How did we end up in Atlanta??

Well, given the weather report up in MN today, it seems obvious. But there really is more to the story.

1997. CJ and I have been married 2 years and living in our adorable little 1/2 story 1950 bungalow in St. Louis Park.

(drive by shooting of said house taken this past summer as we drove our girls around to all our old MN haunts...notice our car's side mirror)

I am about to graduate from the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management with a BS in general management and finance (6 years to finish my 4 year degree...what can I say) and am job hunting. Meanwhile, CJ's parents, who are currently in Omaha, NE announce to us their transfer to Atlanta, GA.

One day as I am looking at job postings on campus, I see an interesting position at a company called Scientific-Atlanta which happens to be in Atlanta, GA. I go home and tell CJ, asking, Isn't that the city where your parents are being transferred? How ironic. I think I'll do the on-campus interview when the company reps come to town.

So I do. And they like me. They really like me! They want to fly my 24 year old self to Atlanta for a fun-filled day of interviewing 8 times with various heads in the finance department. I feel like such a grown up!

To understand how crazy the idea of going to an interview in Atlanta was, you have to understand that I am a generational born and bred Minnesotan...no one in my extended family has left the close knit family nest in, well, never. And furthermore, the southeast was completely off our radar...we were the "going west" type of vacationers (California, Colorado, oh, and we went to Duluth one year...family joke). So much so that literally the comments from my family when I announced my interview was "Atlanta? That's in Georgia, isn't it?"

When I fly out for the interview, my inlaws are already living out there and my father-in-law was like an over-protective dad. They wanted me to stay with them, but I thought it appeared more professional to stay at the hotel the company I was interviewing for was putting me up at than with my mommy and daddy inlaws.

I will never forget the morning of my interview...I am getting ready and nearly finished and I get a call from the lobby..."there is a man who says he is your father-in-law here to see you." huh? okay, send him up. He arrives at my door. Turns out he was in a panic because he had called my hotel room several times that morning and thought I was sleeping in and going to miss my interview! (cause, you know, I'm only 12) He drives to the hotel to "wake" me and the lobby won't give him my room number. So he has them call me instead. I assure him that I am on task and about ready to walk out the door. And let him know that I DO shower and blowdry my hair and that is likely what I was doing when he was calling me repeatedly. :) I can laugh about it now! It's good to be loved. :)

Back to the story, where was I? Oh, okay...so they still really like me (can you believe it?) and give me an offer. I am such a big girl! Is this for real? Are we really going to do this???? My whole LIFE is in Minnesota! I live four houses away from my sister! I have pot roast at my parent's house on Sunday after church! We have family "fart" parties (maybe I'll explain that someday) with the extended family nearly every month to celebrate whoever's birthday it is! Atlanta is 1000 miles away!

Perhaps husband will be the voice of reason. Nope. He has his bags packed and is ready to go. Does your 17 years in Minnesota mean nothing to you?????

Memorial weekend 1997 the company flies CJ and I down to house hunt and we put ours on the market for sale by owner. My parents agree to sit in the house on Saturday and Sunday and hold an open house. By the time we get back on Monday it is sold. ("God? Are you trying to tell us something?") Meanwhile, while we are in Atlanta we house hunt with a realtor and are AMAZED at the bang for the buck in the south! We are quite pleased with the brand new four bedroom two-story on a slab that we choose.

The company gave me an incredible relo package (who am I???? I am a lowly, just graduated, 24 year old with no financial analysis experience!) and sent a moving company to pack up our whole house for us and drive it and one of our cars down to Atlanta in a moving semi.

My parents throw us a goodbye party and the day arrives to leave. June 29, 1997. (This is surreal. It has been exactly 3 months since I saw that job posting. How did this happen? Why are we doing this? I NEED my family!!!) It is a rainy morning. We are leaving from my parents house and my sister and brother arrive, and our next door neighbor family, Chuck and Jill, walk over. How do you say goodbye? We stand in the garage. Hugs, kisses, tears. Time to go. We get in the car with our 100 lb., sedated yellow lab, Frasier. I procede to sob uncontrollably...through every single state line crossing. I'm not kidding. Every time we'd cross into a new state, that much further from home, I would start sobbing again. Poor CJ. He couldn't get away fast enough...what is wrong with him??

I really started freaking out when we hit the deep south. I have a solid memory of one stop we made at a McDonald's in small town Tennessee. As I tried to order she asked me a question: "youwanknl;annidtkalhckkkkkdakjjfjlklkjthat?" uh, what? "youwanakljhthk;lhsakjthek;lkhktkj?" it took all my deducing skills to figure out that she was asking in a MAJOR southern accent "you want chili cheese fries with that?" I then ask for a "cohke" in my MAJOR Minnesota accent. She looks up at me strangely (did I pronounce it wrong?) and asks me what kind?? uh, a cohke? I find out sometime later that in the south, not only is there no such thing as "pahp", but every kind of soda is referred to as coke...as in "I'll have a coke"..."what kind"..."a sprite". Where am I moving to??????? I trudge back out to the car and burst into tears AGAIN as I tell CJ that I couldn't even understand what the cashier was saying!

We arrive in Atlanta the next afternoon, June 30, 1997, to begin our new life. Within a day we discover some big undisclosed problems with the house we are buying and we pull out of the contract. I am completely overwraught and unbalanced already from leaving my homeland. This threatens to send me completely over the edge. My furniture is on a truck heading towards Atlanta and I have no home to send it to!! My inlaws say no biggie, just live in our ginormous mansion for awhile to get your bearings. But no, like a petulant, foot stomping child, I INSIST that I MUST have my own home in order to transistion properly to this new life.

We crazily house hunt again and hit the jackpot on an even better house, in a better suburb, in a great family neighborhood. A brand new, four bedroom, two story, with unfinished, walkout basement on a cul de sac...bang for your buck down here, people...bang for your buck!

Back to the job...that is what brought us down here, isn't it? Yeah, that. Well, 9 months after moving down here and starting my job...which was a GREAT job and I did a GREAT job at it!...something didn't arrive one month and lo and behold we found out unexpectedly on our 3rd anniversary that we were expecting! 9 months later our Evie Jill arrived and I took 12 weeks maternity leave. At week 10 of leave I told CJ that we had to sell the house and move to a trailor, because I could not leave my baby!!! In a rash, stepping out in blind faith, decision, I called up my boss and submitted my 2 week notice. Describing the transistion to being an at home mom deserves a post of its own, so I will not chronicle that here...but let me just say, God is so faithful, and against all odds, He is the one who made my staying at home with our daughter possible. I am forever humbled and grateful.

We didn't end up selling the house and moving to a trailor. We stayed in that house for nearly 9 years, brought 3 more babies home to it, and enjoyed the wonderful friendships and families on our cul de sac and in our neighborhood. In 2005, when Evie started 1st grade at the small private school at our church, which with no traffic on Sunday morning still took us 25-30 min to get to, and on a weekday morning was now taking us an hour to get to...we (I) made the decision within four days of the school year starting that this drive wasn't going to work out and we had to move. I had ages 4, 2, and nursing baby at home with me, and while Evie was at school in the mornings I was a lunatic, driving around a radius of n'hoods surrounding our church/school to figure out where we should live. (I think this is where Madeline developed her tendency towards car sickness and also a love for McDonald's cheeseburgers).

Meanwhile, we threw the house on the market...luckily, over the 9 years we had made many improvements and had the whole house shining, so it was easy to get on the market. Somewhere from deep within myself I pulled out "psycho, crazy, perfect mom" and managed to keep that house perfect for showings despite having a 6, 4, 2, and baby to also care for. Thank you, God, that the house sold in 30 days or my nervous breakdown may have come sooner than it did (oh yes, people, the breakdown did come!)

There was no relo package this time, so I packed up THE ENTIRE HOUSE ALL BY MY LONESOME SELF. I really am not bitter about it...after all, my husband was out working hard to earn the bacon to afford this beautiful new house...actually I felt like "EMPOWERED SUPERMOM HOMEMAKER!" that I actually pulled it all off and looked good doing it (remember...the breakdown came later!)

After a couple hiccups in choosing the right house, we finally closed on Nov. 18, 2005...a house in a great, established family n'hood just 3 minutes from our church/school! What a difference location makes! I then UNPACKED THE ENTIRE HOUSE ALL BY MY LONESOME SELF...again, not bitter, someone has to be out paying for this house! Thanks, husband!

And here we will stay for all eternity, until one of our children drag our alzheimers butt's into a nursing home!

Adjusting to living 1000 miles away from family has been a years long journey for me, but I'll save those details for another time. I am in an excellent place now in feeling settled in the south, and love our life here. I could not imagine our family living in Minnesota even if a job opportunity arose for CJ up there. We feel that this is where God has firmly planted us and we want to go and be where He leads.

Thanks for letting me share.