Ramadan Mubarak

Today is day 6 of Ramadan, the fasting month for Muslims. So far Ramadan has been pretty easy, probably because I've been observing it since as long as I can remember. The biggest challenge for me is the lack of sleep since DH and I wake up at 5 a.m. every morning to have our last meal before fasting till sunset, I end up feeling like a zombie when I get to the office. Also I really need to keep my temper in check. Hungry lawyer = grumpy lawyer. I feel bad for my internal users (sometimes) coz I bite their heads off whenever they act like they've never worked in their entire life before, but hey, "you have to help me help you" is all I gotta say.

I have been cooking every day for Iftar (the time when we break fast) this fasting month so far, and my dishes are kinda touch and go since I can't taste them to see if they need any more salt, chili, tamarind juice etc but so far DH is not complaining :) Here are some of the dishes that I've made.

clockwise from top left: stir fried squid with tumeric powder and french beans, beef in soy sauce, stinky beans and fried fish with sambal

clockwise from top left: chicken korma, fried fish, grilled eggplants, stinky beans, fermented fish (terubuk), kuih koci and sambal belancan

I tried making donuts a couple of days ago. I got the recipe from The Cooking Photographer. It turned okay and DH loved them, but because I halved the measurement (since there's only me and DH to eat them donuts), I don't think the measurement I used was all that accurate :P

For today's Iftar DH wants tomyam (spicy Thai soup), which reminds me I need to make a list of things to buy from the supermarket. Will write more soon. Ramadan Mubarak everyone!

p/s: It's nice not talking about IVF and the whole infertility thingy once in a while, don't you think? :P 

If Only...

I was having coffee with DH this morning and it suddenly hit me. If I hadn't miscarried the first time, I would have had a baby already by this time. How depressing is that? And then I was trolling my twitter feed when I saw my buttcheek's tweet on this blogpost. I think I wrote a few blogs ago that I have come to terms with my loss, but then again, I guess when it comes to the loss of your child you will never really come to terms. 


This afternoon I bumped into someone I know at the office and she asked me if I was pregnant and looked at my tummy. I told her, "no. I'm just fat." Seriously, when will people ever learn not to ask these kinds of questions? They're highly inappropriate. Although she doesn't know about my struggle with infertility, it's still inappropriate. 


I dunno. It's been a really weird day. I just want the day to be over so I can head home and have a cuddle on the couch with DH.

Ramblings

So I was scrolling through my Instagram feed a few days ago and saw photos of my friends' babies. And then it hit me. It doesn't hurt anymore when I see them. After the miscarriage, it used to upset me so much to see photos of my pregnant friends or photos of their babies. I even unfollowed some of them on Instagram and muted them on Twitter. Pretty bad eh? Everytime I looked at them, I would think to myself that this was all so unfair. Why them and not me?

And then that feeling disappeared a couple of days ago. Don't ask me how or why. It just did. Maybe I have healed emotionally. And though it's a good thing, I can't help but feel a little bit guilty. I'm starting to forget what it feels like to be pregnant, to be carrying my little peanut in my womb. Granted I've never experienced morning sickness, so there's nothing to remember about that. One thing I do remember is waking up in the middle of the night, sometimes more than once, just to pee.

Anyway, I think I'm over it. It's time to let go of the past and move forward. DH and I still haven't decided when to start our next IVF cycle, and I'm fine with that. I don't want to rush into anything. All I know is that right now I'm in a standoff with infertility, and I gotta say, I ain't gonna the one who blink first.

In other news, AF finally came last Friday and it was nasty! My God what it did to me emotionally. I was in such a crappy mood that even the tiniest things set me off. I know it was my hormones messing with me but I felt like DH wasn't paying much attention to me, so I didn't speak to me almost the entire weekend. Poor guy. I bet he didn't know what hit him. I did go for a little run yesterday to let off some steam so that calmed me down a bit. DH ran with me although truth be told, I wouldn't mind going running alone.

Ooooh I also watched The Amazing Spiderman with DH on Friday night. Though I was in a foul mood, I quite enjoyed the Spidey reboot. There's nothing new with the plot. I wish they could have gone with a different storyline and the villain played by Rhys Ifans, well, I didn't quite connect with him. Probably because I'll always think of him as Spike in Notting Hill. But Andrew Garfield does make a better Spiderman compared to scrawny Tobey Maguire. If you haven't watched it, you should.

Tell me he doesn't make a yummy Spiderman

Let's see. What else did I do last week? I was on a Friday Night Lights (the TV show, not the movie) marathon last week. I managed to watch up to the Season 4. I haven't been obsessed in a TV in a long time but my God was I hooked with this one. There are so many things I love about this show and my only regret is that I didn't watch this earlier. I love the story line and the script in my opinion is one of the best on television. There were moments that made me smile and laugh. There were moments that made me cry like a baby. I love that the show addresses racism and death. I love that the show focuses a lot on the football story line, which is what the show is all about, but at the same time shows the reality of being teenagers in high school, their trials and their tribulations. I love the realistic portrayal of the relationship between Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his wife Tami Taylor (Connie Britton). I love the interaction between Coach Taylor, Tami and their daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden). And I love Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) who plays the shy, stuttering football player who was forced to take on the role of QB 1 after Jason Street (Scott Porter) got paralyzed. I love the relationship between Matt and Julie and the depth of their teenage romance. Call me a silly goose but I love teenage romance. It reminds me of the crushes I had on boys when I was in school/uni :P It's all so realistic and the acting is second to none. I gotta say though that I prefer the original characters in Seasons 1 through 3 than the new ones that came on after the seniors graduate. And I was kinda disappointed when Matt Saracen left Dillon for Chicago in Season 4. For me, aside from Coach Taylor, he is the heart and soul of this show. It's too bad that FNL only got to Season 5 before it got cancelled. I feel like there's so much more stories they could tell on the show. I could go on and on about this brilliant show but I'll leave that for another day. But watch the whole series if you haven't. It's worth your time, trust me.

"Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose"

What Went Down Last Weekend

So last weekend was a busy weekend for me and DH. We didn't go back to my parents' house since they were away anyway, which is a good thing coz we got to do whatever we wanted with our time. On Saturday, I channeled my inner Cinderella and cleaned the house and did the laundry. Why I had to do a truckload of laundry when there are only two people in my household is beyond me by the way. I wanted to call my weekly cleaner but she had to clean another house, so I thought what the heck, I'd just clean the house myself. I can't say the house is sparkling clean but it's a start. After making lunch (mutton curry) and DH has had his fill, we went to KLCC for a date. I managed to refrain from buying anymore books from the bookstore. DH managed to get shirts from his favourite label at a discount so he was a happy duck. I then treated him tea at Ben's where we both had milkshakes (chocolate banana for DH and Oreo for me) and some buffalo wings.

On Sunday DH and I went on our weekly hike up the hill. We came down at 9.30 a.m. and got ready to meet our friends for brunch at Plan B Bangsar. One of these friends is my buttcheek who had a miscarriage a week ago.I've been avoiding seeing them after my own miscarriage but I gotta admit, I missed them, hence the brunch. Besides my family, this group of people are my biggest supporters in my battle against infertility. We talked about the miscarriages but didn't dwell too much in it, which I'm glad. There's no point in dwelling on something that we have no control over, right?  It was really really great to see the girls again after two months of silence. I was hungry and had a craving for the all-day breakfast platter which had a hash brown, sausage, two poached eggs, sauteed mushroom, grilled tomato and baked beans (whoa!). I didn't get to take a photo of my platter coz as soon as the waiter brought me my dish, I attacked it as if my life depended on it hahaha. 

Love these girls to death

Anyway, it was a really good weekend. I mean, I love my parents but sometimes having weekends to ourselves to do whatever we want without having to go back to their place is all that I need. 

What did you guys do last weekend?