Ready for Christmas!

I can't wait for Christmas! The stockings have been hung on the railing with care (since we don't have a mantle) and I hope St. Nicholas soon will be here! About half my family will be coming to Charlotte to spend Christmas with us and I'm so excited. We had a VERY long drive back from visiting my family in Missouri for Thanksgiving and I started decorating for Christmas literally within an hour of getting home. :) I found matching stockings for almost everyone (poor Ian - they didn't have any with I's), which I thought will be nice even for the times we can't all be together at Christmas. (Joe, Jill, Gen, & Mom - don't worry, yours will be in the mail soon!) It will be wonderful to have some relaxing time to spend with those who can come.

It's hard to believe that it's Christmastime already. It seems like we just moved to Charlotte. We're actually getting close to the half-way mark in our time here. I have to say that Charlotte is starting to grow on me. If it weren't for the facts that our families are so far away and Ian has a non-compete clause in his contract that prevents him from working here later, I could see us considering staying here long-term. I guess those are some significant hurdles. I recently decided that Charlotte has the perfect climate. When we lived in Houston, I really missed having seasons. Charlotte has 4 distinct seasons, but the winter doesn't get too cold. It's really just cold enough to feel like it's winter without all of fuss of shoveling snow, scraping the car every morning, and generally freezing your tail off. It's a very pretty place - lots of trees and hills and curvy roads. I get to drive through farm country on my commute 3 days/week and I like seeing all the pastures and cotton fields. Even if we won't be here forever, it's nice to spend this year here. I'm looking forward to sharing everything with my family when they come!

Thankful!

Ian and I were able to travel to Missouri to spend Thanksgiving with my family. We had a wonderful time and got to meet our beautiful little niece, Emma. Here's a video I took on our second morning there... (Still working on getting this uploaded correctly!)



She was such a sweet snuggle bug. In some ways, it was nice to get to meet her when she's a little older (two months!), since she has started smiling and really engaging when she's awake. She was so precious and attentive when I explained to her the importance of mashed potatoes for an Irish baby. :) We really had a wonderful, low-key visit. Unfortunately, my sister wasn't able to make it, but my mother, all of my brothers and their wives were there. Most of the times the family has been able to get together recently have been for weddings or other involved events. It was really nice to just have time to hang out and enjoy each other's company. My siblings (spouses included!) are really some of my favorite people in the world. I'm so thankful to have such a fabulous family! We took the opportunity of having almost everyone together to have some family portraits done. I'm very happy with how they came out. I actually bought frames the day we got back to Charlotte and we're planning to hang them up today. I'm very excited. :)

I'm also very excited that most of the family will be coming to Charlotte for Christmas. It sure made it easier to leave everyone last week, since we knew we'd be seeing most of them again soon. (Joe & Jill, we'll miss you!) I don't know what I'm going to do after New Year's! Until then, I'm just going to be very thankful for the time I have to spend with them!

The Power of Love

This past weekend, Ian and I went to Chicago to meet our niece, Sophia, for the first time and to celebrate her Baptism. She is such a beautiful, precious little girl. I wished we'd had more time to spend with her, but I'm sure I'd probably feel that way no matter how long we were there! It really was wonderful to spend some time with family. My job has truly made me appreciate the family Ian and I have and how much love and support we have from our family and friends.
I have started seeing clients for therapy in addition to doing assessments. There are two people who have truly touched my heart this week. For some random reason, all of my therapy clients are girls between 7 and 9. One of my girls (9 year old) actually came into my office during my 2nd week there (before she was even on my case load) and introduced herself. She is sweet and energetic and full of life. This was the day after her birthday and she'd gotten $11 for her birthday from her aunt. She said she wanted to by a cell phone so she could call her friends. I found out later that her family does not have a phone in their home. The next week, I found out that her parents took her $11 and used it to buy cigarettes and beer. They had a birthday party for her, but she said it was a "grown up party" without any kids. Our program uses community support workers who usually spend about 3-4 hours a day with the clients in our after school program and out in the community. Her worker told me that the client was staying with her aunt this week and that she was excited she was going to have a big meal. The worker also said that she'll sometimes buy snacks for the client, but the little girl won't eat much of them so she can save some for her siblings. Her father abuses her mother and has hit the girl in the past, but there wasn't enough evidence for DSS to remove her from the home.

The second person is a young man who is 29 years old and a paraplegic. He was shot in the back 12 times several years ago when he turned around to walk away from an argument with someone. That someone happens to have been the nephew of the sheriff and the case was ruled as self-defense. The client hasn't been getting the proper medical care, so he's having a lot of truly unnecessary complications. He said he had wanted to go to college and become a counselor so he could help kids. Now he spends almost every single day in his house. He blames himself for the shooting and feels tremendously guilty for the burden he has become to his mother. I recently read A Long Way Gone about a boy soldier in Sierra Leone. During his rehabilitation, the staff kept repeating to all of the boys, "It's not your fault." This came to mind as the client and I both teared up. I did say that to him, but just like the boy soldier, I think he is going to need to hear that over and over before he will ever be able to believe it himself.

Person-centered psychotherapy is one of the big schools of thought in terms of how people grow and can benefit from the therapeutic process. Carl Rogers, who developed this style, believed that people have an "actualizing tendency" that - if the conditions are right - will propel us towards development and becoming fully ourselves. He said that there are three things in the therapeutic relationship that are necessary and sufficient for this to occur: genuineness, empathy, and unconditional positive regard. Unconditional positive regard means that the therapist must demonstrate true caring for and acceptance of the individual at that moment, regardless of what the client is feeling or experiencing. I remember saying to my theories teacher that I absolutely understood how this was necessary for therapy to work, but I just didn't know that I believed those three things on their own were truly sufficient for healing to occur. She said that sometimes, that truly is all that is needed. I still didn't believe her. A few weeks ago, I was so worried about techniques and what activities I was going to do in my therapy sessions. Now that I have seen more of what my clients are experiencing in their daily lives, I truly do believe that the best thing that I can do for my clients is to love them, to genuinely express an unconditional positive regard for them. (Mandy, you were right on the money!) I guess that's what they mean by the "power of love."

I Need to Learn to Speed Read!

I've just finished my second week at my new job and it is so fantastic. I can't believe I really have this job. I've spent so many years doing jobs that weren't what I REALLY wanted to do just to help us get to the next step. It's hard to believe I'm actually here. I'm a therapist. Ha!

I saw my first clients this week. So far, I've just been doing assessments with our staff psychologist. It's been a nice way to ease into talking with the folks, since the assessment instrument has a million questions (seriously, it's 13 pages!) that have to be asked, so it's really pretty structured. Even so, I'm blown away by how much goes on in the lives of so many people. The assessment thing is a bit hard because our agency can only work with clients who have a formal DSM diagnosis. I believe that anyone would benefit from therapy and I see all of these kids who would naturally benefit from having support services, but may not have a mental illness. It's tricky. I hate the idea of labeling kids at all, but if I don't, they don't get services. I saw a family earlier this week with 3 kids. The psychologist and I determined that two of them do meet criteria for services, but the youngest one is just a rambunctious, curious 6 year-old boy. Even though they can be a handful, there's nothing clinically significant about that. It was hard to make the call that one brother wouldn't get services while the other kids would. That's part of the work, though. Even with these dilemmas, I'm so glad to be here. This week, I met with the case worker who handles my therapy clients and got the back stories from her. I also got to meet one of my clients, who participates in our after school program. I have my first two therapy appointments next week and I'm very excited. I'm also very nervous! I've been trying to read everything I can get my hands on, but I'm not being terribly efficient about it. I keep finding something else that seems more relevant and move on to the next thing before I finish anything. I also received the test prep handbook for my licensing exam this week and I feel like I need to re-read every textbook I used in my grad program in order to pass that test. Yikes. I think I need to start investigating some speed reading classes!

Auntie Mae - again!

I'm an aunt again! Ian's brother, Mark, and his wife, Naomi, welcomed their beautiful little girl, Sophia Genevieve Villanueva, last Friday, Oct. 12. We are very excited about the first grandchild on the Villanueva side of the family! We're heading up to Chicago on Nov. 9 for her Baptism.
November is going to be an awesome month for Aunt Mae and Uncle Ian. We'll get to meet Sophia that weekend and then we'll be heading to Springfield, MO, for Thanksgiving and to meet our other niece, Emma Elizabeth Costello, who was born just about a month ago. It's a busy time in the Costello-Villanueva family!

We were in St. Louis last weekend for a job interview. It was such a nice weekend! While Ian was interviewing and putting on a good show for the folks there, I got a chance to spend some quality time with some St. Louis folks. It's really been a few years since we had the chance to be in St. Louis with time to visit many people. Lately, it's been quick, busy trips for weddings and such. It was very wonderful and nourishing to reconnect with old friends. We also were able to meet baby Ava Perez, who was born the day before Emma. She was a beautiful, precious little snuggle bug. It was hard to leave her! Ian's interviews seem to have gone well. We received very positive feedback from everyone. I'm beginning to appreciate how difficult it is going to be to make a decision about what to do at the end of this fellowship year. I guess I've always imagined that Ian would find a good job right where we want and we'll all live happily ever after. I'm learning that real life involves a lot of compromises. We're really going to have to weigh out a lot of variables (location, job security, income, a reasonable schedule for Ian, etc., etc.) to make a good decision. This grown up stuff is hard!

Following our trip to St. Louis, I started my new job and Ian had one of the busiest weeks he's had since he started his fellowship. I feel like I haven't seen him for a month. (That really makes the "reasonable schedule for Ian" variable seem quite important!) My week has been much better than his. I am very excited about my job. I'm exhausted, but it was a good week. I now have a much better idea of what I'm going to be doing... For now at least, I'm going to be doing therapy with clients two days per week, conducting assessments for new clients (or annual review assessments for those who have been in the program for a year already) one day per week, and helping review documentation and other QA-type stuff two days per week. Even though I don't love the QA stuff so much (I think I got my fill at Careerbuilder!), it is work I can do at the Charlotte office, so I'm able to work full-time and not make the hour+ drive 5 days a week. Three days is plenty! It's actually not that bad a drive. There's a country road way to get there that is supposedly faster than the interstate, which has a ton of lights. (Weird, I know.) I'm honestly not sure if it's faster, but it's certainly prettier and there's not much traffic. It's funny how very different driving for an hour to work through beautiful country is from driving in Chicago traffic. Well, of course it's different. When I was thinking before about the drive, I was imagining how I felt when I would drive to work in Chicago - cranky and stressed out by the time I walked in the door. I still wish it weren't so far, but I think I can make it work for me. It should be good reflection time! I also get a gas card from the agency. That makes a long commute on a counselor's salary much easier to take. :)

I really am so thankful to have landed in this job. I think I'm going to learn and grow so much this year. My background is pretty different from the rest of the employees at this agency and I was nervous about how I would fit in. I truly have been welcomed with open arms. My clients are going to be younger than I'd thought. The vast majority of clients are children, so I probably won't be seeing all that many adults. Right now, I have 4 kids on my caseload, ages 5-12. I am pumped about working with the younger kids. I took a class on counseling with children and adolescents in grad school and truly loved it. Working with kids has been in the back of my mind since then, but I really haven't been around kids much for a long time and just didn't know if it would work for me. I've gotten to meet some of the agency's clients (although not the ones I'll be doing therapy with) over the past week and they are absolutely amazing. I sat in on treatment team meetings and heard about all the things going on in their lives and then saw them later on running around, smiling and playing with the other kids. It's incredible how strong and resilient they are. It breaks my heart to think of what they're having to deal with, but I am so thankful to be here and finally to be in a position where I might be able to do some good for them.

Back to work!

I have a job! Hooray! I'm actually going to be a counselor. I was beginning to wonder whether or not that was going to work out for me. I'm going to be working at an agency that serves low-income families in some of the rural towns around Charlotte. I'll probably be seeing a mix of kids, adolescents and adults for individual and group therapy. I'm very excited... and nervous. I've been frantically reviewing a lot of my textbooks in the past week or so. :) I hope I remember something. I'm really excited just to get out there and start doing something rather than just studying theoretical things. I guess putting theory into practice starts on Monday. Yay!

Tomorrow, Ian and I are going to St. Louis. He's interviewing with a surgical group in Belleville, IL. We have some good friends who live in Belleville - and it's in the STL metro area - so it would be an exciting place for us to move. I'm actually not sure if I've ever been to Belleville before, so I'm going to spend some time exploring the town while we're there. It's hard to believe that a quarter of our time in Charlotte has already passed. I think this year will go very quickly. I really hope it works out for us to move to St. Louis. It would be so nice to have a move that is just exciting without the nervousness of moving to a city where we don't know anyone or anything. I think it would be such a different transition than the ones we've had before. Anyway, cart before the horse... So, Ian has an interview. :) It'll be a full weekend, but we're looking forward to squeezing in some time with St. Louis friends while we're there. It's been about 2 years since we were there for fun. (My mom had a surgery there last December and I came in for that, but it didn't really feel like a visit, since I spent most of that time in the hospital with her.) I'm not sure that we've even been by Wash U since our wedding. It'll be fun to see all the new things. It seems like there's always construction going on there.

Now, I have to get packing. I'll make sure to update you all on Ian's job search and my transition into the real world of counseling. Until then...

It's important to know that words don't move mountains. Work, exacting work moves mountains. - Danilo Dulci

Stubborn clay?

"Look, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand." Jeremiah 18:6
Last weekend, Ian and I went on a mini-retreat for young adults at what I think will be our church here in Charlotte. (I think we've finally found a church with enough of all the things we've been looking for.) As a Jesuit parish, there is a focus on Ignatian spirituality and the retreat was a bit of an introduction to Ignatian contemplative prayer. Honestly, I was mostly interested in the retreat because I thought it would be a good way to get to know some people. I hadn't gone on a retreat since undergrad, but I also thought it would be a nice way to get out of the everyday life routine. The focus of the retreat was the passage from Jeremiah about going to the potter's house (Jer 18:1-6). The last verse is above. Sometimes I think that any scripture verse can seem very relevant to what is going on in our lives if we just think about it enough. This one hit home very quickly, though. My sister-in-law, Cortney, worked at a non-denominational Christian coffeehouse called The Potter's House that ministers to college students in Springfield, MO. (For those WU folks reading, it's a lot like the CSC, but with more coffee and less punch.) It's actually where she and my brother met. I'd read this passage at some point before (that's one of the beauties of a religious studies major... I've read it all at one point or another), but I didn't really remember it until I talked to Cortney about it. So, the idea of the potter's house stuck out to me right away. The priest leading the retreat actually is a potter, too. The room was decorated with some of his pottery (and it looks a lot like PoHo pottery, Cort!). So that was all a nice personal connection for me.

Beyond that, though, I've wondered so much about my life and my path and all that stuff since we moved here. During the retreat, we did a meditation on the scripture and imagined the pot the potter was working on. What kind of vessel is it? For what purpose is it being molded? The last four years have been so busy working and going to school and always moving forward towards the time that Ian would finish residency that there really was never much time for reflection. Now I think I have a little too much time for all that. :) In school, I felt very sure that I was meant to be a counselor. I've always been drawn to the idea of healing and easing suffering. This lead me to start college as a pre-med, but I quickly (maybe not quickly enough) realized that the sciences were not going to be my way to a healing profession. I thought about ministry for a while, but in the end, counseling felt like the best fit for me. But then I had a hard time finding an internship site and ended up doing career counseling... not really what I'd been looking for. (To be clear - I am thankful for that experience, though, and for the fabulous people I was able to meet and work with. It just wasn't the path I'd been seeking.) I did worry a lot last year about what kind of work I'd be able to do after I graduated, since I really wouldn't have any experience in mental health counseling. It hasn't helped that we then moved to a new state where I have no professional network and that has a particularly unfriendly environment for new counselors. It's a tricky stage of professional identity development (identity development is always important to we counselors) :) to have just begun thinking of myself as a counselor and then not be able to do the work. I've been reading my journals, reviewing my textbooks and doing things here and there to help myself still feel like a counselor, but it's hard to do. Like the tree falling in the forest, I've been wondering, if a counselor has no one to treat, is she still a counselor? I'm not sure. I think so, but I would like not to have to answer the question. :) The priest who led our retreat talked about the different types of clay and how it sometimes can be stubborn, too hard or too soft. I wondered what type of clay I have been. I'm sad about not finding a job, but Ian has pointed out to me that I've been offered every job I've interviewed for here so far. They just aren't really the jobs I've hoped to have (not in mental health) and there are only 2 so far. I just had a second interview at an agency yesterday and the receptionist thinks they're going to offer me a position. :) There are a lot of catches with this position... again, it's not really what I'd have preferred, but it is actually a mental health counseling job. The biggest problem is that the site is over an hour's drive away. I'd probably only work there 3 days a week, but yuck. One reason we moved to Charlotte was that I wanted to stop having to spend so much of my life commuting. Now, instead of taking an hour or so to get into the city, I'd be driving an hour or so to get away from it. The population has the potential to be a challenging one... It's not a group I'd ever felt particularly drawn to or imagined myself working with. And I'm a little scared of it. I think I'd probably feel a little scared of any job, so I'm trying to keep that in perspective. In many ways, I'm back to where my internship class was at this point last year when we were all anxiously anticipating our first sessions with our first clients. The possibility that I might be offered this job is somewhat amusing to me. I've had one phone interview and two personal interviews. When I heard about the drive, I thought that there's no way I can do that, but figured going to the interview would be good practice. I really liked the people I interviewed with and figured that if I can work with this population for the rest of this year, I think I would feel pretty confident about any work I may try to get into once we move on to wherever we're going next. Then I drove to the site and thought again that there's no way it makes sense to drive that far for a job. So, I went into the second interview - again - thinking that it would be good practice. Now I think that if they do offer me a position, I'll take it. It really is the only place I've found that's hiring new counselors and isn't solely focused on addictions work (which I'd really rather not do as a focus). Maybe this opportunity is coming up for a reason and I should go along with the molding rather than being stubborn clay.

Really, at this point, I think it might be best for my own mental health to take any (reasonable) opportunity and run with it. We had an exterminator come to our apartment a couple weeks ago and I found myself wondering what kind of training you need to do that. (He didn't need to have any direct contact with bugs, after all. He just sprayed stuff along the base boards. I could do that!) If I'm starting to imagine my next career as an exterminator, I think it's probably a sign that I should get to work soon... and maybe not stay inside and inhale the fumes from the bug spray. :) I have been working on some other good things to keep myself occupied. I'm hoping to get involved with a bereavement ministry at church, which I think will be a good chance to work on my counseling skills in a different environment. I've also found a great yoga studio and I'm excited to get to know some folks there. My golf lessons have finished up, but I'm still practicing and may end up taking the Golf 102 class that starts up in a few weeks. We'll see how the scheduling goes. After all, I may have a job I need to work around!

A Friendly Day in the South

I've said several times that people in Charlotte are very friendly and chatty. Sometimes it's hard to explain how this is different from what we've experienced elsewhere. A perfect example of this happened today.
I went to the driving range for a while to practice chipping and pitching before my last lesson on Saturday. I decided to take a different way home than usual. I'm still learning my way around the city and thought it was a good time to explore. Happily, I ended up by Taco Bell. I love Taco Bell and - fortunately - there really aren't many fast food places convenient to where we live. Even though I'd been thinking of the good, healthy salad I was planning to make when I got home, I couldn't help but stop. When I pulled up to place my order, the voice in the box said "Hi, how are you?" rather than the usual "Welcome to XX, would you like to try a XX?" I've noticed that a few times at various fast food places around here. When I was pulling around to the window, I realized that I left my wallet in my golf bag, which was in the trunk. Oops! So, I popped the trunk and hopped out of the car - still wearing my golf shoes - ran around to get my wallet and then drove up to the window. I expected the woman at the window to say something about this. Instead, when I pulled up, the woman at the window said, "Do you play golf? You go girl!" We chatted a bit about golf and husbands and all that while getting my Mexican Pizza and change. When I was leaving, she congratulated me on my new hobby, wished me luck and said, "Have a blessed day!" Sure don't see that in Chicago. :)

Babies, babies, everywhere!

I'm an aunt! Emma Elizabeth Costello was born at 9:08 am on Wednesday... 5 lbs 14 oz. My poor sister-in-law (and brother) had a rough week with a few overnight stays in the hospital due to preeclampsia. Fortunately, everyone is doing very well now and we have a beautiful new addition to the family. I've been thinking all summer about how nice it would be to live near family. Now it's killing me that we're so far away. Ian and I are hoping to make it to Missouri for Thanksgiving so we can meet her. I don't know how I'll make it that long! Fortunately, Ian's going to be scheduling a couple interviews in the St. Louis area for October, so there's an outside chance we might be able to get together before Thanksgiving. I hope so! Until then, I've been checking online at least twice a day for updates to their blog or online photo album. (Hint, hint.) :) I'm sure they're probably a little bit busy with other stuff, though... like taking care of their new bundle of joy and all her diapers and feedings and whatnot.

We had some other exciting news this week. One of Ian's "pseudos" (family friends he grew up with that are virtually family - we all have those, right?) and his wife also had a baby girl this week, possibly on the same day that Emma was born, although I haven't confirmed that yet. Silly excited uncle emailed everyone with her weight and length and all that, but not exactly when she was born. Anyway, we're also very excited to welcome Ava MacKenzie Perez!

Fortunately, there's no shortage of babies to continue looking forward to meeting. Ian's brother and his wife are due in just a couple weeks. He or she will be the first grandchild on Ian's side of the family, just like Emma is on mine. It's fun to have both of our families going through these big life events at the same time. After baby Villanueva, one of Ian's best friends from college will be expecting his third child and a friend of mine from grad school will be expecting her first in November, my former boss and friend is expecting a little boy in December and one of Ian's friends from med school is expecting her first child in January. Phew. What's with you people? :) Just kidding. It's fun and exciting for everyone to be moving into the parenthood phase of life. I think we may be past the years of 7+ weddings to attend and we're moving on to welcoming many babies into the world.

All these babies have been making me a little bit nervous. I haven't really been around kids much for a long, long time. I've spent time with my friend Sarah's little girl, but I get to see them much too infrequently. She's really the only one I've seen much. Sometimes it's fun to be around kids, but sometimes I feel like I don't know what to do. Today we stopped by Ian's boss's house to pick up something and spent a little time hanging out with his three girls - 8, 3(?), and 18 months. It was lots of fun! The baby loved me and I, naturally, loved her. (It also doesn't hurt that her middle name is Mae!) She pretended to be shy when I first said hello, but after about 2 minutes, she was running over to me wanting me to pick her up. She continued to try to jump out of my arms, run away, run back to me and jump so I could pick her up again over and over the whole time we were there. She was adorable. At the same time, the 8-year-old was showing me a game online and the 3 year-old gave me her blankie. They were all precious - and a good confidence booster. Kids are fun! I'm good with kids! I was a rock-star babysitter, after all. I was addicted to Baby-sitters Club books and went to a seminar at the community college when I was 10 or so to become a Certified Babysitter. :) So I'm a pro. Sometimes it has felt like life has been very serious since we moved to Charlotte. Ian's working very hard, I'm not working at all. Both have their downsides. The girls' energy and excitement today was infectious. After telling their parents that I'm happy to come watch them any time, we finally left. Now I miss them, too, and I'm ready for more. Bring on the babies!

Waiting for Emma

I just got home from my second golf lesson. It's going pretty well so far. Ian seems pleasantly surprised. :) My instructor is the guy who owns the facility, so that's exciting. I'm taking group lessons that are supposed to be no more than 7 people. We had 6 in our first class, but there were only 3 of us there today. It's a pretty sweet deal... not all that expensive and a fair bit of individual attention. So far we've covered putting and chipping. We're doing pitching next week and then full-swing for the last week. Hopefully they'll keep going well. Ian and I stayed around for about 2 hours after my class to keep practicing. I'm going to get together with one of the ladies in my class later this week to practice together. Golf study group. :) It's been fun. I'm excited to learn enough to be able to actually go to a course and try things out. We'll see how it goes then.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do for work this year. I'm looking for full-time or part-time counseling jobs, but I'm trying to keep my options open. I just interviewed for a job at an independent bookstore not far from where we live. I figured that if working as a counselor doesn't work out, I could always work somewhere else part-time and maybe do a lot of volunteer work to get some social services experiences. I've found a couple places that might be good options for volunteering. We'll see, though. I still have some sorting out to do.

The biggest news is that we're eagerly awaiting the birth of our first niece, Emma Elizabeth Costello. My sister-in-law, Mandy, is due in a few weeks, but she's been put on bed rest after spending a couple days in the hospital for observation because of high blood pressure. Mandy's hoping Emma will come soon. I don't blame her. :) My brother, Kevin, is in nursing school and his schedule is pretty crazy. I'm sure they'll need lots of support both now and after Emma makes her grand entrance. Please send your prayers and positive thoughts their way!

September in Charlotte means that it's time for Charlotte Shout, a month-long celebration of arts, food and music. Ian and I are heading down to Blues, Brews and BBQ tonight to check things out and eat some great BBQ. I'm excited to see what it's all about. Should be a good time!

Keeping Busy

I am now starting the third month of my life of leisure. My job search continues and Ian is already starting his for next year. I am very much hoping to be able to find some work in the mental health field while we're in Charlotte. It's tricky to get into this work, since I don't have any connections here, previous experience, or a license. It's been a little frustrating so far, but I did have a very positive informational interview with someone at Catholic Social Services (Charlotte's branch of Catholic Charities) last week. They're not hiring for counselors right now, but the contact was very encouraging and gave me some ideas for where to go from here. It's hard to look for a job knowing there's a good chance we'll be leaving in about 10 months. At the same time, I don't want to waste those 10 months when I might be able to use them to get some experience and do some good for someone. We'll see...

In the meantime, I've been trying to keep busy and positive. Without working, meeting people is a little more challenging. I've joined a book club. I'll be going to the second meeting on Tuesday. The first meeting was good, but I realized this particular group is probably not going to be the best way to meet people my age. I think I brought down the average age of the group by about 10 years. :) But it's good to have connections with lots of different types of people and they do seem to be serious about reading and discussing the books, which is good in its own way. Ian and I are working on getting involved with a Charlotte area Catholic Young Adults group. Most of their recent activities were during the weeks I was in Missouri, so we haven't done much yet, but there are a few things coming up. I've volunteered to help plan the upcoming Theology on Tap series. We're also going to a mini-retreat later this month (just 1 morning), which I think will be good. We've only really met one person in the group so far, so if nothing else, I should get to know some other people a bit. This Sunday should conclude our tour of the Catholic churches in Charlotte, so we'll be able to figure out which one to make our parish. It's hard to find a church with that perfect balance of good spirit, community, location, etc., etc. Unfortunately, the church I've liked the best so far was also the farthest away. It didn't sound like it would be too far away, but it was really a bit of a trek to get there... especially in Charlotte's Sunday morning traffic. We'll see. Maybe this last church will be the answer.

Then there's the physical activity stuff. Since I'm no longer walking all over Chicago (and I have an abundance of free time), I'm trying to work out much more regularly. I found a fabulous park near Ian's hospital and I've been running there a few times a week. It's funny what a big difference the scenery makes in my motivation to run. When I was running in my neighborhood, I had to drag myself out. The trail in the park is really pretty and runs along a little creek and then around a lake. I've really been looking forward to running since I found it. There are tennis courts just down from our back patio, so Ian and I have been taking advantage of those. Ian played varsity tennis in high school, so he's been struggling a bit to teach me how to play properly instead of just whacking at the ball. He's thinking of getting into a tennis league at some point. We'll see. I think it would be fantastic for him, but his schedule is so unpredictable (or just bad) that it's hard for me to imagine him being able to set up matches and whatnot. We'll see. Hopefully things will get better for him. This week I'm finally going to check out one of the yoga studios here. I signed up for a 3-week series of classes to make sure I keep going. :) It sounds like a great place, so I'm looking forward to that.

My final big new activity is golf. Golf is serious business in North Carolina. I've wanted to learn to play anyway, so now seemed like the ideal time. For my big 30th birthday, Ian gave me all the tools I need to get started. I now have clubs, shoes (they look like this, but pink), a glove, a book and lessons starting on Saturday. I'm very excited. We went to the driving range last weekend and practiced chipping a bit. Ian wasn't sure he should show me anything before my lessons start, but I really wanted to at least try to hit something before I show up for the lessons. Besides that, I thought I should try carrying my golf bag somewhere (it's a bit heavy!) and walking around in my golf shoes. :) I'm glad I did. I banged my bag into my ankle the first several times I set it down and I now have a big bruise there. Typical. At least now, I should be able to adjust that and concentrate on my lesson than on a throbbing ankle. :) The driving range really went pretty well. Ian seemed quite surprised. I think he expected it to be terrible. There's a saying that a husband should never teach his wife to drive or play golf. I don't know about the driving part (old-fashioned idea that most wives don't already know how to drive and a bit sexist all-in-all), but I can see the point in the golf part. I've heard it's often painful when you're first learning and it's probably not the best idea for a relationship. I tend to want to be very good at anything I do and an impatient learner, so it has potential to be not so much fun for Ian. So, I'm taking lessons. But things really did go well that first day and I'm excited about my lesson tomorrow. And after that, watch out Annika! :)

Sweet as Sugar

I've had several people ask recently in emails what "sweet tea" is. That makes me sad for you. Poor Yanks. :) According to Wikipedia, "Sweet tea is a form of iced tea in which sugar or some other form of sweetener is added to the hot water before, while brewing the tea, or post-brewing, but before the beverage is chilled and served. This variation of tea enjoys most of its popularity in the Southern United States." Basically, sugar-water with tea. What could be bad about that? I learned (re-learned, probably) today that the solubility of sugar in water varies with the temperature of the water. Since sugar is added to sweet tea while it's still hot, you can dissolve more sugar in the tea. Whatever it is, it's magical.

It's funny to realize that people have never had sweet tea. I've always taken it for granted. It's a staple of the South, but Farmington is just north of the Sweet Tea Line (like the Grits Line and the Coke Line). There were a few restaurants where you could order sweet tea (Captain D's, for example), but not many. We always had a pitcher of sweet tea at home when I was a kid. I'm not sure how that came to be... maybe because my grandparents are from Virginia? We weren't allowed to have soda (yes, "soda") at home unless it was a special occasion, but we still had plenty of sugar in our diets! Besides the fact that it's fabulous, I think I love sweet tea because I associate it with home. I can remember being little and at school or camp and just really, really wanting a glass of tea. I think it was more than thirst. Before I knew what "homesick" meant, I would sometimes long to be sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of tea.

When I was little, my dad worked at a home for children just up the block from our house. There was a playground at the home, so my brothers and I would go up there and play sometimes. We would also go to visit my dad at his office. As long as he wasn't in a session with a kid, my dad would stop what he was doing and visit with us for a while. We often went to the dining hall to get a glass of sweet tea and then talked with Pop while we drank it. It all seemed natural enough at the time - we were quite big, after all - but now I can't imagine having a little kid randomly walk into my office for a visit.

I didn't think much about sweet tea for many years, but as soon as Ian and I found out we were moving to North Carolina, we started looking forward to having sweet tea again. (Houston was a little hit-or-miss on the sweet tea front, but we found enough of it to get Ian - a diet soda drinker, no less - hooked on it.) Since we arrived in Charlotte, I've virtually stopped drinking alcohol. Why get a beer when you could have a sweet tea instead? At a Mexican restaurant, I agonized a bit over whether to have a sweet tea or a margarita. The sweet tea won out and later I noticed someone at the next table drinking both. Genius. There are still the meals that virtually require a glass of wine (steak, particularly) and in those cases, wine usually wins, but it is a rare exception. I've started making sweet tea at home sometimes, too. It's mostly because we're trying hard not to eat out very often and a serious sweet tea craving is enough to make me decide we should eat out even though I don't have much to do all day except think about what to cook for dinner. I don't know why, but it really never crossed my mind to make sweet tea at home before. I knew how to make that before I knew how to cook anything else. Making tea is how I learned that it's a bad idea to pour hot tea into a pitcher that's been in the fridge all night. But since we're responsible adults with weight to watch, I've arbitrarily decided that I can't make it at home more than once per week. We just have to go out for it on the other days. :)

Here are a few links I found for more information about this Southern delicacy... Enjoy!

• Sweet tea recipe from grits.com (basically the way I make tea) - http://grits.com/tea.htm
• http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/IcedTeaHistory.htm
• What Makes Southern Sweet Tea So Special? http://www.slate.com/id/2171917

Home

I just returned last Saturday from spending a couple weeks in Missouri with my family. The experience of being with them and then coming back to Charlotte has made me think a lot recently about what "home" means. Is it where you live? Where your family lives? A city you love? When I was visiting my family, it was fun to imagine how life might be if we all lived near each other. (Fabulous, of course.) Since we moved to Charlotte, I've felt more homesick for Chicago than I really expected to. In some ways, it seems a little silly that I didn't appreciate how hard it would be to leave there. At the same time, I spent all five years in Chicago knowing when I would leave. Having that continual countdown running makes it hard to fully invest oneself and plant roots somewhere. That's really been the case since I left home to go to college. I knew I'd be at Wash U for 4 years (or hoped so, anyway), Ian would finish medical school 3 years later and we'd leave Houston, finish residency 5 years later and we'd leave Chicago, finish fellowship 1 year later and we'd leave Charlotte... The clock is always running. Even so, we really planted more roots in Chicago than we realized until our last few months there.

I feel like Ian and I really grew up in Chicago. We started our time there dating and left having been married for 3 years. I got a Masters degree; Ian became a surgeon. We paid back all the debt that came along with those darn free t-shirts in college. We made friends. As we conducted our farewell tour in our last month or so in Chicago, it was hard to fit in all the dinners and last chances to say good-bye. A good problem to have. Almost all of those folks are either still in Chicago or will be returning there in about a year. I think that's what has made this move a little different for us. It's hard to believe that we actually chose to leave all that behind for a little thing like Ian's career. :)

I've also come to realize that I really loved living in Chicago. Well, maybe not so much in February, but other than that... I loved being part of such a big, bustling city and I loved my peaceful little suburb. It was hard and fun to learn how to navigate the city by car or by train (I never got around to the buses...) There was almost never a time when we couldn't think of something to do and when we couldn't it really was more a matter of laziness than reality. I miss knowing so much about the place I live and I miss knowing that I really only know a tiny piece of what there is to know. I don't know that we'll ever get to live there again, but we'll always love Chicago.

In the meantime, we're officially "settled" in Charlotte. I say this primarily because we're unpacked and we no longer ask if restaurants have sweet tea - we just order it straight away. I hope that in the next couple months we will get to know and love Charlotte. It's definitely different than anywhere I've lived before. I have to say that the people ARE really friendly. I can't actually think of a time when I've heard someone honk their horn in traffic since we moved here. I spent 4 hours at the DMV yesterday getting my North Carolina license and I noticed that all the people around me were really nice and helpful to each other... they held each other's places in line while others used the restroom, five different people chimed in to give a guy directions to another location that might have a shorter wait, and no one seemed angry that we were there for so long. They talked about it, but never in an angry way. It's a little weird, but I think I could get used to it. So maybe soon I really will be able to call Charlotte "home..." or maybe at least "home for now."

A Rookie For All Seasons

Hello, world! This is my first attempt in mass communicating my thoughts and experiences without Mae actually doing it for me :) My entries will be much shorter and probably not as entertaining--I lost all ability to communicate in complete sentences once I started writing hospital progress notes in medical school.

So, we find ourselves in Charlotte while I complete my one year fellowship in advanced laparoscopic bariatric (weight loss) surgery. This is surgery done through small incisions using long instruments we control from outside the body while watching a tv picture from a camera inside the body.

Even though I have completed 4 years of medical school, 5 years of general surgery training, and could be a practicing general surgeon at a community hospital near you, I find myself a rookie once again. The biggest challenge is learning a surgery I've never seen using a skill set
I haven't yet mastered. We did some basic laparoscopic surgery at Loyola, but nothing as regular or as advanced as the program here in Charlotte. I imagine it's like learning to ride a racing motorcycle when all you know is how to ride is a unicycle. It's been tough to finish residency feeling like I could do any surgery, only to come here and feel like an intern in the OR again, still trying to master concepts such as up, down, left, right.

Today we performed a routine, classic surgical procedure using normal surgical techniques involving a normal incision, taking out colon cancer like 80% of surgeons do it today and have been doing it for over 60 years--no advanced laparoscopy. That went very well, just like riding a unicycle again; I joked with the main surgeon I work with, "Finally, a surgery I've seen and know how to do!"

I'm making progress, painfully slow and steady progress. The learning curve for these surgeries is steep; I can't wait to be riding that motorcycle soon.

A Day in the Life of a Pooka

"No fairy is more feared in Ireland than the pooka. This may be because it is always out and about after nightfall, creating harm and mischief, and because it can assume a variety of terrifying forms." - www.irelandseye.com

Since we've moved to Charlotte and my most important job has been the monotonous unpacking of boxes, I've had the opportunity to learn more about something that has always made me curious... what do the cats do all day? I've learned that I was right about Connor Cat. He eats and sleeps, which explains why he wants me to stay awake all night. The Pooka, on the other hand, is quite busy. Here is a sampling of her activities yesterday... a day in the life of a Pooka:

1. Wake up VERY early to give Ian plenty of hugs before he goes back to work.
2. Go back to sleep.
3. Eat breakfast.
4. Sit in the shower and get wet.
5. Use the box.
6. Wonder why I smell like poo.
7. Sleep.
8. Accidentally lock self in bathroom.
9. Engage in a very fierce battle with Carpet Fuzzy.
10. Keep an eye on the Kingdom from the window.
    
11. Try to figure out what the deal is with mirrors. Is that another cat or not?
12. Accidentally lock self in bathroom again.
13. Eat lunch.
14. Pounce Big Kitty.
15. Check on the Kingdom.
    
16. Try to figure out why can’t open the door to go in the bathroom anymore.
17. Walk up the stairs on the wrong side of the railing and make Mae very glad the railing only goes up 5 stairs before jumping down from the top step.
18. Sleep.
19. Go outside on patio.
20. Go back inside after about 20 seconds.
21. Eat dinner.
22. Check on the Kingdom.
    
23. Clean Big Kitty’s head.
24. Chase toy Mouse up and down the stairs.
25. Sing in the hallway.
26. Check on the Kingdom.
    
27. Sleep.
28. Build a tunnel in the bed sheets next to Mae.
29. Get hot and leave the tunnel.
30. Sleep.

Culture Shock

Southerners talk a lot. They don't talk fast, but they do talk often. My first experience of this was actually before we even moved here. When we came to look for a place to live, Ian had to meet with one of the attendings at his new hospital. Not having anything better to do, I decided to hang out in the department waiting area and try to figure out how we could navigate a city where you can be at the corner of Queens Rd. and Queens Rd. Every person who walked by me said something... I think some of the people were talking to themselves, but I'm not sure. Some of it definitely was directed to me, like the guy who saw my map and said, "Give it up. You're going to get lost." Some people obviously were more friendly than others, but everyone said something. Eventually, I stopped pulling my purse closer to me every time someone walked up to my little area and actually responded to a few of them with more than a puzzled smile. I was taught not to talk to strangers, after all.

As with most moves, Ian and I spent our first few days in Charlotte at Target. One checker commented on our purchases (actually, all of them did in one way or another) and we told her we just moved from Chicago. She was very excited about this and told us she was from Michigan. She then went on to tell us that she's from Michigan (speaking faster and faster, moving out of the Southern pace now that she knew we'd understand her) and has lived in Charlotte for three years. She likes it, but the people take a while to get used to. They talk to you all the time... even people you don't know will just start up conversations with you. I said, "Really? That's amazing." She affirmed that this is true and said they always ask you if you go to church. "Like it's any of their business if you go to church or not. That took me a long time to get used to... people asking that all the time. By the way, do you go to church?"

And that brings up the second bit of Charlotte culture shock... the traffic. Coming from Chicago, Ian and I had high hopes for finally spending less than 80% of our lives stuck in traffic. Happily, we've found the Charlotte traffic to be very manageable (despite what the locals say) with one significant exception... Sunday. This past Sunday, we thought we would try out a church near Ian's hospital, which is just about 5 miles from where we live. (It's seems like everything in Charlotte is 5 miles away. Beautiful.) We thought that leaving 30 minutes early would give us time to get lost a few times and eventually find the place with a little time to spare. Clearly, we did not consider the church traffic. From our place, we passed Providence United Methodist Church, St. Gabriel's Catholic Church (went there the first week), Trinity Presbyterian Church, Christ Episcopal Church, Myers Park Presbyterian Church, Myers Park Methodist Church... before we'd even gotten halfway there. Not only are there a crazy huge number of churches here, but there are a crazy huge number of people who go to them. Each church has at least one, often two, traffic cops waiting at the parking lots to let people in and out. We barely made it to our own church on time and, feeling sure that our road was just a religious fluke, decided to take a different way back. We came across at least as many churches that way... Many tucked away in the trees that we've never noticed before... and still wouldn't have noticed if not for the cars and the traffic cops. If this is the worst of the traffic in the city, I'll gladly take it!

Hello, Blogosphere

Last year, some friends of ours moved to Vermont, far from their family and friends in the Upper Midwest. They started a blog to help keep in touch with everyone. Although I was skeptical at first (sorry guys!), it actually has been a really nice way to know what's going on in their lives, even when we don't have time to catch up over the phone or email. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a try... especially now that I'm currently unemployed and am finding a limit to how many hours a day I can spend unpacking.

Ian and I have now been in Charlotte for just over a week and things are starting to settle in. Our trip out here was remarkably uneventful. This certainly was the easiest move we've done. We had a 2-day caravan with Ian driving the plants and me driving the cats. We had about a day and a half here before the movers arrived with all of our stuff, so that helped make a long day (especially for the movers) go a little better.

We're renting a townhouse for this year and we're very excited about it. Strawberry Hill is an enormous complex... we're across from the tennis courts and just a couple blocks away from the pool, but our building feels very tucked away. We feel quite grown-up now that we have an upstairs area in our home. We're also glad for the stairs because they're a central part of Connor Cat's new weight loss program. Hopefully with the stairs, eating less and playing more, our kitty will get back down to his former svelte, 17-pound self. :)

We're very pleased to have returned to the land of sweet tea and we've been taking full advantage of that fact. Over the weekend, Ian had his first Waffle House experience. Greasy fabulousness, as always. Last Friday, we went out with part of the bariatric team at CMC. Along with meeting some of Ian's very lively new co-workers, we were introduced to another Southern delicacy... fried pickles. With all the Southern roots in my family, I've considered myself relatively familiar with Southern food, but I've never heard of fried pickles before. Apparently there's a restaurant in Charlotte that specializes in them. They're surprisingly good, but how can you go wrong with deep-fried food? Especially when served with ranch dressing.

The outing was really a farewell dinner for the outgoing fellow, but it was also a nice opportunity for me to meet the doctors Ian will be working with and for him to meet some of the ancillary staff. I also had a nice chance to get a lot of information (and maps) from the wife of the outgoing fellow. She confirmed some of my fears (no Ikea or Trader Joe's here) and reassured me that I should see my husband every now and then. Ian's skeptical about that, but we'll see. He'll definitely be working hard this year. We always tell ourselves that we end up in places for a reason... it's particularly easy to believe that given the magic of the match system. Hopefully we'll find that to be true again.