Obsessed with Raspberries

Right now I am completely in love with raspberries. To the point where I think about them all day and have spent at least 5 hours in the last week googling raspberry recipes.

I have made two of the hundreds of recipes that I have found so far.

Raspberry and White Chocolate Cheesecake

Oh my goodness, yum! This was amazing, especially seeing as it was my first ever attempt at a cheesecake. The only problem was that with only two of us in the house, we were kind of over it by the time it was finished. Small problem though really. Its only been four days since we finished it and I could definitely eat the whole thing over again :)

Raspberry and Custard Tarts

I made this last night, but instead of making one big tart I made 12 little ones.... and they are divine. Turns out though that the Big Man doesn't like custard :) Guess that means more for me!

I used frozen raspberries to top the tarts and after I was done I still had heaps of thawed out berries left over. So I sprinkled them with icing sugar and ate them by the spoonful. Obsessed, yes I think I am!

T xx

My Colour Personality

This morning I have been catching up on all of my favourite decorating blogs, trying to get some inspiration for my house (as per usual). I came across this quiz at Design Ties and thought I would give it a go.

What’s the first colour you see in the morning?
The pink and coral pillows and throw that I toss off the bed each night and stack in the corner of the room.

(The Big Man would never let me have the room this pink, but the cushions and throw are these colours)

What colour are your eyes?
Green.


What colour do you wear the most?
Probably blue or maybe grey.


What colour do you never wear?
Yellow, it looks really, really bad with my hair.

What colour do you wear when you want to feel sexy?
Black. Is that a bit boring?

What colour gets you the most compliments?
The other day I complimented when I was wearing brown.

What colour is your lipstick?
I always wear Rose or Pink coloured gloss.


What colour was your living room when you were growing up?
The walls were off white, the furniture was cane with a floral print and Mum and Dad decorated with Papua New Guinean masks and axes and stuff.


What colour was your bedroom when you were growing up?
Green was my favourite colour when I was growing up, so I had green curtains and dark doona covers with an abstract forest print on them. I got to choose the colours and patterns myself and I absolutely loved them.

What colour are your sheets?
White, with a white Doona Cover (in winter) or white blanket (in summer), white pillow cases and the previously mentioned pink and coral throw and cushions. We have had a few different colours over the years (maroon, white with a blue floral pattern, beige, black), but white is my favourite by far. I love getting in between perfect white sheets.


What colour was your favorite crayon as a child?
I loved the colour yellow.

What colour is your car?
We don't have a car of our own at the moment. We just drive whichever rental car is avalable, and they're all white. Boring. We are going to buy a car before the baby is born and it is most definitely not going to be white. I loved my grey Mazda, so maybe another similar colour.


What colour was your prom dress?
Being Australian it was a formal dress, rather than a prom dress. It was electric blue and made by my Mum. I still have it packed away in my box of special things that I plan to keep forever :)

What’s your favourite gemstone?
It's a tie between diamonds and emeralds. Diamonds because, well who doesn't love diamonds and emeralds are my birth stone and match my eyes.

What is your favourite flower?
Pink Peonies, I love them!


What colour makes you happiest?
Pink

What colour depresses you?
I don't know if there is a proper name for this colour, but the colour of sun-baked dirt. That is the colour of my backyard at the moment because we still haven't done any landscaping. For me it the exact opposite of lush green grass, which is one of my favourite outdoor colours. The greyish-green of sunburnt grass also makes me sad.

What colour calms you?
Blue, grey and white are all colours that make me feel calm.


What colour makes you grind your teeth?
Peach. Eugh don't even get me started on peach. Bleagh.

What colour would you like to try, but are scared to?
I am starting to use more Red. It's such a powerful colour, I really love it, but haven't used it until we moved into our current house.

So there you go, that's how I feel about colour.

T xx

A Healthy Baby, but not such a Healthy Mum

Everything is going really well with my pregnancy and at our twenty week scan last week we found out that we are having a baby boy. As you can imagine the Big Man and I are both very excited and can't wait to meet the little guy.

Since I last posted we have had two scans, the twenty week one that I just mentioned and our 13 week scan. I have a couple of short videos from each that I will put up here as soon as the Big Man shows me how :) Our baby is growing really quickly and is a bit bigger than we first thought. On Monday he was about 21cm long and 330 grams. I feel him moving around each night when I go to bed and have also felt him a couple of times during the day when I have been moving around. It is such an amazing feeling and I can't wait until he is big enough for the Big Man to feel as well.

Now that we know that we are having a boy we have decided to get started on the nursery and I am thinking about blue, orange and chocolate as a colour scheme. It sounds crazy, so I have posted a couple of photos that are inspiring me (both images are from Project Nursery).


I think we are going to get started on the painting next weekend!

Whilst the baby is nice and healthy and growing well, I am not doing so great at the moment. A bit more than a month ago I lost the vision in one of my eyes, and even though I thought it was probably just a pregnancy migraine I went to the doctor just to be sure. The doctor was unsure about the situation and sent me to the hospital where the did a few tests on my eyes. Again the doctors there weren't sure what was going on so they sent me for an MRI. On the day of the MRI I was an absolute mess, my Obstetrician had assured me that it was perfectly safe to have an MRI whilst pregnant, but I was still really nervous and when we got there the nurse we met with told me that she wouldn't be having one if she was pregnant. That was it for me, I was in tears and ready to walk out the door. We met with the radiographer who said all the same things that my Ob had said and I ended up going through with scan. It wasn't pleasant, I kept my eyes closed the whole time because I felt really claustrophobic and it was over in 25 minutes.

All along the doctors kept telling me that there was probably nothing to worry about and that they were just doing the scans to rule out all possibilities, so it was fairly easy for me to stay (relatively) positive throughout the last couple of weeks. I was so confident that nothing was actually wrong with me that I asked for the results to be released to my GP so that we wouldn't have to drive the 45 minutes to the hospital just to be told that nothing was wrong.

On Tuesday morning the Big Man and I went along to the GP to get my results and it turns out that I have about 30 small lesions on my brain. Which would be no big deal if I was 85, but at my age it is apparently cause for concern. I have been back up to the hospital for a few repeat tests and at this stage MS is being mentioned a lot, but I still haven't been given any definites. I meet with a neuro-ophthalmologist (brain and eye specialist) on Friday and another neurologist on Monday to try and get some more concrete answers.

Whilst it isn't the end of the world, it is still a scary thing to think about. I am however, very much looking forward to the birth of our Son and am trying to focus on all of the positives that he will bring into our lives.

Throughout the last couple of weeks the Big Man has been absolutely amazing (even more so that normal) and although it is a cliche he really has been my rock. I know that I wouldn't be coping if I didn't have him by my side every step of the way.

xx Tamsyn

My Famous Babies

Both of my furry little babies have recently made their web-debuts and I couldn't be more proud of them :)

The first up was Ollie. My sister used a photo that I had posted here and added a caption to it over at icanhazcheezburger.com. It was completely adorable, but I didn't think much more of it..... Until one morning, I woke up, got myself breakfast, opened up google reader and next thing you know there was my gorgeous little kitten on the lolcats feed. Adorable, yes?

He has grown up so much since I took this picture!


More recently Cooper had his 15 minutes of fame on Terry Stanley's blog, dog days of painting. The painting is even more amazing in real life and every time I look at it I remember how incredibly cute my dog is!

Our First Scan

Meet our little peanut! We had our first appointment with our obstetrician on Wednesday at 3pm. It was amazing!

When we first arrived at the clinic we had to answer a million questions, which I found really hard to concentrate on because all I wanted to do was see that there was actually a baby inside my belly. All day I'd been stressing out that I was imagining the whole pregnancy and that when they did they scan there wasn't going to be a baby (crazy, I know).

When we finally got to the scan I was amazed at how quickly we got to see the baby. It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced and I still get tears in my eyes when I remember that first image of our baby and seeing it's tiny heart beating so quickly.

The doctor pointed out all the bits and pieces, big head, arm buds, beating heart, umbilical cord, legs etc and I just lay there holding the Big Man's hand whilst I alternated between crying and laughing. Have I mentioned how amazing it was!?

We did find out though that we are only nine and a half weeks, not ten and a half. I guess that explains why I didn't get a positive test until (what I thought was) 5 weeks. It was a bit hard to grasp at first because every Monday we open up the baby book and look at the picture of the week that we are up to and read about what our baby is doing that week. I think that once we get past ten weeks (again) I won't mind so much, because we will be able to start moving forward again.

All in all it was the most amazing day of my life so far, I think that it even beats my wedding day!

T xx

The One About My Hair

Today I have perfect hair. Which is awesome, I always feel my absolute best when my hair is looking good. I put lots of effort into my hair.....

Except not today. Today, I put no effort into doing my hair and it is perfect. Considering I am going to be a Mum soon and am probably not going to have 45 minutes each morning to do my hair, this is definitely a good thing.

My normal hair routine involves, washing my hair, conditioning the ends and mid-lengths, towel drying, applying root lifting spray, using curling mouse or carbohydrate booster (depending on whether I am going straight of curly that day), blow-drying upside down until my hair is completely dry, staying upside down for another minute so that my hair cools down (this helps keep the volume in - trust me!), then finally straightening or curling my hair with the ghd. Whew. Like I said 45 minutes.

This morning I washed and conditioned my hair as usual, towel dried a tiny bit, brushed my hair and that was it. It did take 30 minutes to dry, but during that time I did other things (breakfast, facebook, read my feeds etc). And.... it's perfect. It looks sleek and shiny, I have cute little flicks in my layers and it doesn't feel 'producty'. I love it!!

I think I will still use my 45 minute routine whenever I want curls, but all-in-all I think I have just found a much quicker way to get ready in the mornings!

T xx

Four Weeks of Fun

The past four weeks have been fairly good to me. Whilst I have had morning sickness, it hasn't been anywhere as bad as what I know my Mum, my Sister and some of my friends have experienced.

For the first two weeks I had practically no nausea, just ongoing dizziness, which wasn't much fun. I didn't get a lot done those two weeks, I just sat on the couch or in bed with my laptop feeling sorry for myself :)

Now for these last couple of weeks I have had almost constant nausea. It starts about 3am in the morning and stops when I fall asleep at night and is at it's worst right as I want to eat dinner. Yesterday though, I finally had a nausea free day. It felt really good! I worked on some of my craft projects, tidied up the house, did some gardening and generally enjoyed myself :)

It was such a good day that I decided to go out and buy dinner instead of cooking. I got Nandos (yum)! I couldn't finish my burger so I gave that to Cooper, and I couldn't finish my chips so I gave those to the Big Man. Then I got up, went to get the doona so that I could lie on the couch and watch the AFL. The next thing you know I was vomiting up my entire dinner. No warning, no nausea, no nothing. Just 30 seconds separating happily full, to a one hundred percent empty stomach :( Boo.

It was unlike any vomiting I have ever done in the past. I mean, aren't I supposed to feel sick before, after or during the incident? I felt fine though , so I then went and ate three different flavours of gelati. Yum!!

Enough whining from me anyway, I am off to update my blogroll (it is so far out of date that it's not funny). If you are a regular commenter, chances are that I already read your blog and I will include you, but if not please just leave me a comment and I will happily add you to the list.

T xx