualify. Maybe.

Endless bike drama. Prepping to ship my bike back so they could try to fix the bent back wheel.

I finally got to the framing shop and framed my Escher cross stitch, and the print we bought in Tofino, BC in 2015. I’ll try to take better pictures of the cross stitch soon. It is gigantic!! I need to research what’s the best way to do that with my fancy camera. Little peek of our new couches there too! We finally got them, after buying them in Boxing Day sales!!

Unpictured things:

  • Many family meals. Dinner at Brett’s, Easter brunch at Jemma’s, Noah’s 16th birthday lunch. It was nice being able to see everyone again after barely seeing them the year before.
  • We played Ticket to Ride online with MEP and Paul and I didn’t even win.
  • Went out for a dumpling lunch with my internet friends. Loooove having dumplings in a big group so you get to eat ALL THE THINGS.

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Traditional New Years Day dip in the ocean. Beautiful day this year. And not too busy, probably because a nearby restaurant was deemed a covid hot spot a couple days before.

Ben Folds with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. This concert was supposed to happen March 2020! Luckily Ben just stayed in Australia the whole year so we still got to see him, eventually! We got REALLY good seats. The website wasn’t working during pre-sale so Scott tried calling the box office and he got second/third row! (They only used every second row of the theatre and also put two empty seats between each group, so everyone was suuuuper spread out.)

The orchestra was very cool. So much to look at and listen to. Ben was chatty like usual. The singalong songs didn’t work very well though with so few people.

January SMAJ was an intro to pottery class. Jemma came too. It was very fun! And challenging! Scott was the best at it, he made a bowl and a cup. I made two soy sauce dishes and Jemma made a bowl type dish.

I actually got to go pick them up this weekend. I was super surprised at how much they shrank, everything is so tiny. Scott and I have signed up for a 6 week term so there will be more, hopefully larger, pottery coming in the future!

I went to a crafternoon with my new internet friends (some overlap with old internet friends) and got Ash to re-teach me how to join granny squares together. After literally years of procrastinating, I finally attached all the squares that Scott and I made into an actual blanket shape. I plan on putting a black border around it, but that will be a winter project as it’s not pleasant to crochet in summer.

Unpictured:

  • I went to another meetup with those internet friends at a bowls club and tried lawn bowling for the first time. I wasn’t great at it, but it was a fun activity. It was nice to meet some new people, and see my old trivia friends again after over a year.
  • Speaking of bowls, Scott has gotten very involved with our local bowls club. He’s played in a few games now and they’ve won every one!
  • He is also back playing basketball, and doing hockey lessons, and subbing for futsal every once and a while. I’m glad he’s having fun outside the house and also I’m enjoying my Katrina-time.
  • I did a weightlifting competition around Australia Day. I was worried that I used up all my PBs at the Christmas comp only a few weeks before, but still managed to get a solid snatch PB and maintain the same total.
  • A bunch of the weightlifting ladies went out for drinks that evening and I had more drinks in one night than I’ve had in the last six months combined lol. (Four.) Interesting how easy it is to slip right back into old habits, especially with things like HAPPY HOUR! It was a fun night even if it took 2 nights to get my overnight recovery levels back to normal.
  • We went to the pool on a hot day and I got a bathing suit tan after 5pm. Insane.
  • We did one of MEPs online Rotary trivia events with Rose and dad, and Scott and I won!! We won movie vouchers… which we sent on to dad.
  • I went down to 4 days a week at work and it is GREAT. I truly love it.
  • Couple family meals/visits with Scott’s parents and nana.

Oh yeah Melbourne had a Snap Lockdown for 5 days because of some covid cases that got out of hotel quarantine. They put us right back on to the strictest lockdown level where you only got 2 hours of outdoor time, 5km radius, can only leave the house for 4 reasons, everything non-essential shut, etc. I didn’t have much planned that weekend anyway, and still went to work, so it didn’t affect me that much other than having to do a few training sessions back in the garage, but Scott had a few things cancelled. And it sure ruined poor Jill’s trip to Melbourne.

It worked though, we never had more than ~6 new cases/day and it all cleared up within a few more days. We’ve been back down to 0 cases/day for a while now, and the active cases are pretty much gone again, so we can go about life without having to worry too much.

PS curling >>> lawn bowls