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.