After spending 7 years in Miami I've forgotten what real winter is like. I've been spoiled by palm trees, sandy beaches and 80 degree weather from November to April while the rest of the US is buried beneath snow and ice. Don't get me wrong, winter was my favorite season before I moved to the sunshine state and I have missed the cold, snow and most of all winter activities. I lived all year for my trip to Montana, counting down the days until it was cold smoke and tram laps for 7 glorious days.
Then Quinn and I moved north to Louisville - well, I guess north is all relative to where we were. I was so excited to finally be moving where there was going to be seasons. Oh how I had missed the change that happens when summer ends and fall begins. The crispness in the air, the fall colors emerging as the leaves change and the feel of winter coming. But here in Louisville the coming of winter brings the dread of school and office closures, snow that cripples the city because they are ill-prepared for the weather and the most destructive of all - ice and freezing rain.
Yesterday Louisville experienced one of these dreaded ice storms. Now, as I stated earlier, I come from the Midwest where winter weather is part of life for many months out of the year, so a little snow and ice does not frighten me. So when I went to work in the morning, I did not anticipate the day ending with an announcement from the mayor advising the city to close all non-essential businesses early. Since my office was considered non-essential, it was a 2pm early release from the office to work the remainder of the day from home.
The storm began with blowing snow which turned into freezing rain, which I will admit, can be extremely dangerous when one does not know how to drive on roads coated with ice and sleet. Many individuals in the city lost power, thank God that we were not one of them seeing as our house does not have the best insulation - we may have froze to death. But what we woke up to was absolutely beautiful. The trees were covered in a layer of ice that made it seem as if the world had stopped turning for a moment. Everything seemed to be, for a lack of a better term, frozen in time.
My only regret of this storm was that I did not plan ahead and get some quality photos of the beauty that was evident in the aftermath of this storm - I will not make that mistake again.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
New Year, New Location, New Chapter
As I sit here watching the Super Bowl and reading the Pioneer Woman blog, I've decided to start blogging again. As many of you know, Quinn and I relocated from Miami, FL to Louisville, KY for Quinn's visiting position at IUS. This was a HUGE change for us after living in Miami for 7+ years but it has been great for us thus far. But let's start at the beginning of the move.
The decision to move was made in March of 2013 when Quinn and I were out in Big Sky, MT for our annual Gallion/Dauer family vacation. Quinn was offered the opportunity to return to IUS for a second term as a Visiting Lecturer in History. Since no other job offers were made, we decided it would be best for him to accept the opportunity and stay at IUS. The only downfall of that decision was that Quinn and I would spend another year apart and let's be honest, I'd already spent enough years apart from my academic husband. So, we made the decision that I would move to Louisville, KY with Quinn in the fall before he started his second year with IUS.
When we got back from vacation, I told my supervisor at American Girl that at the end of the summer I would be leaving and moving to Louisville to be with Quinn. I have to admit, I was totally terrified to tell her because I didn't know how she would respond. But as soon as I told her, she admitted to me that she knew that it would only be a matter of time before I moved on to be closer to Quinn. And with that announcement, my search for employment in Louisville began.
My job search began simple enough, find positions that I would be interested in and apply. Easy enough, right? The downfall of the job hunt was living in Miami but looking for jobs in Louisville. By June I was starting to get nervous that I wasn't going to have a job before we moved and it was going to be difficult to make ends meet. Oh the woes of being an academics wife! I would compare my early life as a professor's wife to that of a military wife - moving to locations that would not be your first choice, spending months apart while your spouse is another country and having to consistently make ends meet while your spouse is "deployed". Toward the end of June, my luck changed and I received a call back from a recruiter for Marsh & McLennan Companies. They wanted to hold an onsite interview in Louisville but I was not able to make the mass interview so it was going to come down to the phone interview. Thank God that I have had so many phone interviews in the past that I had become quite the phone interview pro. Quinn and I traveled up to Louisville to move some of the MANY boxes we had and look for a place to live (that is another entry for another date). I had the phone interview in late June and got the call back in early July that I had gotten the job - woohoo!!!
Unfortunately, with the new job and a start date 2 weeks before our planned move date, I was going to have to move up before Quinn. So we packed up my SUV with as many boxes as it could possibly hold and away I went.
I had two responsibilities once I got to Louisville - start my new job and find a place for us to live. Well, once I got myself settled at the hotel I drug myself out into the heat (at this point my AC had died somewhere in northern FL) and started house hunting. While driving through the neighborhoods that we had decided we wanted to live during our house hunting trip in June I saw this wonderful little house that was for rent. So I called the number and met with the owner that night, completed the paperwork and cut the check. Place to live - done!
So after approximately 1 1/2 weeks in the hotel I was able to move my stuff into the house and once that was complete I boarded my flight back to Miami to complete our move. When I arrived in Miami our friends had shown up in full force and helped Quinn pack all of our belongings into the U-Haul - thank you guys!!!! The next morning, after very little sleep, we finished packing the truck and cleaning the apartment - thank you Kelly!!!! After all of the last minute tasks were completed, we took our final pictures and away we went.
Quinn drove the U-Haul and I drove the Kia with both dogs - let me tell you that car is too small for both dogs to travel for 2 days straight. We hoped and prayed for good weather but unfortunately we didn't even make it to Ft. Lauderdale before it went all downhill. After it took us almost 6 hours to get to Orlando, we were exhausted but needed to make it out of Florida before we could stop for the night if I was going to be able to make it back to work on Monday.
So after two full days of driving we made it Louisville and were able to unpack the majority of our stuff - the bed in particular so that we had somewhere to sleep. And thus began our new journey in Louisville, KY.
The decision to move was made in March of 2013 when Quinn and I were out in Big Sky, MT for our annual Gallion/Dauer family vacation. Quinn was offered the opportunity to return to IUS for a second term as a Visiting Lecturer in History. Since no other job offers were made, we decided it would be best for him to accept the opportunity and stay at IUS. The only downfall of that decision was that Quinn and I would spend another year apart and let's be honest, I'd already spent enough years apart from my academic husband. So, we made the decision that I would move to Louisville, KY with Quinn in the fall before he started his second year with IUS.
When we got back from vacation, I told my supervisor at American Girl that at the end of the summer I would be leaving and moving to Louisville to be with Quinn. I have to admit, I was totally terrified to tell her because I didn't know how she would respond. But as soon as I told her, she admitted to me that she knew that it would only be a matter of time before I moved on to be closer to Quinn. And with that announcement, my search for employment in Louisville began.
My job search began simple enough, find positions that I would be interested in and apply. Easy enough, right? The downfall of the job hunt was living in Miami but looking for jobs in Louisville. By June I was starting to get nervous that I wasn't going to have a job before we moved and it was going to be difficult to make ends meet. Oh the woes of being an academics wife! I would compare my early life as a professor's wife to that of a military wife - moving to locations that would not be your first choice, spending months apart while your spouse is another country and having to consistently make ends meet while your spouse is "deployed". Toward the end of June, my luck changed and I received a call back from a recruiter for Marsh & McLennan Companies. They wanted to hold an onsite interview in Louisville but I was not able to make the mass interview so it was going to come down to the phone interview. Thank God that I have had so many phone interviews in the past that I had become quite the phone interview pro. Quinn and I traveled up to Louisville to move some of the MANY boxes we had and look for a place to live (that is another entry for another date). I had the phone interview in late June and got the call back in early July that I had gotten the job - woohoo!!!
Unfortunately, with the new job and a start date 2 weeks before our planned move date, I was going to have to move up before Quinn. So we packed up my SUV with as many boxes as it could possibly hold and away I went.
I had two responsibilities once I got to Louisville - start my new job and find a place for us to live. Well, once I got myself settled at the hotel I drug myself out into the heat (at this point my AC had died somewhere in northern FL) and started house hunting. While driving through the neighborhoods that we had decided we wanted to live during our house hunting trip in June I saw this wonderful little house that was for rent. So I called the number and met with the owner that night, completed the paperwork and cut the check. Place to live - done!
So after approximately 1 1/2 weeks in the hotel I was able to move my stuff into the house and once that was complete I boarded my flight back to Miami to complete our move. When I arrived in Miami our friends had shown up in full force and helped Quinn pack all of our belongings into the U-Haul - thank you guys!!!! The next morning, after very little sleep, we finished packing the truck and cleaning the apartment - thank you Kelly!!!! After all of the last minute tasks were completed, we took our final pictures and away we went.
Quinn drove the U-Haul and I drove the Kia with both dogs - let me tell you that car is too small for both dogs to travel for 2 days straight. We hoped and prayed for good weather but unfortunately we didn't even make it to Ft. Lauderdale before it went all downhill. After it took us almost 6 hours to get to Orlando, we were exhausted but needed to make it out of Florida before we could stop for the night if I was going to be able to make it back to work on Monday.
So after two full days of driving we made it Louisville and were able to unpack the majority of our stuff - the bed in particular so that we had somewhere to sleep. And thus began our new journey in Louisville, KY.
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