Scott made chocolate shortbread cookies with the wombat cookie cutter he got at the Lost Trades Fair. He made them again another time with a shredded coconut “fur” as well. Adorbs.
I continued to play pickleball three times a week.
And I continued to minorly injure myself at pickleball. This was from my partner crashing his paddle into my hand when we were both going for the same ball. Lesson learned: remember to call the ball.
PS the bruise is gone but there is still a lump underneath the skin from this… several months later… should I be concerned??
I finished one ribbed sock. I think they look quite professional if I do say so myself. My most successful socks so far.
I continued working on my drab sweatshirt. Pretty happy with this one as well.
I went to a board games night at Bis’s where we played Rosemarie’s copy of Finspan. For a first time playing, five player game, it went quite well, it didn’t drag on too long. Finspan is simpler than Wingspan.
Unpictured stuff:
We did a barefoot bowls session at Scott’s club with my work team. Scott came and helped. We had a good turn out and the bbq was great and everyone enjoyed the cheap prices at the bar.
Scott had an interview at UniMelb and ended up getting the job! Hooray!!
It was a busy month, this is going to be hella long!!
Carrying on the gingerbread house tradition with new friends. :) Carrying on the tradition of having WAY TOO MUCH candy! Building gingerbread structures in very high humidity is not ideal.. there were some struggles. It took a while to figure out which icing would work. But in the end we got there, mostly. Fun was had.
Poor Ash’s house already collapsed by the next morning due to moisture issues.
Scott and I decided that instead of getting each other Christmas presents we would finally get ourselves a stand mixer. I did some extreme couponing and we ended up getting a great price on a fancy Kenwood mixer on Black Friday. It is AWESOME. It has a scale built into it!! I made strawberry cupcakes to break it in.
We had our work Christmas lunch at the Espy this year. There was so much food this year it was ridiculous. I screamed when they brought out an entire dairy free pizza for me as a substitute for the little pieces of deep dish pizza, hahaha. We all brought so much stuff home.
I went to SO MANY Christmas parties. They were all great! Christmas BBQ at Sonika’s, Christmas pool party brunch at Naomi’s, Christmas dinner at Scott’s bowls club, and English Christmas lunch at Maz’s. So much eating. So much fun. I especially liked playing in the pool with Sonny’s kids, and duck fat roasted potatoes at Maz’s.
Some delicious party meals.
Pre-Christmas crochet time with Ava. #summeroflyingdown
Maybe a new Christmas tradition… cinnamon buns for Christmas morning. Next time I’ll use yeast that didn’t expire 4 years ago. They still turned out pretty delicious though!! I stood next to the dough being kneading in the mixer in awe for the entire 8 minutes.
Luca seemed to like the mimic that Scott made for him! He was going around chomping everyone’s limbs.
Christmas Day was the usual in Boronia, an insane amount of presents, an insane amount of food, backyard cricket, chats with family, pictures. No waterslide this year as Shaun’s family had gastro and no one wants that combination. :D
Our December #SMAJ was going to Day 2 of the cricket with Da Boys. I did enjoy the Boxing Day Test this year but I found it hard to see the ball and follow what was happening in real life. Plus it was very crowded. Scott did bring us thermos hot dogs though! We lasted four or five hours before both of us really needed to leave, and we got to see both teams batting and several wickets, so overall a successful outing.
Still playing heaps of pickleball all around the city. I checked out the Eastern Indoor Sports Centre which has actual pickleball lines, for a drills and structured play session. It was good!
Churning out Lake Reed cable knit hats. Fun to learn a new technique! I finished the pink/burgundy one in 2 days for a Kris Kringle gift.
Lake Reed cable knit hat, before and after blocking. Makes a big difference, doesn’t it?
Rosemarie’s sweater, finished! Before and after blocking. Really pleased how this one turned out.
Vacuum packed Bingo and sweater for travel to Squamish. I don’t think Bingo has fully recovered yet.
Unpictured stuff:
Scott has had many MRIs and doctors appointments. The good news is that he’s not concussed and at least we know what the problem is now, and it’s fixable, the bad news is that it’s going to take a little while to get through all the steps, and he might need surgery. He’s still uncomfortable but I guess he’s learning more how to balance lying down time and doing some activities. We’re hoping that we’ll get some updates this week or next week, after all of these public holidays.
We went to trivia at a new place, which is always a novelty, but it was very loud and the seats have no backs and my (vegan) pizza was very wet.
Our belated November #SMAJ was going to see the new Wallace and Gromit movie at the theatre with the Lonard’s. Ava was giggling the whole time. I loved it too.
We started the month with a belated #SMAJ. He took me to the Accidental Wes Anderson exhibit in the city, which is an art exhibit with lots of people’s pictures that look like Wes Anderson. Like, wide angle, colourful, symmetrical. It was cute. I was really really tired that night for some reason. We had ramen for dinner.
We went to the one year anniversary Palestine rally, which had a nice big turnout. Can’t believe it’s still necessary. At least we get to catch up with some friends at the same time.
I went to the Finders Keepers Market and spent too much money on cute things. I got an olive oil bottle, some bird pins, a beeswax sandwich bag, a patch to put over the pepperoni oil stain on my favourite hoodie, and a bunch of random stickers.
I was really craving a big ass sandwich (BAS) afterwards. It took me a while to find somewhere that was open for lunch on the weekend but eventually ended up with this rare beef sandwich from Hector’s Deli, which really hit the spot.
I was planning on competing in the Ian Laurie Cup in November, but it ended up being cancelled and instead I ended up doing Victorian Championships. Normally I wouldn’t even have qualified for this competition, but this year they decided to not have any entry requirements so it was kind of a special opportunity, which made me feel excited and nervous and also awkward. They were running quite behind schedule so I had a really long time to wait after weighing in before my session would start so I lay outside on the grass for a while. The ear of my headphones broke off, which was annoying.
Anyway despite having a shortened prep and a week or so off while I was sick, the competition ended up going well for me, nearly perfect really. My friend Pitty came to coach me and he was great. I didn’t really care how I performed in the snatches so of course I got all three attempts easily (45, 48, 50). Not a PB but very happy to get 50kg again.
I clean and jerked 55 and 58 pretty easily but missed 60kg for the millionth time. Frustrating. But that’s still a 1kg PB total so yay. And I got to have these cool photos taken so that’s neat as well.
The next day I went back to volunteer/watch Steph/help Nic. Big weekend.
I actually haven’t been back to training since the comp. Instead I’ve been playing tons of pickleball and swimming and doing some quick squat sessions in the garage. Still just as busy as before but it’s really nice not to have to be so strict with everything, and it’s feeling fun.
I finally cooked the frozen garfish that Doreen gave me a while ago. They were already cleaned so all I had to do was roll over them with a rolling pin, pull out as much of the spine as I could, then I breaded them in flour and panko and shallow fried. They were delicious. It’s great that you don’t have to worry about the small bones, they’re soft enough to eat. Served with some dense bean salad.
This is my lunch time knitting project. Jellyfish socks! I usually get to do about 20-30 minutes on it per day and it’s a nice calming part of my lunch break. Socks are the best portable project.
Two of my coworkers have the same birthday and we ended up with three cakes at work!! Best day ever.
Unpictured stuff:
A few of my coworkers and I went bowling one night. It was something ridiculous like $42 for 2 games of bowling or $44 for unlimited bowling so of course we picked unlimited and REALLY tried to get our moneys worth. I think I played 7 games? And two of them stayed for ages and played 15 games hahahhaa. I was truly terrible at it, like mixing up which arm is supposed to swing with which leg.. but it was a good chance to try and work it out. We were all very sore the next day.
Started off with an unpictured pizza party at Naomi’s house with the old EH crew. Always nice to hear all the updates that have happened throughout the year. Since I didn’t go to school here in Melbourne I don’t really know that many people in the nuc med community, but now my old coworkers are spread out all over the place and it’s a nice little network for me.
We went to an Italian restaurant for our work Christmas lunch this year. This was my favourite dish, which was actually a special one for me while everyone else had a super duper dairy pasta dish. It was a seafood risotto, very yum. We also had really nice tender steak. Thanks Doctors!
Scott’s birthday was the same day as our pickleball club’s Christmas party. It was super hot, humid, windy with occasional downpours. Not great outdoor pickleball conditions but it was still a pretty fun party. We snuck out when the some of the oldies started getting pretty loose and got sushi for dinner on the way home.
I may have played a few too many games because I think I actually got heat stroke. Why am I so competitive??
Also LOL at how close that house is to the pickleball area!!
We had a party at our house! We made shawarmas and we played crokinole, Camel Up and Wits & Wagers. Ol’ trusty games. It was fun.
We went camping in Gippsland. Scott organised everything, including driving 45 minutes each way to look at this Shipwreck. :P
Rainbow LorikeetSuperb Fairy-wrenGrey FantailLittle Black CormorantLittle Wattlebird A lot of birbs
We stayed at Emu Bight, which had A LOT of bird activity. At any moment you could pick out at least 5 different bird calls. We even got a new lifer, a Red-browed Finch, but it flew away before I could get a picture. We saw quite a few fairy-wrens, Olive-backed Orioles, emus, and Eastern Spinebills, and all the usual suspect birds as well.
Hey dear.
Other than the birds, we got a bit bored. The first couple days were too cold to swim, then it got hot but we were far away from the water, and then the flies came out and it started raining off and on. We ended up packing up a night early.
We went to a few more rallies. I feel a real sense of despair about all of it. At least we’ve been able to catch up with some friends at the same time.
Scott made us a gingerbread village to decorate. Gingerbread brings up lots of memories for me, of mom and Jane, Emily, Rosemarie, Natasha and Eric. Nice memories, a little bit sad at the same time. It’s a fun tradition though.
I liked Scott’s reindeer decoration.
Christmas was pretty chill this year. It was a small Christmas year so there weren’t as many children as usual. Plus the Jorna boys are getting pretty old now! We had the usual lunch of chicken and salads. No one seemed to care that my Nanaimo bars were the ugliest batch I’ve ever made!!
Check out this amazing tea towel that Rory gave us. He designs a new one every year. I love it!
Christmas zoom with the fam back home.
Trying on my latest knitting project to see if I wanted to add an extra row of design or not. Of course I do, #longtorso.
I just had a craving for hotpot. This time I picked a broth that wasn’t spicy, after burning my face off last time. Much more enjoyable.
I got a new board game for Christmas from my Kris Kringle. It’s called Welcome To and apparently you can play with 1-99 people. I don’t think it would work very well with more people that can sit around a table though, unless you had like a projector or something. We did play with Rosemarie remotely though which was fun!! Good recommendation from Lesley.
Unpictured stuff:
So much more pickleball. Indoors, outdoors, Ashburton, Hampton. I still love it.
Did the computer at the Phoenix Christmas Hit Out. I didn’t compete because I was still doing my strength program. That’s finished though so I’ll compete again in early 2024 probably.
Ethiopian food for Sonika’s birthday. Delicious. The vegetarian dishes are always so good.
We watched a lot of movies between Christmas and New Years: Riceboy Sleeps (sad), Grease (lol), The Holdovers (good), Air (ok), The Grizzlies (cheesy), Tetris (surprising), The Mirror Has Two Faces (wtf).
And then I went to bed at 9:30pm on New Years Eve. :P
Scott got us tickets to see Weezer with Jemma and Damien. I hadn’t really listened to Weezer since like 2007 but it was still good! Very nostalgic. I could tell that they have been doing this show for a long time because everything was very polished. I knew every song except two or three, and I can’t think of any songs I like that they didn’t play. We were sitting up on the edge and it was pretty chill.
The concert was on Friday. On Saturday I was on call and Scott played bowls. On Sunday we played pickleball and then left for our camping trip in the Mallee, which I will write about in its own post.
I think on Tuesday or Wednesday we heard that Jemma and Damien both have covid, probably from Myles. Didn’t think too much of it as we were both feeling 100% normal.
We drove back on Thursday, Scott was a bit snotty and tired yet still did the majority of the driving. Thanks Scott!
I went to work on Friday as normal. Then mid-afternoon I heard from another friend that she had covid and I asked what her symptoms were and she said mostly ‘snotty and tired’. I’m like OH NO. I message Scott that he should probably do a RAT, and he shortly writes back that it’s positive!! I just spent 6 hours in a car with that guy!! I still felt 100% normal but of course did one at work too and it was negative so I finished my shift (we all were wearing masks like normal as well).
After work a few of us went to Tricky Wicket for dinner and attempting to hit cricket balls. It was very hard and none of us were very good at it, even on very easy settings. I was quite scared of the ball. I did touch the ball one time though at least (I am ‘regular k’).
And you can probably guess where this story is going, but the next day I also tested positive on a RAT. BLAZING positive. I was so worried that I infected my whole department, but thankfully no one else got it. We just can’t believe how long it took… like almost a full week since we saw J & D, and then why did it take me a few more days after Scott, when I was sitting in between them at the concert?! Otherwise, how did we catch covid while in the outback???
We both got pretty sick.. worse than the first time. But Scott never had much of a cough and recovered completely fairly quickly. I had pretty much every symptom possible, even losing taste for a few days, but gradually got better every day. My training took a bit of a hit but what can ya do. At least the timing was pretty convenient.
Oh yeah one annoying thing we had to do while sick was VOTE!? Australia had a referendum and voting is mandatory. According to the website it seemed like they still wanted us to go vote, just wear a mask and bring your own pen. I felt bad for the person checking my details. And the referendum didn’t even go the way I wanted it to so that was disappointing.
Back to fun stuff!
Yet another Birdlife photography outing. This time we went to Bunyip State Park. There was a big group this time! We barely saw any birds!! We could hear tons of birds, but they were all so far away. One of the downsides of going to a place that has great tall old trees.
I thought this quote from the group’s blog post was amusing:
After two and half hours, the group reconvened at the picnic ground to compare bird stories and photos – and leech bites. The latter were an almost universal experience, much more so than some of the 35 species recorded.
Once bleeding was staunched, and with suitable nourishment and caffeine on board, we motored the 10 minutes to Buttongrass Walk.
There really were a lot of leeches. I flicked about 20 off my pants, and one got me between my fingers, so I had a bit gruesome looking bloody hand for a while.
Rufous Whistler
Not only was there not very many birds, I was also struggling with my camera. I’m not entirely convinced that there isn’t something wrong with my telephoto lens. Sometimes it won’t auto-focus on anything for minutes at a time, and pointing it at something close, or something far doesn’t seem to help. By the time I get it to focus the bird is long gone. I talked to a few people from the group about it and they suggested it might just be from bad lighting conditions, but I’m not sure. More testing required, or perhaps sending it in for inspection.
Scott did a good job on this month’s #SMAJ. I didn’t even know what it was until we were nearly all the way there. We went to Luna Park at night and I finally got to ride the wooden roller coaster! It has a brake operator! It’s called The Great Scenic Railway and it’s the second oldest roller coaster in the world (1912), and one of only seven remaining roller coasters that has a brakeman. It was bumpy and fun.
We also rode a few other rides, and had some carnival food. It was pretty busy because it was almost Halloween. Lots of good people-watching while waiting in lines.
Scott made a lot of lactose free perogies. Perks of unemployment. They are DELICIOUS.
Cardigan progress. I thought this cardigan would take me a couple months to make but between camping and covid I got A LOT done. It should be ready right in time for summer. :P
Unpictured things:
I started getting allergy shots for my birch allergy. Despite there not being a lot of birch trees here I still seem to get a lot of symptoms and still can’t eat a lot of fruits (oral allergy syndrome). So I’m giving this a try. I hope it works cuz it’s expensive. I’ve almost finished the part where I have to go every week for a shot, and then they will be a month apart. I won’t really be able to tell if they work until next spring.
We had a games night at our house. Scott made vegetarian enchiladas and they were a hit. We played Tiny Towns.
The new sports centre within walking distance to our house opened after a year or two of construction. Scott is happy because not only does it mean his lawn bowls team gets to move back in, but the facilities are very nice, and it has a sun shade over the (fake) grass so he doesn’t have to worry as much about being burnt to a crisp. They also have a bunch of tennis courts and basketball courts. They do have lines for three badminton courts so we’re hoping that someone eventually starts a pickleball club there too. No, we don’t want to start it ourselves, that’s too hard.
