100 Followers

I've hit 100 Followers.

This is cause for celebration.

If I wasn't pregnant I would pour myself a nice big mimosa with very little orange juice and drink it outside in the sunshine.

Instead I will just congratulate myself with a glass of orange juice...sans champagne.  BORING.

100 Followers I want to thank you all for following along through my journey.

The majority of you are here via the IF community and I thank you ladies for being here with me through my little journey to hell and back.

And while I pray every day for a healthy FULL TERM pregnancy I know that if things were to go belly up I have this wonderful group of women to fall back on for support and that makes the whole damn thing just a tiny bit less scary.

This blog is about a year and a half old now, if you didn't know because no one was following me then it started out as a chronicle of my time abroad as an expat in Sydney and it was called 

From Sydney With Love.

When we returned to the States it very slowly but very surely turned into random/life musings blog peppered with recipes, book reviews and decorating ideas as I really wasn't ready to come out of the infertility closet and share my anovulation woes with the world.  Then it was well on it's way to becoming a pregnancy blog when one miscarriage rocked me to my core and forced the infertility story out of me.

And I've never looked back.

Honestly I never thought I would have as many followers as I do, writing was/is therapeutic, especially during tumultuous times and I mostly write for myself but I do love having a group of people on the other side of this computer screen with shared/similar experiences to tell me things like: 

It's Ok to still cry every time I talk about my miscarriage.

Miscarriage is WAY more common than we're led to believe when we start our journey to motherhood.

Everyone thinks their baby is dead at some point in pregnancy.

That my cat probably DOES know I'm pregnant.

It's Ok to be totally freaked out about a pregnancy post miscarriage rather than elated and excited.

and

Constipation is a normal part of pregnancy.

I hope you all stick around for the ride as we CONTINUE on the pregnancy path and god-willing all the way to the all but unreachable land of motherhood.

Love you all and thanks for following!

This One Time We Went to the Opera

I'm so crap about actually writing about events when they actually happen...

Sorry.

Several months ago, back in October I think, we went to the opera at the Sydney Opera House. My opera experiences are minimal at best...I think I've been to 3 now, so when it came time to decide what to see at the Opera House guess how I chose the opera?

Pretty Women. Ha!

You know that scene when they go the opera and Julia Roberts says "It was so good I almost peed my pants!" and he turns to the old lady who she was talking to and says "She said it was better than the Pirates of Penzance." So, guess what we saw?

The Pirates of Penzance!

Seriously that's how I chose. I checked what operas were playing and it was the only one I recognized, and yes I only recognized it from Pretty Woman, so I bought the tickets right then and there having NO idea what the opera was about. You may remember I also did this with West Side Story and it turned out less than amazing for me. This time on the other hand it turned out completely awesome.

Did you know that the Pirates of Penzance is a comedy???? And that the main pirate is either being very Jack Sparrow in his portrayal of his character....or vice versa? Seriously, he was totally Jack Sparrow (from Pirates of the Caribbean if you don't know who Jack Sparrow is).

Anyway, LOVED the opera and give it 2 thumbs way way up, if you ever feel like going to the opera and Pirates of Penzance is playing, GO SEE IT!

Oh, and you remember this dress, well I didn't wear it to the wedding, but I totally bought it anyway and yep, I wore it to the opera!

How very New York of us to be in head to toe black...

Anyone else been to any really great operas?

I'm going to start my new countdown now, it's the countdown to HOME!

T-Minus 15 Days!!!!

Happy New Year!

Sorry it's such a crap editing job, I'm learning imovie and honestly couldn't be bothered to put more effort into it than this.

Enjoy!

A Day at the Races

A few weeks ago we went to the horse races.

I've never been to a horse race before but I was intrigued by the headwear.

So we went.

It was like going to a wedding in about 7 different ways.

First, everyone is very dressed up, not like you're going to a black tie evening wedding, but like you're going to an afternoon summer garden wedding.

Second, all the drinks are very posh, no beer in a plastic cup, it's champagne and wine and spirits, and fancy beers in bottles only. You can even buy champagne by the bottle! LOL, bottle service people, bottle service at a sporting event.

Oh, mind you we bought special "Carousel club" tickets, so we were in a separate tent than general admission, but anyone can buy these tickets they really weren't that special.

Third, there are seating "areas", like little couches and groups of chairs set up with umbrellas and what have you.

Fourth, heels in grass.

Fifth...alright I'm running out, but you get the picture.

Funny thing about the Carousel club. As we were getting ready in the morning, Dom pondered whether or not to wear a tie and ultimately decided on not. When we got there we discovered there is a dress code in the Carousel, guess what Dom had to be wearing??? that's right, a tie! So, rather than buy the $5 tie they had there for the sort like Dom who had chosen to not wear a tie, Dom argued the matter and managed to get away with no tie.

But...he continued to have security come up to him oh about once every half hour or so telling him that he needed to be wearing a tie. He had to go talk to the manager at least 3 times before they finally let the matter go. Good times.

So, there we were at the races, in Australia, in the Spring where it's supposed to be warm, right? Wrong! It was cold and drizzly and rainy and miserable! It felt like England. But there we were trying to enjoy ourselves in the miserable weather when suddenly it starts to downpour, unfortunately we were sitting out on the lawn with these flamingoes:

and the tent was a few yards away. So, rather than run across the grass risking serious injury (you know cause my heels could get stuck in the grass and I could go tumbling to the ground...or my hair could go flat from the rain...either way, serious injury!) we decided to hover under the umbrella that was conveniently next to us and what do you know, we ended up huddled with another couple. Right away we all start chatting, they've both lived in the States and London and picked up on our accents and away we went. We spent the whole day with our new friends as the boys took turns ordering bottles of champagne. That's right, bottles of champagne! It was a rather drunken affair....oh, that should be Number six up there for how the races are like a wedding.

Ultimately I had a really good time, but my favorite part of the whole day was the fascinators. Oh the fascinators! I love them. Mine was so tall I didn't fit in the car sitting up, that's right, I had to scrunch down in the seat and tilt my head a bit to keep my fascinator from hitting the top of the car. It reminded me of the stories about Marie Antoinette and the pouf and how their hair would be so tall that they would have to sit down on the floor of the carriage just so their hair would fit. What can I say, it was awesome. I wish I would have taken some piccies of the other girls fascinators, but that would have been weird of me, so I didn't. But, wow, there were some crazy ones.

Me and my fascinator.

source

Granted, I'm not a fan of the fascinator matching the dress, but whatever these ladies have awesome hats!

My New York friends are insisting that the fascinator is finally making it's way to the US, I can only hope that they will soon be standard fashion for weddings and other dressy occasions, and that you will be able to find these elaborate concoctions of loveliness at stores all over the US, but just to be safe I'm stocking up while I'm here.

The Time I Touched a Wallaby

A few months ago because we had nothing better to do we decided to go to the zoo. Ok and also because we'd seen on the news that a baby pygmy hippo had just been born and he looked sooo cute!

The Taronga Zoo here in Sydney is pretty tiny but pretty great.

First, you take a ferry there, which in and of itself makes it unique and starts the experience of right.

Second, you're very up close and personal with the animals, much like I was trying to describe at the Croc farm, if you really wanted to you could stick your hand in and touch the majority of the animals. Granted the big scary cats are behind glass, but everything else is right there next to you again with just signs that tell you if you stick your hand in and a goat bites you, it's your fault, you were warned.

There is also a really great view of the city from the zoo, specifically the giraffes have a primo piece of real estate.

See that? They have a view of the bridge!

They also, have a special "walkabout" section where they let you walk about with the animals...specifically Australian animals, like koalas, wallabys and kangaroos. It's very weird and very cool, I'm not sure how the animals don't escape, since all they have to keep them in is two sets of doors, one of which will not open until the other closes....but still!

That's me petting a wallaby.

Kangaroos just hangin' out.

Some random dude and his baby and a wallaby. See now if that wallaby decided that baby was threatening and decided to bite the baby, the zoo would totally blame it on the baby...i'm not kidding. They take their signs very seriously, if there's a sign saying something is dangerous, you better be careful!

The baby pygmy hippo! Isn't he cute?

Peacock with the biggest tail I've ever seen!

So, like I said, it's definitely not the biggest best zoo I've ever been to, but it was a unique experience.

And a little sidenote, because what's a good post without mentioning something random, the Oregon Ducks are KILLING UCLA right now and it's awesome. It's 53 - 6 as I'm typing and they're about to score another touchdown. WOW.

Go Ducks!

The Red Center

We're halfway through our 7 months here in Oz and Spring is finally upon us! We have soooo much planned for the upcoming months it's going to be a bit exhausting for sure, but hopefully exciting as well.

A few things we plan on doing in the upcoming weeks:

Spring Carnival Horse Races - We're actually doing this THIS weekend, I'm quite excited...any opportunity to wear a fascinator and I'm in! I've never been to a horse race before so I have no idea what to expect, but I can definitely get on board with a sport where everyone dresses in their Sunday finest and drinks champagne =)

Jenolan Caves - We may try to do this this weekend as well. It's a holiday weekend here in Oz, which means Dom has Monday off and the caves are quite close, just a few hours drive from Sydney. I think these caves look amazing and I can't wait to go!

Bondi to Tamarama Coastal Walk - I've been looking forward to the Spring/Summer to do this specifically, we've spent very little time on the beach since we've been here and I can't wait for the warm weather. There is also something called Sculpture by the Sea which happens at the end of October along this walk and is supposed to be quite spectacular.

Opera at the Sydney Opera House - We've bought tickets to Pirates of Penzance, which I must admit was the only opera I recognized being performed at the opera house in the next few months...and I've only heard of it from Pretty Woman, what can I say I'm not very into operas, but come on, we have to see an opera at the opera house, right? October 28 is the big day for that, along with a fancy dinner at the Opera House restaurant which is supposed to be one of the best in Sydney.

and...

Journey to the RED CENTER of OZ...I don't know why that needed to be capitalized, just go with it. Before we came to Oz, actually coincidentally just before, like maybe a month before we found out we were coming here, we watched a show on the Travel Channel about Ayres Rock (which is now called Uluru, it's Aboriginal name), or not about Ayres Rock specifically, but it was Top 10 something or other. We both decided that it seemed like the most ridiculous place to go and that we had no desire to go there at all. It's ridiculously complicated to get there and basically it's close to nothing. Even here in Sydney it would require either a plane ride and a car trip or a very long train journey and a car trip. Unfortunately after reading Down Under by Bill Bryson we've now decided we have to go see Uluru. He's so spot on with everything that we've experienced in Australia and he found Uluru fascinating...so we're going. I don't know when we're going, but it should be soon, because in the terrible red nothingness of the middle of Oz it gets very very hot in the summer...which leaves us with 2 maybe 3 months to get our asses over there before temps hit somewhere in the 130-140 degrees mark. Yikes!

And of course there's also surfing at Manly Beach, which Dom has been looking forward to since he came here in April on his first scouting trip.

Are we missing anything?

Booktastic: The Lady in the Tower

While I was in New York I had a friend ask me if I'd read any books lately and I realized I've read about 10 books since the last book I posted about...so, here goes, booktastic is back in action.

I totally got on a Tudor England kick again, Anne Boleyn specifically and I read 2 or 3 books pertaining to Henry VIII's ill fated 2nd wife.

The Lady in The Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir

This is a non-fiction historical account of the last few weeks of Anne Boleyn's life. The book begins with the day before Anne's arrest and takes a look at all the historical documentation regarding Anne's arrest, the time she was held in the tower, and her execution. Alison Weir definitely believes Anne is innocent of the crimes she was accused of and has obviously put a lot of effort into clearing Anne's name, even if it is nearly 500 years later.

Anne Boleyn is my favorite of Henry's 6 wives. She was by all accounts headstrong, feisty, quick witted, unafraid to speak her mind. I, much like the author of this book, also believe Anne was innocent and while foolish for many reasons, she did not deserve her fate. Though perhaps it's her fate that may make her so interesting and who knows if she would be so infamous had she lived to a ripe old age. Would Elizabeth I still have been Queen had Anne lived? Would she have remained the Virgin Queen if she hadn't lived through her father killing her mother?

I highly recommend this book if you share my interest in Tudor England or if you enjoy nonfiction historical novels. Alison Weir is considered an expert on Henry VIII and his 6 wives, this book is very well researched and very well written and I plan on reading more from her in the future.

Quick note about books in Oz, did you know new books are RIDICULOUSLY expensive here? Like $40 for a new book, BUT there are some pretty amazing secondhand book shops which I just discovered and have now begun spending too much time in. I only say too much time in because each time I go I come back with 3 or 4 new books and well, I don't know how I'm going to get all of these books home!

If you're ever in Sydney and you need a book but don't want to spend $40, I highly recommend Elizabeth's Bookshop and Gleebooks.

Happy Reading!

There's Only One "Sydney 2000"

Just over a year ago (anniversary coming up, holy crap!) the hubs and I were married in a lovely little manor house just outside of Bath, England after which we embarked upon our 4 week, 4 country, 2 continent honeymoon. Our journey took us to France, Spain, Egypt and Italy and...

IT. WAS. AMAZING.

We're really not sit on the beach for a week and do nothing kind of people, so visiting tons of different places and having lots to do was perfect for us.

Cairo (surprisingly) was one of our favorite cities that we visited and something that we did there ties into the point of this post.

Purely by chance one evening (because we had the coolest "concierge" ever at our hotel) we went on a dinner cruise on the Nile.

The River Nile in Luxor

The River Nile in Cairo

Dinner cruise on the Nile

View of Cairo from the dinner cruise ship

And just cause we're talking about Egypt I had to throw in this pic of us on camels with the pyramids. (My camel is biting Dom's camel not kissing it! After which the camels began fighting each other with us on them, not my favorite moment on the camel, but makes a cute piccie because it looks like they're kissing :-)

Back to the point of the post.

We enjoyed the dinner cruise in Cairo so much that we decided when we get the chance to go back to Egypt again we'll be doing the 3 day cruise up the Nile....and that we needed to do a dinner cruise here in Sydney.

If you remember I talked about seeing this ship pass by the window every day over and over again in this post.

Her name is "Sydney 2000". And she looks like this:

So, a few weeks ago we gussied ourselves up and did a little dinner cruisin.

Unfortunately my camera died the moment we got near the ship so all I have is a craptastic iphone photo and the awesome picture that they take of you after you're shitfaced from the open bar and make you pay $12 for, but whatever!

Free champagne + free wine + ok food = fantastic.

Over the Bridge We Go

We're almost through this weekend and I haven't even posted about what we did last weekend. Bad blogger!

Since we knew Dom had a busy travel week coming up we had a pretty chill weekend, mostly just relaxin around the house. But, not wanting to disappoint everyone and be too lazy, we did manage to get off our asses for a short walk across the bridge. In the summer we plan to do the actual climb up to the top, but it's a bit chilly for that at the moment, so this will have to do for now.

The Bridge

Steps up to the bridge

View of our apt from the bridge

View of the Opera House from the bridge.

Us on the other side =)

Room With a View

Who knew such interesting things happen out on the harbor. I can honestly say when we decided on this place the only thing that entered my mind was how pretty the view was. I did not intend on having so much fun watching the boats all day. Dom, on the other hand, was uber excited about the boats, more so even than the view.

But, I am here most of the day and the boats have suddenly become interesting. There is such a plethora of different boats it's fun to see (I almost wrote that sea instead of see, haha) all the different shapes and sizes of boats out there!

The ferries are like clockwork, all day long, back and forth. And the "Sydney 2000" which will get it's own post one of these days as soon as we take a little ride on it. It's a dinner cruise ship and we've decided it's the busiest ship in the harbor because there's only one (all other routes have at least 3 ships that make the trips), and it's very distinct and easy to spot.

This is Sydney 2000, she looks different then all the other boats in the harbor, I think we're doing the cruise ship this weekend, I will let ya know how it goes.

Most interesting of all is the cruise ships and giant tankers. They are huge! Like massive, look bigger than Sydney huge, they take up THE ENTIRE VIEW when they're in the harbor, as in you can't see Sydney.

So, I've put together a little photo montage of the harbor, in all it's different stages of interestingness. In no particular order...enjoy.

Massive tanker.

Cruise ship just passing through.

Cruise ship at night. You can't even see the Opera House! Sorry it's blurry, it was night after all.

Cruise ship almost as tall as the space under the bridge!

It's also been quite fun, just to see how the view changes, with the time of day and the different weather, so of course we've documented the changes for your viewing pleasure.

View of Sydney at night, Dom being creative taking a pic with the wine glass in there as well.

Sunset. Yep, the harbor turns pink almost every evening.

Bats! Sorry it's blurry again, one day I will get a good pic of the bats that fly by each and every night when the sun goes down. They are creepy and big!

Double rainbow on a cloudy rainy day.

Sydney today, right now.

Restaurant Review

Alright, time for another restaurant review!

We've made an effort to go out to eat every weekend and also to get out of our neighborhood niche. This gives us a chance to explore the city and branch out since we're here such a short time and it also gets me off the hook from cooking a few nights a week, since we all know how much I love cooking. Here we go!

Milson's - Lovely little Australian restaurant in Kirribilli, pretty upscale and expensive, but delicious and well worth it. We each had different entrees (appetizers) and mains and tried all 4 dishes. Everything was delicious! Plus they had really amazing bread and a really good wine that we ended up buying several bottles of around the corner at the Bottle Shop. Highly recommended for a fancy night out.

Cheng's on Fitzroy - Amazing Chinese! We've had a bit of bad luck with chinese restaurants, both in New York as well as San Francisco where we each ended up with food poisoning from 2 different chinese restaurants. So, we were treading lightly when we opted for chinese, but this place was absolutely delicious. It's just up the street from us in Kirribilli and they also do takeaway, so we've been here several times now and it's always superb. Highly recommended, both for dine in and takeaway.

Altitude - Fancy fancy Australian cuisine in The Rocks. This is where we went for Dom's birthday and again, like all the Australian we've had here, this place did not disappoint. We did a 4 course tasting menu and again we got different things so we could try them all and once again all 8 different dishes were superb. Highly recommended, but very expensive, so only recommended for fancy nights out. Oh, and when making reservations request a seat by the window!

Holy Cow - Indian restaurant in Surry Hills, which is close to where our apartment was when we came on our scouting trip, so it was nice to go back to that area, it's such a cute part of town. Great Indian restaurant that like so many restaurants here (all except very fancy places it seems) it was BYOB (B stands for bottle in this case, not beer) which makes meals SO much cheaper, it's amazing. Anyway, very very good Indian, highly recommended for good, cheap Indian food and if you're in the area I believe they do takeaway, which is a plus for those living in Surry Hills.

Red Zucchini - This is only 1 of 2 bad meals that we've had the ENTIRE time we've been here. This is an Italian restaurant in Neutral Bay, which is a fun commute for us because it's just 2 ferry stops away, and who doesn't like to go out to eat via a ferry =) This restaurant had fairly good reviews from several different sources, and it was the first Italian that we've had, so we were really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it was less than stellar. For one the garlic bread, which smelled amazing, had NO flavor whatsoever, very disappointing. Then both our meals came, Dom got a meat dish, I got a pasta dish and we shared, both were very...eh. The pasta sauce tasted like it was out of a jar, seriously and the meat we asked for medium and it came very well done. So...not recommended at all.

We're definitely in search of a good Italian restaurant, especially now that we've tried and failed with our first attempt. Anyone have any restaurant recommendations? especially Italian, but any recommendations are welcome!

Iron Lace

Here in Sydney there is a gorgeous architectural element that I have absolutely fallen in love with.

They call it Iron Lace.

These "terrace" style victorian houses can be found dotted all over Sydney. They date back as far as the late 1800's through to the 1920's when they started ripping them down and throwing them out in rubbish piles (that's right, I said rubbish). In the 1990's they started refurbishing them and going back to the old Victorian style, which means the lace is easier to come by. They're absolutely beautiful and so unique.

We have a house in San Francisco that we will be remodeling and moving into after we leave here and we've decided that we are going to buy some Iron Lace to put on our San Fran home. Taking a little bit of Sydney home with us =)

The problem with this is that there are SO many different styles to go through and it's not always easy to find matching panels or panels long enough.

So, the research begins.

I've been taking pics of designs I like as I see them around town.

And today we ventured out to a shop I found that buys and sells old lace panels and I've also found an iron foundry that can replicate the lace, so if we find ourselves short a few we could just have them made. I'm so excited to pick out a design and then start hunting down matching panels!

My Coffee Order Across the Globe

Before I met my husband my international travel was quite limited, as in I'd been to England twice and Ireland once...and Mexico doesn't count. Now, 2.5 years later I can boast that not only have I been to 12 different countries, but I've also been to 4 different continents (The AMERICAN version of continents, don't even get me started on what Dom thinks are the continents, in a nutshell he thinks there are only 6 when CLEARLY there are 7).

In the US it's simple, you just order coffee and then the whole milk/sugar is a do it yourself sort of situation. Whilst on honeymoon, visiting 4 different countries in 4 weeks, which was the start of all the international traveling, I discovered that ordering coffee in other countries is not so simple. All I ever want is coffee with milk, but if I say coffee with milk in English they never seem to know what I'm talking about, it always takes a few days but eventually the proper way to order coffee with milk comes out...so here's my coffee order across the globe.

Cafe au lait in France

Cafe con leche in Spain

Cafe latte in Italy

MilchKaffee in Germany

white coffee in England

and after 2 weeks in Australia, I have finally figured out how to order my coffee here...

flat white!

I think it's stupid and I feel stupid saying, but nevertheless, flat white it is.

Rugby Union vs. Rugby League

There are 2 different types of Rugby, did you know that? There is Rugby League and Rugby Union. What's the difference? I don't know, but wikipedia does and you can read here if you really care.

Australia and I have differing opinions on sports, in that Australia cares deeply about them...and I do not.

Nevertheless, the hubs is in a more Australia sort of mind and convinced me to go to a rugby league match on Saturday night.

Here's what I enjoy about rugby and why I agreed to go, beer on tap...and the players thighs. I don't know what it is, but being a rugby player gives you great thighs and I will watch rugby for this one fact alone.

The other thing I enjoyed about this match in particular...the guy behind us yelling "rip his fucking head off!" over and over again from the very beginning of the game. He was swell.

Oh! And I'm ashamed to say I don't have a picture of this, but did you know in Oz instead of hot dogs and cheeseburgers you get meat pies and SUSHI! No joke, sushi at a ball game = weird.

Good times.

The Best Thing I've Ever Eaten

As I've stated before, I usually do a bit of research before deciding on a restaurant, but by sheer happenstance ( ie. we were on King's Wharf and didn't feel like going any farther) we stumbled upon the best thing I've ever eaten.

Enter delicious potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce.

They taste even better than they look.

Restaurant is James Squire on King's Wharf, which I will not recommend for proper dining, but for bar snacks (potato wedges, potato wedges!) and beer..topnotch! First and last time I plan on ever using that term, topnotch sounds stupid with an American accent but I'm trying to blend in with my surroundings =)