Alternate Reality

The last 4 days have been such a new experience. At the moment, it's just me and the cats in our new home. We've had dogs for over 5 years and Parker is going to be 3 in November, so it's been almost 6 years since I haven't had pups or a toddler in the house.

In case you've never visited us, the dog + child scenario has the potential of creating a lot of noise. Don't get me wrong, it isn't remotely unpleasant. It's the sound of a full and busy house, but I'm quite certain that the second you step outside and back into to your own reality, you would notice a glaring absence of chaos.

The first couple of days here, I had the TV on non-stop because it was just too quiet. Furthermore, my heart felt Parker's absence and while I know that he's doing great and having fun, it was still an adjustment to not have him in my presence 24/7. Interestingly, the TV was comforting to the cats as well. Lu Lu Belle would hide until I turned the TV on and then she would squeeze out of whatever crack she wedged herself in to come settle in my lap.

By day 3, we all felt more comfortable. In fact, I think the cats might be a little too comfortable.



Without dogs or Parker here, they can wander the house and lounge on the couches without fear of 2-year-old hands "loving" them or Nona herding them to whatever location she thinks is cat appropriate.



I had high hopes that this table would be my baking area. I scratched that as soon as Lu Lu claimed the spot as her perch. Since our house is on a hill, the two windows that flank this table overlook the side street and our backyard. She can see people, birds, and pretty much keep tabs on the neighborhood. In other words, she's there for life.

It's going to be a sad day in the life of the kitties when I bring the dogs up. The good news is that this house is twice the size of our previous one, so the cats and dogs will each have their territories and plenty of room to perch and roam.

Tuckasegee River

This part of the state feels so wild. With all of the rain in the summer, the trees are lush and the rivers are at capacity. I'm having a hard time not taking 1,000 pictures a day because it's just so beautiful here. The picture above was taken from the outside deck of the local Best Western Hotel.

The Tuckasegee River weaves in and around the local towns. It has great rafting and trout fishing. I'm looking forward to hooking with some of the faculty members to get my feet wet (literally) with all of the outdoor activities that are just minutes away. I'll tell ya, it's so hard to stay in the house and unpack when there's so much to explore! I can't wait for the Irishman and Parker to join me up here.

Independence Day

While there are only 2500 people in our new little town, there are a number of similar towns within a 15 minute drive in every direction. As a result, you can hop from town to town to see what each has to offer.

Usually, there are fireworks in our town behind the old courthouse, but they're currently converting the courthouse to a library, so they skipped the fireworks this year because of the construction. There were about 5 other towns doing fireworks, so we picked one at random and headed to Bryson City.

There were probably about a thousand people there, which seemed so few to us and so many to the locals. We had dinner at a small Italian restaurant (which according to the Irishman had excellent chicken wings) and then we took a stroll around the town.



I just love the historic courthouses that each town has. If you look at the surrounding buildings, you'll see that one was most likely the old police station (with adjoining jail). It's amazing how differently things operate now.

We found a bench near the courthouse and settled in to watch the fireworks. They were pretty impressive for having such a small audience.









All in all, it was a great start to our new beginning. Over the course of the summer, I'm looking forward to visiting all of the other little towns as they have their festivals and craft shows. It's a different life up here and I'm definitely looking forward to the change of pace.

Update

Hi folks, just wanted to let you know that the cats and I arrived last night and my cable and internet are now up and running. I'll be back with a more thorough update as soon as I locate my cables to download pictures from my camera.

Meeting the Locals

Our first day in town, we decided to head over to the local brewery since they were having a beer and food tasting event (catered by a local restaurant). I was a bit apprehensive about making our first appearance in town as residents instead of visitors, but I thought that I’d be able to fly under the radar for a bit and just observe. I thought wrong.

We were probably 5 feet in the front door before we were approached. The conversation went something like this:

Unofficial Welcoming Committee (UWC): “Hi. Are you from around here?”

Me: “Um, actually, we just moved in this morning.”

UWC: “Really! How wonderful. What brings you here?”

Me: “I accepted a faculty position and I’ll be starting next month.”

UWC: “Marvelous! Well, I’m ____ and this is ______ and [insert life stories].”

To my benefit, I didn’t run screaming out the door. In fact, I made my first friends and was invited to be a special guest on the local radio show. Apparently, the city doesn’t get that many new people, so I’m something of a novelty at the moment. If I’m guessing correctly, word has probably already gotten around and I will soon be known as either “the city girl” or “the new faculty member.” Swell.

As an aside, the Irishman and I had the best blueberry pie ever made. Seriously, it was phenomenal. It was warm and sweet and had fresh whipped cream on top. I’m going to have to start training for another marathon just to accommodate the delicious food!

Movers

So, Wednesday was loading day. It took about 8 hours to get everything loaded up and I did a lot of wandering around initially before I got bored and started cleaning like a maniac. All in all, the loading process went fairly well, although I have to say that an empty house is pretty depressing.

Since I had done so much frantic packing in the days leading up to loading day, I didn't even want to look at the remaining work in the house. So, I took it easy for the rest of that evening and spent the following day running errands.

We left on Thursday to drive up and stay in a hotel since we were taking delivery of our possessions on Friday morning In the meantime, the movers told us that they weren't going to drive up until Friday morning, which was good because I told the driver that I wasn't sure the 18-wheeler they loaded our house into was going to be able to make it up the steep roads to get to our house.

When we got into town on Thursday night, we did a drive by and I was right, the truck was not going to be able to make it. So, we called the movers right away to let them know that they needed to bring a smaller truck with them to shuttle our belongings up to the house.

Herein lies the problem. The movers decided they wanted to get a jump on the move and they drove up on Thursday night. Without a shuttle. Well, a series of frantic phone calls and emails to U-Haul first thing in the morning resulted in us driving to a nearby town to commandeer a 10-foot truck. We found a local church with a big enough parking lot that the semi would fit and the Irishman charmed the church lady into allowing us to use it as a loading zone.

Ten hours and 10 trips later, our possessions finally made it up to the house. Even with all of the drama, the beauty of our new surroundings was not lost on us. Here I am following the Irishman to U-Haul the following morning to return the truck.





The mountains are so beautiful and it reminds me so much of my island. With wildflowers lining the streets and motorcycles dominating the sweeping mountain curves, we are so thrilled to be part of the community.

Oh and don't throw anything at me, but in the dead of the summer, the highs are in the low 80s and the lows are in the 50s. I literally squealed with delight when I ran outside our first morning there and it felt like a brisk fall morning. Imagine how delightful an actual fall morning will be!

Pardon The Interruption

Hi folks! Sorry I've been MIA. We had quite the ordeal with the move and we're currently in Tallahassee for a couple of days before I make a second trip back up to North Carolina with Payton the bionic cat and Lu Lu Belle.

I'll be back tomorrow with a full report on the move and our first interactions with the locals because I can say with quite certainty that this next chapter will be quite the experience.