Foodie Friday: a Paris kind of picnic

Last night we had a not so normal dinner..

A french baguette, sharp cheddar, havarti, salami, prosciutto, capicola, dijon mustard.. and of course, red wine. drooooool.

It instantly brought us back to our favorite spot in Paris.. and really the only reason I would ever go back to Paris again: the Jardin du Luxembourg. sigh.

It's a dreamy park, where kids ride donkeys..

Or rent wooden boats and sticks from a stand.. and then push them around a huge fountain..

The patience these kids have is unreal. They literally stand at the edge of the fountain, watching their boat sail around until it eventually drifts back to them.. and then they push it back out with their stick, and do it all over again.

The place is just beautiful.. and it makes you feel like you're in another era. But back to the point.. FOOD!

Dan & I went to a cute little market a block away from the park, and picked up some food to have a picnic in the park..

& let me tell you.. those blackberries were THE best berries I've ever had. The bread was delicious, the cheese was creamy, and we got a big kick out of using a wooden knife to cut everything.

So, last night as we ate our dinner & drank our wine, we reminisced about the Jardin du Luxembourg and wished we were sitting on that park bench again.

Definitely a meal we'll remember forever..

Thankful Thursday

UGH.. what.a.week. Seriously, I think this house renovation is going to be the death of me. We had to push back the installation of our carpet until next Wednesday because we came to the realization that there was no way we could finish everything in time.

Our house looks like a bomb went off, our cat (who was kicked to the garage) has decided she likes to escape & get up on the roof every time I start the dryer, we're sleeping in the living room, and it's SO effin' hot in San Diego this week.

All of this has meant not enough sleep for me, so I've been suuuuper cranky and irritable all week. But this is Thankful Thursday, not Whiney Wednesday, right? Right.

My visit with my BFF over the weekend was great. We went to the beach, had tapas and drinks out, and went shopping on Sunday. Tons of girlie time that I needed.

So, today I'm thankful for my friends.. my bestie, my sister, and all the other great women that I have in my life.

Here's a pic of me and my girls.. We've all been friends since High School. My BFF, Traci, is the brunette in the purple.. I'm the blonde in the purple. :)

Everything BUT foodie Friday

I'm skipping Foodie Friday this week because I just have WAY too much going on this week to even be concerned with food, and I have a couple updates to share instead.

I'll start with the bad news. My baseline u/s was this morning and it turns out I have a huge cyst, which is basically the aftermath of my chemical pregnancy. boo. So, now the plan is to get on birth control for the next couple weeks, and hopefully that will shrink it.

I stop my last pill on Labor Day, and my next u/s is on September 10th. Fingers & toes crossed that we can start our 4th IUI cycle then. Now, someone remind me how to use b.c again.. it's been about 3 years since I've taken it!

That's the bad news, and here's the good news.. Check out my new ride!!

Isn't it cute??!! Oh wait.. NOT cute.. Dan doesn't approve of me using that word to describe a car he'll sometimes drive. It's AWESOME. It's a 2010 Rav4, and we're leasing it. We traded Dan's Jeep in for it and while our payments are only a couple bucks less than the Jeep's, we're going to save A LOT of money in gas each month. And we have 2 years free maintenance.. which even includes oil changes. Score!

It surprisingly has lots of power, and lots of room.. I've only had it less than 24 hours, but I'm already in love with it.

So, between a new car and the fact that in about 7 hours I'll be sitting in the backyard, drinking a huge glass of wine, laughing & catching up with my bestie, this is day is not so sucky.

Have a great weekend, everyone!!

Thankful Thursday

Hello blog readers! You'd think I would be in a horrible mood today, given the runny nose, and the horrific cramps. But I'm not! I'm happy happy happy because I started my period this morning, with no help from any meds!

And since my body decided to finally cooperate, we'll hopefully fit in an IUI before my RE goes on vacation. Yippeeeee!!! You see, when I talked to my RE about getting something to kick start my period, he said he was worried he wouldn't be around to do the IUI, and so the plan was to get me on b.c pills, to delay everything.

It wasn't the end of the world, but I was bummed. And now I don't have to worry about that! IF I have to do the IUI any later than September 2nd, another RE will do the procedure. I don't love that idea, since I'm super comfortable with my RE and he's incredibly gentle and sympathetic, but again.. it's not the end of the world. I'm glad that he'll at least be around for the 2 weeks leading up to the IUI.

So, today I am thankful for my PERIOD. That's a weird thing for someone trying to get pregnant to be thankful for, but I'm just happy to have a fresh start. I'm looking forward to our final IUI and I'm going to try to remain optimistic.

I'm also very thankful today for my best friend who's going to be visiting me this weekend. I CAN'T wait. I'm in some serious need for some girl time. And as an extra added bonus, she rocks at the follistim injections, since she's in nursing school. Dan will be happy to take a break for a couple nights & who knows.. maybe she can teach him something! :)

And so it begins..

that's what Dan said after I left a voicemail for my RE this morning. I tested negative again this morning so I called to find out how long my RE would like to wait until I can get some provera.

aaaaah..We had a nice little break from doctor visits, blood work, ultrasounds, injections, inseminations, and shelling out lots of money for everything. Would I have preferred the outcome of that break to be a surprise BFP? Of course! But now I'm just ready to start fresh with a new cycle. And to get our final IUI over & done with.

I also just realized.. my IVF consultation is only 2 weeks away!! Whoa. I have a feeling I'll be waking up that morning feeling like it's the 1st day of school. Nervous, but excited.. and not quite sure what to expect.

In the meantime I'm going to keep enjoying my "summer break" until this never ending cycle comes to an end..

Day 38..

And my period is still missing.

I'm totally convinced now that I didn't ovulate this cycle (damn chemical pregnancy), so I probably won't start my period until I get some meds from my RE. I'm totally kicking myself now for not temping or buying more OPKs.

My plan is to re-test this Wednesday, and then call my RE to let him know I'm not pregnant, and I haven't started my period yet. Fingers crossed that he doesn't make me wait the typical 60 days to give me something! I'm thinking maybe he'll have me come in for blood work just to be sure. All I know is I'm so ready to get the next IUI going.. this delay is seriously annoying.

In other news, we've got lots of progress on our house project. Two out of three bedrooms are painted, the wainscoting is thisclose to being complete, and I've got the 1st coat of paint on the guest bedroom furniture. I wish I would have taken more before pics, but I didn't.. oh well. I'll be sure to post the after pics once everything is complete, and you'll just have to take my word for it that it's a million times better. :)

Foodie Friday!

Time for my 2nd installment of Foodie Friday! Unfortunately I've been eating like CRAP this week, since we're doing the renovations on our house & neither of us want to cook. I  kinda doubt anyone wants or needs a review on KFC, MrChick (yumm-o roasted chicken), or the taco shop down the street.

So, instead I'm going to post about the BEST salad dressing EVER. I promise you'll be hooked. It's super simple and such a healthier alternative to bottled dressings.

I got this recipe from my mother-in-law, who's a total foodie & happens to be a pretty amazing cook. I can thank her for Dan's skills in the kitchen! Thank you thank you thank you, Carol.

Chez Panisse Salad

Ingredients:
Field Greens (you can really use any kind of lettuce, but this tastes the best with some simple field greens.. also, it's best with just the greens & dressing. No add-ons like tomatoes, onions, etc. Of course you can do what you please!)
1 clove of garlic, chopped (I run mine through the garlic press)
1 teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of champagne vinegar (the better the champagne vinegar, the better the dressing.. I pop for the fancy looking $10 bottle. Since it's just Dan and I, I cut the recipe in 1/2 so I'm only using 1 tablespoon of the vinegar each time I make this) 
6 tablespoons of olive oil

Directions:
In a small bowl add your garlic and salt.
Mash the salt & garlic together until it forms a smooth/paste-like consistency  (the back of a spoon works fine. If it's not getting smooth, add more garlic)
Add your champagne vinegar.
Let it sit for 10 minutes.
Whisk in the olive oil & continue whisking until everything is blended.
Add to your greens! (this salad tastes best when you just coat the greens with the dressing. It's over-powering if you pour on too much dressing)

If you have left over dressing, strain it as you're putting it in your tupperware. Otherwise you'll be eating a SUPER garlic-y dressing the next time you use it.

This is such an easy dressing to make and soooo tastey. I promise you'll be making it over & over again.

Eat up!

Thank You.. Thursday

Thank you..

Marielle, for donating 600iu of follistim to me, since I'm OOP. She's a bumpie who struggled to get pregnant, eventually did IVF, and is now about 18 weeks pregnant. I'm SO incredibly grateful for her generosity. Those of you who aren't familiar with the price of these meds (it's ridiculous), that little tiny vile of medicine would have cost me close to $600.00. In-sane.

Thank you.. 

Co-worker at extension 5605. I don't know who you are, but you & your WWJD? notepad, rock.

We have a food bandit at work who likes to eat other people's food. Subway sandwiches, burritos with bites already taken from it, frozen yogurt, and the list could go on. They really have a love for Subway though because if you buy a foot long and stick one 1/2 in the fridge, you have about a 50% chance that it will be there the next day.

Seriously food bandit, before you take that sandwich..think to yourself... WWJD? Now step away from my turkey & avocado on wheat.

Thank you..

Project Runway, for giving me something to look forward to tonight. I seriously love this show..

Auf Wiedersehen!!!

Nightmares

I've been having nightmares every.single.night for about a week now. I'm over it.

There was one about me having a baby boy. I was breastfeeding him and I was thinking "I have no emotional attachment to this baby.. " and I got really sad about it. Oh, and I was living with my parents in the house I grew up in. weird.

Another one I was at work and as I stepped outside the building there was a crazy rain storm. I ran to get to the other building and I was stopped short when I ran into a huuuuge alligator. I ran into the building and I was stuck in there with a bunch of co-workers. I kept thinking "I have to get out of here.. Dan is picking me up right now" and I was frantic.

Last night I had a nightmare that I was witness to something bad and was kidnapped. They took me back to a house where Khloe Kardashian stole my brand new bathing suit. For whatever reason I was super sad about that, even though I was being held captive by these lunatics. Obviously, that makes perfect sense.

So, anyways.. like I said, I'm over it. I hardly ever have nightmares so the fact that I'm getting them every.single.night is really starting to piss me off.

In other craptastic news, I'm not pregnant. I took a test this morning and it was negative. I'm o.k. with it though. I'm looking forward to getting the next IUI under way, and with these renovations going on at our house I'll have something to keep my mind off of things.

I'm crazy.. but you probably already knew that

Why am I crazy, you ask? Because I'm currently painting and putting up wainscoting in the future nursery. This is how it all went down..

We got a leak in the guest bathroom that's attached to the guest bedroom (aka, future nursery). The guest bedroom flooded. We ripped up the carpet and decided that now is a good time to go ahead and get new carpet in all 3 bedrooms. It was something we wanted to do before making that room into a nursery. This just sped things up a bit.

Then we thought.. well, if we're going to take out all the furniture and rip up all of the carpet, we might as well paint! So, that's how it all went down.

Lucky for me I've always thought I would want a light blue nursery regardless of whether we have a boy or a girl. And I think the wainscoting will make it very pottery barn-esque. I want a simple, no theme, nursery. And since we're getting all this work done now, we'll only have to worry about furniture and decor. Now we just need to take care of the getting pregnant so we can actually use it as a nursery issue. Small detail, no?

So, here's the before pics of the room. Like how I painted "I heart Dan" on the wall and Dan painted "Lolo is slow"? He's referring to my ceiling painting skills.. or lack thereof. Jerk.

And here's our progress so far:

We got the painting done and next up is the wainscoting on the bottom, and the crown molding around the top. We're also painting our bedroom, the guest room, putting the crown molding in all 3 rooms, and installing new doors. We have about 8 days to finish, before the carpet is installed. Phew.

Good thing for us I have day labors my parents coming to stay with us this weekend. Now where's the HGTV or DIY network peeps when you need them?

Odds

Hm... So, I'm on cycle day 31 right now. I've had some off & on cramps the past couple days but no spotting yet. Normally I would be expecting my period today (or the last couple days), but I have NO CLUE when I ovulated. Like, I couldn't even give an estimate. Argh.

So, I wait. And think. And over think.

Since last week I've had the same sort of waves of nausea that I had when I got my BFP last month, and I woke up both days this weekend feeling hungover, even though I hadn't been drinking the night before. So of course I'm getting my hopes up. I know I shouldn't. I need to write these off as phantom symptoms and call it a day.

What are the odds that I get a BFP two months in a row after almost 2 years of nothing? Slim to none, right?

And while I'm talking odds, guess what I did over the weekend? I went to the horse races in Del Mar! Guess what horse I didn't bet on to win?.. Dancing Lauren!!! Guess what horse won that race? ... Dancing Lauren!!! (Just in case you only know me as "lolo" my real name is Lauren).

And yes, I'm an idiot.

Foodie Friday!

I decided since I randomly like to throw in a post all about food or drink, I'd make it official. So, every Friday I'm going to post about my week in food.

Because you know, I love food. And really who doesn't?

Nothing says Summer like bubblegum ice cream.. and it just happens to be Baskin Robbins' flavor of the month!

There's one issue that I had with this ice cream. That's literally pieces of bubblegum in the ice cream. Yes, I realize that's the point.. but what the hell do you do with the gum as you're eating the ice cream? You really have 3 choices:

1) Designate a spot in the faaar back corner of your mouth to store each glob of gum until you're done with the ice cream

2) Take the gum out of your mouth & stick it on something until you're done with the ice cream

3) Swallow the gum

I went with option #3. I know, I know.. I'm clogging up my intestines. Didn't someone discover that whole thing was a myth? Or a lie that Mothers told their kids so they wouldn't choke on their gum? Hope so.

My co-worker went with option #1. Until that got out of hand and then she resorted to #3. Seriously, ice cream should NOT be this much work. And what did we do when we were kids? I want to say I probably spit the gum out as I ate the ice cream, and then put all the spit covered gum back in my mouth when I was done. Ew.

Now that I've completely ruined your appetite and any sort of craving you might have had when you saw that delicious looking ice cream, here's one of my favorite recipes for salmon. It's suuuper easy, and suuuuuper yummy. I stole the pic from allrecipes.com, which is where I got the recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter, melted
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans (Dan's not a fan, so I exclude these)
4 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
4 (4 ounce) fillets salmon
salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon, for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
In a small bowl, stir together butter, mustard, and honey. Set aside. In another bowl, mix together bread crumbs, pecans, and parsley.
Brush each salmon fillet lightly with honey mustard mixture, and sprinkle the tops of the fillets with the bread crumb mixture.
Bake salmon 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven (I put mine on a foil lined baking sheet), or until it flakes easily with a fork. Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with a wedge of lemon.

Lyrics for the Soul

I completely forgot to blog about seeing Elton John live a couple weekends ago. It. Was. Awesome. He was beyond awesome. If you ever have the chance to hear him live, DO IT. That's an order.

Anyways, this wasn't a song he sang at the concert, but the lyrics are beautiful. So sweet & simple..

Blessed

Hey you, you're a child in my head
You haven't walked yet
Your first words have yet to be said
But I swear you'll be blessed

I know you're still just a dream
your eyes might be green
Or the bluest that I've ever seen
Anyway you'll be blessed

And you, you'll be blessed
You'll have the best
I promise you that
I'll pick a star from the sky
Pull your name from a hat
I promise you that, promise you that, promise you that
You'll be blessed

I need you before I'm too old
To have and to hold
To walk with you and watch you grow
And know that you're blessed

Moscow Mule

So, apparently this drink has been around since 1941 (yes, I looked it up on Wikipedia), and I JUST experienced it for the first time this past Saturday.

Where have I been??? Oh yeah, at home with my dogs, my husband, and my cheap wine. I guess I don't do the bar hopping that I used to. And I guess even if I did the last thing I probably would have ordered at the bar would be the drink that comes in a copper tin mug.

I can actually thank the fact that the Mule comes in a tin mug, for me finding & trying this delicious beverage. Dan and I were at a bar, eating some tapas. Dan was enjoying his Guinness, and me my red wine. I saw the copper tin mugs and was intrigued, so I asked the bartender what kind of drink comes in the mug.

Two choices.. the Mule or the Donkey. The mule = vodka, ginger beer, bitters, lime juice & simple syrup. The Donkey = bourbon instead of vodka, plus all the other ingredients. Yuck-o.

We ordered up the Mule and Oh Em Gee. Seriously, where has this drink been all my life?

And now a little history on where this drink came from... Invented by John G. Martin, Jack Morgan & Rudolph Kunett. As Jack Morgan tells it, "We three were quaffing a slug, nibbling an hors d'oeuvre and shoving toward inventive genius". Martin and Kunett had their minds on their vodka and wondered what would happen if a two-ounce shot joined with Morgan's ginger beer and the squeeze of a lime. Ice was ordered, limes procured, mugs ushered in and the concoction put together. Cups were raised, the men counted five and down went the first taste. It was good. It lifted the spirit to adventure. Four or five later the mixture was christened the Moscow Mule...

Now someone please tell me.. what the hell is "quaffing a slug"?