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While we were having difficulties falling pregnant with Georgia, I was pretty open about how I was coping. I blogged, I posted on a variety of forums, and I found a bunch of like-minded women who I could open up to, and share my thoughts/advice with. I honestly don't know that I could have gotten through the whole process without them.

Weird title for a blog post, right? It probably seems even weirder when I tell you that it's a post about stomachs.

It seems there are two types of bellies in pregnancy. There's the 'D' belly - the one that pops out gradually {and then NOT so gradually!} and forms a lovely round basketball. And there's the 'B' belly, the one that is divided into two - a part above the belly, and a section underneath. I've had that belly for the longest of times.

I'm sure it's no surprise, but I really, and I mean reallyreallyreallyreally REALLY want to eventually have a 'D'.

Sometimes I get envious of baby bump pictures and threads, as there are so many beautiful bumps out there that stand out all on their own. When we've been taking our weekly shots, I cup my stomach with my hands, so that the 'B' is less noticeable, because it feels more like my regular belly size than it does a pregnant mama tum.

It's still early days for us now at 13 weeks + 4 days, but I do see the lower part of my belly starting to swell a wee bit. When I use our doppler, I find baby way down low underneath my tummy & still near my pelvis - so there's still a lot of room to move up. My hope is that as things to start to rise and shift, the 'B' will become a 'D'.

Whatever happens, I'm ready to embrace the belly. It suddenly feels as though time has slowed down again, since we're slow on appointments and scans for a good few weeks yet... so this is something that I can look forward to!

Ugh, guys, I am so sorry I've dropped off the face of the earth lately.

Life is busy. Good, stressful, nerve-wracking, busy. We have so much going on and time is flying and my head/heart are being torn in a million different directions... but it's all okay. I'm trying to take one day at a time. It's so hard when things are out of your control. I don't cope well with not being responsible for making things happen when I want them to. Waiting around has never been a strong point of mine.

I feel like I've been in limbo on three main things: house, work, baby.

All of them will hopefully sort themselves out in time, but that's the thing: I'm sick of the whole 'time' thing. I feel like I've been waiting around for what feels like eons, for each of these things to be resolved - only time keeps on ticking, and we keep on waiting. The waiting, the uncertainty.. it's doing my head in.

On the house front, we're putting all of our good karma into a box and sending it off, hoping against hope that things work out. We are so close, literally, THIS CLOSE, to having the house finished and ready to hand over; in fact, we were promised that it'd all be sorted out by Christmas. Well, that was before the weather gods decided that they'd like this summer to be the coldest and wettest December we've had in FIFTY YEARS in Sydney. Seriously. It has rained constantly this month - meaning our home hasn't been finished. Our final inspection was supposed to have been yesterday, but because of the weather delaying the exterior painting, it's been pushed back to next Wednesday. As in, three days before Christmas. And guess what the forecast is meant to be early next week? PLEASE DON'T RUIN THIS FOR US, WEATHER GODS. If you're so inclined, we would love for a little positive juju and crossed fingers. If the house isn't completed and handed over prior to Christmas, we will end up waiting until the END of January before we can hand over.

On the work front, I'm lucky enough to be going back on class next year. Unfortunately, our school numbers have dropped, which means that we lose a class AND the rest of our classes will be really large. Instead of 24 year 1/2 kiddies, I'll be on 29 next year. That extra group of children will make a massive difference to the way the classroom will run, so I'm mentally preparing myself for it now. I also really feel for a colleague of mine who desperately needs a full-time job, but is waiting around to find out if our numbers will rise - I've been in that limbo myself, so I'm praying it works out for her.

On the baby front, sweet nothing is happening. This one is the hardest of all. It is so, so difficult to watch people around you fall pregnant with what seems like very little effort at all, and to be constantly wishing for what other people have. TTC is all about emotions. You start off with excitement, then uncertainty, then nerves, then anger, then frustration, then hopefulness, then boredom, and so on and so forth. Last cycle, I was back on the 'excitement' train, hopeful that Clomid would do the trick. That didn't work, so this time around I'm sort of numb. If it didn't work last time, why should this time be any different? If the Clomid does do it's job, I'm supposed to ovulate around Christmas time - and I can't think of a more perfect gift than that.

I know that none of these things are ones I can change, but I will keep on keeping on.

I had pretty boring plans for the end of my school holidays. I wanted to lay low at home (easy, since Jase has been working the whole time and has taken the car) and finish off my teaching programme for the next term, while watching a few Melrose Place episodes for good measure.

Sunday threw a bit of a spanner in the works: while most people were enjoying their Easter morning, I spent the day sick as a dog. I'll spare you the descriptions of what kind of sickness it was, but to give you a rough idea I wasn't able to eat much that day without it coming straight back up again. I finally managed to have a small meal of oats that evening, and had an early night to catch up on some sleep.

3am that morning saw me woken up with crazy stomach pains. They continued every hour, on the hour, until 6.30am when Jase woke up to find me freaking out and hyperventilating because my abdominal pains were so bad. After a bit of worry about what to do, with Jase pacing the apartment talking to my parents on the phone, and with me rocking on the bathroom floor hugging the toilet, he made up his mind - we were going to the emergency room.

I'll admit, I was more than a little nervous. Aside from visiting, I've never been to a hospital before as a patient - and I wasn't sure if it was the right decision to make. I was freaking out and in pain, but didn't want to go to hospital if it was just stomach cramps. At the same time, I didn't want to stay home and do nothing while I felt like I was dying. And so, we went. Off to the hospital, in the wee hours of a rainy and miserable Easter Monday.

Yesterday, I had my hair & make-up done.

I must say, being made up is one of the most exciting aspects of wedding planning so far. I found our stylist, Jenny of Le Fabulous, a few months back & had a trial do then, but since we were having engagement pictures taken by Andrew of Follan Photography fame, I decided to splurge and have it done again.

The first time around, we went for natural and glowing coverage as well as a loose up-do. This time around? I wanted something different. Jenny gave me awesome curls & gorgeous smoky eyes - it was super dramatic. I went to pick Jase up from the station all dolled up, and he got into the car looking impressed with it, so that was a good sign!

The pre-wedding photo-shoot went well. We drove out to Galston and took pictures in this beautiful park, with a few different backdrops - and despite feeling incredibly awkward at the start, we started feeling more comfortable as time went on. The hair and make-up meant I felt okay from the shoulders up, but I'm still feeling super self conscious about my body and my weight. You see, the weight I had lost last year? Well, that is still fantastic - but I've been stuck at a huge plateau for the last few months and it hasn't budged since.

So, beautiful hair, make-up and talented photographer withstanding, I'm still terrified. I'm terrified of seeing the images and not liking what I see. I'm terrified that Jase won't like the pictures, that I won't look the way that I want to look, and worse: that I'll be too fixated on what size I look in the images to appreciate what the session was really for - time to spend with my love, enjoying each other's company in the lead-up to our wedding day. I really hope these nerves go away soon, especially before the wedding.

I'll be waiting nervously for the engagement pictures for the next few weeks, but in the meantime, here's a blurry, badly lit camera phone picture of us after the shoot. I love my little family.

I can't help it - I'm a followed AND it's been months since I v-logged. Here's the video: and here are the prompts that I discovered through the lovely Britt's blog - I wish I had as cute an accent as her Canadian one!

Also: WHY must my frozen screencaps in Vimeo always be so revoltingly unflattering? Ugh, it's terrifying.

I've been nagging my little brother to come and visit us here in London since the day I arrived here myself.

Other than travelling with our parents to California when we were younger, he has never really travelled outside of Australia. His interests didn't lie with travelling; they were with fixing up cars and spending money on the latest gadgets. We were offering him free accommodation in one of the most notoriously expensive cities in the world, and he didn't want to save for the flight to come and visit? He's crazy! I couldn't understand it. After a while, I gave up asking him about coming; he'd turned me down so many times, I knew he wasn't interested.

My little brother is actually not so little. In fact, he's considerably taller than me and possesses a metabolism that I covet, which enables him to stuff himself full of food and never gain a pound. Ridiculously unfair.

I wasn't always such a great big sister. Or maybe I was trying to be, but I didn't really know how to be one. And let's face it, he was an annoying little brat growing up - always irritating me, knowing all the right buttons to push to send me over the edge. I can't even begin to tell you how many times he managed to start something, see me snap in a spectacular fashion, and then sit back grinning while I copped all the flack from my parents. Brothers, I tell you.

He had his share of girlfriends as a young'un. And being the big sister, I judged them all and deemed them not worthy. If you know me at all, you'll know that I can pull off a pretty incredibly stern face. These girls, they were just babies. I'll admit it, I never want out of my way to be nice to them. Why would I? They weren't going to last. They weren't right for my brother, and I wasn't going to waste any time on them.

Until he met this girl. She was gorgeous - the kind of girl who cannot take a bad picture. She's sweet. She's funny. They're a perfect match. I love how she changed my little brother, and they give me the warm fuzzies.

The other night I was up late and randomly thinking about wedding bits and pieces, which led me to quickly scribbling a post on my side blog about dresses. I thought I'd share it here too, so that you can share your feedback.

You see, I've not really tackled the bridal dress experience yet - my one fairly average experience is a whole massive blog post in itself, which I'll write about soon. But what I have done in the meantime is spend goodness knows how many hours researching dresses on the internet and in magazines, and trying to figure out what sort of dress will best suit my larger frame and make me feel comfortable on the wedding day. It's not as easy as it sounds!

I've taken quiz after quiz about body shapes.
I've bookmarked dozens of dresses from designers all over the world.
I've debated which shade of white or ivory would suit me best.
It's kind of overwhelming - especially when you're just not a dress person!

I've only ever shaved my legs.

It seems crazy in this modern day and age where new and improved hair removal treatments are coming out by the truck-load, but that's all I've ever done. I'm mostly happy about that - apart from losing several layers of skin across the last decade since a sharp razor combined with some dodgy co-ordination skills does not an unscathed leg make.

Every time I prepare to set off on a bout of travelling, I always wonder if I should bite the bullet and go for a professional leg waxing. A few weeks of not having to constantly be aware of the fuzz and bristles sprouting from my legs would be heavenly.. but alas, I am on a budget. And paying someone to cause me great pain and discomfort seems like a not so pleasant way to spend my limited shiny dollars.

I also have the pain threshold of a flea. Well, it's not so much about the pain itself, it's more that I can't stand the mere thought of pain. You know how ripping off a band aid hurts, but only for a quick second? I'm the kind of person who sits there and thinks about how painful it's going to be - essentially working my fears up to make it way more scary and painful than it was ever going to be. I think I got more than my share of the over-thinking genes.

I've had one short-lived experience with waxing, if you can call it that.

When I was fifteen, I decided I'd been a wimp for too long and I really ought to give it a go before I declare myself a non-waxer for the rest of eternity. Of course back then I was also not rolling around in the moolah, so I decided to take the budget approach and buy a home-waxing kit. Applying strips then ripping them off quickly? I can do that! It seemed pretty simple, and they had lots of diagrams to go along with it AND step by step instructions. I'm sold.

I followed the instructions word for word. I remember setting up my own little sterile area of my bedroom, ready to go. I had a towel underneath me (perhaps I was expecting an emergency, like accidentally waxing off my entire leg or something?) along with a few bowls to catch the used wax strips and a mirror. Don't ask me what the mirror was for: maybe I thought I'd get brave and venture on to other areas, once I'd mastered my technique. Preparation, ftw!

Ha. Haha. HAHAHAHA.

I had no technique.

Once I'd applied my first strip, I proceeded to sit there and admire it for a while - look! It's on straight! No bubbles! In reality, I was completely terrified of the fact that it had actually had to come off, and so I sat. And I waited. Eventually I decided to just DO it already, but just as I'd gripped the edge of the strip and began to count myself down, I wimped out. Repeat this a few times, and I'd turned into a big quivering heap at the mere thought of getting this ONE strip off, let alone continuing with the rest of my leg.. and other leg.

What I did next was what no woman should ever attempt to do when home waxing: I started peeling the wax strip off slowly. What followed was a lot of yowling and whimpering and me becoming a very, very frightened young woman, because WOW, THAT HURTS. Don't ever do that. Peeling slowly with gooey wax = slow, torturous death. By this stage, I had gone from slightly smug and highly self confident teenager to a flailing, panicking mess:

I think living in Britain has turned me into a whinging pom. Well, to be fair, I shouldn't blame the lovely United Kingdom for that; I've always had a tendency to be a bit of a whinger.

This weekend has been big - and by big I mean crowded, noisy, dirty and LOUD. The mild version looked like this:

{Photo taken by me}

Throw in random weather changes from sunshine to rain, oh, and about three tonnes of litter at the end of the day, and you have the Notting Hill Carnival. This was our second & final year of experiencing the parade from close quarters, since our apartment is directly on the parade route. And despite sounding like a grinch, I have to say it: I wasn't that impressed this year. In fact, I barely took any pictures at all - things were so similar to last year, the floats were almost identical and I was a lot more irritable with it all this time around.

To give you a run-down on what the carnival is like for a resident, here's how it goes. We're woken up on the Sunday of the long weekend by a steel band procession.. that starts at around 6am. {Last year it scared the life out of us, this year I was prepared with ear plugs.} Tourists and spectators start trickling in as the morning progresses, and the floats then start to make their way down the circuit - starting towards Notting Hill and ending near our street. The floats aren't really 'floats' like you would imagine. Instead, picture huge trucks rigged with massive speaker systems blaring out reggae and calypso music at around 135 decibals, with guys on microphones screaming out random things like 'LADIES, PUT YOUR HANDS UP' or 'NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL TWENTY-TEN REPRESENT!'

Once you've heard it the first three times, it gets old fast. Each truck is followed by some people in costume, some people in drag, and a whole stack of random tourists dancing along behind them, usually carrying some form of liquor with them. And the noise, oh my gosh, the noise. Our walls shake. Our windows vibrate. Our ears ring. Our cat hides under the bed. It is LOUD. And as we wave goodbye to that particular truck as it crawls along the street with its little bundle of dancing groupies behind it, we're greeted with the next one.

Rinse, cycle, repeat.

It goes on until the last float finishes up at around 9pm. It would be nice if that was it, and we all went on with our regular evenings, but no. Unfortunately, you're left with the hundreds and hundreds of inebriated tourists who throw their rubbish all over the ground, blow their whistles and their horns, and smash their bottles well into the wee hours. They don't show you the aftermath on the news images, because it's hideous. People are disgusting. You see, by the end of the evening when the parade winds down, you can't walk on the street without bypassing piles of garbage, discarded chicken bones and all sorts of other lovely human waste products.

And did I mention that it goes on for two days? Again with the rinse, cycle, repeat. Imagine this scene: tenfold.

{Photo credit here}

It's nearing 10:30am and we're at the tail end of it now. There are the usual throngs of people being morons in the street below, and I'll probably go to bed with ear plugs in once more - because what else happens after the carnival ends? We get street cleaners. Brilliant, you say, they'll clean the mess! Stop whinging, Aly! Well, the street cleaners do their thing at 3am. THREE AY EM. Not only do the residents have to put up with the noise for two entire days, we also have to put up with it for two entire nights. So while all the party animals and parade organisers go home tired to sleep in their own comfortable beds, we're all wide awake in ours, dreading the next August. Well, we're not, since we'll be gone by then.. but you get my drift. What with the public transport being all but closed down in our local area to accomodate for the carnival, we've once again spent our bank holiday long weekend holed up indoors for most of the time - there's just no way to escape the craziness.

Oh my, this did turn out to be a complaining blog post, didn't it? Blame it on my pounding headache and blinding irritation with holding a freaking dance party in a narrow residential street. I get it, it's a celebration of the local communities around the area and has a lot of history to it - but I just don't understand why they make it so long, so loud and so obnoxious. I also don't get how people think it's okay to act like complete morons, just because it's carnival: would they smash beer bottles, throw crap on the ground & urinate on homes nearby if it was in their own street? I doubt it. They do it here though, and nobody lifts a finger to monitor or fine people for doing so.

Ah well. We'll see what the damage is like tomorrow morning. And looking on the bright side, at least that's it for us - we've seen our share of carnivals, we've appreciated our lovely view for what it is worth, and we're done now.

And as of tomorrow, my whinging will stop - as I have lots of fun things to look forward to. My baby brother and his beautiful girlfriend will be here in two! weeks! and I am thrilled to bits. Our travel itinerary is done, and we now have to go through the process of printing out dozens of confirmations before we leave. I have a feeling it's going to be a busy but fabulous few weeks. What exciting things are coming up for you lately?

Thanks to everyone who jumped in and left a question for me over the weekend - it's been great to have some food for thought while I try and arrange the other random bits of information that are spinning around my brain right now. The travel plans are pretty much all officially booked now, so I'll be sharing those details with you soon as well.

So without further ado, here's the Q&A responses; this will be broken into two posts, so it's not too heavy on the eyes.

Valerie asked: Since you're getting married, I'm sure people will be asking you this soon: Do you and your wonderful fiancé plan on having kids?

We definitely plan on it - and hopefully not too far into the future. Obviously we're not going to be actively trying until after the wedding next year, but all things going well medical-wise, I hope to fall pregnant the following year. That will give us some time to enjoy being 'us' and getting settled back in Sydney. Of course, who knows what will happen - depends on how much of a hindrance my PCOS diagnosis will be when it comes to fertility.

Britt asked: What made you guys decide to move abroad? Were your families ok with it?

We had talked about it for a while before we made the decision, for a good few years actually. We'd both travelled together to Europe back in 2004 and had fallen in love with it, and Jason's older brother had already moved here with his girlfriend at that stage. I wanted to get a few years of teaching under my belt before we could really consider it, as did the boy with his IT career - and then one day he found a job, interviewed for it, and was offered - it all happened really fast. He ended up moving over mid-year in August 2007 while I finished my teaching year out and joined him in December 2007. The rest is history! His family was very supportive, and knew it would be a good move career & finance wise. My family were supportive as well, but not as pleased when the original twelve months turned into two years, then three.. hee. They're pretty happy we're moving back home soon!

& What is your most favourite aspect of your wedding so far (besides your groom of course!)

Hee, I do rather like my groom. From the little bits I've managed to scrape together so far, I have to say my favourite thing has been how supportive everyone has been so far. My parents have been great, driving to random venues and bridal shops while I've been away, my girlfriends have tried on dresses and got excited over little things like stationery with me, and it's sweet to see the boy starting to look forward to it a little bit more since it's not quite as far away in the distance any more. (I may or may not have a countdown going.)

Britt is getting married in just over a week - squee! You should totally stop by her blog & send her some well wishes.

Mary & Britt asked: Where else do you want to live? Will you move abroad again?

To be honest, once we're based back in Sydney I don't think we will move again. I'm itching to get back home, to get back to the suburbs and to eventually own our own home. At the moment, we have our little plot of land ready to go, but we're not in the right position to build yet - so we'll get there, slowly. Plus, our stint here ended up being 3.5 years for Jason/3 years for me, and I don't see us living abroad again when we have a family. Plus, I think my mum would kill me if I left her to go overseas again!

Amanda asked: Would you like to have coffee with me?

Um, yes! Let's hurry up and organise it soon.. this year is going by way too fast.

& Have you done your US electronic travel notice thingemy? They're going to start charging, so do it while it's free.

Yes, we certainly have. I did it as soon as I found out we were definitely going home via the USA. If you follow me on twitter {@breathegently} you probably already have a brief idea on where we'll be going, because I hollered out for help & advice so many times in the past few weeks. But still.. you'll find out for yourself soon enough!

& What are you planning on doing once you get home? Going back to work? Same field/different field?

I'm not entirely sure. Logically, I feel like I should go back into teaching - maybe just as a relief teacher for a little while to get my foot back in the door again. The problem is that we will be home in December, as most schools are closing for the year - and they won't re-open until late January. I'd prefer to work almost straight away when I get home, as we'll both need income in order to find an apartment or house to rent and to pay off wedding costs & start saving for a home. If I don't teach, I don't know what I'll do; possibly look at something else within the education field, maybe recruitment - but I'm open to anything. If you know anyone with jobs going in Sydney, holler at me.

Becky asked: Have you ever been to the U.S.? Would you ever come to Washington, D.C. (hint, hint!)

Oh my lovely, I have been there before - and to Washington to boot! You can read about my epic USA adventure by clicking here. I did start recapping everything but apparently I got tired at around the Texas mid-way point of our trip. Lazy blogger! I would love to come back to D.C. at some point in the future, we had such a good time checking out the monuments & museums. Would you ever come to London/Sydney?

& Since you and J are taking such big holidays at the end of this year, are you going to take a big honeymoon or scale it back a little?

We'll definitely be scaling it back. I keep calling this trip our pre-wedding-moon, because we'll be visiting some pretty scenic and amazing places together. It just makes more sense for us to see the northern hemisphere now while we can, rather than adding on a crazy long and expensive flight back here again in the future after the wedding. We haven't decided on honeymoon locations yet, but we're thinking of somewhere closer to Australia: maybe New Zealand or the Pacific Islands. {Bora Bora, I'm looking at you. Lush!}

Kathy asked: What have been the 5 highlights of your time OS?

1. Finally moving in with Jason - our first five years together were spent living with our parents.
2. Getting to revisit some of my favourite countries on several occasions, especially France & Switzerland.
3. Oscar. He's one of the best things that could have happened to us, and we love him so.
4. Being self sufficient, saving our money {thanks to my hard-working fiancé} & getting ready to take the next step.
5. Realising how amazing Australia is. Being away from where you grew up makes you appreciate it so much more.

Nathan went crazy on Formspring & asked several questions: What is your biggest failure?

There are two things that come to mind when I think of failure. The first: health, body image and weight loss. I've always struggled to get it under control and even now, years later, my sole focus still remains on getting healthy. I hate that it's always been such a struggle and I hate that I didn't manage to have this sorted out years and years ago. The second: not being as social as I would like. But I've grown to love this - not everyone is meant to be a social butterfly, and living abroad and away from friends & family gives you a good indication of who really is a good friend. I've always said I'd be happier with just one or two really close friends than a room full of acquaintances, and I stand by that.

& What is your adult beverage of choice and which one is guaranteed to be your poison (bad experience)?

I'm not a big drinker, I never have been. If I am drinking, I'll tend to go for vodka and lemonade or vodka and diet coke - mainly because they're light in calories. The drink I've had the most, er, tipsy experiences with would have to be cider. I never drank it before I came to the UK, but since I don't like beer, I had to find something I liked that was on tap. Queue the cider. It's great, but wow, it hits me really hard.

& Body hair: Like? Dislike? On You? On Others?

This question made me laugh. I've never really had a big stance on body hair.. to each their own and all that. I'm blessed in the fair hair/pale skin department, so I've never really worried much about body hair. My mum taught me two things: don't pluck/wax your eyebrows & don't shave above your knees if you don't have to. I haven't done either of those things in my twenty-six years. Again, all praise goes to the pale genes for that. What I do dislike on me would be the chin hairs that sprouted when my PCOS problems went nuts. Those I could live without, they make me really self conscious. On others, I don't mind. Jase is really cute with a five o'clock shadow, I like guys who are fairly natural in the body hair department. I have to say, I'm not a big fan of a full blown 'stache. Unless it's like this:

This weekend, I get to spend some quality time with me, myself and Oscar-kitty, since Jase is out at a stag-do and a work-do with some friends. I'm actually looking forward to some quiet time, as I still have loads of travel planning to do that will keep me busy - and I'm nothing if not a perfectionist when it comes to organising holidays.

But I thought I would put the call out to you guys for a little blogging inspiration. This is your chance to ask me anything you like, anything at all, and I will share my random ramblings with you. Old friends, new friends, random lurkers - please share a question & help keep me occupied this weekend?

There are a few ways to get involved:

Simply leave a comment on this entry if you've got a question & don't mind your name attached to it.
or
Leave an anonymous {oooh, mysterious!} question via my somewhat abandoned formspring account.

Easy peasy. You get to be nosey and I get to have some things to think about next week. A good trade, I think.

Also, I won a giveaway a few weeks ago that Angela {of Tomorrow is Another Day fame} was throwing - and last week my little parcel of goodness arrived. I won a pearl collar necklace {courtesy of Aloha Kitchen on Etsy} and it is so, so very me. Apologies for the blurry camera phone picture, but as you can probably tell, I am in love with it.

• I've never done a thing to my eyebrows in my life. No plucking. No waxing. Nothing. Sure, they're kind of fluffy - but I know that once I shape them, I'll have to maintain them. Let's face it; I'd be awful at it.
• I'm embarrassingly fussy with food, mainly due to textures and scents. I don't eat seafood, because of the fishy-ness. I don't eat strawberries or kiwi fruit or any other fruit with seeds. Tomatoes make me gag. Feed me a piece of salmon and I may throw up on you. As such, I tend to enjoy foods when they're simple. Eating out with me is like eating out with a toddler. I apologise for this in advance.
• I have (blonde!) hairs on my chin, which make me incredibly paranoid and self conscious, but there you have it. When I'm a grandma, I'll probably have the makings of a fully fledged beard. I've been told that this is a side effect of having PCOS so there's not much I can do about it, but if you're meeting me in real life? Please try not to stare at my chinny chin chin.
• I'm a righty, but I can also write with my left hand - just not as comfortably.
• I'm directionally challenged and can get lost without even trying. I still have moments where I fet my left and right confused, and I'm not opposed to turning a map upside down to try and make sense of it.

This evening I ventured out to a new local restaurant to meet a few people for a dinner. One of them is a good friend who has been here on holidays but is heading back to Sydney tomorrow; so it was sort of a leaving-do for him as well as a catch up with a few other girls I used to work with. It was a lovely dinner & we all ate some of the most amazing authentic wood fire pizzas (my mouth is watering just thinking about it again.. yum) in London. It was a fun evening out, however it led me to thinking about personalities within groups.

You see, I'm more than able to hold a conversation of my own - despite growing up as a super, super shy bunny. I still find myself feeling and acting a little socially awkward more than I'd like to admit, and I do have some random quirks with speaking in public: one of those is phoning people I don't know. (Yes, at 26, calling up and getting quotes or speaking to people over the phone, really freaks me out. It's slightly ridiculous, but it's just me.) But as I've gotten older, I find that social conversations are a tiny bit less scary than they used to be.

There were only four of us out tonight and it was a fairly intimate restaurant. The two girls, one from Canada and one from America, are naturally quite loud and talkative - they're both the kind of girl who always has a story to tell, always have amusing things to relay to others, and always have a million things going on in their life to talk about. The guy, my darling friend T, is one of the most gorgeous people I've ever met, who always has adventure stories to share - the most recent ones being his travelling trips through Mykonos & Crete and his experiences as a club-goer world over.

And then there's me. Who, let's face it, lives a pretty boring little life! I love talking about travels, wedding planning and all that jazz, but compared to the amazing stories the others had ready to tell, those things just didn't seem so important - so I found myself sitting back in my chair and just taking it all in.

It's not like there's anything wrong with that, and I don't dislike being that person - but looking back, that always has been the way I function. I like to listen. I can interject here and there with a comment or a reply or some witty banter, but I've never really been the storyteller - unless it's a topic that I'm really interested in.

Sometimes people might mistake that quietness for shyness, but it's not. It can be awkward on occasion, yes, particularly if I really do have nothing at all to contribute. But tonight, I was perfectly content to sit, eat, drink and listen. While my cosy little life might be boring to some people, it's all I would ever wish for myself - to be happy, to love the ones you're with, and to be thankful for what you have!

What kind of person would you consider yourself to be in a group?