It happened.

I turned 30. 

And the world didn't end. Nor did I suddenly sprout 5000 grey hairs and develop a bunch of (new) wrinkles. Phew!

I will admit I was pretty moody about the whole thing in the lead up to my birthday. Most people I shared my concern with laughed at me, however (not very sympathetic) - but that is probably because nearly all of those people are over 30. Most even said things are better in your 30s compared to 20s. 

On my actual birthday, after work Husband and I went to The Australian Museum. They had an Aztec exhibit and on the date of my birthday there just so happened to be a special event called 'Tequila Sunsets' where they kept the museum and the Aztec exhibit open late, served tequila and Mexican food, and even had a Mariachi band. It was pretty packed (I'm generally not a fan of people...!) but very cool. 

Ladybug and Luigi

Then on Saturday, I was on my way to what I thought was a birthday dinner, which turned out to be a surprise party! I knew something was up as Husband disappeared part way through the day and my friend came and picked me up. Not to mention the fact that I had to walk with my eyes closed to the location. It still didn't click that it was a party though, I just thought Husband might have picked somewhere different for dinner and wanted to add a bit of mystery. I was expecting around 15 people there. Instead he'd actually planned a whole event with a lot of extra people, and it even had a theme! Everyone had to come in costume as something starting with 'L' (not surprisingly, given that's what my name starts with). He'd even gotten a costume for me - a ladybug. I am super impressed with all the effort he went to, but disappointed at my lack of lie detection skills... so many lies were told to me in the lead up and I was not even a tiny bit suspicious haha. Probably a good thing though that I'm so trusting, so I didn't ruin all his hard work by guessing. 

So, turning 30 wasn't too bad after all!

Question for you: have you ever had a surprise party, and did you have any idea it was happening?

Moments

In case you were wondering what I've been up to lately...

Firstly some baking fails... 

This is a tart shell that I dropped after baking.

These are supposed to be cake-pops (they tasted ok, just looked a little odd due to lack of decorating skills)!

An unpleasant surprise when collecting the mail...

Clearly we have very small mailboxes for our apartment building. Unfortunately a (potentially disgruntled??) mailman took this to mean it's fine to wedge a DVD delivery in to the point of it being broken and stuck. D'oh. The place I'd ordered the DVD from nicely replaced it however, even though it wasn't their fault!

A beautiful day at Little Bay...

This is a lovely beach not that far from where we live that I had no idea existed until last month! I know where I'll be in Summer...

Dinner for our three year anniversary...

Mini sliders at Rockpool Bar and Grill Sydney. YUM. P.S. How has it been 3 years already!!

I'm now a Dr! My graduation was on Friday November 8th.

Excuse the lopsided hat and gown situation!

Celebration dinner after my graduation...

Devonshire Tea Crème brûlée at The Devonshire. Awesome.

Things definitely have not been boring lately!

Well it's about time...

Part of the letter I received today.

WOOHOO!

Snippets v2

I tried to make blueberry muffins. I didn't nearly explode my kitchen this time, so that's a win. However the muffins were pretty awful to be honest. I think I need to admit that baking-wise I'm a one-trick pony with the banana muffins and stick to them (I think Husband agreed, but implied it in a much more diplomatic way).

After a few weeks off, I went for a run today. Hopefully I stick with it this time and run more regularly because I do actually enjoy it - once it's over.

A paper that I submitted to a journal came back with the decision "revise and resubmit". I was expecting it to be rejected so this is a pretty good outcome. The changes I have to make are a bit irritating but oh well. The editor said my paper has the potential to be quite important, which was very encouraging because I've definitely been thinking lately that my research sucks!

I'm on an organising committee for a conference in November. I was able to conveniently forget that fact for most of the year, but now that it's pretty soon I don't think that's possible anymore. 

My two-year wedding anniversary with Husband is a week away. I feel old. We haven't organised anything particularly spectacular to celebrate since we had our weekend away a couple of weeks ago as a present to each other. It's weird because it feels like two years has gone past extremely quickly, but at the same time it feels like we've been married a lot longer - in a nice, comfortable way, not in a 'this is really dragging on when will it end' kind of way!

Lastly, I've been laughing a lot at the below youtube clip. It's pretty old, but I love the guys' enthusiasm for rainbows! It has also been turned into a song, which unfortunately has been stuck in my head for a couple of weeks.

 

"What does it mean!?"

Feel free to share any snippets of your own in the comments. You know you want to. 

27.

So today I am officially in my late 20s (I was still trying to convince myself 26 counted as mid-20s). I know that's still not overly old as such, but it still feels like a bit of a bummer. However, having said that, I have noticed myself thinking lately some people in their early 20s are still quite immature. Who knows what people a few years older are thinking of me! 

I guess my point is, although I often lament 'being old', I actually am quite happy with my life right now. I've nearly (well hopefully) finished a PhD, and will (again hopefully) be on my way to a grown up person's job. I can then start considering other grown up things like buying a house, which will be very exciting. Also, as scared as I am to admit this - I'm looking forward to having babies in the next few years (I bet my mother is pretty happy reading this since she sometimes points out cute baby clothes for no real reason - hint taken Mum!). Mostly so I can create some science nerdlets (this is a new word I just made up which means mini nerd - oh I just googled nerdlet and apparently I didn't make it up, hmmph).

Anyhoo, since my main birthday celebration was Friday (at a Greek restaurant - yum), it's a bit of a quiet one today, except we are going bean-bag shopping. Yes that is what I requested as a present. Hopefully I get this one:

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This, my friends, is a Snorlax (a Pokémon) bean bag. It is clearly awesome. Sadly I think it's a one-off, but you never know! 

P.S. Fun fact: I sometimes call Husband 'Snorlax' due to his sleeping antics.

100?

[via]

If my calculations are correct, then I believe this to be my 100th blog post. To celebrate I am going to force you to read delight you with 100 things about myself! 

...Just kidding. Just like, 33 things. I have been tagged by both blogs Shades of Shayes and A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings in this 'about me' type post where you're supposed to give facts and answer questions. Prepare to learn more about me than you probably ever wanted to know - hooray (don't worry not in a creepy way I'm not too much of an oversharer)!

2011 - A Review

Fireworks over Sydney Harbour [via]

For some reason I always am surprised when it comes to the end of the year. It seems as though the year went by so fast, and yet it takes as long as it always does! In the past New Years Eve (NYE) has been a big deal, and unfortunately it is often a let down when it doesn't live up to the hype. This year our celebration will be a fairly quiet one (hanging out at my sister's), but should still be quite fun. 

Usually on NYE just before the countdown to midnight I quickly take stock of the past year, without much proper time to reflect. So I thought I would put a bit more effort in this time, and I'm glad I did because I remembered some cool things. 

For me, 2011 was a year of NEW...

Merry Christmas!

Just a short note to say that I hope you and your family have a joyful Christmas! 

Luke 2:10-12: But the angel said, “Don’t be afraid! Listen, a Savior has been born to you today who is Christ the Lord. Here is your sign: you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” [pic from here]

Anniversary

Yesterday (Sunday) was my one year wedding anniversary with my husband. I can hardly believe it's been that long already! We didn't do too much, as we mostly celebrated a few weeks ago when we went to the Blue Mountains. We did however go out to dinner Saturday night - and got to see a lot of weird halloween costumes also. Unfortuantely Husband had a cold, so we kept the rest of the weekend fairly quiet, we've postponed our trip to the zoo 'til next week. As promised however I will now show you the present I gave him. It's nothing too big (as our present to each other was the trip), but he really seemed to like it anyway which is good. 

What is that? You ask. Well it's a picture frame with the speech I said to Husband at our wedding reception. It's not written in squibbly - it's actually Greek. For those of you who don't know, Husband is Greek and I spent the year leading up to our wedding secretly taking Greek lessons so I could surprise him and his family on the day.

I am usually not the sappy type, but I do think I'll share this. I forgot that just before my wedding I sent myself an email using the cool website FutureMe to be sent on our anniversary. So here it is (slightly edited):

Where have you been young lady!?

scolding old lady from here

Well firstly, thank you for calling me 'young'. Sometimes I feel quite old at 26, so it's nice to be called that (don't scoff older people). Secondly, don't be concerned, the rumours aren't true: I did not actually turn into a zombie and I haven't been roaming the streets in search of brains ever since. The fairly boring truth is that our internet at home has had a lot of issues of late (still dodgy unfortunately), and I've been trying to be studious at uni and not write blog posts when I'm supposed to be PhD-ing.

So just a little bit of a recap on what I've been up to of late, based on three areas...

Science: Well, unfortunately still nobody has been signing up for my experiments. I suspect it's due to all the strict preparation requirements to give a saliva sample to test for cortisol; you must wake up between 6am and 8am, can't have had alcohol 12 hours prior to the experiment, can't have had caffeine a few hours before either, can't have eaten in the last hour, can't be on most types of medication, can't be a smoker... etc. The waking up between 6am and 8am would be my biggest problem along with the no caffeine, so even I wouldn't participate in my experiment! I'm hoping at the beginning of next semester when all the keen beans (i.e., nerds) are excited about experiments, I will get more participants. In the mean time I've just been trying to write papers and parts of my thesis.

Spouses: I only have one of those, but things are going good! It's actually our one year wedding anniversary on Sunday - woohoo! Our main celebration was actually when we went to the Blue Mountains a few weeks ago, but we're still going to have a small celebration this weekend by going out to dinner Saturday, and some sort of outing Sunday (we're thinking the zoo). Since the first year is traditionally supposed to be paper, I have made a present which I will show you after my Husband's seen it. 

Silliness: Not too much in the way of silliness lately. At least on a large scale. You'll be happy to know I still manage to fit in a small amount of silliness into each day. Or if I can't manage it, sometimes Husband contributes which is nice - not that long ago he decided to show me he could jump backwards down the stairs (our apartment is at the top of three flights of stairs). I, more concerned than impressed, yelled out "don't" and at that exact moment he went tumbling down. Thankfully no trips to the hospital were required, just a slightly bruised ego.

Well there you have it. 

 

What have I missed/what have YOU been up to lately? 

Instead of packing...

...well here I am. I am very thankful that it is a long weekend this weekend, and as a semi-early 1st anniversary present (our actual anniversary is at the end of Oct) we are going away for the weekend to the Blue Mountains. Google maps tells me that it's less than 2 hours drive away from home, but as we suspect many people have similar plans in mind for the long weekend, traffic will be interesting to say the least. 

If you have never been to the Blue Mountains before, I highly suggest it. It looks like this:

Photo from here, because I'm pretty sure the photos I take this weekend won't be as good!

The only minor glitch is that when booking I thought "Hey, since Husband actually has Tuesday off from work too, we should stay Monday night too and come back Tuesday". So we went ahead and booked. Exactly five minutes after that I remembered: I tutor two two-hour classes on Tuesdays, and have for the whole semester. They start at 11am, so guess who's leaving early to get back in time. Oops. Anyhoo - hope you all have a good weekend :)

P.S. Well I just checked the weather forecast for tomorrow for the Blue Mountains. Top of 10°C (50°F) and rain. Hahah oh dear.

Husband REFUSES to buy me a horse.

Nevermind that we live in a 4th floor apartment... I just want one! Here are a few snaps from our lovely weekend in the country for Easter. 

P.S. Today (Sat 30th) is our 6 month-aversary of being married! I can't really believe it's been that long already.
P.P.S. Many more pics on my Flickr account 

Happy Easter!

[source]

I am trying this scheduling thing, hopefully it works! I have planned this post in advance because Husband and I will be away over the Easter long weekend. We are travelling to stay at a friend's farm from Sat-Mon. It's quite a few hours drive away and there is no mobile phone reception there (!). We've been there previously and it is so peaceful, relaxing and really pretty. They have alpaccas and ducks too! Also, we are heading down with some other friends who agreed to do all the driving which is lovely. 

So although I am away, I will say I hope you have a great Easter - or what they say in Greek: Χριστός ἀνέστη! = Christ is Risen (pronounced Christos Anesti)! 

P.S. In case you're wondering where the sudden Greek came from, it's because my Husband is Greek and I spent a fair bit of time last year trying to learn to speak it as a surprise at our wedding.