Funny Thing

We've met a lot of new people, especially at church because that's where we see the same people Sunday after Sunday.  Whenever people ask us where we live, I say we're right off of the 280 in an apartment right by the Super Target.  If I say this to a man, I get a blank stare and need to give a more details of our location.  If I say it to a woman, she says, "Oh yeah, I know right where that is."  Surprise, surprise.  Every woman knows where the nearest Target is. :)

Botanical Gardens

So this last week, I found out the Alabama Board of Examiners only meets once a month to approve new applications for state licensure in speech-language pathology, and my application didn't make the August meeting so I have to wait till September to get my state license.  This also means I can't start working until mid September.  Bummer.  I'm trying to make the best of it though.  I got my library card, and I've found lots of entertainment with two books I checked out.  I've also been to our apartment complex's pool which is nice, but I couldn't help but want to go out and explore Birmingham since I've never been here in my life.

So, I decided to go to the most visited free attraction in Alabama - the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.  The Gardens are pretty sweet.  I had no idea what I was looking at most of the time (unless I saw the signs), but everything was beautiful.  I walked through one of the rose gardens.

 



Then I started taking pictures of flowers up close because they reminded me of my mom who does the same thing.  She probably could have told me what these flowers/plants are called.

 

 

And then I walked through what I think was the Fern Glade Garden, or maybe it was the Little One's Memory Garden.  I didn't really look at the map when I was there.  I just followed trails and took pictures of things I thought were pretty.  The only problem was everything was pretty.



 

Then I walked through the herb and vegetable garden which reminded me of my mother-in-law who is a fantastic gardener and one that has cared for the physical needs of her family with all the things she's grown each year. 

 

 

 I then walked through some more gardens and found the big one called the Formal Garden.  And then I ended with the Kayser Lily Pool, which was one of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

I only made it through half of the gardens, but I figured I could go back another day with Newel.  It was so beautiful and peaceful, and my pictures are doing the Botanical Gardens justice, but I enjoyed myself.  I liked how it reminded me of family, particularly the women in my family.  I think women and gardens go together because the women I know and love most can make things grow.  They've helped me grow, especially my mom.  And I love her so much for it.

 

If you live in or come to Birmingham, go to the Botanical Gardens.  You won't regret it.

 

 



Moved In (mostly)

As of Tuesday, Newel and I were officially moved in to our apartment!  I know that “moved in” means different things depending on the person defining, but I would say we are definitely moved in.  I unpacked every box and found a place for everything.  I even organized the stuff that stays in boxes like old photos, journals, grad school notes, etc.  We are more moved in to this place than we were in our last apartment, and we’ve only been here 5 days!  When I finished, I had that really great feeling that comes when you think you’ve gotten everything done.  Then I remembered I still need to figure out where everything is in Birmingham, get a new driver’s license, register to vote, oh, and that little thing called a job.  I know people who read this may think I’m a superwoman moving and unpacking/organizing everything so quickly.  No.  I just don’t have a job and don’t have children.  That makes it really easy.  It was still fun though, and I feel good to have everything in its place in our new home.

The Adventures Began Before We Even Got Here

So we wanted to leave Thursday, July 26th to give us plenty of time to make the trip to Birmingham, hopefully find an apartment and give Newel some time to rest before starting work on Monday.  We left around noon and starting driving up Parley’s Canyon.  Before we even got to Park City, my car blew up.  It made weird noises, then I heard something fall out of the bottom, and then the AC wasn’t working.  I don’t do well with car problems, and when this happened I called Newel (who was driving his own car in front of me) in a frantic state, trying to explain what was going on in the car.  To make a long story short, we took the car back to Salt Lake and stayed with my Aunt Celia for a couple nights.  Newel’s brother-in-law Mikey, fixed all my car’s problems and more.  We still feel so blessed to have had family that came through for us at that time and are so grateful for them.
Early Saturday morning, we left Utah.  Our first day driving was uneventful, but it was LONG.  We traveled for 16 hours that day, and stayed in Hays, KS.  We had a late start the next morning, and then stopped at some random little town somewhere in KS or OK for lunch.  After we ate, I couldn’t find my cell phone.  I usually can’t find it at first because it always gets lost somewhere in my purse, but after taking everything out and not finding it, I started to freak out a little.  Newel helped me look in my car, in the gas station, in the eating area, and every other place we were at that stop.  We couldn’t find it.  It was hot, I was sweaty, and I was ready to cry.  I needed my cell phone.  My car had been making weird noises again, and I needed my phone to call Newel if anything went wrong.  Newel and I said a little prayer, and after 5-10 more minutes of looking, we found it under a seat in my car.  After we found it and got on the road again, I let myself cry a little bit.

Maybe an hour after the lost cell phone incident, traffic was stopped for 20 minutes due to a fire.  After that, we kept driving until we got to Tulsa.  We had dinner with Newel’s cousin and his family, which was really nice because we don’t get to see them very much, and I was already so sick of eating out.  We then drove to Van Buren, AR where we stayed for a night.  We knew we were in the south when we got to Arkansas.  We began to experience the heat, the humidity, the accents, the Waffle House restaurants, and the big trees lining the edges of the freeways (which I’m liking).

The next morning, we set out for Birmingham.  Right outside of Memphis, when we were stopped at a traffic light, a guy tried to get around me to get into the lane turning left, but instead, dented the side of my car.  Great.  I called Newel and told him we needed to pull over to talk to this guy.  He was very apologetic, but he didn’t have insurance.  Newel told the guy not to worry about it because we were so done with this trip and just wanted to get to Birmingham.  We were excited when we got to the state line for Alabama, “The Beautiful” and so happy to get to our final destination!  I hugged Newel, and let out a half sigh/half cry.  I was glad we made it.

I’m realizing I need to shorten my blog entries, and get some pictures up.  Now that we’re here, I’m going to work on that.  Let the real adventures begin!   

The Beginning

I never thought I would start a blog.  I’m not a great writer, and I’m not good at finding the right words to describe events or feelings or any other things people usually blog about.  But Newel and I are in Alabama now, and I want to tell about it.  We are enjoying our second full day in Birmingham.  It’s hot, it’s humid, but it’s very beautiful, and I can tell we’re going to like living here already.  I thought I would start with introducing ourselves/our situation to the blogging world and describe the events that led up to me sitting in a hotel room and deciding to start a blog.

Newel and I have known each other for almost 4 years, and have been married for 2.  We met in Salt Lake City, were married in the San Diego California Temple, and lived in the Salt Lake area up until last Saturday.  Newel has begun a new job working with insurance benefit consulting which has brought us to Birmingham.  While we are so, SO excited to be in a new place, meet new people, and experience a new chapter of our lives, saying good to our life in Utah was not easy.  I had not experienced such opposing emotions from one hour to the next as I did last week.  Part of it is that it’s never easy for me to say goodbye and experience big changes (and sometimes little changes too), but the other part was we didn’t think we were moving to Alabama until mid-August, but Newel’s company moved up his start date to 2 days ago.  We found out we’d be moving 10 days before that, which led to a rush of finding a moving company, packing our things, and saying quick goodbyes to family and friends before taking a 1,861 mile journey to our new home-sweet-home in Birmingham.

As we were getting ready to leave, I kept thinking about starting a blog to let our friends and family out west know what we’re up to.  Then my sister-in-law Jessica gave us a notebook and pens before we left with a little note saying “This is so you can write down all of your adventures and let us know about them here.” I mentioned it to my mom who encouraged me to start one, and I even got the go-ahead from Newel who sometimes thinks blogs are silly.  (He teases me about reading other people’s blogs, especially when I don’t really know them.  And for the record, I’m not a creepy stalker.  I’m just inspired by some bloggers out there, and I admire their ability to share it so well with the public.)  Anyway, after finding an apartment, but waiting to move in, and submitting some job applications, but waiting to follow-up on them until tomorrow morning, I decided to start the blog.  I think I got the name for this blog from my mom.  I hope this is enjoyable for some people to read.  If anything, it will be an opportunity for me to do some electronic journaling for the Hillary-and-Newel-Mecham Family.  So ready?  Here we go.