by ·0 Comments

Everyone loves those emails, right? :P

Well things are pretty crazy aren’t they.

I thought I’d just write a little update about how we’re doing at the moment, in case any one was wondering (probably not)/is really bored (probably yes).

We’re semi-locked down here in Melbourne. They’ve closed schools and non-essential businesses, and are encouraging everyone to just stay home if they can.

Scott’s work is suffering because restaurants can only do takeaway. He still has a job but after the next payday all their salaries are getting cut 50%. Theoretically he should only have to work 50% but I doubt that will happen as he is pretty much always on call.

My work is quiet, but we’ve had to divide into two separate teams to try and avoid having to shut down if one of us gets infected. So some days I will have to work very hard, and some days I won’t do very much at all.

Obviously this could all change any minute.

I’m glad we were conservative with our mortgage.

Not being allowed to go to the gym was a huge change. I got bored of home workouts after the first day (6kg laundry detergent is not enough weight!!) and decided to ask my weightlifting club if they were willing to lend out equipment. At first they said no, but then they came around. I did well in the equipment lottery and ended up with squat racks and all the weight plates I need, plus a bar borrowed from a friend.

Last weekend Scott and I built a mini weightlifting platform in the garage and now I’m pretty much set. The platform is big enough to do all the things I need to do, but because it’s against the wall (so we can still park the car in there) I will have to be quite conservative with anything I might miss behind (ie. snatches). I should be able to do about 90% normal training though, which is great for my body and my sanity.

Other than setting up the garage gym we’ve been entertaining ourselves by cooking elaborate foods (cinnamon buns, homemade bread, perogies etc.) and playing A LOT of board games. We’ve even been playing games with Rose and Lauren over the internet.

The house is already pretty clean and organized but Scott’s been working on pulling down the ivy on the back fences and yesterday I cleaned the gutters. I’m trying to be semi productive and not watch too much mindless TV but we’ll see how it goes. Scott got the entire ER series for me which I’m saving for if I have to do full quarantine. Oh yeah we also did pub trivia on FB live the other night with my friend, and this morning I watched Ben Folds do a live show from his hotel room in Sydney, which both may end up being weekly activities. Kinda neat.

Anyway hope y’all are doing OK. I’d love to know how you are keeping busy too.

by ·0 Comments

We had quite a busy start to the year! A lot of our spare time was taken up by preparing to move and moving but we still squeezed in plenty of fun stuff as well.

As is becoming tradition, we started 2020 by going to the beach on January 1 for a swim in the ocean. It wasn’t as hot as last year but plenty warm enough to jump off the pier and paddle around for a bit. It was nice to lie under our sunshade and read too.

We went to the local T20 derby. It was freezing. And kind of boring. I do not want to see good bowlers! I want to see bad bowling!!

I can’t walk to work any more so I bought an electric bike from Aldi. :D It is so fun, I really love it. It takes away all the parts I hated about biking and leaves all the fun parts. I can get to work in 20 minutes without getting sweaty! It can go 50km on one charge, and helps me go 25 km/hr (after that you’re on your own).

Noah’s parents went on holiday for their anniversary so he stayed with us for a night. Him and Scott played a lot of Fortnight, and I took him to my gym. One of the coaches showed him how to squat and deadlift and stuff. Jono was in town as well so we met up with him and some friends in the city for more T20 cricket. Which was also quite boring. That’s three times I’ve been recently and none of them have been particularly interesting. I’m really starting to think even big bash is not really that exciting.

We had the craziest hail storm I’ve ever seen. The pictures don’t do it justice because those chunks on the pavement are ones that have already smashed/melted. The hail was the size of pool balls!! I was so worried that the windows of the car would break since it was just parked on the street. Scott ran out to throw some blankets/towels over the car which helped a lot but we still ended up with three monster dents on the hood and one above the door. UGH. There was SO much damage to all the cars in our suburb.

Plus I think it cracked some of the roof tiles (we told the landlords/have moved out now so… not my problem..). We found out about that because Melbourne had BROWN RAIN for a couple days after for some reason (YAY CLIMATE CHANGE). This brown rain really highlighted the leak by staining the walls and carpet as it flowed into the house.

The hail was super localised so our new house appears to be completely fine btw.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0289-1024x683.jpg

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_20200120_214432-1024x683.jpg

I started to feel very sick that weekend but still went to work on Monday because Scott’s January #SMAJ activity was corporate tickets to the Australian Open on Monday night and I felt like I couldn’t call in sick and then go to the tennis. So I suffered through a day of work, then went to the tennis, which was probably a terrible idea. To make it worse it was POURING RAIN and I got 100% soaked from waist down (I did have my good coat on) on the way there.

The tennis was very cool though. Thanks Telstra! We got to have a great meal and then watched Ash Barty’s match and Novak Djokovic’s match. We had to leave before Novak was finished winning though because I was a disgusting snotty mess and I was running out of tissues and felt terrible for everyone around me. I ended up staying home from work and sleeping for two days straight after that.

Settlement day was uneventful. Almost too uneventful. We really had no idea if anything was happening. But eventually in the afternoon we got an email that said everything had gone through and I could go to the real estate office to pick up the keys to the new house. Hooray! Our mortgage showed up in our online banking as well which is very confronting every time I open the app.

We didn’t move in straight away though because we were going camping that weekend with some friends. I really don’t recommend doing that unless you love checklists a lot. It all turned out pretty well though with minimal mistakes. I’ll leave our camping trip to another post.

When we got back from camping I did a quick pop-in at my weightlifting club’s annual bbq while Scott unpacked the car at the new house. Then we packed all the last minute stuff at the old house and disassembled the beds and moved everything to the garage.

Moving day went well! My obsessive preparations were worth it. I used the same el cheapo Gumtree movers we used the last couple times and they managed to fit in 98% of our stuff in one truck load while Scott and I chilled in the garage. It only took 2.5 hours and came out way cheaper than I budgeted. Unpacking took much much much longer.

THREE OTHER RANDO JANUARY THINGS:

1. They renovated the gym a bit and now the ladies have a much bigger change room with a sweet giant mirror!

2. We played a few more games of Castles of Burgundy. It’s pretty fun although we still don’t really know what we’re doing. I would like to try playing with 3 or 4 players. *COUGH ROSEMARIE GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE COUGH*

3. These bean and cheese enchiladas were quite tasty.

by ·0 Comments

Time for another monthly update. Apparently all we did this winter was eat. Almost everything in this post revolves around food, lol.

We went back to my Shira Nui for my 33rd birthday. It’s one of our favourite special occasion restaurants in Melbourne. Again we had the omakase which comes with 9 courses of two pieces of nigiri. They were all delicious although the final oyster/mayo one is probably my least favourite. I got a weather station (now I can tell when it’s warmer outside than inside) and a board game voucher (which we used to buy Drop It).

My coworker quit and moved to England. We had an epic goodbye dinner for him at Pizza Religion where we ordered nearly every single pizza on the menu and shared all of them. It was amazing!!! We worked very hard after he left. A couple other people were on holidays or sick and we were left very short staffed. It was exhausting tbh. Things are back to normal now thank goodness.

I have been having continual problems with my SI joint which is extremely frustrating but I got one of those belts that some people have to use during pregnancy and that helped a lot. (No I’m not pregnant.) Now that we’ve figured out what was irritating it (split jerks) I’ve still been able to keep weightlifting. Next we strengthen everything around the joint.

I went out to the city for my friend Ash’s birthday party. They had alcoholic bubble tea!!!!! Amazing!!

We “celebrated” our 9th wedding anniversary at Pancake Parlour with $5 pancake dinners, hahahah. I had the potato pancakes and Scott had something like bolognese pancakes. It was… good value. We’ll do something nicer next year. :)

I went to the Bendigo Wool Show with Ash and Penny. There was tons and tons of wool and sheep and crafty stuff. I bought some Bloom wool from Bendigo Woolen Mills and got Scott a bowl and a platter from his favourite pottery ever, Bendigo Pottery. The timing was excellent actually because the traditional 9th anniversary gift is pottery!!

Scott’s boss is on Australian Survivor and it’s weird seeing her there. She’s doing pretty well but I can’t imagine she will win when she’s already quite rich.

We had dinner in a bubble for our July #SMAJ. It was chilly at first but they had blankets and hot toddies. I enjoyed the bubble tent experience.

August #SMAJ was the hot chocolate festival at Yarra Valley Chocolaterie. I ordered the mint ho cho with a homemade mint slice and Scott ordered the macadamia ho cho with macadamia cheesecake, but we liked each other’s better so we traded. Jemma and April came too. It was an overwhelming amount of sugar and chocolate. Afterwards we went to Four Pillars Gin in Healesville and I did a gin tasting which was cool but I didn’t buy any because I don’t particularly like gin.

Ice cream all the time. We pretty much always have ice cream in the freezer these days hahaha. That ice cream maker was an excellent birthday gift last year. Left picture is real mint choc, and the right picture is white chocolate ice cream with blondie chunks. The white chocolate base is my current favourite recipe at the moment. It’s easy to make and suuuuper creamy and smooth. Much better than just regular vanilla. Other ones we’ve made lately: peanut butter chocolate, vanilla with Nanaimo bar, coffee, vegan coconut strawberry.

BY THE WAY I’m actually losing weight on this nightly ice cream diet, lol. Maybe I have worms. But actually I guess it balances out with walking to work and running around at work and weightlifting training.

More diet food. Half a Dutch Baby with a scoop of homemade ice cream. Anyone want to come over for brunch? I’ll make it for you.

I went to my friend Zory‘s art show called Incognito. She used to do weightlifting with me but had to stop when she got a job too far away. Anyway her show was really cool.

Bummer Weekend Part 1: There was a house that we REALLY liked and was actually in our budget. We’d checked everything and been to see it several times. It didn’t seem to have any of the weird problems that every other house has. We had PLENTY above the asking price but it wasn’t enough, the house sold for $151K more than the listed price. :(

Bummer Weekend Part 2: Noah’s footy grand final. Unfortunately they got crushed. At least we saw Noah kick a goal.

Bummer Weekend Part 3: We went to the Richmond v Brisbane game with my friend Connor from work. He saved us great seats and we had fun but Brisbane lost and Scott was sad.

Not getting that house really sucked. There hasn’t been any other properties since then that interest us. The market should pick up a bit now that it’s coming in to spring but yeah nothing so far. At least we got some auction practice in so next time shouldn’t be quite so scary.

There was some good parts of Bummer Weekend though. We drove out to Ascotvale to attend a POUTINE FESTIVAL. It was sooo busy and cost more than a ski lodge poutine but this was a special treat. We got an original poutine, with real imported cheese curds, and a ridiculous poutine BURGER. The burger had a potato cake, cheese curds and gravy, plus a regular patty with cheese, hahaha. It was wet and sloppy but tbh I liked it quite a bit.

Coles sells corn tortillas now! I made delicious fish tacos with cabbage slaw. (I substituted basa fillet for the shrimp in the recipe.) Mexican ingredients are gradually getting easier to find here. You used to not be able to get black beans either!

Last weekend we had Myles’s 2nd birthday in the morning and Michelle’s 40th birthday in the evening. To kill time in between we went to see the new Quentin Tarantino movie (I thought it was weird). Both parties were nice and any day that you get to eat two cakes is a good day.

by ·0 Comments

OK no more footy talk for six months. What else have we been up to?

I did another weightlifting competition at the end of August. My back wasn’t great at the time so my coach and I were being pretty conservative. I wasn’t expecting any PBs because I was powering everything, but I went 6/6 and still got a 2 kg PB in snatch and 1 kg PB in clean and jerk! I have another comp coming up in November and it will be interesting to see what I can do if I do full movements.

We got these pretty carrots from Costco. I roasted them whole for about 30 minutes. Then mixed up a 3:2 ratio of balsamic vinegar and honey with a bit of thyme, drizzled the mixture over and broiled them for another 10 minutes, then sprinkled with salt. They turned out like salty-sweet-tangy candy vegetables. So yummy. I especially liked the crispy tips.

Also the Pinch of Yum freezer wild rice soup recipe is magical. I still can’t understand how a recipe can be so easy at prep time and at cook time and still turn out so good! All of her freezer meals are so intriguing. Basically they’re a whole bunch of recipes where you cut up and freeze a bunch of uncooked stuff, and then later pop them straight into your pressure cooker frozen and voila 30 minutes later you have dinner. PS I doubled the recipe and split it into three dinner packs. Also I used brown rice instead of wild rice because wild rice doesn’t exist here. Scott said it tasted like the inside of a chicken pot pie. I will 100% be trying more of these recipes.

This is our new house btw. It’s pretty great other than the lack of insulation. I want to buy one.

The other morning we went to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival with Scott’s mum and aunt. It was alright. They must be making bank because it was very busy and it’s not cheap. I think it would be better if they planted the flowers into cool designs like in Ottawa, but perhaps my standards are a bit high, haha.

I am very pleased to report that my allergies are not a problem any more. I just have to use antihistamine eye drops, antihistamine nasal spray, and a daily antihistamine tablet. Is that too much? I hope not because this is the first spring in like 8 years that I have felt like a normal human.

I trekked out to ALTONA NORTH to go to my old coworkers 30th birthday party. It was nice to catch up with them, I do miss my old EH work pals. Also wow Melbourne is so big it’s like the West and the North could be entirely different cities… I never go there!!

I went on a work wine tour in the Mornington Peninsula with a bunch of techs and nurses and receptionists from medical imaging at my current job. It was very fun and silly. Now I see familiar faces if I have to go to MRI or CT and stuff which is nice.

Myles turned 1 and had a birthday party with 9 trillion kids. He is v cute.

A little while ago Scott’s dad won a gigantic charcoal bbq and several boxes of wine and a bbq lunch party from a liquor store contest that he didn’t even know he entered. They had the lunch on Saturday. A lady came and cooked up like ten different kinds of meat for us, and served it and cleaned up afterwards. What a treat for Scott’s parents. The most hilarious part though? The lady used the regular bbq to cook it, not the prize one hahahahhaa.

This Friday we’re going to Canada!! Just to Vancouver to visit Rosemarie and all our old friends. I can’t wait! I have a very long list of foods I want to eat: Macintosh apples, Jamaican patties, perogies, poutine, yam rolls, Blenz hot chocolate, Smartfood popcorn etc etc. I have to be so strategic about my meals. NO EATING FOODS I CAN GET IN AUSTRALIA.

All for now.

by ·1 Comment

I think the two things that sum up winter in Melbourne are footy, and being able to see your breath inside your house.

What have we been up to over the last few frigid months? A lot!!

Big news #1: I got a new job. A permanent full time job. FINALLY! I’ve been there about six weeks now and it’s been great. It’s much busier than my old job but everyone is very nice and I’m really enjoying it. Plus I don’t have to drive to work any more and have gained back about 2 hours a day with the shorter commute and shorter hours. YAY!

Big news #2: We moved! Our old apartment was for sale and the constant viewings and uncertainty were driving us nuts. We decided to take charge of our lives and found a new place that’s within walking distance to work for both Scott and I. My walk is about 25 minutes, and Scott’s is about 45 minutes. It’s one unit in a group of six on a block.

We love having a lot more space, and being able to hear the rain on the roof, but it’s been FLIPPIN’ FREEZING in here this winter. I don’t think it has any insulation at all, so in the morning when it is 6 degrees outside, it is also 6 degrees inside. There is a very nice gas fireplace in the living room but we obviously can’t run that all night, so it makes for very uncomfortable mornings. Thankfully it’s starting to warm up now so we’re past the worst of it for this year.

Sparkler fail for Jemma’s 30th birthday cake. The Tres Leches cake turned out pretty delicious if I do say so myself, but we could not get the sparklers all lit at the same time and also set off the smoke detector in the process, haha. Forgot to take a picture of the cake in the frenzy. :(

We’ve been skating a few times. Scott is trying to get ready to sign up for the next term of hockey academy. I just skate around in circles and shout things at him every time I pass by, hahaha. BEND YOUR KNEES!!! He is getting better though.

Canada Day was fun. We started the day in a very un-Canadian way with an afternoon footy game. We got free tickets in a promotion where they were trying to introduce the game to newcomers to Australia. I also got two free hats and a scarf! Noice! Melbourne lost by two points though. :((((((((


Then we went to a pub that was throwing a Canada Day party. They had Canadian pizza and wings and poutine, and Canadian Club and Molson and lots more. There was a live band too but they weren’t playing Canadian music?!! I was a bit disappointed in that because I think there are a lot of good Canadian music options. I easily made a ten hour playlist for Scott’s citizenship party back in the day!

A couple weeks ago I cobbled together a porchetta with a giant piece of pork from Costco, and a slab of pork belly. It ended up being ridiculously large so I cut the thing in half and froze half for another time. PS this is our new kitchen. So much space!

It turned out ok but not quite as good as the ones I made in Canada. Perhaps the cut was not really the right kind, or it was just too big. The crackling on top was good, but the inside got a bit dry. My yam fries were extremely limp as well even though I roasted them for ages. Ah well.

Speaking of Costco, I bought a secondhand freezer off Facebook Marketplace so we could buy some stuff in bulk. We put it in the garage. This lot of meat should last us a while!!! :D (Another view of part of the new house btw.)

No pictures but we went out to a really nice sushi place called Shira Nui for my birthday/celebrating getting a new job. We got the omakase which comes with two pieces of nine types of sushi. Everything was very carefully put together and truly yummy. I liked the salmon wrapped in a weird thin transparent seaweed the most. We left stuffed. We’ll definitely have to go back there again some time.


We spent our anniversary weekend cleaning our old apartment. FUN TIMES. Then we went to Crown for dinner, which I already wrote about. We put $5 in the bouncy dice machine thingy and I won on the first bounce!! CASH OUT!!! I am really not a gambler.

Scott went to Sydney for a weekend to set up servers (???) at a new Betty’s Burgers restaurant. He got to extend the trip a couple days and visit Ava and fam, which is nice.


Weightlifting has been… a journey. Months of not very much progress. Then my back started hurting. Debated quitting. Started seeing a physio who is also from my club. Lots of rehab exercises. Back still kinda hurting but he started helping me with a few technique things at training too. Had MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT. Lifting started improving dramatically. Temporarily stopped squatting. Back feeling better. New training PBs. Competition coming up next week!!!

Feeling pretty good going into this next comp, although we’re going to be pretty conservative. I think I’ll be powering everything. I might not get any PBs but that’s ok.

(Pic is a result of doing one million actually ok power cleans with a bar with knurling in the middle.)

Jill and Joe came for a visit the other week from Adelaide. We met them for lunch at Milk The Cow for a delicious cheese feast. We had raclette, a cheese board, and the most delicious Grundlegend fondue that came with fortified wine to dip the bread in first. YUMMMMMMMM. Delicious food and great to catch up with them again, as usual.

The Dees had (have??) a fairly good chance of making the finals this year, they just had to win one game out of the three left. Thanks to one of Scott’s friends we got to sit in the MCC section for their best chance, vs. Sydney last weekend. It was a fun day, but unfortunately, Melbs blew it. I am currently watching the second chance game at home, against a much higher ranked team. Melbourne is winning at the moment with one quarter to go but it’d be pretty miraculous if they pulled this off. I think I will have to try and go again next weekend for the last attempt. I really want to see them in the finals for the first time (since I chose them 9 years ago)!!!!!

My allergies have kicked in hardcore so I haven’t done a lot this weekend. I was on call yesterday for the first time at my new hospital but didn’t get called in. Spent most of the time curled up under my enormous blanket in front of the fireplace and tv. It’s hailed about ten times this weekend. #winterinmelbs

**ten minutes later** OMG!!!! DEES WON!!!! Melbourne in the finals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!