#LoveBlog: The Worst Year Ever

It's been 3 years since I last hosted Belle Brita's Love Blog Challenge. Actually 3 years since I was regularly blogging anything at all. Not too surprising in a way, since 3 years ago, 2016, was actually the year where everything changed.
2016 was the year we welcomed our son into the world. While none of us could imagine our live without him, for us, going from 1 to 2 babies, was so much harder than when we had our first.

It was also the year when the small family owned company I worked for was bought out by a Fortune 500 company almost 10 times our size. Don't get me wrong, in the years since there has been a lot of opportunity and positive changes, but at the time, not knowing what to expect was all a little overwhelming.
2016 was also the year we lost our home and most of our belonging to an unprecedented flood here in Louisiana. Someday I'll write down our survival story, how we practically swam out of our house with our 1-year-old daughter and belongings floating in an inflatable pool. How we hitched rides in 3 different cars, 2 different boats, and finally a national guard truck to spend the night at a shelter in a middle school gym. But that whole story will need to wait for another day.
I've told many people that 2016 was the worst year of my life. (Even worse than the year I lost my mom, which was another pretty awful one.) After all, everything changed, seemingly for the worst. I know we've all heard that cliched line, "You're so strong, I never could have done what you did." And yet, when faced with the worst you really don't have a choice. It isn't necessarily strength, but more survival. You just have pick yourself up and keep going, because eventually things will turn around and get better.

Finally, 3 years later, I'm in a place where things are starting to feel normal again. They aren't the same as they were in 2016, but I finally feel like I'm in a good place. Yes, I'm still upset that I lost all my Victoria Secret bathing suits, my yearbooks from every year of school, and so much more. But I can also laugh about it now. Yes, everything changed, but yet there's so much good now, I'm not sure I'd go back and change things. (Except maybe move more personal items to the attic to keep them safe, but when faced with disaster you don't always think rationally. Although now, if anyone were to ask me what I would save if my home was on fire, I have a real life example to use!)

Today I'm co-hosting Belle Brita's Love Blog Challenge, a link-up for the month of February. See below for more info on the link-up and to meet the other hosts.

Brita Long is the pink and sparkly personality behind the Christian feminist lifestyle blog, Belle Brita. On her blog and social media, you'll discover more than authentic storytelling--she's brutally honest about pursuing a fulfilling and joyful life even with Crohn's Disease and depression.
Twitter // Instagram // Facebook // Pinterest // Bloglovin

Alessia is a lifestyle blogger, and writer with a post-graduate degree in History. She lives in the best borough in London, up and coming Croydon. She's a bit like Emma Woodhouse (Pemberley Digital version) and no longer the most eligible Catholic bachelorette, as she has found her Mr Knightley in sunny Derbyshire.
Twitter // Instagram // Pinterest // Bloglovin

Shoshanah is a California girl who moved to Louisiana and fell in love. (Hence her blog, From L.A. to LA.) She is the mother of a 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son. She loves all things pumpkin, reading (especially historical fiction), and gingerbread lattes.
Twitter // Instagram // Pinterest // Bloglovin

An InLinkz Link-up

Show Us Your Life: How We Met

The week's edition of Kelly's Korner's Show Us Your Life is to tell the story of how you meet your husband or fiance. Well, I'm not married nor am I engaged, but I do have a boyfriend. This fall we'll have 4th anniversary, and if everything goes the we we've planned at some point several years down the line he might hold that title.

I actually started telling the story of how we met and started dating last year. I promised Crazy Shenanigans, that my New Year's Resolution would be to tell the next chapter of this saga. So with this week's Kelly's Korner theme I though this would be a great time. If you're new here be sure to check out the links to the first few chapters below.

For our fourth official date (or third from his point of view) we went to the race track. The boy's parents raise quarter horses, and this night one of their horses happened to be running. The plan was to place a few $1 dollar bets, eat some food, and watch a few races. He told me we might run into his parent's there, but we could try to avoid them. And sure enough there was a moment when his dad walked right by us not noticing.

Not too long after we were there, the boy's sister called asking him if he wanted to see a movie with her and her husband. The boy's always been a big movie person so people would tend to call him whenever they went, knowing they could always count on him to say yes. Except this time he had to say no. Since this was somewhat out of character for him, she curiously asked where he was.

"You're at the racetrack? By yourself?" I'm sure the response must have gone.
"No, I'm here with a girl."
Not too long after that, he handed the phone to me. "She wants to talk to you." Now, I honestly don't remember what we said. I'm sure nothing more than a hello, but clearly she was curious about this new girl his brother was dating.

Acting as any younger sister would, she immeadiatly called their mother to let her in on what was happening. If she wasn't able to met this new girl her brother was dating she at least wanted someone to. Which meant not long afterwards the boy received a call from his mom. Turns out that while we were standing at the track itself, his parents were the on the second floor of the building almost directly behind us. We waved hello, and since we were officially spotted headed upstairs so I could meet his parents for the first time.

We spent the rest of the night watching the races a table with his parents, one of the couple friends, and the couple's 4-or-5-year-old son. (If your curious their horse wound up losing its race that night.)

But that isn't the end of the night, because he still had to take me home. He took me back the apartment, and that night, the night that I first met his parents, we shared our first kiss. We said goodnight, and I went on-line eager to share the details of the night with my best friend. We were already chatting on AIM (remember those days?), when I heard a knock at the door. I opened it up to find...

Yes, this is how I'm ending this one. Don't you love a cliffhanger? Have you ever had your first kiss after you've already met their parents? If you're here from Kelly's Korner thanks for stopping by! Otherwise, be sure to head over to Kelly's Korner to here more "How We Met" stories. I had a feeling this is going to be a great week with some great stories.

~Shoshanah

Part 1:We Meet in Math Class
Part 2: We Get to Know Each Other
Part 3: The First Date
Part 4: We Start to Date

Going Courting

Part 1:We Meet in Math Class
Part 2: We Get to Know Each Other
Part 3: The First Date

It has been a while since I've posted about the saga of mine and the boy's relationship, so if you need to catch up the previous entries are linked above. The funny thing is throughout middle school and high school and wrote most everything down in a journal. In college I wrote about all my adventures (guy related and otherwise) on my Live Journal. Except when I started dating the boy I wasn't journaling anywhere. Really I'm writing the history down more for myself so that way 10 years or more down the road I'll have something to refer back to. But hopefully everyone else finds it assume to read as well.

Everyone caught up now? You'd think after the first date I'd be through with my so-called games with the boy. But no, out of the next 5 times he asked me out only 3 of them actually resulted in a date. I will promise you all that it really wasn't intentional.

There was one weekend were I was heading back to Maryland to visit my college friends. There was another weekend where I was going to a birthday party in a sugar cane field. Only in Louisiana right? That night was quite an adventure though. My friend's car was one of three that drove into a ditch. And getting a car out of a ditch in the pitch black in the middle of a sugar cane field is quite an experience.

There was also a Friday where I slept through his phone call. We had talked about possibly doing something, except I had taken a nap Friday afternoon. I woke up to a missed call and could have called him at that point, but by then I wasn't in the mood to really get dressed or do anything. I guess looking back that could have actually been classified as playing hard to get, but I wasn't trying to play any type of game.

What about the actual dates in this time period? He called again the Sunday after I slept through his call and wanted to know if he could maybe bring over dinner. I had a friend over at my apartment at the time, but invited him over anyway. I did make sure both parties were ok with this agreement. The three of us all hung out and enjoyed the Chinese food he brought. It was really nice at this point to be able to introduce him to a friend and get to have someone else's opinion on him. I would count this as our 2nd official date, although if you ask him now, he will say this night didn't officially count towards our date count.

The next date we went on wound up being pretty standard date for the years to come in our relationship overall. We went to dinner at Macaroni Grill and then went to the movies and saw the Robin Williams movie Man of the Year. (Not a bad movie looking back, but I've never had a strong desire to watch it again) After the movie we headed over to a bar where he attempted to teach me how to play darts. I'm pretty awful at darts, but he did let me win one game. Although if you ask him now he'll still claim I won fair and square.

When he dropped me off at my apartment that night he told me he hadn't been feeling well lately but otherwise he would have attempted a kiss. But it didn't happen that night. When did it happen? Well, you're going to have to wait to hear how that happened!

Which means that one month and 3 dates into the relationship (or 2 dates from his point of view) we hadn't had our first kiss yet. What do you think, too long to wait for a first kiss or not long enough? How long would you wait for a first kiss in a new relationship or how long did you wait in your current relationship?

~Shoshanah

The First Date

Part 1:We Meet in Math Class
Part 2: We Get to Know Each Other

When we last left on this relationship story, I had just said no to the boy's first request for a date. No, I wasn't intentionally playing hard to get. I was actually supposed to be flying out of state to visit a friend that weekend. Except that when they were loading the plane the broke it, so the flight was canceled and since I was only supposed to be gone for a weekend my trip was canceled as well. So I technically wound up being free the night we could have gone on our first date.

Except that I didn't have his phone number, so I had no way of calling him to say, "Change of plans, I'm now free this Saturday. Let's go on a date." I was disappointed with how the weekend turned out, and if I had his phone number I probably would have called. Except looking back its probably a good thing I didn't. I might not have intentionally played hard to get when he asked me out, but maybe it could work for me.

I did see him at class the following Tuesday, and we did make plans to go on an actual date the following Saturday, which was September 22, 2006. Almost 3 years ago. I was a little stressed about what to wear. It had been hot the past few weeks, but it was just starting to cool down. I had planned on wearing one of my summer dresses, but didn't want to be too cold so I decided on a more fall type outfit.

Its probably a good thing that was my decision because the night he came to pick me up it was pouring rain. Since I had just straitened my hair and didn't want to ruin it, I invited him inside to talk hoping the rain would stop. I don't believe it actually stopped, but it did let up, so we decided to head out.

He said we should use my car since it was raining, which didn't make sense to me at the time. (Now of I course I understand that since he car didn't have air conditioning, he would roll down the windows to keep cool. But you can't quite roll down the windows when its raining.) We walked out to my car and I tried to open the door for him. Yeah, being Southern he really wasn't going to let me do that for him.(Of course this means he still opens car doors for me know.)

He had me drive to Alabasha's a Greek/Lebanese/Israeli place. (I guess it would have been easier to say Mediterranean right?) He suggested that we start by ordering the fried cheese plate.
No, these pictures aren't from our first date. It turns out Albasha's has become one of our favorite restaurants to go to. We actually went last night to celebrate the fact that he found out yesterday he passed his PhD qualifying exam. We're kind of creatures of habit, and wind up ordering almost the exact same thing every time we're there. And yes, the boy had already eaten a piece of cheese. Also for some reason, they forgot to put olives on this plate as well. But it was still amazing last night, as it was on our first date.

For our main courses I ordered the lamb shank plate
and he had the chicken shawarma plate
These both normally come with a salad, but we've both started replacing them (him since he doesn't like salad in general, me because I'm not a big fan of the dressing). The boy normally gets extra rice, and I'll normally substitute for an order of stuffed grape leaves. Our first date we were not so in the know, and both had salad with our meal.

For dessert I ordered a piece of baklava. I was expecting him to split this with me, but as I learned that not he's not a big fan of sweets and thus not of desserts. More for me I guess! (Alas, I have no picture of Albasha's baklava because the boy had to go to a meeting after dinner last night and I didn't have time to order it.)

After dinner we got back in my car, not really sure what to do. Since Albasha's was right next to the movies we decided to go to one. He let me pick and I decided we should go see The Illusionist,
which wound up being a really good choice on my part. If you've never seen it, I do recommend it. Its a bit has a bit of a romance, and also a bit of a mystery which meant both of us were able to enjoy it. Its also the type of movie that you pick up more each time you watch, which means we've been able to watch the movie together several times since our first date.

After the movie was over I drove us back to my apartment. If I remember correctly, I was planning on dropping him off at his car. But he had me park and walked me back to my apartment. Pretty good first date, don't ya think? Although honestly, at the time, I'm pretty sure I'd never would have guess what this date would wind up developing into.

And yes, there's of course more from our relationship story. That is of course if anyone wants to hear it. It isn't like we officially become "a couple" after one date, right?

~Shoshanah

Getting to Know You

Part 1: We Meet in Math Class

When I last talked about mine and the boy's relationship story, I told you how he made a point to talk to me after class. And I made a quick replay and pretty much ran away. Lucky for me the boy tried again our next class. Again, I tried to respond quickly and run away, but before I could he asked, "Where are you off too." I tired to pretty much make something up, "I have to go check my department mail box on the 3rd floor,"

"I'll walk with you. And what are you doing after?"

"Well nothing really, I have about two hours until my next class." So we spent the rest of the day together. The following week again he came up to me after class, and this time I didn't try to run away. I stopped scared of trying something new.

Its funny looking back on this time, when we really didn't know each other. Certain conversations still feel like they happened yesterday, and yet so much has happened since then. But its the little things that stick out.

I remember telling him how I couldn't fly on a plane without a cosmo. He thought I meant the drink. I was talking about the magazine.

I remember him making a sarcastic comment about his other girlfriend. I fired back, "That's cool, I have a husband and two kids at home," and we both laughed about our jokes.

I know when I first meet someone I can be quiet, and I don't ask a lot of questions. But he put up with that, and really made a point to get to know me, push past the wall I was putting up trying to hold everyone out.

After a few weeks of just hanging out and talking between classes, he finally asked me out on an official date. Of course you're all thinking I must have said yes. But where the fun in that? Sorry to disappoint everyone, but I said no.

And I guess that's where we'll leave the cliffhanger this time.

~Shoshanah

A Relationship Story

I love reading every one's stories about how they wound up in their relationship. I started thinking about it and realized I've never posted that story here myself. I do remember someone asking if part of the reason I moved to Louisiana was because of him. The answer to that is definitely no. I have already posted the story of how I wound up in Louisiana and if you read that (here) you'll see that no boy is mentioned, so how did it happen?

If you read the story about why I moved to Louisiana, you'll know I came her to go to grad school for math. One of the classes I was taking at LSU was combinatorics. Basically a fancy name for saying counting, but counting weird things like "If you had 1 banana, 3 oranges, 2 plums, and 6 apples in a bowl and you pick 3 pieces of fruit, how many different combinations of fruit can you have?" Do I lose everyone by posting a math question?

Back to the story. I can be really shy in large group situation, and while it wasn't a huge class it was large enough for me to be intimidated. Which means I didn't really make an effort to make conversation with the people in the class with me. Instead before class I would always bring a copy of the newspaper to read or to do the sudoku. (A bit off topic, but one of the things I liked going to a school the size of LSU was they published a student paper everyday! Which meant new things to read everyday! A little different from my liberal arts college publishing a newspaper around once a month.)

Back to combinatorics, since I'm talking about this class in particular you might have guessed that the boy was in this class as well. If so you'd be right. A few weeks into the the semester I was leaving the class room as normal at the end of class. Except the boy stopped me and the door and said, "I don't think I've ever seen you talk to anyone the entire time we had this class."I laughed and responded saying something about "not talking to strangers" and pretty much walked away as fast as I could to avoid having to say anymore.

Yeah, I'm not really good when I'm being confronted or put in awkward situations so I really didn't know what else to do. Clearly, that wasn't the end of our relationship, since we'll have our 3 year anniversary this fall. Maybe eventually you'll get the rest of the story from me!

~Shoshanah

From Maryland to Louisiana

Last week I wrote about how after growing up in California, I decided to head to the east coast for college. Today, I will tell you Part 2, or how after going to college in Maryland, I decided to go to grad school in Louisiana.

I had originally gone to college thinking I would be a history major, but wound up double majoring in Math & Chemistry. Yes, I am a bit indecisive, basically I thought I would be avoiding writing papers. No one tells you freshmen year you will have to write Math papers. But entering senior year, again I had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn't know what kind of job I wanted to have. I didn't know if I wanted to move back to California or try living in Maryland for a few more years.

Most of my friends in my major knew exactly what they were doing, but only because they were going to grad school. I knew people going to med school, to pharmacy school, to law school, to get a math PhD, and to get a chemistry PhD school. So I figured I might as well go to grad school too! I had spent the previous summer working in a chemistry lab. And while parts of it were fun, I really didn't want o spend a lot of time in a lab. Which left math. Guess I was going to grad school in math!

Which meant I had to decide where I wanted to apply.I wound up with a list, about 5 or so schools long. With schools in North Carolina, in Georgia, in South Carolina, in Maryland, and in Massachusetts. Except for heading up to Boston, they were all somewhat coincidentally in the South. Was it a conscious decision, not necessarily. But I did like the idea of trying out a new part of the country.

Then the day I finished all of my applications I received an e-mail asking me to apply to LSU. I figured why not, it couldn't hurt, especially since there was no application fee.

Again, I got into most of the schools I applied to, and I had to make yet one more decision. I had actually been to Louisiana to visit a friend the previous summer. And while they would no longer be there when I started school, I liked to idea of going something that I had at least been before. Also I had applied to a slightly different field of math at LSU, and would be a little more familiar with my coursework. But I can't say there was an overwhelming right decision. I definitely worried that I was making the wrong choice. And now looking back, I can't even imagine where I would be if I hadn't made it. Its funny the way things work out.

Did you have a hard time deciding what you wanted to do when you finished college? Or if you're still in college, do you know what you want to do once you graduate? O, the possibilities.

~Shoshanah

Off to the East

You've probably noticed this, but the name of my blog is from L.A. to LA. But I've never actually talked about how I wound up moving from Los Angeles to Louisiana. So I figured I'd start that story, except I can't jump straight to Louisiana, because I didn't move strait from California to Louisiana.

I've already talked about going to high school in California. And I've said I went to college in Maryland. But never really explained why I took the first jump across country.

And honestly, for most of my life I expected to stay in California. Up through the start of my senior year of high school my number one choice for college was UC Santa Barbara. But by the time I actually started filling out applications I changed my mind, and decided I wanted to go to the East Coast. I'm not sure why I made the decision. I think part of me pictured the east coast as something similar to a movie college experience. I think the idea of being able to start over completely also intrigued me. There was also the fact that if I went to a huge Division I California state school I wouldn't be able to play soccer. And if I went to a small Division 3 school on the east coast I would be able to.

But since I had decided on the east coast so late in the game, I didn't do a lot of research. I only applied to two east coast schools. One that was kind of small, but a well known for its sciences. They other which was a tiny liberal arts school. Although thinking back, I might not have really decided for sure on the east coast until I had already applied. Its weird what you forget about 7 years. And crazy to think its been 7 years since I graduated high school.

But luckily for me, I got in to both of the east coast school I applied for. (I actually got into all of the California schools I applied to as well. Except for Berkeley, but I never really wanted to go there, so it wasn't a problem for me.) I'm not sure now I can pin point the exact reason why I choose the school I did out of those two. Part of it had to do with money as most college decisions do. Part of it had to do with the fact that I was assured a spot on the soccer team at one school. And the other part of it? I'm not quite sure what it was. But yes, I did pick the small liberal arts school, and I think it wound up being a better decision than I could have ever known at the time!

Next time I might have the next part of my journey. Or I might make you guys wait a little longer for it. We'll see... but while were on the topic, how did you pick where you went to college? Was it where you always expected or did you have a last minute change of heart?

~Shoshanah

Mommy Blogging

One Sunday when I gave my review of Rattled, I mentioned that Storked! was the first blog I started reading. But I didn't quite explain how I went from reading to to writing my own, so I figured a little explanation was necessary.

Most of the blogs I started reading after Chrissy's were due to her recommendations. There was Matt, Liz, and Madeline, which is the blog of Matt whose wife Liz gave birth to their daughter Madeline and died the next time. It's really a record of how he's survived this year, and almost a time capsule for Madeline to remember her mother when she's older.

Chrissy also lead me to the blogs at Babble. I read most of the blog there, but some of my favorites there are Baby Squared written by a mother raising twins (feeding into my multiple birth fascination) and Love is Blind written by a mother raising her blind toddler.

I also started reading the personal site of one of the Babble bloggers, Rebecca Woolf at Girl's Gone Child. Rebecca, like Chrissy wound up having an unexpected pregnancy in her early 20s. Almost four years later she's now raising two children (Archer and Fable, pretty much the best names ever) in Los Angeles.

Yes, you might have noticed these are all so-called "Mommy Blogs". Considering I stumbled onto them through Chrissy, who is a mother herself, it made sense that this was what she was recommending. And even though I'm not currently a mother, a small part of me wants to be. Of course the rational thinking part knows that this will still be a few years away, but by reading mommy blogs I'm still able to have my baby fix.

Also since I was really only reading mommy blogs, I couldn't see myself writing anything but a Mommy Blog. If you look at my back entries you'll see I did start this blog back in 2007 (when I started reading blogs), but was rarely if ever writing in it. It was watching a Momversation episode that changed my mind.

I started watching Momversation since Rebacca posted episodes she was interview in on Girl's Gone Child. The episode that changed my mind was about what a blogger will choose to write about. Also on that episode was Heather Armstrong of dooce.com. I had heard of dooce (if you're blogging, who hasn't?), but hasn't taken the time to really go to her site. Heather said in that video that she had been blogging since before she had children and before her marriage, back when she was a single girl living in Los Angeles. I figured if she could blog about her un-married, un-child life than I could too! Hence, From L.A. to LA was born, before that I was just calling it, Shoshanah's Blog, not too original. And if you're curious to go back and read my first few "real" entries. They start on December 20, 2008

Now that I've shared my story, I want to hear yours! What made you start blogging? I'm sure there's a wide range of inspirations out there!

~Shoshanah