Auburn, here we come!

So....our house sold at auction 2 weeks ago, this is a result of our bankruptcy last year.  It was only a matter of time, we knew it was coming we just didn't know when.  So here we are.

Thankfully we found a couple of places that would work for us!  This is pretty amazing when you consider our tiny budget and our 3 pets.  I really thought we would find ourselves moving into my mom and Reese's motor home for a little while until we found someone who would have us.  I am so thankful that we had so many options!
Tomorrow is the big packing day, then we are off to unload it all in Auburn.  I don't need to tell you that moving is the opposite of fun.  It's the true indicator of how much unnecessary crap has built up around us and the question becomes: do we want to tote this around with us, or not?

We do have a little more entertainment this time around, Rosanna is having a blast crawling through the empty cupboards (the ones that used to have child locks on them) and poking around half-filled boxes.

Speaking of Ro, family is what makes this move less hard.
She makes it easy to answer the question, why?  Well, because Ro is more important than things.  This house is a thing.  This thing would have taken me out of the house, along with E and put her in the care of someone else- and that translates as: this house is more important than Ro, keeping this house close is more important than keeping Ro close.  And that was that.  No more house.

While there is some sadness- this is the first house we bought as a married couple, this is the house we brought our first child into, in this house we had intense love and intense fighting- there is more a feeling of relief.  We are being forced to live minimally (a long time goal), we are minutes away from OTP and we are living the dream: raising our family ourselves, loving our baby all day every day with no doubts about her well-being during the day.  It's priceless, really.
So, good bye house, it's been real!

Best. Hair. Ever.

Oh, yeah.  You know who you are.  Pinnacle of cuteness.  Source of joyousness.  Yup, you.  Rosanna Renee.  YOU have AWESOME hair.

Ugh!

Who is this beast?!  Surely it can't be me....

It is difficult for me to look at that picture, much less to share it online.  It's surreal, like it isn't me.  I'm fat.  No excuses, just fat.  I am clear on how this came about.  My diet is infected with body poisoning food: sugar, white flour, processed crap, etc.  It's not surprising that my shape has taken on a horizontal oozing.  And I am not sure where the edges of my face have gone, they have been replaced by squishy roundness.  I am even more painfully aware of my condition when I get to look at pictures of myself and I absolutely cannot believe it.  I must not look at myself in the mirror anymore because I would have seen this earlier.

So it has begun.  I am committed to fitting into my old jeans by June.  Today's eating is a reflection of that commitment.  And later on I'll be sweating up a storm in my Bikram yoga class and hating life (until it's over, at which point I'll beg the instructor to make it a 2 hour class instead of just a wee 90 minutes).

Lunch is a recipe that Ethan and I picked up at Whole Foods on Saturday when we went to check out the raw foods expo (the THIRD time in 24 hours that the idea of eating raw had been put in front of me....a sign?).  The girl was doing a demo where she made soup in a blender and it tasted amazing!  So we made it ourselves for lunch today:

We followed the recipe loosely and ended up putting the following into the blender: 4 tomatoes, 1 leek, 1 red pepper, half a bunch of basil, 5 cloves garlic, 1 avocado, sundried tomatoes with a bit of their oil, salt, pepper and some cayenne pepper. Then about 2 cups of water and blend away!

In the mean time I had cut up a head of cauliflower, tossed it in some olive oil with salt, pepper and curry powder and roasted them for 20 minutes in the oven (I tossed them around a bit at the halfway mark).   This is by far the BEST way to eat cauliflower that I have ever been exposed to, it is so delish!  So yummy!  I could eat way too much of that stuff (is there a "too much" when eating vegetables?).

The soup was yummy too, super flavorful and a bit spicy.  Guess who else liked it?

This monkey.  Even with the spiciness!  I was shocked!  

I'm taking this journey one day at a time.  I tend to get overwhelmed when I think about keeping something up for months- so daily attention is where I am going to keep my focus....

Par-tay!

This is my Ro at her birthday party.  My outrageously beautiful child at her first official party to celebrate her birth.  

Playing peek-a-boo around her proud Mommy with her Grandpa Reese.  Is there a more fun game?  She thinks not!

Here she is reminding us all that tissue isn't just for hiding presents, it's for swishing around and tossing about!

Here she is getting instructions on how to work her new toy from her Uncle Russ, muy bien!

And now....cake!

She is quite the rock star and these are her groupies :)

This is one of those pictures that I envision looking at twenty years from now, gawking at how time has passed, how our babies are away at college making us yearn to smell their sweet baby hair again. 

Happy Birthday My Sweet!!