My kraken sleepeth

Heeeellllloooooooo bloggie-friends!

First - I am devastated and blown away and completely thrown by poor Wiseguy's awful turn of events.

Fly free little Lola you are so very loved and missed by so many people.

I am return-ned from holidays more myself than I have been for the past god-knows-how-long and ready to rumble, OK, not rumble, but I'm feeling so very good at the moment. I guess that's what 5 weeks of holidays, lots of beautiful sight-seeing, then surfing, sun and relaxing will do for a girl.

About this time 3 years ago I threw out the birth control pills and we started TTCing.  Can I just say (as you all know) that this has been one of the most awful trying painful things I have ever voluntarily done to myself. 3 years of grief, failure and pain.

Now, as I start 2011 (and soon a Masters degree - eeeeeeek!), I have almost completely given up hope.  A tiny, itty, witty, incy bit still remains, but I am starting to sort through all the things I've held onto (for when we had the bay-bee) and maybe, just maybe, to move on with life. I don't cry when I get my period anymore and I don't feel quite so hateful towards random pregnant women as I used to. I do still feel incredibly jealous and I wish they would all take their great big pregnant bellies and their tiny newborns off to pregnant-newborn person land and not come back til said tiny babies are annoying 4 year olds and all evidence of happy pregnancy is gone (but not any of you guys, you've shared this horrid journey with me and I'm delighted for each and every one of your planned or surprise conceptions). Hmmm, I do still feel pretty hateful apparently.

Anyways, I'm back from away and being away from normal life has been excellent. Bring on the rest of the year!

Can't blog, too busy summering

I know I promised more Italy pics but then we got the kids back and went summer holidaying. I hope all your January's are fun.










P.S. Congratulations Eggs Out of Time!

3 years later

And I love him dearly.

Thank you Big Guy for being the bestest husband evah.

I'm still wading through the Italy pictures, finding it hard to find the time to sort through them. I swear that camera was glued to my face the whole time we were there. And I'm so glad it was because there was so much to take in my brain couldn't possibly hold all the wonders I saw.

I've decided to pick some pictures from each day to show you. And tell you about.

Day 1

After a 23 hour journey we arrived in Rome around 7am on Christmas Eve. This was in the first batch of pictures I took as I rounded street corners and gasped every time I turned my head. Rome blew me away; living in Australia we don't have any buildings older than a couple of hundred years, no architectural styles before Georgian. Rome is a pastiche, a blend of the ancient and the relatively new (relative in a millenial sense). Astounding and intensely beautiful.

The Pantheon.  Just getting there was a trip and a half due to all the things we saw on the way (including a tiny little church - Santa Maria Maddalena - whose beautiful interior had us enthralled for ages). The Pantheon is enormous. So VERY big. How those ancient people managed it is beyond me. It's been rebuilt over time, redecorated and renewed as it was repurposed.

 

Everywhere one turns in the Pantheon, the view is spectacular. And because it's being used as a church today there's a mix of the ancient and the not-so-ancient. It's like mini-Rome. This apse holds the Chapel of the Crucifixion and the wall surrounding the cross is the original Roman wall. From 126AD. The cross is 1400's.  Those old walls. I desperately wanted to feel them.

 

And then I did. Do you think that nail is old? I did.

I'm in love with old. And with Rome.

A friend of mine who had recently returned from Italy said that she disliked Rome - too dirty and busy. But for me it's perfect. Possibly winter visiting is better than summer visiting, it wasn't too busy and it wasn't dirty.

Mi amore Roma.

Watch this space peeps

Because I'm (*sob*) coming home.

Italy is absolutely phenomenal, if you haven't been then I totally recommend that you to go book your holiday NOW. Srsly.

Home in 36 hrs, much photo-i-ness to follow.

I'll leave you with this excellently silly/sexy Italian men's undies box, he has his O face on 'cause it's O time baby!