Hi. I’m Rose. I’m a mom and this is my blog, and I guess that makes me a mom blogger but rest assured: I am also a morally gray type-b personality and questionable parent and am absolutely in no way as Instagram perfect as my more put-together mom blog counterparts. I’m a mess of double-denim outfits, infrequently washed hair and anxiety. I like to think of my blog as a reflection of my offline, never-quite-together self. I use hyphens too much.

My current life, in a single sentence: I’m a born-and-raised Seattle girl that ended up putting down roots and starting a family in Texas.

Seattle in the 90s was cool, or so I’m told. I missed the grunge thing by a few years. I’m old enough to remember when Kurt Cobain died and how the Seattle Center was a sea of flannel shirts the day my dad took me to the memorial. Maybe it’s nostalgia talking, but I have never been able to find a place that can effectively invoke the spirit of Seattle in the 90s.

I tried. Believe me.

I spent the 10 years after high school trying to find the Seattle that existed only in my head, in the past. I moved to Nevada where I worked for GE at night and for an old white couple that owned a Jamaican restaurant during the day. I dated a lot. I partied a lot. My boyfriend died, and I ran back to Seattle. It helped a little.

I left Seattle for Nevada, again. I worked in a casino for a couple of years while living with my parents. I took my mom to Europe for her birthday. To this day, that’s one of the things I’m absolutely most proud of. A couple of years later, my sister’s childhood friend offered me a place to stay with her in Texas. Texas, where people take their guns grocery shopping. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve felt the rush of adrenaline that comes with seeing an AR-15 five feet away from your newborn child. 

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

I gave notice at work and a month later I was in Texas with a suitcase, my computer, and a guitar I play about three times a year. I got a job two weeks later (retail) and met my future husband a month later (online). We got married after a few years of partying it up, and quickly settled down into a new, slower life.

It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty cool. Except for that time a middle-aged man called me a baby killer. But that’s a story for another time.