Maybe I Should Break Out My Skates

Here's what it's been like down south, y'all.  Sunday night we had a neighbor go downhill skiing in front of our house and yesterday this was recorded in Midtown Atlanta.

Peachtree St. Ice Rink in Midtown from A.Nendel on Vimeo.

Ten on Ten - 01/11

Ugh.  I had such a horrible time getting my exposure right today.  I kept fogging up the viewfinder and couldn't see what I was doing!  Oh well.  Here's what I got when my hands weren't frozen.

7:30

We woke up to this:  6 inches of snow in the ATL.

More than I've seen here since 1993.

8:30

Breakfast included hot chocolate

9:30

Out to play just as soon as we could get bundled up

10:30

Boys from neighborhood climbing the hill in front of our house

It makes for an excellent ski slope ... if only you have the right equipment.

We only have pool toys and laundry baskets and they don't work so well.

11:30

I stepped out on the porch for a brief moment for this one

12:30

After my 2.27 mile run in my new sneaks (on the treadmill... inside... where it's warm and dry)

1:30

What can I say?

She always makes it in here somewhere; she's an easy subject.

2:30

Brrrr!

Only out for about 6 minutes but came back in frozen and having flashbacks from my childhood in Detroit.
This wasn't typical soft snow.  I had to punch my feet through the layer of ice on top with each step.
*Pop! Crunch!  Pop!  Crunch!*

3:30

Four-wheel drives don't work on ice, dude.
This looks like slush but it's frozen solid and jagged; if you had run your hand along it you might have cut yourself.

He didn't make it any further than 1/2 way up the hill before he put it in reverse and tried another way - 

an even more steep hill.  Wonder if he ever made it out of the neighborhood?

4:30

Daddy's home, too.

Time for video games

  

5:30

Lasagna!

Our Story - Year One

We moved to Knoxville after we were married.  The plan was to buy an existing chiropractic office and live happily ever after...just 3 hours away from our families -far enough away that they would have to make plans to come see us but close enough that it wouldn't be too much trouble to make a quick visit.  

We liked Knoxville.  We called it "our town".  We would drive around aimlessly just trying to get our bearings and to become familiar with our surroundings and the roads.  We wanted to know it inside and out.  Ha!  That didn't take us very long.  Knoxville just seems big. 

Brian had started working with the doctor we were going to buy the practice from in August, three months before we were married.  I got a wonderful job at the University of Tennessee, in the Career Services department,  doing data entry, helping host companies that came to the school to interview soon-to-be graduates and answering the phones.  Once, during a very busy day answering 6 different phone lines, instead of answering  with, "University of Tennessee.  Career Services.  Can you hold please? or How can I help you?"  I said, "University of Tennessee.  Career Services.  Can I hold you?"   Thank goodness the gentleman on the other end didn't say Yes!

We were (mostly) cruising along well.

For two months.  

In those two months we figured out that the practice Brian was looking at buying wasn't really all it had been made out to be.  It was in a kind of remote location and Brian and the other doc had very different personalities.  Dr. Bridwell* was a dirty-joke telling kind of guy who piped country music throughout the office and his adjusting style was a little different than Brian's.  Basically, it was going to be hard to keep the existing patients and, because of the location, it was going to be even harder to bring in new ones.  So, we decided that it would not be in our best interest to buy his practice but Dr. Bridwell told Brian that he could work there until he was able to open his own office.  Very generous, right?

Then, on New Year's Eve, my sweet husband came home from work and told me, "I don't have a job.  Dr. Bridwell told me that today was my last day.  That he didn't want me on the books for the new year."  Whaaa?!  I was working for 6 dollars and 73 cents an hour.   Our rent was cheap at just $500 a month for our 562 square foot apartment, where we swore the guy above us was bowling every night, but we both had student loans, a couple of credit cards, groceries to buy and a car payment and insurance.  And $6.73 an hour wasn't going to pay for those things.  

Uncharacteristically, I didn't panic.  We celebrated the new year and decided he would have to find something part-time and we would have to come up with a business plan and get a loan a.s.a.p.. 

But banks don't give business loans to newlyweds with no collateral and big debts. So, Brian worked part-time at Williams-Sonoma at the mall and did all the laundry and house cleaning while I worked full-time at UT.

In February, my mom came for a visit for her birthday.   After she had left that weekend, Brian and I were lying in the bed in the dark and he asked me, "How long do you see us staying here in Knoxville?"   My reply was, "Five years?"  and he said, "Then let's go home!"  He flipped on the light and got out a map of the Atlanta metro area and we made a big red circle around the city and surrounding suburbs and decided he would look for an associateship or something similar within that circle.  

Lo and behold! an associate position that he had heard about before he graduated was still available in McDonough.   The doctor that owned it was a wonderful guy and he and his wife lived in this great big, beautiful house on a lake in an exclusive neighborhood. His practice was thriving and in the heart of downtown McDonough, which was in one of the fastest growing counties in America.  It looked so perfect!  He took the job and worked there for 50% of the collections he brought in to the office.  

A friend of ours very graciously offered me a job at her company working the front desk and we got a pretty, brand-new apartment just 15 minutes from Brian's work.  After a few months I accepted an administrative position at the University System of Georgia's Board of Regents in the Budget Department  and got to work just down the street from the capitol in Atlanta.  Things were a little tight financially that first year but we were back home and just an hour from each of our families.

We celebrated our 1st year anniversary in Blowing Rock, North Carolina and bought dining room furniture as our present to eachother (Tradition says to buy paper and paper is made from wood, soooo...well, that's how we rationalized it).

 What did we learn from that first year?

• Be flexible - circumstances can change so quickly it'll make your head spin.
• Don't panic! - No matter what, we weren't going to be homeless or go hungry.  Our families would be sure of that and did!  Thanks, Jim and Dixie, for all that grocery money and for paying our car insurance.
• A little humility goes a long way - Don't let pride keep you from doing an about face and abandoning a plan that isn't working.  And don't let it keep you from accepting that $100 bill your father-in-law slips you now and then.
• Invest in earplugs - apartment living means that you're going to live underneath someone who likes to move furniture in the middle of the night or who has noisy romantic encounters the floor above you.

I've asked Brian to pick a song that he feels represents each year and to write a quick post corresponding to each of my posts for the Our Story series.
Here's his contribution. - click here.

*name changed to protect myself.  ; )

Let's Go, Braves!

 Friday we went to our last Braves game for this season.  We had tickets to 4 games this year and these were the last of our tickets.  We took all 4 of the kids this time.  This was Landon's first baseball game and he did really good being still and somehow managed to stay awake through the whole thing, which is remarkable since it wasn't over until 10:30 or so.   We ate at The Varsity before the game so we missed the first 2 innings but we didn't miss any of the action.  Score was 0 - 0 until a single homerun in the 7th inning.  

Braves won 1  - 0.

 I wish this pic was in better focus but hey I'm not deleting this memory.

 Such a nut!

 Oh my gosh I'm a lucky girl!

 

 

 This is Cameron's favorite part of the game.  When the Home Depot tools race around the track.  Drill got knocked over and isn't even in the picture.  Usually Hammer is quite the bully but this time it didn't pay off because Paintbrush won the race!

7th Inning Stretch

 It rained through the last few innings but our seats were in the nosebleed section and under the awning!  

We didn't get a drop on us and the rain stopped just before it was time to go home.

 One of my favorite parts of the game is when they bring out closer Billy Wagner to finish the other team off.

Complete with fire on the screens and Metallica's Enter Sandman!  It's a great way to end the game.

 

"Dynamite comes in small packages!"

Last Saturday we celebrated my father-in-law's 70th birthday.  

Seventy.  

On some people 70 both looks and feels, ... well..., old.   But on Jim, 70 takes on a whole new meaning.  On him, seventy means character, integrity, love expressed, love received, gritty-dirt-under-your-fingernails-hard-work.  Seventy years of being dependable, courageous, generous, silly.   On Jim, 70 equals a life well-lived, an example to be followed and more good times ahead.   There aren't many men like him.  Not nearly enough, in fact.  I'm proud to be his even if it's just by marriage.  Because with my father-in-law, there is no "mine" and "yours".  It has always been "ours". 

 In front of the old Sears building downtown where Jim worked for several decades.

 At The Varsity.  #46 waited on he and Dixie often.

 In front of Turner Field, standing not far from where several of Hank's homeruns would have landed.

In front of the hospital where Brian was born.

Happy Birthday, Doddy!  I love you so so much.