1. Go to Winter Wonderland.
2. Have a Christmas Afternoon Tea.
3. Drink numerous Gingerbread Lattes.
4. Make a Gingerbread House.
5. See big Christmas blockbuster at the cinema.
6. Decorate the House.
7. Have a movie night at home.
8. Bake a Christmas Cheesecake (need a recipe).
9. Have a family get together.
10. Make some Christmas Candy.

Last November (I can hardly believe it was a year ago it seems so much longer) in Mexico, Jason and I started trying to begin our family, and if I am to be honest we were maybe a little naive. I know some people plot and plan these things testing their ovulation or temperature, but we figured we would just do the baby making dancing a few times and nine months later we would be three.

Fast forward to just after Christmas, I had lunch with the lovely Socktopod ladies and over lunch we discussed how quickly this year was going and I suddenly realised I was late! So after lunch I popped in a chemist and brought a test, later that night when Jason came home, we did the test and sure enough I was pregnant!

So over the weekend, we were wondering around thinking about the future and maybe slightly in shock. On the Monday evening about 5 p.m. I noticed a little bleeding – worried and scared I phoned the doctor and of course consulted google. The next morning after a series of phonecalls with my doctor I was refered to the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit (EPAU).

On the Tuesday, I had my first scan and a blood test. The blood test determined I was indeed pregnant but there was no sign of the embryo on the scan, and it was deemed “pregnancy of unknown location.” The next two weeks we had a series of blood tests and another scan all which concluded the pregnancy was ectopic in the the right tube. The doctors concluded the best cause of action was a cause of Methotrexate. Less than two weeks after that I was no longer pregnant.

We spend the next few months healing (for me it was both emotionally and psychically), the doctors advised three months but we opted to a little longer. Then last month once again, I found out I was pregnant, due to our past history I was referred once again to the EPAU straight away. Once again we started the series of blood tests and scans. Both on the Friday, a blood test on the Sunday followed by another scan of the Monday. After the second scan they saw the pregnancy was once again in my right tube.

The next 24 hours are a complete blur to me (even now Jason is still filling in the blanks for me), the doctors determined the pregnancy and tube needed to be surgically removed (a salpingectomy) and due to my history they wanted to operate that day. From what I have been told, at 11 a.m. I was having my scan, at 2 p.m. they were prepping my for surgery and at 6 p.m. I was back in the ward. By lunchtime the next day I was home in my own bed (well sofa-bed, our new bed still hasn’t been delivered)!

To be honest I am still in shock (hence why it has taken me over a week to write this blog post), Jason and I are back in the limbo stage waiting for healing to begin and taking each day as it comes and trying to look to the future.

1. Make Pecan Coffee Cake.
2. Make Pumpkin Cheesecake or Pumpkin Spiced Muffins.
3. Find an decent autumn coffee drink from Starbucks that is available in the U.K.*
4. Decorate the house for Halloween.
5. See Ghostbusters at the cinema during the Halloween week.
6. Go for a family meal for Dee’s birthday.
7. Go for a family meal for Jason’s birthday.
8. Have Halloween Themed Afternoon Tea.
9. Go to a Football game.
10. Go for Thanksgiving Dinner in London.

Having read this article about my friends sister in Chicago, I had to send her a congratuations letter, (if you are in the Chicago area please go and see her second play). I have also been productive and final finished my 2luvcrew socks and read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

EDITED: to include photo.

Jason and I have a shared love of detective shows, good old-fashioned whodunits. CSI, Law and Order, Criminal Minds we watch them all. But our absolute favourite thing to do on was Sunday lunchtime is watch a repeat of Miss Marple on Watch with a cup of tea and some cream cakes (I normally knit too). We’ve seen the Joan Hickson version so often that we know who did it, just by the title, so decided to give it a rest, and now we have moved on to Poirot.

Every year for our anniversary we take it in turn to plan a special treat, as I planned the wedding, Jason planned our first wedding anniversary (a trip to Rome) and so I have to plan all the even years. To celebrate our four years of marriage, I thought a play in the West End and meal. Of course, when thinking of a West End play for Agatha Christie fans the first thing that comes to mind in Mousetrap.

Surprisingly, neither of us had seen it, in fact we knew every little about the play – apart from it being the longest running West End show. But in true Christie style, we were guessing right up until the summation in the drawing room (always my favourite part). Don’t worry I won’t spoil anything here. All I will say, if like us you have been thinking about going to see the play – just do it

Firstly, I want to be more creative in 2011 not just knitting but to use this year to craft something new each week. Either finishing a knitting project, sewing or even just baking a cake! At the end of the year I want 52 entries about something I made with my fair hands!

Secondly, I want to send at least 52 letter this year, I tend to only use Snail Mail to post birthday cards and as I love reciveing mail (Am I the only one who gets a thrill from opening a letter?) I thought I would pass that thrill on to others – If you want a letter email me or leave a comment

Thirdly to read a book a week and watch at least one film from the AFI top 100 list.

These are not really resolutions more plans for the year.

One of my current obsessions is Afternoon Tea, which is very strange as I hate clotted cream, but there is something lovely about the tiered cake stands filled with finger sandwiches, cakes and scones, and of course drinking tea from a proper teapot! When I started to restart my 101 list, one of the things I was really keen to do was have Tea at the Ritz, reading  up about the experience online I discovered afternoontea.co.uk – a website dedicated to places to have afternoon tea in the UK.

The website list several places and I soon discovered several interesting twists on the traditional tea, from a Sex in the City themed tea to the Not the afternoon tea at the OXO tower. So, I decided rather than have just Tea at the Ritz, I would try three different teas.

The “alternative” tea that appealed to me the most was the TLSee at the Swissotel, a traditional tea themed around London landmarks! I noted they were doing an early bird special, so on Saturday we had afternoon tea as a late lunch. I have to admit, I had a bit of a sugar overload but luckily they supplied us with a lovely themed box to take the biscuits home in.

]]> http://www.princessdeia.co.uk/2010/08/17/tlsee/feed/ 1 http://www.princessdeia.co.uk/2010/07/20/reset/ http://www.princessdeia.co.uk/2010/07/20/reset/#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:06:43 +0000 Dee http://www.princessdeia.co.uk/?p=416 Over the last few months, I have been trying to keep two blogs… One devoted to knitting and the other in my attempts into being a domestic goddess, as a result I have done extremely well at ignoring both of them! I have just had to pay for the renewal of this domain and for a long time I thought about letting it lapse… but then I thought I used to love writing this blog and it does serve as a great memory of everything I have been up to.

So I have decided to just keep the one blog (this one), but am going to take some of the ascepts of the other blog (my attempts at cooking, my favourite things for each month and some of my adventures in London) and add them here!

To add to this reset, I am also going to restart my list for Day Zero. I still don’t have 101 things (at the moment it is around 50)

1. Tea at the Ritz.
2. See Mousetrap.
3. See Avenue Q.
4. Lose another stone in weight.
5. Use my pedometer for 30 days.
6. Do the couch to 5k.
7. Do a charity run.
8. Start a new blog.
9. Design a layout for the new blog.
10. Create a new gallery for deeandjason.co.uk
11. Finish all the Sock(topus) Club 2009 socks by the deadline (28th Feb.).
12. Finish all the Knit Love sock within the year.
13. Compete and finish in the Ravelympic.
14. Knit another lace shawl.
15. Take mum to Paris.
16. Read all the Sookie Stackhouse books.
17. Read all the Vampire Diaries books
18. Read all the Adrian Mole books
19. Re-read the Harry Potter books (before the films are released).
20. Re-read the Twilight books (before Eclipse is released).

I was hoping to have 40 items on this list (to insure I did the 101 things in 1001 days), so it is still a work in progress.

• Secret Santa present from Shobianx.
• Secret Santa socks from Thumblina.
• Mini Socks Swap from Seamstress.
• My Endpaper Mitts.
• New Socktopus Parcel.
• Progress on my Socktopods socks.
• Updates on my 101 list (Although I will be dealing with this soon).