Listing

Daddy and Daughter

I'm one of those people who keeps lots of lists. They help me plan and organize and remember. I keep a grocery list, a "to do" list at both home and the office. I make a weekly list of dinners to cook, I actually build my grocery list off this list. I keep a small, travel notebook listing all our journeys, noting every confirmation number, our frequent flyer codes, dinner reservations, hotel addresses and phone numbers. Before we travel I make a packing list. They are pretty basic these days but when the kids were little my lists were pages long of baby equipment like sippy cups, baby monitors, extra diapers, wipes, and binkies. At Christmas time I keep a list of all the people we need to buy gifts for and I make notes of what we bought and how much we spent. It comes in handy the next year when setting a holiday shopping budget.

I keep mental lists too of home improvement projects we've talked about and of places we've dreamed of visiting. My bucket list has never been put down on paper, but it's all organized in my head and has big things like hang gliding and little things like sampling every flavor cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory and things that will probably never come to pass like getting to name a city street. And, in any given week, I would keep a running checklist in my head of things to talk to my dad about come Sunday.

Toboggan Down the Great Wall of China

Though not unusual to talk to my parents, my mom especially, several times during a week, it was on Sundays that I was guaranteed to talk to my dad. A day of rest, a day where he was not working or not running errands, it was on Sunday that I would be sure to dial him up and run through my weekly list with him. My lists differed each week in length and in content. We would talk about my kids, things they had done or said, accomplishments they had made, activities they were participating in. We talked about plans we each had, stuff that occupied our time or we were setting aside time to do. Sometimes I would ask him for advice or a favor. Sometimes he would ask me the same. We gossiped sometimes, like old women, and we reminisced a lot. We laughed loud and often. I miss the laughing.

Father Daughter Dance at my Wedding

I called my dad on Sunday, April 7, 2019. The ringing of the phone interrupted an intense game of Scrabble he was playing with my mom. I remember my first thought was to say, "I'll call you back." But I decided, nah, I was going to push on with the conversation. I feared I would get caught up in Sunday night dinner and kids' homework and the call would fall through the cracks. So, we talked. We talked about planting palm trees, about the Kiss concert Eugene and I attended a few days before and about how old Gene Simmons was but how he was still in full make-up, spitting blood, wagging that tongue all around. We talked about his plans to retire the following month and this epic road trip he was going to take with my mom, heading south, stopping to see us, his brother, Tom, and lots of sites and cities in between. I checked all these topics off my list and as we were about to hang up, I realized one more note on my list. "Oh dad," I said, halting our good-byes. "I bought those tickets for the Broadway tour of Beautiful. I got them for Mother's Day, for mom, so you just need to make sure you're at my house for Mother's Day." "We'll be there," he said.

A little over 30-hours later, my phone rang, in the middle of the night. Immediately, my heart sank. Nothing good happens at 2:30am. And I realized, as I reached for the phone, that whoever's name I saw on the screen, the other would be in trouble. The screen said "Mom".

World's Greatest Grandpa

Today marks a year since that phone call. A year without my dad. A year that spurred a whole bunch of new, not particular fun, lists. Lists of funeral thank you notes to pen. Lists of businesses to send death certificates to, accounts to change names on, lists of loose ends to tie up. Lists of home improvements needed on my parents' house to get it ready for market. Lists of apartments, preferably ground level, to tour with my mother. Lists
of utility shut offs and turns on. Lists of occasions and "firsts" to muddle through without my dad's smile and jokes and fun sarcasm, without his support and guidance and love.

And then there is my list, my Sunday call list, which just keeps on running. I have added so much to it in the past 12 months, there is just so much to tell. And let's face it, my list, it's just going to grow bigger and bigger. But that's ok because the next time I see my dad, our time together will be eternal and unlimited so I'm fairly certain we'll be able to cover it all. Until then, I'll just keep on listing because I'm one of those people who keeps lots of lists. They help me plan and organize and remember. And I don't ever want to forget.

An Extra Chromosome

I was in Chick Fil A the other day when a woman walked by me wearing a shirt that said "Keep Calm It's Just An Extra Chromosome". It made me smile.

Today is November 10th and eleven years ago our daughter, Mia, was born with an extra chromosome, an extra #18 chromosome to be exact. It's been eleven years since I asked my doctor in a curiously silent operating room "What's wrong?".  Eleven years since a nurse with soft brown eyes looked down at me and said "She appears to have some kind of syndrome". Eleven years since, while being wheeled back to my hospital room, a medical attendant whispered to me "Congratulations?". And eleven years since a genetic specialist confirmed to me, "Your daughter has Trisomy 18".

Most people who know us have figured out somewhere down the road that once upon a time we had a daughter named Mia. But some don't know exactly what happened. Born with three #18 chromosomes instead of the normal two, the condition is not compatible with life. We were told initially she might not last the night. When she did, they told us it could be days, weeks, months, but probably no more than a year. It was about 3 1/2 months. Now you know.

It's not often that I talk about those days not because I can't handle it, but because sometimes other people can't. But today, I've been doing a lot of thinking about Mia and what she gave us in her very short life. How she gave us such an appreciation for life and for each other.

Eleven years ago my husband stood at my bedside in my sad, dark hospital room and I turned angry eyes on him and lashed out, "You can go! You can leave now! Couples with special needs children don't last. Just go now". To which he quietly replied, "She's my baby, too". And there it was. That's how we were going to handle this -- together. The next day I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I pulled myself together the best I could. I didn't ask "why me". Instead I asked "why not me?". What made us so special, privileged or blessed that we wouldn't have challenges or sadness in our lives?  There was a little girl, a newborn baby, who needed a mother to take care of her. A mother who was focused and confident and present. Mia needed me.

In no way shape or form were those months easy. And looking back I am in awe sometimes of what we had to learn, how we handled, what we experienced. We learned medical techniques like inserting her feeding tube and used a stethoscope to make sure it was positioned correctly in her stomach. We tried our best to interpret the complicated medical speak of doctors and experts. We welcomed hospice nurses into our home. We battled not just the sleepless nights that come with a newborn, but sleepless months that come with a terminally ill baby who was irritable and in pain. We visited the compounding pharmacy to have morphine broken down in a dose small enough to make her little body more comfortable. When we decided to travel to Pennsylvania for Christmas so all the family could meet Mia, we took painstaking notes on what we should do if Mia died in the car while we were on the road. And we did all this together.

When Mia's constant crying and the intense lack of sleep began to seriously wear me down, Gene asked me, "What can I do? How can I make it better?". And then, along with taking care of Mia on Friday nights and Saturday nights, he tacked on Tuesday nights, work nights for him, so I could have more of a break. On Saturday afternoons he would tell me "Go! Go to the mall. Go shopping." When I got a haircut and came home with the shortest, most manly haircut that instantly aged me 10 years, Gene said, "You look so pretty".  During his work lunch hour, he quietly met with the local funeral home to start making arrangements so it would be easier when the time finally came.

During those months I would look out our front window and see sunshine and the life of cars traveling to work, seniors walking around the block, mail being dropped in the boxes. I would think, people have no idea what is going on behind this door. How hard the days are. Yet, Eugene and I had a motto those days, "as normal as possible". I uttered it constantly, as normal as possible.

I will always be so grateful that when Mia died it was in my arms. I was holding her and, God as my witness, she lifted her little arms up to the sky and smiled, and was gone. That smile, that was like my reward. That was my "you've done good". That was my "thank you". My "I love you". 

I didn't write this all out to make anyone feel sad. I just want people to understand, understand where we've been and why we do. We've experienced such sadness, so we really rejoice in the good. I love the word Joy. Such a little word means so much. People question why we would up and move for a job? Why not? Is a simple move worse than what we've experienced? And it's about the experience, the experience for ourselves and the experiences Mia never got to have. Take hold of opportunities in front of us, no regrets. And I want people to know how special my husband is. These past few years, I've witnessed several marriages just fall apart. I admire Gene for his strength, for his commitment, for his love. I just, just can't find the words for him. But he knows. (You know, right?)

And just one more parting thought, just like on those days when I would peek out my window, don't forget that there are always doors held closed by sadness and challenges. And sometimes that door will be yours. But the door will open again and you will stand in sunshine.

Farming 101

Growing up in northwestern Pennsylvania, our Sunday afternoons often included a ride out "to the road", which meant a car ride to the outskirts of town to buy fruits and vegetables from the farmers, who set up weekend roadside stands.  Late June was good for strawberries. In July the cherries were out. In the fall, concord grapes went up for sale, but everyone knows they aren't at their sweetest until that first frost hits them.  And just about all summer long there were bushels of tomatoes and cucumbers, string beans and peas neatly displayed at the roadside stands for sale.  And living in North Carolina it was much of the same. Drive just outside city limits and you'll find family farms, rows of tobacco, patches of pumpkins. This was my idea of a farm. Until I got here, to Kentucky.

Our neighborhood is plunked down right in the middle of farmland. In fact, the name of our neighborhood, Sutherland Farms, gives the not so subtle hint that this land was probably once farmland and probably farmland owned by the Sutherland family before developers bought it up and built it up.  You don't have to drive to the "country" to see acres and acres of crops. On the ride to school we pass browning cornfields and neat grids of soybeans. Across from the liquor store, large rounds of hay are being rolled. Running down a cul de sac the other day, I got a peek of this guy between the houses.

He's got dozens of friends to roam that field with.  In fact, the other day Gene came in from rolling the garbage to the curb and said, "the cows are mooing really loud tonight".  And have you seen the view out our back window? It looks like this.

When I did a quick search of Kentucky agriculture, I learned that farmland covers over 50% of the state, 54% to be exact.  I also learned that the state ranks in the top 5 nationally for the shear number of farms within a state. I thought they were just cranking out bourbon and fried chicken over here, but they are actually feeding families, helping to stock store shelves.

So, I've learned that Kentucky is huge on farming and I knew coming here that Bowling Green is big on manufacturing. Not only do they make Corvettes here, I drive past Fruit of the Loom daily, Delta faucets are produced here, Georgia-Pacific paper goods, International Paper makes boxes, Kingsford manufactures charcoal... you get the picture.  Gene's plant is sandwiched between Hills pet food and Country Oven. Depending on how the wind is blowing, you get one smell or the other. You can guess which one he prefers.

Anyway, what I did not realize is that here farm meets manufacturing and not in the way that you think. What I mean is that it is not unusual for those working in manufacturing to also run a farm of their own. Gene has had team members take a vacation day to bale hay. One kind gentleman brings in fresh eggs for us. It's always a delight to open the carton and see a row of eggs, not store bought standard perfection, but eggs that are all different sizes and different shades of brown, some the palest tan, others mocha in color. And his co-workers are an amazing resource for us as we observe and wonder and have questions about the crops growing up around us.

For example, we recently noticed signs like these popping up in the fields.

"It's a code for where the crop is going to," I predicted. Wrong! After consulting his trusty resources, Gene found that these signs indicate what kind of seed the crop has sprung from and the signs are actually a form of advertisement for the seed company.  In return, the seed manufacture gives the farmer a discount on future bushels of seed. Who knew?

We've also noticed that cornfields that had been cut weeks ago are springing back to life, growing again. Why? It's from the corn that fell to the earth during harvest. "It'll die off with the first frost," a woman at work told Gene. It's that whole circle of life that continues on, oblivious to the weather or season.

So here's the thing, no matter where we go, where we visit, where we live, I always appreciate seeing a way of life different from ours. True, we are not out there planting, harvesting, fertilizing, but there is a satisfaction and a peace from watching things grow, watching the earth produce. And who can't use just a little more peace? And who wouldn't smile hearing a cow mooing while taking out the garbage?

The First Day

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that when I wake up every morning, one of the first things I do is reach for my cell phone.  I have my own routine when I unlock the screen.  First, I download email. Mostly junk, but once in awhile something I actually open and read. Next, I check our bank account to make sure no one has hijacked our info and furnished their apartment or revamped their wardrobe on our dime.  And lastly, I pop onto Facebook and see what's going on, who is ranting, who is pregnant, who is on vacation, and who cooked what for dinner. I can tell you now with a fair amount of certainty that tomorrow when I log onto Facebook from the comfort of my bed here in Bowing Green , Kentucky, I am going to see a whole lot of photos of children back in Apex, North Carolina heading off to the first day of school at St. Mary Magdalene.

Reagan and Tripp have been students at St. Joseph's for about two weeks now. Can I just say, my kids are troopers! They have done amazingly well!  While I was flipping out about where car pool lines up and how to set up a lunch account and, What! Tripp needs a belt?, Reagan and Tripp happily picked out notebooks and pencil pouches, thoughtfully browsed the sneaker aisle and assured me that, "No, mom, really. Last year's lunch box is fine". 

So, like the troopers they are, school started with little resistance and no tears. Off they went with new shoes and old lunch boxes and listened to class rules and found a place at the lunch table and kids to chase on the playground.  What a relief! In fact, it's hard to believe that it's just been two weeks. 

Reagan talks about the girls in her class as if they've been sharing secrets since preschool. She has joined the school cross country team and after only a week of practice was bumped up from running 2k, to the 3k that the older team members run.  And this past weekend she celebrated a classmate's birthday at a pool party. My girl hops into the car after school, talks non-stop about what, I don't know, and then plops down at the kitchen table to do her homework before disappearing into the tween shows on Nick Jr. or the strange, cube-y world of Minecraft. You can't ask for much more from a 9 year old.


And that little Tripp, he's just a little blue-eyed surprise.  It was me, not him, who had a complete meltdown when I saw the workload for his first week. Under interrogation, that amazing little absorbent sponge educates me, with great excitement no less, about penguins and earthworms, the difference between living and non-living things and a noun is a "person, a place, an animal, or a thing, mama". With great pride, he yesterday presented me with his spelling pre-test, a big, ole 100% scribbled across the top. "I got them all right!".  So, he then qualified for the more difficult "challenge" spelling list this week. When we head off to his sister's cross country practice he carefully chooses toys that he and his pal, Timothy, can play with while their sisters run laps around them.  Today on the way home from school he asked, "Can we get milkshakes?"  How could I possibly deny a request from someone who makes me proud.

This isn't to say that we all don't miss the old school, old friends, our real home. Where last year I let the kids snooze until 7:15am, we are now hustling out the door at that time, hoping to hit all green lights so the kids can be on time for the daily morning assembly. St. Joseph School is older, plopped down in the middle of a worn-out neighborhood. It is not bright, shiny and new like St. Mary Magdalene. The gym here serves up lunches before noon, welcomes basketballs and volleyball nets after everyone has eaten. The playground is sandwiched between the school parking lot and some industrial warehouses, large 18-wheelers pulled up to the loading docks in the back.  There are no large pine trees dotting this playground. No squirrels jumping branches, no pine cones bouncing to the earth. The thing that I miss the most, the thing that makes me almost teary eyed, is that there is car pool and there is car pool. That is how students get in and out. I miss walking my kids to their classrooms, kissing them good-bye, popping my head in the doorway to ask the teachers a quick question about lunch or homework or volunteer coverage. I miss standing outside school at day's end, hearing that final prayer "Our lady of the highway...". Pick up was a great time to whisper a little guilty gossip with friends, shout out play date plans across the parking lot, hand off uniforms that the kids had outgrown to a mom who could make use. How does one not miss that? How can I be expected not to miss being part of a community, that community?

One way is to remind myself to be thankful. Thankful that Eugene and I can continue to provide the kids with the Catholic education that is so very important to us. Thankful that there was even a Catholic School here in Bowling Green. Thankful that they had room to enroll our children and thankful that Reagan and Tripp slid right into their new environment. I can't stop missing a community so important to me, but I can't stop being thankful either. There is so much to be thankful for.

Tomorrow when I wake up and look at Facebook, I will feel a little sad, but then I will shake it off, wake my kids up and deliver them to St Joseph School. And I will be grateful that they are doing well and growing and thriving and learning, even if they are wearing different uniforms this year.

The Area Around Us

I'm useless at math. Even more so at geometry. I've spent the last couple of days trying to recall my geometry teacher's name (no yearbooks here as a reference). I'm fairly certain her name was Mrs. Esson. I know she had a pageboy hair cut, the voice of a heavy smoker and she taught us about shapes and angles and area and mass in a window-less basement room. None of those lessons stuck with me all these years later, but I do remember how to use a device of geometry - the compass.

Recall that if you fix the sharp, pointy leg of a compass on your paper, the other leg, the pencil leg, can circle around that center and draw a perfect circle. If I move that pointy leg to the left or to the right or even halfway across my page, it's still going to draw my pretty circle but in a whole new space because after all, my center has changed. Just like our center has changed.

One of the fun parts, and perhaps one of the things I console myself with on my "I miss Apex" days, is that changing your center means changing the area around you. New places to travel, new land to explore. Let the road trips begin!

Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, TN

Back in February the kids had a long holiday weekend, so we used it as an opportunity to introduce them to the state of Kentucky.  The drive from Raleigh takes you up and over the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, a ride that is breath-taking on multiple levels. Navigating the constant twists and turns of the mountain road with a center concrete wall dividing the lanes traveling east and west, kept me sitting ramrod straight in the driver's seat, gripping the steering wheel with pale knuckles. Reading my tension, the kids knew not to say a word. Fifteen miles later, we popped out at the mountain's base and pulled off at the first exit to get gas and stretch my tense legs. As gas glugged into my tank, I studied the mountains rising up above me. Across the street a billboard with a large red arrow pointed down to road, "Cabins For Rent". The board below it promised river rafting fun.  "Hey guys," I pointed to the billboards. "How about this summer we rent a cabin?".

The cabin we rented was called Hillside Haven. It was.

The Cherokee Indians called the Smoky Mountains the Land of Blue Smoke. Sipping on coffee outside on the front deck each morning, we discovered why. There is mist, wisps of blue smoke, that rise from the mountainside each morning. Try as I might, photos don't capture it, but believe me, it's there as sure as the morning sun rises.

I don't like to sit still on vacations. I don't see the point of traveling to a new places and not seeing as much as possible. "You can watch TV at home," I tell my kids. And now that they are older and have preferences and  opinions, why not let everyone pick an activity for the family? 

Our cabin was in the town of Pigeon Forge, tons to do there. My pick was the Alpine Coaster. One at a time, carts are pulled up the mountain and then one at the top, a fun coast down to the bottom, resisting the urge to pull on your handbrakes. I picked it because it is similar to the toboggan down to the base of the Great Wall of China. Coasting down was not only exhilarating, it brought back a treasured memory. 

Gene chose a visit to The Island, an entertainment are with novelty stores, themed eateries, dancing fountains and amusements.

Sampling moonshine was fun too. We walked away with Apple Pie and Margarita flavored shine.

And since it was lunchtime, we plopped ourselves down at Paula Deen's for a family-style Southern lunch. True, she could use a PR overhaul, but that does not lessen the tastiness of her fried chicken. Don't even want to discuss her mac and cheese. It's just too painful when it can"t be a part of my daily diet.

Peering out the window during lunch, Tripp discovered his activity.  It was this.

A massive Ferris wheel. From the top, the views were simply spectacular.

Reagan was set on her choice from the moment given the option and she never wavered. The girl just wanted to putt putt. Even in the rain.

It worked well the first time, so let's try it again! This time we drove 15 minutes up the road to Gatlinburg. 

Since discovering a Ripley's Believe It or Not book at a school book fair, Reagan has been slightly fascinated with the unusual, the record breakers, the oddities. So it's not surprise that she begged admission to the Ripley's museum.

And just like he spotted the Ferris wheel, Tripp zoned in on a chair lift heading up the mountain and decided we should all ride. Like the view from his last pick, this one was quite remarkable too.

Geno picked our lunch spot again. His intent was to find a decent Bloody Mary, but he ended up finding us a locally owned steakhouse with seating on a lovely patio, with a charming creek running alongside it.

Here is Gene with his drink. See how the table behind us is empty? Minutes later a group of hungover guys was seated next to us. One in particular was worse off than his buddies. He threw up right over the railing into that charming creek alongside us. We left shortly after, but Gene took this picture of me with the kids before we fled.

I still had my pick, and what does a mother do with her already exhausted family? Well she takes them to Dolly Parton's dinner theater, Dixie Stampede, of course! And though maybe no one quite had the energy to hoot and holler and stamp and cheer like the performance demanded, we still stuffed ourselves on chicken and corn and cobbler.  And before we headed out, we stopped to pet a horse or two.

So, speaking of Dolly Parton, if you're not familiar she's a product of those mountain of blue smoke. It's where she grew her own amusement park, Dollywood. I've bored you enough with the details of our days in the mountains, so all I'll say about Dollywood is, GO! The park was just lovely to look at and so well suited to kids are age.  There were decent coasters and a good selection of rides that, get this, the kids could ride ALONE! That meant that Gene and I could just sit and watch, instead of spin ourselves into nausea. And the joy we got observing Reagan and Tripp's joy was worth every penny of admission.  Halfway through our day it rained, and I don't mean sprinkled. It dumped buckets and buckets over the park, but we just huddled under an umbrella table and waited for it to pass. The park was that nice. And had we left we would have never stumbled upon the cinnamon bread, which we devoured, or the glass blower, who fascinated the kids. Enough already! Just look at our pics.

  

As I said earlier, I am not good at geometry (sorry Mrs. Esson). But as our family moves through life and as Gene moves through his career, I've discovered that I'm not half bad at discovering area, the area around us.  The Smoky Mountains were a good start, but there's a whole lot more within this circle around us to explore. 

This Is Marriage

It's always bothered me that I ended my Hong Kong blog with a post about my dog. That was never my intention. My intention was to end it by summing up the whole experience, share the lessons I had learned.  But the night before we left, sitting up in bed next to a sleeping Eugene, computer screen glowing in my lap, words failed me. I just couldn't string anything together to make those 18 months make sense. Once tucked back into my comfortable, repatriated life in Apex the distractions of a new house, school routines and my social circle stopped me from closing out that blog. I thought maybe on the one month of our return, the one year anniversary, the originally planned date of return, I could re-visit Detoured: Hong Kong, but like a fast moving current, time swept those days away making any kind of summation pointless, nothing but an old memory that means nothing except to those who were actually there.

So, there I was, finally re-adjusted, living "the peak of good living" in Apex, my full size fridge stuffed with groceries from Harris Teeter,  a SUV in the garage waiting for the pressure of my foot on the gas pedal, my calendar filled with play dates and volunteer commitments.  The kids chasing each other around trees in the yard, my husband walking through the door every evening instead of jetting off to meetings in India, Thailand, Japan. Life was reeking of stagnant comfort.  Like the smell of rain in the air, change, it was a coming  It landed as a text on my phone.  Kentucky.

Kentucky? Another move, that was no surprise. Kentucky? That was. And no longer was my husband going have a role in finance. He was going to be a plant manager. A plant manager? How odd those words fell from my lips. I dated an accounting student. The guy at the top of his accounting class slipped an engagement ring on my finger. As newlyweds he earned the title of CPA. Through the years I have been married to an internal auditor, a financial analyst, the corporate controller.  Lead pencils and calculators have always been part of our lives.  You are now telling me that during tax season I can no longer make stupid jokes about sleeping with my accountant? Plant Manager. This will take some getting used to.

My initial reaction is to be tickled and giddy.  Kentucky?  Who would have thought?  And the move is still so far off, there's plenty of time to get worked up about it.  But my friends, their reaction is immediate and unhappy.  "Tell him to go himself," said one. "Tell him to commute. You are happy here. The kids are happy here.".

Commute? What an interesting concept, not totally unheard of by other couples. I know of many a husband who travel the nation weekly, landing on their own doorsteps Friday night only to take their place in the airport security line come Monday morning. Could that arrangement work for us?

One night shortly after the announcement, I found myself carefully walking down the moonlight stairs of our home into the darkness of our living room.  I sat on the couch, looking out at the newly built nature park behind us.  At night, the park is pure charm.  Looking at the soft glow of the park lights amongst the trees, I started to think about Eugene's family.  I thought about his dad, a big, strong, retired cop who fell ill unexpectedly and passed away shockingly too soon.  I thought about my mother-in-law and I thought about how she would give everything, give anything for one more day with her husband, her Eugene.  Why was I ever entertaining this though of commuting? Why would I ever think about living apart?  There will come a day when we are separated, not by choice, and like my mother-in-law, we will wish for just one more day. No, commuting would not work for us. Our family, all of us, would be Kentucky bound.

This is marriage, folks!  On our wedding day we took these vows to love, honor and support one another.  Can you think of a better example?  I said it when faced with Hong Kong, and I'm saying it again now, I could never spend the rest of my life looking at my husband, knowing I denied him an opportunity to grow, to expand his horizons, to challenge himself.  If I squashed that in Eugene, I would be squashing some of what I love best about Eugene.

So here we are, in the Bluegrass State.  And though not nearly as glamorous or exciting as Hong Kong, it's a new adventure still. In this adventure we speak the language, there is no currency to convert and I will drive my own car to the grocery store. So, for those of you who asked, there will be another blog, and new observations, and new stories to tell, all from my new Kentucky home. Enjoy!