Destination: Struggle Town. Population: Me

                                                                   Source: loveyourchaos.tumblr.com via TissueClouds on Pinterest

When you find yourself 7 months pregnant and staring at the next 7 painfully empty days without your partner around to keep you company or fill the lonely nights with love, I wonder, what's a hormonally unstable pregnant lady to do?

I could sigh no less than 10 times a minute…
Curl up in a ball hugging my big belly and cry…
Mindlessly eat half a carton of choc/caramel ice cream till I feel sick…
Surf the internet/TV channels waiting for something interesting to jump out and entertain me enough to take my mind off him long enough not to sigh again in this same sentence…
Send him multiple texts bordering on the psychotic…
and when all that is said and done I could start the cycle again.
Le sigh, siigh, siiiighhhh…

But when you've had enough of sighing till you hyperventilate you could do what I've done and write up an incredibly lame list of things to do to pass the time while he's gone.
Ahem… here goes:

1. Spend over an hour on Pinterest pinning useless images & links like your life and the lives of those who follow you depends on it.

2. Fill your day with as much work as possible.
No I don't need to finish early today.
Sure, a 13 hour shift is totally appropriate for a woman in my condition.
Please stay and have another treatment. Nooo don't leave me… 

3. Catch up on reading your pregnancy guides. 
Go back over the early months and reminisce if you must.

4. Scan Facebook for updates every 10 minutes & stalk the about page of your entire friends list.
You'll be amazed at the banality or downright stupidity of what some people will write about themselves.

5. Watch all the crappy/ trashy TV that your heart desires guiltlessly.

6. Make half hearted meals for one.
Spaghetti ala Heinz tomato sauce anyone?
How about cheese and crackers? Tuna straight from the can is always a winner.

7. Catch up on blogging ;)

8. Write a really shit post about your inability to have a life outside of your husband.

9. Upload and categorise your holiday photos and finally write some posts about the times you weren't so lame and had said life you now lack.

10. Think of people to visit so as not to be home alone more than you need to be.

11. Take naps.

12. Go out and buy the box set of season one of Once Upon A Time and catch up on all the episodes your hubby wouldn't let you watch in peace while it was free to air.

13. Stay up really late until you're tired enough to go to bed without him by your side.

14. When you wake in the middle of the night to pee/stretch your back/stretch your hips or reheat your wheat pack, read a book with the lamp on to help you fall asleep again rather than trying to strategically toss and turn with your numerous pillows in the dark, all the while, trying not to wake your significant other or push him out of the bed or smother his annoying snoring face with them.

15. Don't bother with your hair and make up nearly as much as usual.

Which wasn't much to begin with I might add…

16. Clean the house like you have OCD.

17. Make a start on the office/junk room that you can barely open the door to.

18. Go out and buy some curtain railings in order to hang up those curtains that you bought over two weeks ago. 
It'll feel really nice to walk around your own lounge in your underwear again without scaring your neighbours children for life or have to live in fear of peeping toms watching your every move while hubby is away.

19. Analyse your baby name list and eliminate options by charting the best combinations to suit your last name via numerology testing.

Seriously, by now you're surely THAT bored.

20. Take another nap. You've earned it.

Memories

Source: jesseharding.tumblr.com via Meg on Pinterest

I'd been catching up on some blog reading today and came across this cute post via
The Girl Diagnosed, which jogged my ever cloudy memory to the fact that I once wrote a letter to my future self when I was 14…
(If only I could also remember where I hid it…)

I'm supposed to open it on my 30th birthday which is this coming January. Drats!

Looks like I have 2 months to ransack my old bedroom and hopefully find it.

Please God don't let me find out my Mum has put it "In a Safe Place" (ie: the Ether of the Universe)

This Is All I've Ever Wanted From Life...

‎"A song about seeing the world through childish eyes & being able to see what you really want rather than all the crap that doesn't matter"… I think he sums it up perfectly. 

 Happy Sunday all xox

Goodbye Old Friend

Yesterday we sadly wished farewell to a beloved old friend, Miss Woofy.
(No, unfortunately, we didn't get to pick her name and ironically she never barked).

Smitten by the arrival of our little ball of fluff Oscar, I've rarely mentioned her on this blog but that's no reflection of our love for her, merely her absence from our home since I started this space.

See Woofy has a very special history and for that an extra treasured place in our hearts.
Having adopted her from a mate who was in more than a bad place at the time and completely unable to care for her, Woofy had experienced a life of neglect that no animal should be subjected to.

By the time she came into our care she was estimated to already be at least 10 years old.
We couldn't be sure as she had been accepted by her original owner as payment and her age was of little concern to him at the time - that was over 5 years ago.

She came to us as a timid, cowering soul who couldn't walk on a lead let alone be comfortable around strangers or a group of more than two people.
But after just a few short months under my hubby's loving wing she blossomed, coming out of her shell and learning commands such as speak, shake and sit.
Before long walkies and shmako's became her two favourite treats :)
Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Flourishing in the glow of finally being the centre of peoples love and attention, the affection we got back from her was immeasurable.
It always amazed us that despite the neglect and poor treatment she had received growing up, her nature was as gentle and placid as an angel.

Although accepting Osky into the fold took some getting used to…

Oscar of coarse was in love with her from the start.
It didn't take long for him to bully his way into her heart and she was too much of a softy to refuse him.

Before too long they were the best of friends and he quickly became the puppy she never had.

Soon they were a little too comfortable in each others presence perhaps… haha

It was only when we took in another wanderer, my good friend Cel who was going through a tough time of her own suffering a marriage break down and facing deportation back to her home in Brazil, that we had to give Woofy up to my Mother In-Law since my friend brought along more than just a little bit of baggage in her tow.
We suffered a cyclone of sorts over the next 3 and a half months in the form of a feisty 4 year old female Jack Russell called Becky.

Woofy's submissive nature didn't stand a chance against Becky's overly excitable energy and when two weeks later she wasn't eating, had become listless and was still being bullied to the point of attack we could take no more.
She deserved better than that and boy did she get it…
Roast chicken dinners, sirloin steaks, an unlimited supply of doggy treats and the undivided attention of a single lady's love. It's no wonder she didn't want to come home at the end of her 3 month stay!

Sad as we were to give her up it was a match made in heaven and the knowledge that she was living out her final years in luxury and total comfort made up for any guilt in having to let her go.

Dearest Woofy, you were the best little companion anyone could ever hope for.
Your resilience and refusal to give up on the human race regardless of how badly you'd been treated was a testament to your beautiful nature and soul.
No other dog has been or will ever come close to holding a shadow to you.
Know that while your beginning may have been rough, in the end, you were loved by all who knew you.
You will always be in our hearts.
 All our love xox

Gratitude

Taken at 5 months.
I'm now up to 25 weeks and counting.

I can't believe so much time has lapsed since I last logged in!
I swear it feels like a moment ago I was being told I was only 6 weeks pregnant and yet here I am,
6 months and one week today - It's astounding how fast the time has passed.

While I haven't purposely shied away from blogging, if I'm honest, a part of me has hit a patch of the blahs when it comes to all things bloggy/techy. I'm completely one dimensional and can't help being focused solely on this pregnancy.

I've unwittingly turned away from my old distractions and become completely self obsessed instead.
Oh dear!

It started out in the strangest way though - looking through a camera lens or even so much as thinking about editing a photo literally made me sick.
Seriously it's on my list of morning sickness triggers (which has been ongoing I might add. Lucky me).
It seems creating a life has taken all the energy I might otherwise have had for my usual creative pursuits.
Then my fear of jinxing things stopped me from sharing the early stages of my journey (trust me it was in your best interests that I didn't. One word; Neeeurooootic!)

And now, knowing how love sick I am with this baby and my pregnancy, I fear I'll only saturate my blog space or bore you all with so much talk of baby, baby, baby, me, me, me… me, me, me, me, me.
Although, lets be honest, blogs are always very me me me so what's the dif I guess…

Still, while I will try my hardest to add some variation to my posts, I'll apologise now if it sometimes gets completely goo-goo, ga-ga around here.
I do want to acknowledge that there's more than one dimension to my life but I also have this overwhelming desire to not squander what fleeting time I have left to immerse myself in what is essentially a temporary stage of life.

I've waited for what feels like an eternity to be where I am right now and feel the most immense gratitude for being able to experience something I feared would never come.
It's hard to turn my back on that and even acknowledge there might be more to life lol.

Anyway enough of my validation speech…
I only hope you can continue to share in my journey, my joy and my friendship over the coming months.

Love always,
Kat x

So Much Love

                                                                                                Source: eatpeople.tumblr.com via Monica on Pinterest

Just living is not enough, said the butterfly. One must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower- Hans Christian Anderson

This Monday I couldn't be loving anything more than the feeling of my growing baby's first flutters.
Right on 18 weeks too!
As my Mum & sister rubbed my belly and spoke words of love through my shirt suddenly a spurt of fluttering began and my sister felt the slightest sweep of movement pass across her skin like the delicate brush of butterfly wings.

All night it continued and again this morning. It seems baby loves to be talked to, which is good since most people I hold company with certainly love to talk :)

In two more weeks hubby and I find out what sex we're having.
I couldn't be more excited to know all is well and healthy in there.
All I want is for this scan to go well and at the end of it all to be granted the greatest reward I have ever dared wish for - our longed for baby, finally in my arms where it has always belonged.

Happy Monday folks xox

p.s. Not in love with the fact that the Much Love Monday meme is dead,

but I'll do my best to keep the spirit alive on here at least. 

Words From Before…

30.5.12

Sitting here I've written and rewritten this post countless times only to eventually squirrel it away to my archives for a later date.

Fluffing away about my tales of impending travel feels empty and irrelevant while I struggle to not scream from the rooftops the most exciting news of all… 

That I am almost 2 months pregnant!

How this is even possible escapes me as I had no idea you could conceive without at least having a cycle but it seems the old adage is true about life happening when you're busy making other plans.

So here I am, a week away from when I first found out the glorious news that a miracle is growing steadily inside me, a week away from leaving the country alone for the first time in my life and a week away from saying goodbye to my husband for the longest we'll ever have been apart so far in the 12 long years of our relationship.

I promise when I get back to fill you in on all that has been happening. 

I promise when I get back to be utterly and completely open and as honest as before.

For now I feel I need to retreat - to keep this little treasure to myself lest I jinx myself and wake up from this most beautiful of dreams.

Soon I can feel safe enough to share xox

Guess What?

Signs you might be pregnant or possibly unstable:

1. The Queens Diamond Jubilee concert brings tears to your eyes and the grand finale fireworks leave you blubbering (even though you otherwise couldn't care less about the Queen or her monarchy).

2. You cry during Cadbury's chocolate commercials because "they're so joyful".

3. You crave a meal from TGIFriday's (a salad and their sesame jack chicken strips to be exact) for 3 entire days only to finally arrive to a full house and be told there'll be an hours wait for the next table
- so you cry.

4. You have to stop listening to the radio because every song suddenly makes you emotional.

5. You can no longer spell to save your life.

6. Finding even the most simple of words to express what you want to communicate is beyond your current mental capacity.

7. You forget what you're talking about, mid sentence. 

8. You get irrationally angry at everyone's sudden observation of your "slightly festive belly".

9. While watching the children's movie Rio you weep because "their friendship is just so special".
By now I'm starting to think that I may be a little "special".

10. But it's all ok because as sudden as your mood swings come they are replaced by another inappropriate response to any given situation. 

So which do you think it is…

Is she crazy or up the duff?

Aw here, I'll give you a clue ;)

To My Bloggy's

Dear Friends,

I'm sorry that I've been a shitty correspondent of late.
I've been distracted and preoccupied to the point of neglecting both you and my creative pursuits for almost a month now! That's far too long.

But I have fair reason to have ignored you till now.
What with holiday preparations and an inundation of clients wrestling for my time before I leave it's left me with little time to even process all the exciting things that have been going on this month and all that is yet to come.

 It honestly just dawned on me today that I am only a week away from leaving the country alone for the first time in my life and a week away from saying goodbye to my husband and puppy (and you my bloggy friends) for the longest we'll ever have been apart so far.
I'll do my best to post from there but will have to wait and see how I go.

Well that's all I suppose, here I am leaving you with a brief note to say sorry for my absence, both lately and upcoming, but I can promise you that when I get back I will have enough material to last us a lifetime.
You won't know what hit you!

Until then I bid you all adieu.

A tune to say goodbye to:

 See you when I get back xox

Yippee!

So glad to have stumbled upon the very talented works of this musical genius.
With tunes like these in tow nothing can mess with your Sunday bliss…
Hope you enjoy xox

All About the Boy

I did say I would contribute these to my dwindling Sunday Sessions last week but turns out it was Mothers Day and if you've ever met my mother you would know that mine commands undivided attention therefor stealing the show.

Needed these songs to have a theme of their own and so here they are…
Hope you enjoy xo

iThoughts

In honour of my new iPhone,

(which is doing a great job of enticing me away from my poor little laptop),

I am sharing with you some iThoughts.

i Love… my iPhone, obviously… 

i Admire… people who can meditate anytime and anywhere.

Try as I might I can't stop myself from being distracted.

i Dislike… that I can't retract certain photos/comments (read: spelling mistakes and multiple posts) from Instagram. Either it can't be done or, more than likely, I don't know how. Yes, I am a control freak.

i Am grateful… for so many things this week. It's a love fest of positivity round here - but if I had to pick one thing this week I would say, I am grateful that my travel agent could arrange for an usher to escort me to my next flight at KL. (Told you I was a scaredy-Kat)

i Am craving… dried cranberries. OMG have you tried these?! Sweet and sour heaven, they're a taste-bud's delight!

i Am reading… blog archives. Going through people's very first posts and I must say it's rather interesting to see how you all started out ;)

i Am listening to… some new music which I will share during this weeks Sunday Session. 

I've neglected this ritual since Thea gave up her blog recently but I've missed it terribly and so will be reinstating it regardless of whether I can link it to anything or not.

i Want to achieve…  inner peace. Which I hope to get a glimpse of during tonight's guided meditation.

i Want to change… nothing. Simply happy to be grateful for what is.

i Want for tomorrow… to be a smooth running day.

Today saw people turning up to their appointments at the wrong times and some even on the wrong day (I had 3 girls come at the exact same time and two who weren't booked in for another week!). 

i Am happy… that I booked my tickets this week and that my plans are finally official.

Just 4 weeks to go! OMG!!! <insert hyperventilation here>

Much Loved Plans

Seeing as it's almost official… (well by tomorrow it will be), I think it's finally safe enough to share with you my biggest up and coming plan.

But firstly…  what was I loving about this weeks Much Love Monday you ask?
(Besides the finalisation in my mind to commit to my plans anyway).


Well how about the long awaited acquisition of this little beauty?!

Oh.My.Goodness.Gracious.Me! I am soooo in love with her.
I've only had Sophie for one day and already I feel like we've been together forever.
While I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon, I've been having hella fun giving grief to poor ol' Siri.
Some of her answers have been hilarious.
Meanwhile I'm discovering the dangers of Instagram.
A little late on the bandwagon, I know, but I can see myself becoming more and more obsessed with iphonography by the second!

Well that's news number one and forgive me for not telling you about it.
I was still so undecided and had a few more months on my contract for the Crapberry so was unsure which way to go.
Plus the HTC and Samsung Galaxy had me confused… but in the end I couldn't wait any longer and it's plain to see I'm an Apple girl through and through.
I really don't think I'll ever regret making the leap.

So onto plans…

Penang City Center

Well again I was reluctant to talk about what wasn't yet set in stone. But then in life what really is?
Originally the hubby and I were discussing anniversaries in Hawaii but with funds the way they've been lately that got scraped pretty quick.
Then came the bright idea to head down to Langkawi since we'd heard how beautiful and ridiculously affordable it was. I'll admit I had a bit of an ulterior motive, as my sister currently lives in Malaysia and so was hoping we could spend a few days seeing her as well.
But alas work has come between that idea and due to H having so many projects and contracts due in the next few months his participation in a holiday was snuffed out too.

Enter plan # 3: I would travel to Malaysia with my 19 year old niece in tow to visit my sister in Penang.
Girls Trip!
All good except that my niece hasn't been at her new job for more than a year yet (asking for time off within that time is a bit of a no-no) and we figured it best not to push it lest she have no job to come home to.
Add to that, the fact my passport was being delayed by more than a week and I was convinced this trip just shouldn't be.
Besides I'm such a scaredy Kat that the idea of traveling alone just seemed too daunting.
So for a while there I umm'ed and ah'ed and I if'ed and but'ed until finally I thought: 'Why not?'

Why not go by myself? What do I have to fear?
I'll be with my sister and her boys the entire time I'm there. All I'll have to do on my own is catch a plane into Kula Lumpar, find and ride the monorail and get on one more domestic flight before she meets me at the airport anyway. It'll be an adventure!
And so this week I am booking my flights.
This time next month I'll be on my way to Penang to see the sights, the sounds and experience the wonderful tastes of Malaysia. How exciting!!!

I keep telling myself, 'people travel alone all the time. It doesn't matter that I haven't traveled without company in the entire 29 years of my life or even left the country in the last 15... I'm sure I'll be just fine…'
Oh please let me be fine. eeeeeek!!!!

Frequently, the difference between success and failure is the
resolve to stick to your plan long enough to win.

--David Cottrell

Things I'm afraid to tell you…

Source: inspirational-pictures.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Recently I read this post written by Rhianne of For the easily distracted, who was inspired first by EZ of Creature Comforts who in turn was inspired by a 'Things I'm afraid to tell you' blog challenge created by Jess of Makeunder My Life.
The fact that this has trickled into a force of such momentum as to have over 50+ bloggers participation is astounding and gives me hope that honesty is in fact the best policy.

While it's always lovely to draw inspiration from such pretty sites as design and fashion forums, blogs etc, there's an element of nicey niceness within it that, well… sometimes just feels a bit forced.
And when it does appear that some people are just so effortlessly cool, it only serves to reaffirm my own self doubts - which of coarse is a problem of my own creation - no one can make you feel something you don't already believe...

Anyway I'm rambling, as usual.
I think I'm usually very honest on this space (probably waaaay too honest actually) but hey why not push the boundaries even further?
What is self growth if not the ability to laugh in the face of your own ridiculous face?

The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing,

we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger,

but jump in and scramble through as best as we can.

~Robert Cushing

Right then, let's dive in shall we?

☁ I've collected every card and every letter I've ever received and store them in old shoe boxes.
Proper letters, not bills and stuff, that'd be weird. (Although I do have a few of those floating around too. Sometimes I just put them down or shove them in a draw somewhere and forget to throw them away till I get in the mood to Spring clean.)

☁ Before renovating my dining room, all that space was used as a junk room.
No, I don't mean just a few random bits and bobs that don't have any other place in the house.
I'm talking about things like piles of clothes that don't fit in my already bursting and outdated wardrobe, my very first PlayStation console (plus games) as well as a monthly collection of Dolly magazines dating back from my first days of HighSchool. Do they count as vintage?

☁ During said renovation, rather than sorting through all that crap I simply dumped it all into what used to be the study but is now the Room of Doom. (You can barely open the door or even walk into it without fear of being crushed by clutter).
Sometimes while watching Hoarders I worry that I may become like that one day.
I joke about it all the time but my Dad has always had a tendency to hoard and I worry since I do take after him, more than I care to admit, that it will happen with me too.

☁ I cry whenever I get angry. I cry especially hard if ever anyone is angry with me, even if I just think they are. My stomach gets all knotted and I replay the scenario in my head till I think I've convinced myself I couldn't have done anything wrong but then the tears come anyway.
I hate to disappoint and I especially hate confrontation so a combination of the two is simply a disaster.

☁ When I get too personal about my inner feelings I worry that I'm coming across all emo and needy, not to mention super depressing, and that I will turn people off me.

☁ But when I avoid talking about my darker moments I worry that I'm no longer being real and that you will all get bored of me.

☁ I'm completely in love with my dog and consider him my fur baby far too much than is normal.

☁ Sometimes I think my photos are actually really crappy and so amateur that people only say nice things about them so as not to hurt my feelings.
I also worry that I have no actual talent in photography and that attempting to get any good at it will turn out to be a waste of time.
With so many wonderful photography blogs out there showcasing so much amazing work I feel I'll forever be on the back foot. But it makes me happy that I'm trying and so I continue.

☁ I know I use (brackets) and 'commas' and italic far too much than I should. But.I.Just.Can't.Stop…

☁ I'm not at all very domestic (it comes and goes in sparks & spurts) and worry that one day this will come between hubby and I.

☁ After almost a year of blogging I still don't know what the hell my blog is about or where on Earth any of this is heading.

☁ I get so nervous before any and every social occasion to the point that I get snappy and irritable at every little thing to go wrong. I don't understand why this happens but it gets so bad that I can't make a single decision during my panic and always end up over or under doing it when making myself up.
I've found the only thing that helps is to put on soothing background music while getting ready in order to calm myself down.

☁ I've been known to eat jam straight from the jar. Especially gooseberry jam which I only just discovered recently but boy oh boy does that stuff taste out of this world!

☁ I'm afraid that lists like these make me seem incredibly insecure, self absorbed and neurotic.

☁ Secretly I hope you instead find them endearing and relatable and therefor will prove me to be completely irrational and wrong about myself.

And so now I will go bury my head in my blankets and pretend I never pushed publish.

Goodnight. 

via

Flying Kites

Just a little something nice to herald in the start of the weekend.

Hope you're all having a fabulous Friday xo

New Day

Surprise!

So… What do you think? Isn't she beautiful?

While I'm still editing in a couple of personal touches, all in all I must say I think my new space is absolutely, positively, unarguably incredibly amaze-balls!

I love, love, love that my cloudy little space of bliss is finally able to be shared with the world.

Sneaky me kept it under wraps all this time but I wanted it to make a bit of an impact.

A ginormous hug and thank you to the super clever and unboundedly generous Jade of Oh Antipodes for lovingly using her time and effort to create a gorgeous finished product that I would be happy with.

I would totally gush some more but it's 1.30am and my eyeballs are about to fall out of my head (excitement wouldn't let me rest until I snooped around a bit and left a bit of my own mark.)

Thank you for putting up with the many e-mails and ridiculous requests dearest. 

I am truly over the moon.

xo

Mice and Men

via

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Go oft askew,
An' leave us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy! 

I'm often loathe to speak too soon of upcoming plans for exactly this very reason. Shit happens.

Prospects change and more often than not what can go wrong will.

Right now for example many plans have been in the works.

Research and excitement has been building.

Dates have been made and then changed.

I've set things into sequence only to have them suddenly come to a standstill.

I won't say much more about this except that I will persevere for as long as opportunity allows.

While I might be slightly apprehensive as to whether these plans will eventuate I'm also excited at the possibility of finally being able to share them with you all.

One success at a time.

But oh! I backward cast my eye,

On prospects dreary!

And forward, though I cannot see,

I guess and I fear! 

<Poem excerpts courtesy of

Robert Burns - To A Mouse>

The Darkness Within

“Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody” ~ Mark Twain

This months theme was based on Florence & The Machine's Shake it Out.

For reasons I don't think I need to outline this song is particularly special to me and obviously many others. I think I can completely relate to Urban Muser's feelings here, summing up a long and arduous personal journey leading to little or no avail.

I myself have finally given up on my 6yr TTC fight while relenting to the fact that some things are just not worth beating yourself up over.

She left pieces of her life behind her everywhere she went.

It's easier to feel the sunlight without them, she said.

~ Storypeople

Shaking out the darkness today at {in the picture}'s April linky party.

Floral Fantasy

image via flutter happy blog.

I've been spending far too much time procrastinating on-line as opposed to actually being creative myself. Sometimes it's nice to get lost amongst the prettiness of other people's work.

How can you not when it looks anything like this?

So if, like me, you crave any further distraction why not take a wander in Alice B's Garden
over at flickr lane?
Oh, the loviness of it all…

Random Refrain

<this song comes with a language warning>

Don't ask why because I couldn't tell you, but I've had this song stuck in my head for two whole days now… why is it always the most random tunes that this happens with?
For some unknown reason the more you try to get it out the deeper it lodges itself in there,
don't you think?

Oh well, could be worse. At least it's not a song I hate or a stupid jingle - hate when that happens.
"Da, da, dat, dat, daaa - I'm lovin' it!"

What's the worst tune you've ever had stuck in your head?

Oh! How very Pinteresting…

Indeed…

Gotta admit I've been guilty of being a little more than obsessed with Pinterest in the past. I mean, who hasn't?

(No, really if you haven't then you must be living under a rock - or lying.)

Anyway I knew I had a problem when what seemed to be a couple of minutes of randomly browsing turned into a 4am Pinfest of mammoth proportions (400 pins in one night, anyone?) So for the good of humanity and my sanity I had to step away once and for all.

No I did not delete my account - are you crazy?!

But I did take it off my bookmarks and out of my history thus making it harder to access ;o)

Since then I've gotten rather over it… the constant notifications that so & so has repined my image of blah blah 365 times throughout the day will do that to you.

That and the fact that most of the time the images aren't linked to the source (oh, how I detest dead ends!) had me up in arms and ready to disown the lot… if it weren't for my recipe board. 

That board at least serves some other purpose besides helping me look busy when I'm really not and as if I'm much more artsy fartsy / cleaver / creative / whatever, than I actually am.

I love being able to store countless amounts of useless crap on a system that doesn't clog my own hard-drive.

That's all kinds of Awesome!

Anyway a few weeks passed by without me contributing to or even acknowledging the site ever existed until I got one notification that caught my eye. Apparently Kim Kardashian and Neil Patrick Harris have started following me… Yea, right, as if! Hahaha!

Still, it did spark my curiosity and so I checked in for the first time in what's felt like forever.

Imagine my surprise when I suddenly became aware that I now have 89 followers following my boards!

What the what?

I don't even care that they're probably a bunch of pimply teenagers pretending to be celebrities - we've moved beyond that now people… 

I swear that when I turned my back I had all of 23 followers on there and all of those were a combination of friends or pity pins.

i.e.; I followed them first.

This leads to the question - Is Pinterest the new Blogger? And did I miss the whole "I'll follow you if you follow me" memo?

Is that what's happening here?

I'm not entirely sure, so instead I'm assuming I must be doing something right. (looks like late night pinning payed off afterall…)

So in the interest of staying Pinteresting here are a few of my top pinned pins :)

Source: tig-fashion.blogspot.com via Katerina on Pinterest

Source: google.com.au via Katerina on Pinterest

Source: anothermag.com via Katerina on Pinterest

Source: katsicles-kittylitter.blogspot.com via Katerina on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Katerina on Pinterest

Source: favim.com via Katerina on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Katerina on Pinterest 

To see more Pintasticness visit me here. Go on, all the cool kids are doing it ;o)

Surrender

The Enemy Within

She sits within a crystal heart, adorned by a crown of thorns.

She whispers things inside your head and plants them as your own.

She fills your heart with dread and doubt and when hope comes about,

She hunts the source, she finds the light and snuffs the candle out.

~K

We all struggle now and then to see ourselves as our own best friends as opposed to being our very worst enemies.

I can honestly say I am comfortable in my own company (a little too comfortable at times, you could say that I prefer it) and mostly I can accept that this is who I am and that my body is not me but is merely the vehicle that transports my unique little soul around this world enabling me to leave my own individual mark upon it.

But then something happens to set it all askew.

The inner crazy lady starts to come out of her usual hiding place.

For some, someone may make an idle comment towards them that hits a little too close to home.

A raw nerve is struck sparking that inner dialogue of self doubt and despair.

Or maybe life starts spinning a bit too fast to keep a grasp of, sending the old stress levels and emotions spiralling out of control.

In my case it's always the same… my body, that so called temple, inevitably lets me down right when I want it to rise to the occasion most.

It's no secret around here that I've been TTC for quite a while now, although I have been making a deliberate and conscious effort not to talk about it anymore, around here at least.

(I hope you've noticed, I've been aiming to exude a more positive vibe around here and less of the ' let's hop aboard the waa-waa train')

I've been taking more walks, capturing the beauty in the world around me, making future plans (that don't involve babies) and generally nurturing a happy mindset.

It was all going so well.

My cycle was steady, my tests and scans all came back clear and best of all I'm down to less than 10 follicles within both ovaries.

To all those not in the know, that translates to PCOS free! Hooooooraaaahh!!!!

We then uped the ante and changed physicians resulting in a prescription of Clomid which in theory would force ovulation and regulate my cycle back to 28 days. 

I felt the weight of these past 6 years lift off my shoulders at the imminence of a practical plan.

All we had to do was wait for my next cycle so we could finally begin my treatment.

Can you guess what happened next?

Yep, no period.

It's been 98 days since my last cycle and still nada… (but who's counting?)

This body, this vessel I'm supposed to care so much for has decided it doesn't want to join in on the party. Why co-operate when it can do whatever the hell it feels like?

At first my crazy lady reared her ugly head;
"Don't treat yourself poorly? Be your own best friend? HA! Pppft! How can you not see your stupid body as the enemy when it only serves to sabotage you at every given opportunity?"

I could have taken this direction and run with it but you know what?

I actually can't be arsed. I can't be bothered caring anymore.

Being sad and mopey and depressed and whatever else you want to add to the already salted wounds just takes too much effort.

Equally, hoping and wishing and generally trying to keep the flame alight is just as tiring if not more. 

I. Can't. Be. Bothered.

You hear that body? I give up.

You win. I surrender!

That's it, I've had enough. I'm tired of fighting for the promise of nothing.

I don't want to see anymore doctors. I'm sick of feeling like a specimen.

I've given more blood for samples than the average person donates to save lives and spent enough money on specialists and their tests to fund a round the world trip!

When I think of that waste alone I could weep.

I. Am. Done.

Why focus another minute on something that clearly doesn't want to be?

Now that the usual culprits have been eliminated what other reason can there be for my lack of fertility besides my body screaming loud and clear:
"I DON'T WANT TO!"

There is no enemy within. The only enemy has been me and for 6 years I've waged war against myself.

This is my time to live. This moment right here is the only thing that counts.

Tomorrow may rain, it may not. 

The world might end this year. It may not.

There's always a chance things could go either way however slim but even if someone could tell me the exact day I would become a mother would I just sit around waiting for it to happen?

And what if they could tell me it never would, would I curl up in a ball and cease to exist?

It's going to be hard to let go, I've spent so long "trying".
Although I am mega excited to be giving up those bloody temperature charts. Forget throwing them out, I feel like lighting a bonfire with them and burying them in the backyard!

I want to know how it feels to not care anymore about babies and creation or the science behind it all.

I want to travel and laugh and take too many pictures.

I want to rest and rejuvenate and meditate on creating inner peace.

I want to make love with my partner because the mood strikes and not because some test says my 'window of opportunity is open'.

Every window, bench, floor, table top and goddamn rooftop will be my open opportunity from now on - haha, avert your eyes!

And if life doesn't wish to be created within me? Then so be it.

I am content to create life in every step I dance to, in every mark I leave upon a persons heart and within every beat of my own in this world for as long as I'm blessed to live it.