Yrae Chronicles

Happy new everyone! 🥳

I keep meaning to do more of a retrospective every year but it just never seems to happen. Sitting down to actually go through everything is a lot, y'know? Maybe if I actually keep up with making entries this year it'll happen for 2025, hah. Not for 2024 cos I~ can't be arsed. Instead, have some 2025 plans.

Holidays were lovely 💚 I made a big effort in getting the garden back up to snuff, which has been suffering from lack of water, so I did a proper rehydration of all the dirt, cut back all the dead bits and bought a bunch of new leafy things to fill in the gaps where stuff died. Also bought new little dichondra for the lawn, which did really well last season until I sucked at watering it, and even then it still lives around the edges. So this year I'm going to make a real effort with the garden, get the dichondra looking gorgeous and lush, hopefully cover the area by next summer. It was really fast growing last time so I'm hopeful.

Also, chillies! I want to get into Mexican cooking, but every time I look at a recipe book they always have like three different chillies in them. In Australia, we have big ones, little ones and green ones. If you have an awesome supermarket like my local, you can maybe get jalapeños. Our exoctic foods are very much geared towards Asian, so if you want galangal or Vietnamese mint or Thai basil, you're good. Different chillies? Not a chance. SO. I asked the Discord of Tasting History for some recommendations of chillies to plant in a Mexican-targeted garden. They gave five different ones, so I bought seeds to grow those last year annnnnd haven't yet planted them. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow >> But yeah, wanna get into Mexican X9

Last garden thing, I want a desert lime. I've tried growing finger lime but keep killing them because I don't water them. I have a regular old Tahitian lime but the sodding thing's biggest season has been to produce six limes. I dream of producing enough limes that I can make a mojito out of the thing, but after 11 years in the ground it's done next to nothing. So. I'm trying to source a desert lime. Surely I can't kill something that lives in the desert.

I know I say it every year, but fitness every day. Ideally lose 25kg but that'd just be the icing on the cake. I want to at least be able to fit into the clothes I bought last time I lost weight, cos I've got some really nice stuff and I can't get it on anymore, which sucks. So yes. Fitness every day. After work is easy, just drive to the beach instead of to work, but doing something on weekends is hard. Motivating to leave the house and take like two hours out of my day for it is effort. That'll be the challenge.

I want to save enough money to finally do up the kitchen next year. I think this is doable? Signs are that interest rates will drop next RBA meeting, which would help. It's not like I spend a lot anyway so I'm not sure what I can do about that, but that's the plan. Kitchen next year.

Also, on the house, I want to sort out the studio. Since Amanda moved in, she has a lot of hobbies that take up a lot of space: beading, sewing (three sewing machines and so much fabric), knitting/crocheting (HEAPS of yarn), a lot of painting and art supplies. All of this is awesome except that everything's literally just dumped in the studio right now. Piles and boxes and boxes and it's just a nightmare opening the door now. Used to be my favourite room in the house, now it's all but unusable with my tiny little corner for my computer. So this year that's getting sorted out. If it means installing a wardrobe type effect for storage, then so be it. I just can't handle it the way it is.

Writing I already went into so won't touch on that here.

I want to try posting on Insta daily, and here weekly. Not a bad start, but if I drop a day here and there, try not to let that get to me and just keep up with it.

That'll do :D

I'M AN AUNTIE! To an adorable little cherrub called Airlie, and about whom I've talked in a flocked post cos I don't want to release anything without Mumma's permission. But she's beautiful and I love her.

Australia update: Our curve is definitely flattening. No further restrictions, though idiots in Brisbane/Gold Coast and Perth keep going to the beach without socially distancing, so Gold Coast beaches are now closed and the WA premier's threatening to close Perth beaches if Perthlings don't pull their heads in. But that's it. Sydney's epicentre is Bondi. WHO FRIGGING KNEW, RIGHT? Geeze it's almost like there were thousands of people gathering at Bondi Beach two weeks ago or something! Jeusm Christmas. Anyway. We're doing well! Australia cases are at... 5700 I think? We hit 5000 late last week so that's definitely flattening. Few enough people in hospital so the health system isn't overloaded so we've still only had the 40 deaths.

SA in particular, we recorded 2 new cases yesterday, and 2 new cases today. A third of all our cases came from the damned Ruby Princess, another third came from other cruise ships, and the rest has been mostly two tour groups in the Barossa (a group of Americans and a group of Swiss, for some reason, didn't know Switzerland was a thing until then) and this cluster at the airport. Still no deaths, GO SOUTH AUSTRALIA. Of all the places in the world to be through this, I feel so, so goddamn lucky to be here for it. I know, it's still shit. People are still losing their jobs, businesses are still shutting down, but it's shit the world over. Australia: super low morbidity rate, awesome healthcare, curve flattening and yet we still have reasonable freedom. We're encouraged to stay home, groups of more than two are policed, any business involving groups of people is closed, but we can still go outside. We can still go to work, still go shopping, still go visit people. SA is the only state not fining people for gathering with more than two people. This is absolutely the best place in the world to be right now. I swear that's not SA bias talking, it just IS.

THAT SAID. I'm now home. I have two weeks 'leave', after which, shit knows :D This is why I look for the positives. Today I was only in to set up the booze client's EDM which needed links that only became valid today due to this period's specials only just going online. Apart from that, we got one order for the entire day. Once the booze client's stuff goes out later this week, there'll be a whole lot more twiddling of thumbs. So yes. I'm off, unless something happens where I can go into the office and do something.

Going to make the most of it tho, as is my wont. I'll be making a list of things to do, like use up all the stuff in the freezer (mostly it's stock, so presumably a lot of soup and risotto will be happening) and clean the bathroom, maybe fiddle with my web folio because I'm not entirely happy with it anymore, contact the bank and ask them about worst case scenarios. Keeping up the fitness will be harder, because until now I've pretty much been doing it after work, so I've already been out of the house and go to the beach or the botanic gardens or somewhere to do the said fitness. If I'm at home all day, tho, making myself leave the house just for that will be Tough. I'll DO MY BEST. I'm about 1.5kg away from my first reward purchase, which is socks. Trust me you guys this is more motivational than it sounds. My fitness sockies have lost their elastic and one has a hole in the ball of the foot. I need new sockies.

I got my yuzu tree! Went down to McLaren Vale on Saturday to pick it up and went for a walk in Onkaparinga Gorge afterwards. I'm super excited for this thing, which is supposedly going to start fruiting by next season, so that's pretty awesome. I'm used to citrus taking two or three seasons to start fruiting, so to only take a year, that's kickarse. I want to put it in a pot so I can take it with me when I eventually get a house, so I'm now considering half-wine barrels. That'll be a thing for the list over the coming two weeks.

So yeah. Things are all right. Everywhere's shit, but I'm so bloody glad I'm here for it.

I briefly mentioned this earlier but I want to wax lyrical about my local supermarket. They have a quiet night, which is for two and a half hours on Monday night from 6:30, for people who get overstimulated by too much... stimulation. Yeah. So there's no music, the beeping of the cash registers is significantly quieter and they dim the lights.

There's live music on a piano at the back of the supermarket. There's a salumi bar, a cheese bar, a full-on patisserie, a seafood bar and a restaurant. You can take a seat and a plate at all of these spots. In a supermarket.

But of course, the reason for a supermarket is the stuff you actually buy in it. BAM Asian produce. They have durian and rambutan! Fresh galangal and kaffir lime--not just the leaves, but the fruit. Feijoa, kohlrabi, lychees and okra, and those are the things I've heard of. It's at this point when I'm telling people about Pasadena Foodland that they usually go "oh yeah, you can get them at the Central Markets," but the Central Markets are something special. This isn't an Asian supermarket or the Central Markets, this is a frigging supermarket.

What the shit is an abiu? Or a hairy melon? Sapodilla? So after four years of shopping there and going in with my shopping list based off a recipe I've got in my books at home, but walking past all this weird shit and wondering how to use it and what it tastes like, this year I decided to approach things a little differently. Go to the supermarket, pick a weird thing, look up a recipe using it on my phone and make the shopping list while I'm there.

So my experiments so far this year! I've made this hairy melon recipe, which was... the actual stuffing was odd? Somehow it was lacking, and the vermicelli was an odd addition. The hairy melon itself was kinda like a giant zucchini, right down to the hairyness of it. You know that sort of prickly feel zucs have? Yeah, like that. It was much firmer than a zuc, tho, so it held together really well and was still reasonably chunky after being in the oven for 45 minutes.

I made okra! From a recipe in one of my recipe books, which was part of what started me on this weird shit kick. So this was Turkish-inspired and had lamb mince sausages I made as well (mixture didn't hold together but it was super tasty, honestly I'd just use all the stuff that wasn't mince as a marinade on chops), an amaaaazing salsa, a salad with pomegranates because WOO summer, and the okra! 'How do you cook [weird thing]?' 'Looootta garlic.' Idk if it fell into that typical style but there were four garlic cloves involved in just the okra, also fried onion and that kind of general yumminess. I enjoyed it! Weird texture, slimy in the middle with some little seeds that go pop in your mouth, honestly not sure on the taste because of all the garlic. The whole meal was pretty awesome. Every now and then I just like doing a meal with a whole lot of stuff to it, just for me. I like cooking.

Made this, which used both kumquats and tamarind paste, and it was amazing and I recommend it highly if you can get your hands on kumquats and tamarind paste. I didn't put any sugar in it cos it's not a goddamn dessert and it's already got kumquats in it, it's sweet enough. Went so well with pork, omg perfect.

The latest one has been venison, which I actually got as part of the meat shop, because every meat shop I get one special meat, like duck or prawns or something else pricey. Cos it's only me here, and for just the odd one-off it's not a hell of a lot more expensive than the standard stuff. So yeah. Every venison recipe is full-on gourmet. I was just saddened that the celeriac in the supermarket was super piddly that day. Like in the past few weeks they've been HUGE beautiful monsters, easily the size of a melon, but these were barely the size of a decent onion. Anyway. The recipe was beauuuuutiful, amazing sauce with all the cherries. The meat itself is so much like kangaroo, very yummy, so I'll probably do this recipe again with roo. Love adding to my roo recipes list. I've got one bit of venison left so that'll be dinner tomorrow, then next~

Banana flowers! Specifically this recipe, only I'm low on meat--all I have left is half a pork belly, a tray of lamb chops and two bits of salmon--so I'll probably do this one with the salmon. Salmon always goes well with Thai flavours so I feel that'll be a good slide-in.

Also, Thai basil! I just planted some over the weekend. I don't have a cup and a half of it, but I also don't have a kilo of chicken (which will be played by salmon, as mentioned) so idk, half-recipe. Why doesn't Pasadena Foodland have Thai basil? They have finger limes, Buddha's hands and breadfruit but no Thai basil? I know this cos I've looked twice for other recipes, hence trying to grow the stuff. Last time I planted it, it got completely overwhelmed by the Vietnamese mint, so hopefully it'll be happier this time around. There it is, third photo is my herb garden. The big grassy one is lemongrass, to the left of that, the bushy one is the Vietnamese mint, and the little one in front and between the two of them is the Thai basil. Clearly that is not a cup and a half's worth. D'yknow what I'm going to hold off on that recipe until it grows big enough to get a cup and a half of Thai basil off of it.

Okay so. Hot weather~ weird foods~ that one. Yam beans and baby Asian salad leaves. I can do that one with the pork belly. DONE.

Also it's hot again but it's also February so that'll happen. Since Saturday it's been 35, 37, 37, 37 today, 36 tomorrow, 40, 39, then a cool change down to 32, 30 and 28.

It's also festival season, so the Fringe is on (woo!) and the formerly-Clipsal-now-just-Adelaide-500 V8s are on (boo). Well, road closures are on, racing doesn't start til tomorrow. Monday I left home 15 minutes early in anticipation of traffic and arrived at work 20 minutes late, because I underestimate the Monday every goddamn year. So okay, fine, Tuesday I left home 25 minutes early... and got to work 25 minutes early. What the shit even. So that made up for Monday??? At least??? Today I almost got it, only got in 5 minutes late, so I've had a net ratio of on-time this week. Yay.

FINALLY. No wait. I should put this bit in a private post cos it really relies on real names.

Second date Thursday night! We went to Marion for dinner at Casuarina, a Malaysian restaurant in the shopping centre, then a hot chocolate at Bracegirdle's and just a general wander around the place because it was late night shopping. Learned she likes chilli and action movies (though there was nothing playing because everything comes out on Boxing Day and she wasn't interested in Enter the Spiderverse =( ) and browsing stationery shops like Typo, so we looked around there and just generally bummed around Marion.

I REALLY LIKE HER YOU GUYS. She's so cute :< Also I forgot to mention, on our first date she gave me a succulent. I MEAN. Could she get more compatible? LE'S FIND OUT.

Today was a day in the garden. I finally put up a shade cloth over the back garden, so when it gets hot on Tuesday, and indeed the rest of summer, my plants should have a significantly lower chance of dying. As soon as I put up just one corner, even with cloud cover today, I instantly felt a difference, so here's hoping.

Also did a whole lot of intensive weeding and moved some of my succulents around, shifting some that were getting engulfed and some that were doing the engulfing, and tied some of the hanging/viney looking things to the fence. So the whole thing's looking all nice and tidy now, hooray!

K SO FUNNY STORY. Every time I've been on the computer since the last update, it's been to write. The previous chapter I finished before this current awesome run was in April last year. I'm now halfway through the fifth in less than a month, and holy shit balls I love it. You'll remember my last update, a month ago, was about how I'd finally forced myself to work out was happening in this mess of a book, and wishing to do the cliché writer thing and go to coffee shops to do the writings. I've so totally been doing that. That very week, the weather was GORGEOUS, so every day after work I took my laptop down to the beach, picked a café with a power point and, ideally, a view of the beach, and wrote. I've spent entire weekend days down at Brighton and Glenelg, just writing, and it's been magnificent. That's honestly been most of what's been happening.

Easter happened, though! With the traditional Oakbank races, where we open with a champagne breakfast and continue the day from there. I've found my calling with the veggies and they were so good. I got lots of comments :D I had fennel, carrots, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, pumpkin, red onion and half a clove of garlic each, all roasted on the barbecue. I had an awesome oil I made up for them, too, made up of about a quarter oil from a sundried tomatoes jar, a quarter of my own chilli oil I've previously made, tablespoon each of paprika, rosemary, oregano and thyme, couple of cloves of grated garlic and a few chopped up sundried tomatoes, then topped the jar up with olive oil. It was soooooo good, especially the roasted garlic in the middle, and the steak Dad did (also on the barbie) had such an amazing gutsy sauce with it, aww yeah. There's just something about having barbecued gourmet food outside, even though this was just the most perfect weather day we've ever had for Oakbank, there's still that rustic outdoorsiness of it all that makes food taste even better and gutsier.

Also some horses ran past every now and then.

The previous weekend, when the weather was more autumny and Mum and I were having coffee and talking about options for my very dead garden, Mum just suddenly sat up and went, 'Ooh! Gran has wooden crates in the shed!' So we quickly checked with Dad's brother to make sure they didn't want them, then that very day we headed down to Gran's and obtained said crates. They're just perfect. Also grabbed a whole lot of bricks to stand them on and carted them up to my place to dump in the back garden in anticipation.

The rest of the Easter weekend, so Sunday and Monday, Mum came over and we implemented the crates. Hacked up the weed mat of the pallets to get the dirt out, which was so horribly dry and dusty because they just weren't working. I lined the new wooden crates with more weed mat while mum filled them up with a mix of dirt, soil wetter and dynamic lifter. We got most of them done on Sunday, but had an impromptu call from Colin on Saturday to go to theirs for dinner that Sunday. In truth we's both had enough of them by that point anyway, so woo! Easy out.

Dinner was awesome crispy skinned barbecue pork with Laura's roasted veggies and incredible three-layered cake 8D I ate well Easter weekend.

Monday we finished off the boxes and went PLANT SHOPPING WHEEEEEEE. God it's fun. The fruits of our labour. Some of the plants down the far end will grow to around 1.5m tall so they'll make a gorgeous little jungle down that end.

Last couple of weekends have been the writing thing, then this weekend, well 8D I've decided to take a week of leave. It's Anzac Day on Wednesday, which is a really messy day for a public holiday, so I'm taking four days of annual leave for a nine-day holiday, hell yeah. I've never taken leave purely to take a break and still hang around Adelaide not doing anything, so this is just delightful. Theoretically, boss will text me on Tuesday to tell me if it's gotten busy and I'll be needed on Thursday and Friday, but given that a pretty serious chunk of our clients will probably be doing the same thing, I don't think that's likely to happen.

So through the week while I was at work, Mum came up and deposited ten slabs of slate at my back door, also from Gran's, so today I laid those down the services end of the garden, under the washing line and in front of the tank and hot water service. I also planted a few more of the alpine pratia, which is the little green blobs in the ground to be my ground cover. They're just loving the warm weather right now, just about doubled in size since those photos were taken. Now I've got dirt laid down in the ground in place of that horrible sand I was recommended before, I reckon I'll give the baby's tears another shot down where the slate is, cos it likes growing between rocks. This time, the garden will live, just you watch!

Tomorrow, trip to the art gallery with the whole family, first for lunch, then to see the Musée D'Orsay exhibition, which I'm super excited for. It's an exhibition of impressionists, like Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Manet... Impressionism is probably my favourite historical art movement so this will be awesome.

For the rest of the week, the weather is still ridiculous (29 on Monday at the end of April? What is this madness?) so I'll be going to the beach, sitting in the garden, might book a massage, have breakfast at disgustingly hipster cafés, going to see movies... it's gonna be awesome.

Also the Crows beat Sydney last night in Sydney with literally half the team, including pretty much the whole midfield, out with injury. I'd written them off so hard I didn't even tip them, but they WON. I'm so proud! A truly glorious start to my week off.

BOUGHT PLANTS. Not all the plants, but a good portion of the plants. Cyclamens seem to be only available as individual plants rather than punnets of 4-6 plants, and they're like $6 each, so I'll hold out and get them later. I did get six from the 'save me' table so they were only $4 each. Also all the ferns, so many gorgeous ferns and pretty leafy things. Photos tomorrow when the sun comes up.

VOTED. Woo, democratic responsibility fulfilled, Australia's biggest sausage sizzle participated in, and $10 donated to my local CFS. Senate voting sucked balls this time around. I mean, at least our senate paper isn't as insanely long as NSW, but it still creeps up the sides of the ballot box. I swear it was smaller than last election, tho, so that was nice. It's always in the past just been number 1 in the box of your party of choice, then fold it up 20 times and you're done, so I've only ever searched for my party of choice, stuck in the 1 and buggered off. This time it's a number from 1-6 deal, so I had to look at all of them.

'Okay 1, 2...... now what? Frigging.... 3 for Marriage Equality Party I guess? 4 for..... Voluntary Euthanasia Party.................... Bloody 5, 6, THERE I'M GOING HOME.'

I just didn't want any of them, and strongly disagreed with most of the how to vote card. Family First can suck my non-existent balls (by 'Family First' they think man + woman = parents and that's it), nobody with the word 'Christian' in their name should have anything to do with politics, Shooting and Fishing Party want to abolish the gun laws that came in after the Port Arthur massacre on the grounds that they haven't made a difference (HAH), and everyone else sucks on various grounds and nobody cares enough about what I want so stuff 'em all, basically.

I'm just so disillusioned with Australian politics lately.

On the plus side, I have plants. YAY GREEN.

General life update is go! Thursday was my brother's 29th birthday, but we had the celebration on Friday night because then you can a) not drive home and b) sleep in the next day. Thursday was footy night, where we kicked 28 frigging points omfg. And North still lost. Might've been embarrassing kicking from my boys, but North still lost. I knew they'd be found out. They've only been beating the bottom eight. Come up against a genuine contender and they're screwed. Apart from the woeful goal kicking, my boys played brilliantly, still beat them by over 5 goals (or 28 points and a goal, ahaha). YAY FOOTY.

Friday night, Colin's birthday! Up at Mum and Dad's as per tradition, where Mum did amaaaazing duck four ways that I think Colin's requested for the past three birthdays now, but omfg it is SO GOOD. Beef fillet for main, and salted caramel brownie with home made salted caramel ice cream for dessert. so good I love my mum.

Over Thursday and Friday it'd been pissing with rain, with the forecast being for more of the same over the weekend, so Mum and I decided to forego getting dirt as was the plan. BUT. Saturday morning was sunny! So I suggested doing the dirt to Mum and she agreed with speed that suggested she'd been thinking about it, too. So off we went, rented a trailer and bought some lovely garden bed soil from Crafers. The guys there are so lovely. When he was lowering the scoop into the trailer he held it right down, carefully tipped a tonne of dirt in to make a nice big mound, then used the tractor scoop to pat down the top of the mound. Idk I just find that really cute XD Then we used buckets, filled them up and loaded them into the wheelbarrow to empty into the pallets. Still a fair bit left over, maybe enough for a half wine barrel that I could then plant a lemon tree in, but for the moment it's just in a wheelie bin at Mum and Dad's. This weekend we buy plants 8D

I've also finally been looking at NBN plans, after my street was connected to it, what, two months ago? Probably end up sticking with Internode, even though they seem to be the most expensive (barring Optus and Telstra). I just trust them more, and it makes a big difference them having their head office in Adelaide. All the el cheapo companies don't seem to get much of a rap on Whirlpool. Even though they're like half the cost, they're unreliable and slow, especially in peak time, so I don't want to go with a 12 month contract and live with a year of frustrating internet. HMM.

I've organised to get a quote for fixing Yoshi, so we'll see where that goes. Estimating $2000 but I sure as hell won't be paying it =|

Finally, I think, TV and associated home theatre system which includes bluray player and speakers. The speakers come in white! Which I hardly ever see, especially not for the stand-up ones. Also they're pretty. So that'll be my full entertainment system for about $3500, not bad. Kinda like a Sony telly, too, but I don't know that it's worth the extra money right now. Haven't actually bought them yet, I'd like to first check if Hardly Normal can do any better, or if they've even got the speakers in white at all, but either way I'm getting them tomorrow 8D

Dinner time, then OitNB yaaaaay.

I am now the proud owner of a tonne of sandy loam, woo! We rented a trailer this morning, shovelled out the scoria and took it to the dump, then two loads of sandy loam later I'm finally at Blank Slate stage in the garden! All the crap has been removed, and the canvas is laid for me to now throw some COLOUR and PRETTY at it. And it will actually be a garden! I'll do some progress shots on Tuesday. So excited, eee!

I went shopping! My feet hurt but I saved lots of money. I got this coat and this jumper from Porties, who had 25% off coats and knitwear, so that was cool :D The coat has copper buttons! And is also more of a pinkish-beige rather than the pristine cream of the photo which I would never buy because I couldn't maintain that before leaving the house. But the pinky-beige is gorgeous and I love it. Also the jumper is SO WARM it's awesome. I was roasting while I was trying it on. Love.

Then got this stick-whiz and this pot from Myer, who had 60% off the former, making it $70, and 50% off the latter so that was $145. AND I had money left on the Myer gift voucher I got for my Christmas bonus, so I only spent about 50 of my own dollars to get about $500 worth of stuff. Hell to the yeah. I'm gonna make so much soup with those babies.

I also got a box in kraft brown for my lettering supplies. It wasn't on special. Aww.

I am now set for winter, with my new warm clothes and soup-making stuff. And a box. YAY!

OH AND! I got stuff organised for the garden! Concrete base for the tank will be laid on Tuesday morning, then the guy coming to clear all the crap away comes on the 27th, and the tank itself gets installed on the 10th of May. THEN GREEN! Cover the ground in dirt and cover the dirt with baby's tears and cover the galvanised iron fence with vertical garden and train jasmine up the soon-to-be-fixed frame and have jasmine scent blowing into my studio and it'll be AWESOME. I meant to do this in spring 8D Oh well, it'll be established come next summer.

YEAH PROGRESS.