Home Alone.

   The Boyfriend took a quick trip to Nashville leaving me HOME ALONE with the two-month-old.  I've been alone with her before, obviously, but not for that long of a span at once.  Surprisingly, I wasn't too freaked out.  We've recently been trying to get her to take a bottle to no avail, and I thought this would be a good chance for me to try without stressing The Boyfriend out too much.  It's been a very frustrating time for both of us, especially him.  I always have the boob to fall back on, but he does not.  She took the bottle the day before he left, finally, so I thought it would be really easy.  Here is what most of Friday looked like:

 

Needless to say, she did not take the bottle.

I scheduled some visitors to keep me company while The Boyfriend was gone.  My parents were over on Saturday to help me pack (more on that later), well my mom helped me pack.  My dad did this:

Which was more than fine with me, we got a lot done :)  The boyfriend is home now and even though it wasn't too bad while he was gone, it is much better having him here.  I commend you single parents out there, I really don't know how you do it.  I can't imagine how I would have handled it if I had to go to work or leave the house for any reason.  I usually remember everything for baby but forget everything else I need, i.e. purse, keys, phone, wallet.  It's better with help! 

Plant, Pup, Parent.

     Apparently the girlfriend thing is going well because we now have a DAUGHTER!  It's been three years since my last post and things have definitely changed, to say the least.  Not only am I a Green Girlfriend, but I am now a Green Mother.  I should start at the beginning...

     When the boyfriend and I moved in together we started our family small, with a house plant.  Here is what that house plant looks like now: 

     As you can see, it's barely hanging on, but we marched forward regardless of my lack of a green thumb.  What comes after plant?  Dog.  To this day we still debate who's idea it was to get a dog.  I say it was his, he says it was mine, but somehow we ended up walking that cement hallway of kennels at the local pound.  There we were, face to face with this:

     Now how could you not name her Milwaukee and take her home??  So there we were.  Dead plant, old cat (Ezra's been by my side since I was 21), and dog.  Our happy little family for going on 4 years.  What a 4 years it's been.  I've triumphed in many ways, and made many mistakes along the way as well, but we are still happy seeing each others faces (most) every day.
    So what comes after dog you ask?  Well this little nugget of course:

     Meet our daughter, Juniper.  She is a demanding, exhausting, expensive little monster wrapped up in an adorable package that I simply can not get enough of.  We planned for her but we did not plan for what comes with her.  Sleepless nights, bleeding nipples (mine not the boyfriends), all the crying (mine not Juniper's), and all the love you can possibly feel for one little human being.  It's been 2 months and so far she seems to be healthy and happy, and we our very happy despite the trials of child. 
     I am still trying to master the art of The Girlfriend, and now I'm going to try to master the art of Mother at the same time.  Hopefully it all turns out better than the plant.

4 days in the woods with my family...

It has now been almost 2 1/2 months that the boyfriend and I have been living together. It doesn't seem like that long, and it actually hasn't felt like that long either. In a good way. Things are still going well and I am still a happy girlfriend.
For the 4th of July weekend we headed to Calavares Big Trees state park by Arnold, CA. to camp with my family for four days. My family was very eager to get to spend time with us both and get to know my boyfriend a lot better. It was a ton of fun, and despite the fact that we had the most modest tent (theirs towered over ours) we really did enjoy the time. I would post pictures but I can't seem to locate my camera cord at the moment. A couple days before we left I received some big news. I am being transferred to the Davis, CA. store to manage the Starbucks kiosk there! Exciting and stressful at the same time. Everyone send me good thoughts, I will need them. I took a drive there today to scope out the place and its a great store, and everyone seems really nice, so hopefully I will fit right in. I will miss everyone at the Granite Bay store though, I have become pretty close with a lot of them :( but that's what Facebook is for, right? Or maybe the phone.
The boyfriend is still annoyed by the cats, and honestly so am I right now. Man I love them, but Amos WILL NOT stop meowing at our bedroom door at 5am every morning. SHUT UP CAT! Ezra's puking has gone down significantly but he's old and it still happens. I can't imagine why my boyfriend didn't want to live with cats. haha.
We are looking going to be buying the perfect BBQ soon, so many BBQ's are soon to come. My friends Blair and Kelly and their baby boy Gabe were over yesterday and it was great to see them and show off the place. We still love it. Plus, my best friend Tori just moved in to her own house a block away, yay!
I just realized this post is super boring so sorry about that. The next one will be better and hopefully be full of pics. Oh, and it seems as though I'm catching a cold and that sucks. Ahhh...I will let you know how being sick in the new relationship goes. Will I get tender loving care, or will he avoid me in hopes of not getting sick himself???...stay tuned!

Warm salsa and top soil...

Well, The boyfriend and I have officially been living together for a little over a month and I have to say, it's been pretty awesome. Of course there has been moments when it wasn't so awesome, but all-in-all it's and he is pretty great. I have learned a few things this past month and some were a bit harder to learn than others.
First lesson; Moving day is better when we just don't speak. May 1st we woke up early and ready to get all of our things into the new place. Well, mostly my things, but we will get to that later. We picked up the Uhaul and moved the stuff I had at my parents house 1st. This was supposed to be an easy task, as most of my things were in a storage unit. After a few boxes and a mattress we immediately began to hate each other. I tried to over take control as he went off about how much "shit" I have. Finally, we both stopped talking all together, and it went smoothly from there. Well, except for the fact the Uhaul was almost full before we even left for the storage unit. Yes. I have a lot of things. Things I use. We managed to finish unloading everything at the new place pretty quickly considering it was just the two of us, and that was that.
Lesson #2; Everyone should grocery shop for themselves. About a week after move-in, it was clear a trip to the grocery store was in order. It was decided I would go because...well I'm not really sure why. I had the boyfriend text me a list of what he wanted and off to Wal-Mart I went, because they are damn cheap and if you don't like it I don't care. I spent about 2 hours shopping (keep in mind we had nothing at the house), and spent about $200. I thought I did pretty damn well. Got a lot of stuff, everything on his list and mine. So, apparently my boyfriend is "brand-specific" and does not care for wal-mart brand items or whatever happens to be the cheapest I can find. I've always shopped for the cheapest products, so this sounded absurd to me. For example, Kraft BBQ sauce is .78 and Sweet Baby Rays is 1.78. I chose Kraft. I chose wrong. I mean, I know SBR is better, but I was trying to save some dough. So from now on I get a SPECIFIC list with brand names included and so far I think that works.
Lesson #3; Some people like warm salsa. What!? I know it sounds crazy but apparently when you put groceries away you should not put the jar of salsa directly into the fridge, it should stay on the pantry shelf so that the first serving will be delicious and warm and not cold. After opening, it should go in the fridge of course. I was trying to save a step, but I was not aware that room temperature salsa is appealing to anyone. This apparently is also true of Jelly. So yes, different people like different things, and this can only be learned through getting to know each other more and more each day. From now on we put our own groceries away also.
Lesson #4; Gardening is NOT relaxing, it is hard and tiring. We had some bare plant beds in the front of the house that were screaming for life and color so I made a trip to Home Depot on my day off and decided to get flowers and plant them. I figured it wouldn't take long and it would be pretty easy. I figured wrong. It took forever, it was hot out, I was sweaty and it was freakin hard to do. I also realized there is a difference between 'potting soil' and 'top soil', but hopefully it won't affect the plants too much that I used the wrong one :( The front of the house does look much better though and I must have done a good job because my boyfriend assumed I hired Mexicans to do it.
So, the first month has been interesting but I am enjoying every bit of it. It's kind of amazing this domestic bliss thing. I've been trying to make dinners but run out of ideas pretty quickly. I have discovered that 'Hamburger Helper' really isn't all that much help and that a 'Magic Bullet' totally is. Any dinner ideas would be greatly appreciated. Make them easy ideas because a Chef I am not. A happy girlfriend I am though.