I miss you. Do you miss me too? I know you have loads and loads of peeps there and one more little family probably wasn’t a big deal. But seriously I miss you today. Like really, really miss you. Let me count the ways….

The beach. This could be five slots in my list, but I’ll limit it to one. But oh how I miss your lovely beaches, ocean and tan mens playing volleyball. I even miss watching the crazies at Venice beach. It’s weird, I know, but we took each of the girls on the way home from the hospital and dipped their newborny feet in the ocean. It was our way of cementing their love of the beach early on. But we can’t do that with Harrison. I feel like I’ve failed him in some small way. We will have to make a trip out there before too long, just to dip my tiny boy in the ocean.

The sun and warmth. We have sun here, we do. It’s an interesting thing how the sun is everywhere. But somehow, it’s not a warm sun here, this time of year. It’s rather chilly in fact. (Although Fall is actually a beautiful season.) Which unfortunately will soon be replaced with FRIGID. Frigid is not my favorite weather. The thought of your sunny weather right now, makes me a little sad.

Food. Oh I know we have food here. But sushi in Denver? It’s just not the same. I really don’t like any fish here. Because honestly, no matter what anyone says, fish that has to be flown in, is not fresh anymore. Sushi, oh how I miss my sushi. Spicy tuna rolls. Sigh. But fish is not the only think I miss. I miss the little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant that we went to at least once a week. The place so small that they didn’t even take credit cards. But oh their food, it makes me drool just thinking about it. Noah’s bagels, I miss them too. Bagels in Denver are kinda like chewy hockey pucks; not really worth the carbs. I miss going to Hamburger Hamlet for Sunday brunch. There are too many places to name, but I miss them all. Mostly I miss LA Bite. Because delivery dinners; much better than my dinners.

The Farmer’s Market off San Vicente in Brentwood……oh how I miss you. Let’s just say, it’s hard to find anything but apples and more apples here, this time of year.

Celebrities. Ok, so I complained a lot about celebs when I lived in LA. Mostly because locations for shows or movies could pop up anywhere, with no moments notice. You could suddenly, not be able to get in your driveway, because they’d be shooting across the street. Or not be able to leave a store, because some celeb had shown up to shop there and had been followed by the hordes of photographers. But the occasional spotting of a hot celeb in a Starbucks, was really kind of fun. It’s always been something I was just used too, like people here are used to snow plows being on the front of trucks.

I miss movies in the park, the LA Zoo, Griffith Park, the Norton Simon Museum, San Diego, having lunch and cocktails at Las Brisas in Laguna Beach, Disneyland, The Grove and mostly my family.

I love Colorado, I truly do. One day, it will be my home, because I’ll get to where I believe that it is. We won’t be moving back. We made the decision and we knew it would be for good. But I do miss LA. I don’t miss my life there so much, as certain things. I prefer my life here. It’s more low key, less crazy, easier. But I still love LA. It’s a part of me, one piece that is missing.

So, LA I hope you miss me, because I miss you. We’ll be coming for a visit very soon. I promise.

Hugs, Issa

1. My lovely son is trying to mess with my mind. He has woken up between 6:15 and 6:25 every single morning since he was two days old. This is the one time that has remained consistent. As strange as it sounds, I cherish this time with him. Logan is in the shower, the girls are sleeping. It’s the one time, the one feeding that is never interrupted by anyone. So we sit and rock and he munches and we just look at each other. After this, he goes back to sleep for another hour or two and then the day has really started. This morning I woke up at 6:20. I waited, I listened; nothing. Logan took his shower and got dressed and went to make coffee. Still nothing. He came back and said, what happened, why didn’t he wake up? Well, I just have no clue.

But see, the boy has me trained and now he’s changed his mind. Meaning, I couldn’t go back to sleep at all. He woke up at 7:45. He ate, amidst his sisters craziness. He still hasn’t gone back to sleep. This is okay, it really is. I am sure I will enjoy that extra hour or so of sleep. But it makes me wonder what our day will be like now. What else he thinks he’s going to change. Not even a month old (until tomorrow, post coming) and he’s messing with me. I’m in trouble.

2. My mom and step-dad are coming today. They’ll be here for a week or so. I’m so thrilled. But it means I have to pick up my house today. Maybe get some laundry done. Or I can sit and veg out and maybe my mom will help me. I know it’s bad, but that will probably win out.

3. Failblog.org is cracking me up this week. Not as funny as, I can has cheeseburgers or I can has hotdogs, but still extremely funny. This one, had me rolling on the floor last night.

see more pwn and owned pictures

4. Last night, Logan and I went on our first date night, since Harrison was born. Leaving the girls, not a problem. Leaving the baby, ouch. Our sitter is amazing and when we got back, she said, he was awake for a while and he was fine, but he kept wrinkling his eyebrows while looking at her, like who are you lady? We just went out to eat and walked around the mall, but it was still fun. Adult time, adult conversations and no chocolate milk had to be ordered at dinner. Success.

5. For some reason, I always feel like I should have a t least five things when I do this. But today, I really don’t. That’s all she wrote folks.

Have a great weekend. I am working on a post for my month old tomorrow newborny. Sob. But with my parents coming into town, it probably won’t go up until Monday.

I have found myself anxious about this site in the last week or so. When I blogged before, I wasn’t as honest as I am now. Of course a lot has changed and my world has fallen apart and now I’ve started to put back the pieces, but I wasn’t as open. There are many reasons I stopped blogging that last time. One of them was that my family found my site and I got all kinds of grief because of it. Funny, but I got grief for the good stuff as well as the bad. That along with the hate mail I’d started getting daily and the fact that it was a hobby that had started to take over my life; made me quit.

This time is different. I am not a busy ass woman with a career, a family and a social life, like I was in Los Angeles. I still have the family and as you all know, it’s grown recently. I still even have a part-time job. But my life is simpler now. I am not super busy, well any more than any woman is with three kids under seven, a husband, a dog and a house.

The time around, this is not just a hobby for me. It’s a life line. I spent an entire year shut down. I’ve just begun to open up again. I’ve just begun to start talking again. Not talking, as in, hey did you like that movie last weekend; but real talking. About me, my emotions and my mental health. This site has opened me up again. Those of you who knew me in the past, have probably seen this. I no longer talk about water cooler drama, celeb sitings or random YouTube videos. Not that I won’t do that some, but my writing has changed, because I have changed. I have reconnected with people who I’d lost touch with and started fostering new friendships.

I’d like to make writing my career. I adore writing more than anything I’ve ever thought of doing. I had a great career in LA, but I didn’t particularly like it. I made excellent money, great connections and it provided for my family. It helped us be able to do the things that we have done….private school, vacations, moving, Nick’s new business. But that career path just isn’t for me.

I need this site now. Back then, I did it for fun, a hobby. Now it’s a need. It’s my therapy, my life line. You guys are my life line. Some of you I knew before; some of you I’m just meeting and getting to know; but all of you are helping me heal. One day I’ll explain it all better. I know I hint about my past drama, my breakdown; but I’m not ready to talk about it. That’s a bit much, too soon. But know that you all are awesome people who I hope to be friends with for years.

So here’s the thing…three people whom I adore have had family find them in a way that’s made them decide to move elsewhere, censor themselves or shut down completely. Two people are now password protecting their sites because of the haters. All of it I understand. Trust me, I did it. I ran and hid and shut down. I stopped being a good friend. I had people who I talked to daily who I stopped talking to at all. Some of them are the amazing people who come here and comment, some have acknowledged me a bit, but I doubt they’ll come and visit often, if at all; a few have full out ignored me. It’s okay, all of it is okay. I don’t know that I deserve people coming back. But I appreciate those who did.

This place, it’s my voice. I’m finding my voice here. I want this to stick. I don’t want anyone to find it and me decide to leave again. I am not strong enough to handle that this time around. I joke about my cracked and small heart; but really it’s just been so badly hurt that I feel like it is cracking. I need this to be my place. I need it to be Issas World.

I’ve decided to be proactive. Instead of waiting for something to hit the fan, for some family member to find me; I’m going to make it hard for them to do so. I’ve decided to change the kids names. Seems like a small thing, I know. But this is how my step-mother found this site before and I’m still dealing with the repercussions of what she did. Maya and Nata are not names that are easy to hide. If she Googled Maya and Nata, she’d find us. We’d be site number one. Issa, not so much, because she and my dad have never called me that, it’s more of a thing my friends do.

I am less scared of “the Pervs” than I am my own family finding this site. It might take me a week or so to go through and change all of the posts. Please ignore it while I do this, as it will likely show up in your reader. But it’s something I have to do, for my own security. I’ll still post pictures from time to time, that doesn’t need to change. But the kids names do. I hope you guys will understand, when I mention my kids and you think I’ve gone insane, or just traded mine in for new, non attitude giving kids.

I talked to Nick about it and he helped me see that I was doing the best thing. Plus he was all happy, because he got to pic out a new name for himself. Just know, I will screw it up from time to time. If you see it somewhere, let me know, because I really need to make this work. Blogging is just too important to me, to lose it again.

So, from this day forward (and this post will possibly self destruct before too long) Nick will be known as Logan. Because he thinks he is as cool as Wolverine from X-Men.

Maya will be Morgan Aubrey, because this is what Nick wanted to name her to begin with.

Nata will be Bailey Regan, because it’s two of the many names we thought of naming her in the hospital when we found out she wasn’t a boy.

Alex will be Harrison Thomas because I think it’s cool.

I will still be Issa. Because this, this is still my world.

I am seriously tired. Going to Texas was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a while. I’ll never get that chance again to be with Grandma; I’ll never get that chance to spend the time there that I did. But it was hard. I won’t lie to you, it wasn’t easy. I cried so much while I was there that my eyes still hurt. I want to tell you all about my time, my trip, my grandma; but I’m not ready yet. I’ll give you a few glimpses into my last few days and I’ll come back and write more when it’s not so tough. I can’t promise it will be tomorrow, or even this week, but it will happen eventually.

Moving on….

Bringing Morgan along was a great thing. We got to have some quality time together; she got to spend some time with my mom, who is her favorite person in the world; and most important, she helped me stay sane. She is an odd child though. I’ll give you a few examples: she spent half of our trip to Texas doing math time tests. The girl, just loves her some math times tests. She spent the rest of the time entertaining me. I almost feel bad about it, because I could tell she was doing it, just to make me laugh, because she knew how hard this was for me. I’ll tell you though, without her and Harrison, I’d have been a complete mess this entire weekend. I’d have fallen apart. (This makes me feel bad, like I’m harming her in some way. but I can’t go there right now.) I can’t imagine having gone without her though.

She has started doing this weird thing, raising her eyebrows all weird when she tells a joke. I asked her about it, because I wondered where she got it from, it’s dam funny. She said, all the professional comics do something weird with their face, that it makes their dumb jokes seem funnier. She said that if being a Supreme Court Judge doesn’t work out, she needs a back up plan, so she’s trying out comedy. If it doesn’t work for her, she’ll move on to another back-up plan. But you have to make sure you’re good at your back-up plan, is what she told me. Like I said, she’s an odd bird and I wonder where she came from, cause I know it couldn’t have been from me, but I think she’s a keeper.

She is enthralled with the baby. She is her brothers biggest fan. He just loves her, he snuggles right into her when she holds him. She adores him and tells him how awesome he is all the time. Watching them together makes me so happy. But my baby girl, she isn’t a baby anymore. She’s almost seven years old and I can literally see her growing up every day.

On another subject, my mom is a complete baby hog. She pretty much held him all weekend. Which is fine, except I kinda likey mah babee. But she needed him, as much as I needed Maya this weekend. My mom’s (and my step-dad) been taking care of my grandmother for ten months now and I think she’s about to crack. I don’t think she can handle it for much longer. My aunt and uncle are going to take over for about ten days and mom and dad will come and stay with us for about ten days. They’re coming on Friday and I’m so thrilled. They need a break.

Harrison did so good. I can’t even tell you that it mattered that we flew on two separate flights out there and back, four planes in all. People passed him around all weekend. Every once in a while he’d get all grouchy with being passed around and he’d come back to me and settle down in seconds. He super loves his mama.

And that’s all she wrote. I’m just out of steam today. Please forgive me. I’ll be better soon.