My name is Sarah A. Schlothan Christensen.  I hate papercuts, blue cheese, and scrubbing toilets.  My true loves include: my family, Godiva’s key lime truffles, excessively vulgar cartoons, reading books, and taking my dog Hank (and our new puppy Millie) for long walks.  I also love digital photography which has made possible my philosophy that if you aren’t taking at least 96,452 pictures daily then you lead a life devoid of meaning.  This is what I look like:

Photograph taken by the talented Julie Campbell.  Used with permission.

I’m the one in black.  But I guess you probably already knew that.

My husband is very tall and lumbering.  Before I met him, my name was only a fraction of its current monstrosity.  It was my choice to keep my maiden name in my last name, but sometimes when I say my full name out loud to the FedEx guy and he realizes that he has to type fifty-six pages of letters randomly strung together into his little signature pad, his eyes bulge and POP! right out of his head.

My husband’s name is Donald P. Christensen, Jr. and since he helped make that cute baby in the photograph above, I try to forgive him when his socks land shy of the hamper.  He dislikes olives, frivolous lawsuits and people who take themselves too seriously.  He has questionable taste in music and he loves black licorice, but I would marry him again in a heartbeat.  This is what our family of three looks like:

Photograph taken by the talented Julie Campbell.  Used with permission.

These are also both taken by Julie Campbell.  The left is from 2010 and the right is from 2011.

In July 2009, Donald and I welcomed our lovely daughter, Charlotte, into our world.  She is wonderful.  Upon her arrival, my husband and I metamorphosed from reasonable adults into THOSE PARENTS.  We became babywearing, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, cloth-diapering people who make their wood toys and can hold their own in a conversation about the colors of poop, but have no idea what is going on in the world at large.  You know the sort.  Sorry about that.

We’re also THOSE WEIRD HIPPIE FREAKS who are all ‘organic’ this and ‘homeopathic’ that.  We can talk for hours about compost and worm bins and we have no qualms about breastfeeding a walking, talking, milk-requesting two-year-old.  You might as well know this up front so that you can get your queasy out of the way right now because I am SO DOWN with blogging about worm bins and taking breastfeeding pictures with my two-year-old.

In autumn 2010, Donald and I made a momentous decision to add to our family through domestic foster-adoption.  You can read about our adoption journey as it unfolds by clicking here.  So far there isn’t much to report.  Adoption is really an exercise in patience unlike anything we have ever experienced prior to this.  But once it’s over I’ll have another young mind to destroy with my weird hippie freak ways, BWAHAHAHA.  And also, someone to nurture and love.  Which is probably equally important.

The photographs below are of Charlotte.  Go ahead and feel free to tell me that she’s the most gorgeous, adorable child you’ve ever seen.  I agree.

We do quite a bit of reading in this home.  Quite a bit.

My daughter likes sleeping and loves breast-milk and thinks the grandparents are pretty damned cool.  Her favorite foods are peas, strawberries, cheese, and crackers.  She’s not too thrilled about being denied sleep, breast-milk, or access to the grandparents, so we try to make sure she gets all of the above on a regular basis.  My boobs may be a little worse for the wear, but at least my parents seem to appreciate this.

The three of us live together in a suburb of Los Angeles, where Donald and I bought a home four doors away from the house I grew up in.  That means that my father lives close enough to stop by nineteen times before breakfast is even on the table.  I think we can all appreciate how amazing it is that I function at all.

My husband and I believe in laughing a lot, living a little, and falling in love every chance you can.  We also believe in living sustainably, parenting with respect, fighting for what you believe in, embracing all people as they are, and lending a hand whenever you can.  Those last ones are easier said than done.  Luckily, laughing and living and loving come pretty easily.

This website started with a bang in February 2009 as a means of chronicling my marriage and pregnancy.  Publicly humiliating my husband was just a bonus. Here, I write about the ups and downs and in-betweens that compose my life; I hope you enjoy it.  This is a personal blog, which means that I reserve the right to delete nasty comments, post nasty emails and ridicule nasty people.  As well, it is copyrighted, so be ye warned.

Because this is a personal website, there is also creative license involved.  Please take this blog with a grain of salt.  I blur the lines, twist the truth, embellish the facts, and downplay the rest.  I omit details, mesh conversations together, simplify people, fudge the dates, and streamline conversations.  I do my best to fairly represent my parenthood and to keep the sentiments and experiences with my family intact, but I make no guarantees about anything else.  Someone I say is a neighbor might actually have been a relative, someone I say was a five-year-old girl might actually have been two siblings, and a conversation I said happened yesterday might have taken place four years ago.  This blog is intended to be read as a collection of short stories and it is intended to entertain.  It is not meant to advise or inform.  My sister says it’s 90% truth, 5% exaggeration, and 5% omission.

Yes, my real sister.  GOOD CATCH.

These are our dogs.  Millie is the little black mutt and Hank is the crazy white one.  Millie likes to sit on my lap, to chase our chickens, and to follow our daughter around looking for crumbs.  Hank hates water (understatement), loves avocados (understatement), and he never sits on command (sadly, also an understatement).  The end.