I finally did it!

Well, I finally did it! After months of saying to myself "I really gotta start a blog!", I finally sat myself down and signed up for one.  I think I was inspired by all of the blogs I came across this morning while I was searching for dinner recipes for the rest of the week.  It was like this crazy chain reaction of blog-hopping, where one blog would recommend checking out something on another blog...you get the idea hopefully.

This blog is going to be from the heart, raw and honest.  Thats how I am in real life, so it only seems natural to have my writing reflect that.  People have always seemed to appreciate my bluntness (at least I think they have?), so hopefully you will too.

I think the reason I put off setting up a blog for so long is I just could not come up with a title that I liked.  I decided on the title of "New Mom, New Wife, New Life" because I really feel like it expresses what I have been experiencing over the past year or so.  Life as I once knew it has drastically changed.  I just had a beautiful baby girl named Delaney on May 18th of this year.  When people ask me what her name is, I usually get a look of surprise and either one of the following comments "oh, thats different.", or "aww, what a pretty name!".  In case you were wondering, Delaney was my maiden name which I hated parting with, so I kept it around by giving the name to my daughter.  Selfish? Maybe, but I don't care.  We think it's a cool name, that's all that matters.

I married my husband Sean in June of last year.  We got pregnant a little over 2 months after getting married, so it was a rough first year to say the least.  We weren't planning on having a baby so soon, but she has been such a huge blessing and source of joy in our lives; we wouldn't trade her for anything!  We brought a lot of debt into our marriage, his coming from the wedding expenses, mine coming from a lack of self-control during my college years (aka credit card bills) as well as a semester's-worth of grad school loans.  Our first post-wedding residence was in Sean's grandpa's basement (or the basement suite as we referred to it). Sean didn't have a job, I was working a measly $8.80/hr job at Starbucks and we were pregnant....we were freaking out!! How were we going to be able to take care of this new baby?

Well, Sean got a job working for the Geek Squad at Best Buy, so we were able to move out of Grandpa's basement and into our own place.  This is when it finally hit me...I was married.  I was now responsible for cleaning the apartment, cooking the meals, and getting everything ready for baby's arrival.  It was a lot of work.  I didn't have a mom around to teach me how to be a woman(she passed away in '03), so I had to learn it all myself.  I didnt know how to cook, how to get stains out of clothes, what the best products were for cleaning...I was pretty much clueless and treading along, hoping not to drown.

Why am i telling you all of this?  Well, I have always hoped that I could help people through what I have experienced.  I believe everyone goes through a rough-patch, some lasting longer than others (:::cough-cough::::) and it can be comforting to hear that others have gone through similar trials.

I intend for this to be an all-purpose blog.  It will be part-journal, part mommy-blog, part cool recipes I like, good deals I have come across etc.  I am kinda scattered-brained/ADD, I apologize in advance.  I hope you follow this blog, and please feel free to leave comments, good or bad (but hopefully good!).

All my love,
Lori