Hello World

Here I am- married, living in a suburban country town, a rookie at motherhood, and attempting to blog my way through it.

Hello world!
I'm Elisa,  newly 30, and a transplant to Sonoma County (via San Francisco). My Sonoma County hubby, Jeremy, moved me up to his hometown after I had 5 fabulous years in SF. I am lucky to have one of my best friends (my sorority sister and a childhood friend of J's) live 2 miles away or I'm not sure I could have survived the culture shock from city life to this cow town.

I loved growing up in the south county beach cities of Orange County. I had a whopping good time in Tucson for college (Go Cats!), and landed myself in SF at the age of 23 teaching high school English directly from my teaching credential program. I'll be heading back for my 7th year in November (gotta love maternity leave).

I dabbled in the singles-scene of the city for a few years, and then WHAM! I met J at 25 when I was least expecting it (well, re-met him, but that's a whole other story). After dating those hard-to-figure-out city boys, I almost fell over when I discovered that he is exactly how he portrays himself to be-- nice, honest, hysterical, thoughtful, and just plain darling. Seriously. Eight quick months later, and me pinching myself the whole time wondering if I was still dreaming, we were engaged. Eleven months from then and we were married and honeymooning in Zihuatanejo.

What a whirlwind. From there, we lived in a cozy place in the city, 5 blocks from the water and Crissy Field, 3 blocks from Chestnut Street (my #1 city love). We loved and lived for 18 months as newlyweds, until one day it was time to head north for J's job. I'm being a tad bit dramatic (I tend to do that often, just an FYI) since "north" is only 32 miles up highway 101 from San Francisco, but it was a HUGE decision. It did help that best friend Katie happened to have gotten married and pregnant and was also heading north to that same small hometown.

I agreed to go under one condition: a dog. So, we bought a house, and brought home Hazel, our chocolate lab puppy....on move-in day (not the smartest idea in hind sight, but thankfully Hazel is so darn cute that she proved herself worthy). We began our new life in Petaluma, CA, USA.

And this brings us to the most recent change in our life together, baby #1. Less than a year into the 'burbs, and it was time to start thinking of a family (what else do you do here?!). We had very boozy weekend in Yountville for friends L and R's wedding, and badabing-badabang-- we were pregnant. Yes, it was a little bit of a surprise. And yes, I hyperventilated into a paper bag when I saw the positive pregnancy test, and continued to take 5 more before I believed the results-- I was with child and due April 23.

I survived pregnancy with all of the usual aches and pains. We didn't find out the gender, which almost killed me. But there had been a trade early on-- gender surprise for Jeremy = full nursery design rights for me.

Forty-one weeks later, still no baby. So, I went in for an induction. Lovely. (Can you sense my heated sarcasm?) Two and a half days later, and after 3 hours of pushing, our little GIRL arrived on May 2nd! We were in love with all 8 1/2 pounds of her. It took us a day to decide on a name for our feisty, raspy-voiced little doll. Scarlett Isabel. 

So there you have it! I just came "out of the fog" as Scarlett is now 4 months. From today on forward I will be letting you in on my attempt at this unknown journey that some of you may have already taken called....motherhood.  The purpose of this blog-- is still to be determined. Sonoma Mama will be a work in progress, sharing some of my stories (antics, if you will), projects, ideas, loves/dislikes (I was raised not to use the word "hate"), survival tactics, and the trials and tribulations suburban life, mamahood, and babyhood.

I guarantee this to be an interesting ride, so hang in there with me!