Well, I have been in Dallas 2 weeks now and thought I would reflect on what this "new reality" of my life is. Although, this is a temporary "new reality" as I haven't been working and am living in the lap of luxury at my parents' house where they are spoiling me rotten with home cooking, laundry and a great time to reconnect with them while I am here!
I have had a chance to get back into the routine of a student...or at least a student who has 1 gigantic test that I must pass in order to acquire a counseling job that will help me pay the bills!!!
In my non-studying time, I have gotten to reunite with friends and friends' kiddos who I have missed seeing the last few years! I've spent days with Ali and Kennedy, Jeffie and Sam, Brookie and Gain, and Kerri, Kate and Elle! I have also been having dinner, Bachelorette viewings, movies and laying out time with Marisa, Sarah and Erin!
The strange thing is that I wake up each day wondering when my flight back to Charlotte is and then realize that I am here to stay...a bittersweet feeling still!!!
Pictures of all these fun times to come soon, but for now...just wanted to update on the life of a temporarily unemployed stay at home future counselor! My job at Frisco Bible starts in 2 weeks after I get back from the Texas coast!!!
In the meantime, go download this single...you won't regret it!!! I promise! :)
Fee's "Glory to God Forever" on Itunes!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The Bumpy Road back to Dallas
When I wrote my last blog entry, I don't think I had any clue what would really play out on that one last road trip!!! It wasn't so much the trip to the Outer Banks that was the doozy but the long road home to Texas that happened right after...let's start with the good parts...my last "goodbye party" and the Outer Banks.
Thursday before we left I got together with some friends at one of my favorite places, Angry Ale's to say bye to my closest friends!!! Here's a little of that...
Then, on Friday morning, I woke up at 4:00am to go to the airport to see off the students who were going to the Dominican Republic, a trip I would have been on if I hadn't decided to move...so that was a little sad, but pancakes and grits, Andy, Anna and Nick made it all better!!!
I have always wanted to go there...my friends Lynn and Erin worked there one summer in college and it sounded like so much fun...so since I was only a mere 6 hours away, I decided I wanted to spend my last weekend in NC with friends Kristy and Jake (whose birthday we celebrated while there) and my friend Sarah, who flew in from Texas to drive home with me.
We left on Friday morning and stopped in Durham to see some old college friends who work at Duke Medical Center and then to Raleigh were I met up with my sweet friends Kevin and Jenny who were the original North Carolinians who peeked my interest in looking at churches in NC when I was job searching after seminary...basically, it was because of them I felt good about moving to NC where I knew no one else...little did I know they lived a mere 3 hours away and I had only seen them one other time since moving to NC until this weekend. So, we met at Walmart and hugged and said goodbye...I got to see their 2 precious kids, McCain (who Jenny was prego with when we met in Karen and Rob's wedding in LA in 2005) and Anna...they have been so much fun to talk to and be around!!!
Then we were off to the Outer Banks where we enjoyed 3 days of fun, sun..burns, lighthouses, fireworks on the beach, kiteflying and delicious food...
After those fun memories it was back to Charlotte and the reality of packing and moving...with a quick stop in Raleigh to say bye to my friend Anna who was in town for her sister's wedding. We packed up the rest of my apartment and went to bed Monday night...woke up Tuesday morning and I went to pick up the Uhaul trailer. (here's a little hint if you ever are going to pull a trailer behind your car...make sure you get a big enough trailer/truck for the place you are packing up...i got a 6X12 trailer to haul all my stuff...which the movers successfully CRAMMED into the trailer and my car. All I had to give away was my bed...so I was feeling pretty excited that they got everything to fit...and we were off...
About 30 minutes outside of Charlotte in Gastonia on a 4 lane interstate highway, we hit our first hurdle...and it was a big one!!! As we were switching lanes, the trailer starting swerving behind us and basically took control of the car...we spun around at least once and then the trailer slammed into the median and then we were facing oncoming traffic...that's what happened in a nutshell...it was terrifying and the only way I can explain why we didn't flip, slam the car into the median or get hit by other cars is that God's angels protected us!!! It was truly a miracle!!! Sarah and I can laugh about it now and talk about our "new lease on life" but it was one of the scariest moments of my life! We pulled off the highway and called 911 and Uhaul to report the accident. Everyone just said it was a fluke thing and we must have swerved too fast and caused the trailer to lose control. We followed the state trooper to the nearest Uhaul center and they checked it out...said it was driveable and were would be fine. Got back on the road and went about 10 more minutes only to have it happen again..not as bad but there was clearly no way this thing was driveable for 18 hours to Texas. Thankfully there was a Uhaul place right up the road and we pulled in and tried to figure out what to do next. Our best option was to ditch the trailer and buy a truck to haul everything...it did cost a pretty penny but at least we were going to be safe and alive when we got to Dallas!! After some tears and nerves wearing off...we (Sarah and I) proceeded to unpack the trailer which had been totally crammed into the truck...it was hot, we were exhausted but we did it...couches, dresser, everything I had paid movers to load, we unloaded and reloaded into a truck. We attached my car on the back with an auto transport trailer and we were off...and to be honest we were most upset it didn't have a CD player to play our book on CD that Ashley had given us...but we did jam out to some good Ipod mixes and country radio driving through Tennessee...
through the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains we drove...got all the way to Nashville by midnight and crashed at a hotel. Feeling better the next morning, we woke up and got an early start around 8:00am. Things went really smoothly that day driving...we hit some traffic in Texarkana and some rain in East Texas but up until about 60 miles out, we were doing good.
I just happened to be watching the trailer with my car on it at the moment we had a blowout which I believe counts as miracle #2 (I had a weird fear that my car was going to fly off the trailer so i watched it the whole way when I wasn't driving)...so we pulled off the highway, called Uhaul and then waited for someone to come fix it...sitting on the side of the road knowing we had made it so close, but we still weren't home.. 1 hour 1/2 later, we were on our way again...watching each of those 60 miles praying we would make it all the way in...the plans to unpack with friends had been abandoned and after my dad parked the thing in front of the house, I took Sarah home, the trip was finally over!!! As my dad said, it will be a great story to tell our kids someday and as my mom said, at least I didn't put all those miles on my car...and there's the silver lining folks!!!
God bless texas!!! I'm never moving across country again...and if I do, i'll be flying and someone else can haul my stuff!!!
So tonight some sweet friends are going to come over and have dinner, unpack the uhaul truck...(no telling what it looks like in there from me and Sarah packing it)...so now I can begin this new chapter in this city that I love so much because of the people in it!!!
Thursday before we left I got together with some friends at one of my favorite places, Angry Ale's to say bye to my closest friends!!! Here's a little of that...
Then, on Friday morning, I woke up at 4:00am to go to the airport to see off the students who were going to the Dominican Republic, a trip I would have been on if I hadn't decided to move...so that was a little sad, but pancakes and grits, Andy, Anna and Nick made it all better!!!
I have always wanted to go there...my friends Lynn and Erin worked there one summer in college and it sounded like so much fun...so since I was only a mere 6 hours away, I decided I wanted to spend my last weekend in NC with friends Kristy and Jake (whose birthday we celebrated while there) and my friend Sarah, who flew in from Texas to drive home with me.
We left on Friday morning and stopped in Durham to see some old college friends who work at Duke Medical Center and then to Raleigh were I met up with my sweet friends Kevin and Jenny who were the original North Carolinians who peeked my interest in looking at churches in NC when I was job searching after seminary...basically, it was because of them I felt good about moving to NC where I knew no one else...little did I know they lived a mere 3 hours away and I had only seen them one other time since moving to NC until this weekend. So, we met at Walmart and hugged and said goodbye...I got to see their 2 precious kids, McCain (who Jenny was prego with when we met in Karen and Rob's wedding in LA in 2005) and Anna...they have been so much fun to talk to and be around!!!
Then we were off to the Outer Banks where we enjoyed 3 days of fun, sun..burns, lighthouses, fireworks on the beach, kiteflying and delicious food...
After those fun memories it was back to Charlotte and the reality of packing and moving...with a quick stop in Raleigh to say bye to my friend Anna who was in town for her sister's wedding. We packed up the rest of my apartment and went to bed Monday night...woke up Tuesday morning and I went to pick up the Uhaul trailer. (here's a little hint if you ever are going to pull a trailer behind your car...make sure you get a big enough trailer/truck for the place you are packing up...i got a 6X12 trailer to haul all my stuff...which the movers successfully CRAMMED into the trailer and my car. All I had to give away was my bed...so I was feeling pretty excited that they got everything to fit...and we were off...
About 30 minutes outside of Charlotte in Gastonia on a 4 lane interstate highway, we hit our first hurdle...and it was a big one!!! As we were switching lanes, the trailer starting swerving behind us and basically took control of the car...we spun around at least once and then the trailer slammed into the median and then we were facing oncoming traffic...that's what happened in a nutshell...it was terrifying and the only way I can explain why we didn't flip, slam the car into the median or get hit by other cars is that God's angels protected us!!! It was truly a miracle!!! Sarah and I can laugh about it now and talk about our "new lease on life" but it was one of the scariest moments of my life! We pulled off the highway and called 911 and Uhaul to report the accident. Everyone just said it was a fluke thing and we must have swerved too fast and caused the trailer to lose control. We followed the state trooper to the nearest Uhaul center and they checked it out...said it was driveable and were would be fine. Got back on the road and went about 10 more minutes only to have it happen again..not as bad but there was clearly no way this thing was driveable for 18 hours to Texas. Thankfully there was a Uhaul place right up the road and we pulled in and tried to figure out what to do next. Our best option was to ditch the trailer and buy a truck to haul everything...it did cost a pretty penny but at least we were going to be safe and alive when we got to Dallas!! After some tears and nerves wearing off...we (Sarah and I) proceeded to unpack the trailer which had been totally crammed into the truck...it was hot, we were exhausted but we did it...couches, dresser, everything I had paid movers to load, we unloaded and reloaded into a truck. We attached my car on the back with an auto transport trailer and we were off...and to be honest we were most upset it didn't have a CD player to play our book on CD that Ashley had given us...but we did jam out to some good Ipod mixes and country radio driving through Tennessee...
through the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains we drove...got all the way to Nashville by midnight and crashed at a hotel. Feeling better the next morning, we woke up and got an early start around 8:00am. Things went really smoothly that day driving...we hit some traffic in Texarkana and some rain in East Texas but up until about 60 miles out, we were doing good.
I just happened to be watching the trailer with my car on it at the moment we had a blowout which I believe counts as miracle #2 (I had a weird fear that my car was going to fly off the trailer so i watched it the whole way when I wasn't driving)...so we pulled off the highway, called Uhaul and then waited for someone to come fix it...sitting on the side of the road knowing we had made it so close, but we still weren't home.. 1 hour 1/2 later, we were on our way again...watching each of those 60 miles praying we would make it all the way in...the plans to unpack with friends had been abandoned and after my dad parked the thing in front of the house, I took Sarah home, the trip was finally over!!! As my dad said, it will be a great story to tell our kids someday and as my mom said, at least I didn't put all those miles on my car...and there's the silver lining folks!!!
God bless texas!!! I'm never moving across country again...and if I do, i'll be flying and someone else can haul my stuff!!!
So tonight some sweet friends are going to come over and have dinner, unpack the uhaul truck...(no telling what it looks like in there from me and Sarah packing it)...so now I can begin this new chapter in this city that I love so much because of the people in it!!!
Friday, July 3, 2009
One Last Road Trip
Sarah is in town now and I have calculated we are going to spend approximately 32 hours in the car together in the next 5 days... I hope we are still friends afterwards! :) But here is our first stop and my last trip to an NC beach for a while!!!
Just a little piece of Heaven called the Outer Banks...
Happy July 4th!!!
Lu
Just a little piece of Heaven called the Outer Banks...
Happy July 4th!!!
Lu
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