After our first IVF cycle failed, we met with our Reproductive Endocrinologist to follow up on how the cycle went and what our next steps were. We were very much on the same page, we were happy with how our cycle went right up until the negative pregnancy test. My response to the medication, egg retrieval, fertilization and maturation of the embryos was all pretty much textbook. We feel very lucky to have had such a positive experience.

Right after retrieval we were told that they had managed to collect 24 eggs. This seemed like a great number to me, and we expected to get a good haul as I was young and had responded to the medication well. Twenty-four seems like a huge number, and comparably it is, but during each stage of development, you can expect about 30% drop off. So from our 24 retrieved, not all would fertilize, and not all of those would develop, and not all of those would reach the 5-day blastocyst stage which is what’s required for transfer.

First, our medication arrived from a special fertility pharmacy. It arrived in an insulated box I could almost fit in. Needles and syringes and everything. The nurse warned us that the box would be big when she taught us how to administer the medication at our last appointment. It was still pretty overwhelming. Our box had several medications in it, some of which needed to stay refrigerated. According to my research, the first IVF cycle can be “diagnostic”, meaning the doctor will see how you respond to a standard dose and if you need to change dosages or protocols in a future cycle, you can adjust to try for a better outcome, meaning more mature eggs that fertilize normally.

As I said, a lot has happened in the past year, including a big life change for us: Matt and I closed on the purchase of our first home! It was a tedious process, and it took a while for us to find the right place and then have an offer accepted, but we’ve been living in the new digs for a few weeks and absolutely LOVING it. It’s such a different feeling to live in a space that you own rather than rent, and we’re finding ourselves taking a lot more care in maintaining, decorating, organizing, and settling in than we previously have.

My relationship with running has always run hot and cold, but this time I’m committing. My husband is the kind of runner who can do nothing for months and then decide to go out and run 5k without blinking an eye. I require a little more training. I registered for the Cambridge Half Marathon in November along with my husband, my brother, and a few other friends. So far I’ve been training for a little over a week and can run just under 6 kilometers in half an hour.

I talk a lot about my superficial side interests here. After all, this is a beauty blog! But most of my day, whether it’s surprising to you or not, is spent working as a software engineer. I got into software and programming and computer science relatively late in the game. I didn’t even consider it as an option and I wouldn’t have studied it at all if I didn’t need to complete an introductory CS course to complete my math major in college.

I’ve taken a bit of a break from blogging, but I have a lot of fun content ideas so I’m trying to get back into the swing of it! Yesterday was my 27th birthday (#old). It was a fantastic, relaxing, celebratory day and I documented the whole day via snapchat story! /uploads/2016/01/IMG_0910.m4v We kicked off the day at Tatte for breakfast, where I had their amazing Shakshuka. After a few hours at work (where my amazing coworkers gifted me flowers and cupcakes!

Sorry for my absence here on the blog! I decided to take Thanksgiving week and unplug and relax. We had a bit of a whirlwind week. We left Boston on Sunday and drove two hours out to visit my brother in Connecticut. He was hosting a “Friendsgiving”, so we spent a few hours there eating and hanging out before hopping back in the car for another 3 hour drive to my parents in New Jersey.

Five of my favorite sites to shop online! Black Friday is coming up and with more and more stores announcing that, as a courtesy to their employees, they won’t be opening their doors, online shopping must be the answer! These are sites I love to shop all year round. True&Co. Shopping for bras is almost as bad as shopping for jeans, but True&Co makes it easy. You fill out a short quiz on how things usually fit and how they feel and they’ll build a customized shop with suggested sizes.

Keeping with the video theme of the week (it wasn’t on purpose, it’s just worked out that way!), here’s another one for you: Daisy and I were lucky enough to see a preview screening of the movie Brooklyn last week. The movie was beautiful and has gotten lots of great critical acclaim. It tells the story of Eilis Lacey, a young girl in Ireland who’s having a hard time thriving, so she moves to Brooklyn to pursue a better life for herself.

It’s a video kind of week here on the blog, but I can’t resist sharing this adorable video. Adorable interview with French father and son regarding the recent attacks Seriously, my heart is melting. It’s been a heavy week, with so much tragedy all over the world. There’s something so inherently French about seeing the beauty in the world and letting it protect you from the “really really mean” people.

Something I’ve been loving lately: watching YouTube videos while I run on the elliptical. I’ve always been a big fan of watching makeup tutorials and beauty related videos on YouTube. Lately though I’ve been super busy and haven’t caught up on my subscription feed. So I’ve combined it with my workouts! Something about watching hauls and tutorials and favorites while working out is really fun and oddly motivating for me. A few good videos makes the half hour or so really fly by.

For today’s Friday Five: Five products I keep in my purse (well, today). I’m known for hoarding makeup in my purse and carrying it around with me everywhere. Which is crazy because 1. I never really use it, and 2. it makes my bag super heavy. The other day I had a handbag clear out and stripped down to just the on-the-go essentials. Here’s what I kept: First: a rollerball of Balenciaga’s Rosabotanica.

My bachelorette weekend was just about a year ago in New York City. I was living there at the time, and it was fun and central to all of my friends, so I kicked Matt out for the weekend, we all piled into my friend Vincenza’s East Village apartment, and settled in for #AVERYcrazyweekend. Sam, Me, and Daisy at my Bachelorette in 2014 I wasn’t blogging at the time, so I figured a year later is a good time to recap the weekend, right?

We are big Ikea shoppers. When we were moving in and getting settled, we were making multiple trips a week. It got to the point where we were a bit burnt out (and couldn’t even LOOK at another meatball) so we haven’t ventured out for a while. But today we felt the need for a shoe rack, so we hopped into the car, braced ourselves, and headed into the showroom.

We finally broke down and bought a Sodastream. It’s life-changing. Got into the Halloween Spirit by catching up on American Horror Story: Freakshow after it was released on Netflix. Liked it way better than Coven, but Murder House is still my favorite. Have you been watching Hotel? I want to wait until it’s all been aired so I can binge watch it! These J Crew Factory sweatpants are super comfy, but the skinny cut feels slightly more stylish than your old sweats, even for just lounging around the house.

Five moments from the Wellfleet OysterFest! These lovely shuckers from Sheila’s Oyster Farm (not pictured but present: Sheila herself) This awesome band that managed to change Ring of Fire to Ring of SNOW when it started to flurry (and it even still rhymed!) This handsome man on the beach! This group’s oyster shell mountain. We’re going to go head to head in oyster shell construction next year. I think we can take them.

Columbus Day weekend marked the two-year anniversary of the night Matt and I got engaged. It was a very simple proposal, just in our apartment with a ring in a glass of champagne (cheesy but classic!), followed by the most amazing meal we’ve ever had at Daniel. We did a late seating and chose the 6-course tasting menu with wine pairings so it was quite late and we were quite drunk when we finally made it out of the restaurant.

Beautylish is the exclusive retailer of Bioderma (cult favorite French micellar cleansing water) in the US and they just debuted a 500mL bottle with a pump top! Speaking of beauty e-retailers, Birchbox is launching their own makeup line. We’ve been indulging in affogatos for dessert. And breakfast. And anytime throughout the day. It’s fine. (P.S. You don’t even need to click through to that recipe, it’s literally just ice cream and espresso!

My new favorite pizza topping (pair it with Italian sausage – YUM) Returning home from San Diego to all of the snuggles from this handsome (yet suspicious) fella I’ve also been living in that white sweater from Madewell. It’s now sold out, but I’m eyeing this one next. So much lust for the new Everlane Petra Backpack in leather. Unfortunately it won’t fit my laptop, so not the most functional for me, but so beautiful.

Ok, there’s a theme for this one… It’s my five favorite Instagram accounts featuring cats. I’m sorry. I feel like it was only a matter of time. But it’s happening. @adventurecatsorg – One time, we took Bisous outside. He refused to get out of the cat carrier. A photo posted by Adventure Cats (@adventurecatsorg) on Sep 21, 2015 at 5:05pm PDT </blockquote> @hellokitty – I mean, has Kim ever posted a photo of herself made out of spam?

Happy Friday! What have you been loving this week? My picks below! Madewell v-neck pocket tees are the best closet staple (and on sale!) I’m stocking up on fall colors, like Compass Gold (below). Glamour Magazine’s Lipstick Index tracks social media beauty posts to find out what’s hot. So cool to see a real time indicator of beauty trends! This tilapia recipe is the best I’ve found. We paired it with wild rice and roasted broccoli for an easy weeknight dinner.

What’s on my desk? Here’s a peek at the essentials I like to keep on hand at work. Hand cream – Industrial, generic, anti-bacterial office bathroom soap is a dry hand nightmare, especially in the winter. I keep Aerin Rose Hand and Body Cream at my desk. I got a sample of this cream and loved it so much I went out and bought the full size. The scent is light but lovely, and the cream itself is thick and luxe, so a little bit goes a long way and the $40 tube lasts a long time.

Standard blog practice: on Fridays we wear pink do round ups of things we love. So let’s do it then. Rediscovering Twitter – I got so into it when I first joined circa 2010 (omg has it been that long?!), and then kind of fell off the twitter bandwagon. But I’m back on and tweeting, mostly because I found this hilarious account. Follow me? @avery_alina Wifelife.co – I just discovered Rhian HY’s blog and admire her passion for vegan and cruelty free products.

As I’ve mentioned 12059 times, Matt and I have been trying for an “industrial chic”, “indoor jungle” theme in our new apartment. Meaning we’re going for lots and lots of plant life. We’ve accumulated lots of smaller plants over the years, most of which made it with us from NYC, but wanted a few bigger anchor plants to pull everything together. We picked up a few from Ikea and Home Depot but we hit the jackpot when we finally ventured to Mahoney’s Garden Center.

Ikea. Affordable, extensive, intimidating. It’s a bit overwhelming to navigate the showroom and the website can also be tricky. But after countless trips and never-ending browsing over the past few months, I’ve pretty much become an Ikea expert. Here are some of my favorite pieces. 1 – INGEFÄRA – Terracotta plant pot with saucer. We love the neutral, earthy, clay shade and these are functional and affordable. Great for both indoors and outdoors.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Just a post to let you know you can follow me there! Since this isn’t a super exciting post, here’e a picture of my cat.

Part of my inspiration to write about what we miss from NYC was that Matt has been requesting that I make bagels for weeks. Probably because we haven’t found a decent place to get one in Boston. It was his birthday this week and I had the morning off (#labordayweekend!), so I decided to dig out my tried and true bagel recipe and get boiling. Bagels sound impressive when you tell people you made them yourself, and they take a good amount of time to prepare from start to finish, but it’s so worth it and actually pretty easy.

We officially moved to Boston in May, meaning we’ve been living in Beantown (is that a thing?) for almost 4 months. And we love it. There are a few things we miss about NYC, but so many more things that make living in Boston perfect for us. For example: NYC has way better public transportation. The NYC subway system is one of the best. It’s extensive, fairly reliable, and people (generally) understand how to use it.

Summer movies are always some of my favorites. And going to see movies in theaters is one of my favorite “Date night” activities with my husband. We always share a popcorn and a soda and, if we’re up at the new AMC Assembly Row, try to get the seats that fully recline. Also, if you haven’t been to that theater, GO. IT’S AWESOME. THERE’S A BAR. There are the typical summer blockblusters that always get major press (Hello, Jurassic World!

After four years, three apartments, two jobs, and one crazy cat in NYC, it’s bittersweet to announce that I’m moving! Matt and I will be packing up and shipping up to Boston starting next month. I came across an amazing opportunity to work at a very early start up (more to come on that later!) and we jumped at the chance for a change of environment. I’ve had an incredible experience working at Birchbox these past 2+ years and I’m sure they will continue to produce outstanding experiences, content, and products.