Settling update

It's hard to believe this coming week will mark one month since my move here to Nashville. It's starting to feel more like home here. I'm getting used to the faster pace of the traffic and the patterns, and figuring out what lane I'm supposed to be in on what stretch. Unless it's some off peak times during the day or weekends, you better know where you're supposed to be or you'll have to make the next turn and circle around, because you won't get much of a break getting to the proper lane. I think my car's starting to get used to it, too...she sort of struggled in the beginning but for a small car, she's doing okay.

My plant that has seen me through my last two apartments and my house is doing very well out in Nashville. She was looking a little leaned to one side for awhile in St. Paul but out here, her leaves and branches look much better rounded and filled out. This is the place for nature to thrive. Every morning I wake to "birdie birdie birdie" chirps of the birds. My favorite contemplation spot is a small pond where I get to watch two big duckies and all their babies roam around together.

Slowly but surely I am getting little furniture pieces and accessories, all on the cheap. My friend gave me a few items. I bought a folding table at Walgreen and a task chair at WalMart so I am not sitting on the floor anymore running my computer as I had been for the past three weeks. I got a stereo for $8 at a yard sale. However, the "processing area" in my living room will have boxes for a while until I get me a bookcase.

The one question everyone wants to know, is the J-O-B question. I will say that I have had a few inquiries due to a resume posting. But I will send everyone who asks the question here for the answer, which is: when I have something to report, I will let you know. So, just keep checking here, ok?

I will have one piece of exciting news to share--but I'm going to let that wait for just a bit.

GMA and encouragement

This weekend I attended the GMA (Gospel Music Association) Indie Impact day. I went there to hopefully make some network connections and perhaps find out what some of the support needs of artists were. I did meet some great people, but I'm not sure that what I went for ended up being what I got out of it all. Instead, I learned that I needed to remain true to my calling. I also learned after hearing Dez Dickerson say many of the things to artists that I wrote in my booklet many years ago that at least I am in line with the pros on some things. So, now I should get going on getting that digitally published. I asked a panel of artists, which included Russ Lee and Allison Durham Speer, how encouragement played a role in their journeys. Allison, in her response, encouraged me personally and I was so blown away.

I do know why I am here---I'm called to encourage artists. I'm just not sure in what form yet I will do that here in Nashville. But I'll tell you the great thing about it being that this weekend here I have met people whose work I've enjoyed or admired. The celebrity part of it isn't what it's about for me at all. The best thing is being able to personally tell these people "I love what you do."

Some people tend to focus on one person, or one artist. Sometimes you'll have one opportunity to encourage people and they're blessed. Other people you can lift up for a dozen years straight and they still won't believe you. I've wanted to be the "#1 fan" of someone but that desire put me in a dark and unhealthy place. So I am grateful for the call and opportunity to encourage several people at many different levels, meeting them right where they are.

Back From Branson

Well, if one road trip last weekend wasn't enough, I am now back from another one. This time it was an 8 hour journey to Branson, MO, for Mark Lowry's Senior Trip. I have all of that report detailed here: http://www.wendyv.com/srtripbranson.htm

Now I am back in Nashville. The place is coming along. I now have a sofa, bed, TV cart but still a deskless office. But you learn to work around those things. Next on the agenda is dealing with making a living and attending the GMA Indie Impact weekend on Saturday and Sunday.

Week 1 Continued...

So far, so great. I got my new loveseat sofa and it feels like one big pillow, just like my beloved old beat up St. Paul loveseat did. I also got my new drivers license (not a half bad picture either), emissions test for the car and new plate. If I hadn't thrown myself out of the way by missing a turn on the way back, I'd have had all this done in two hours time rather than three. This process covered three different places and things went very smoothly...so not an all-day wait like I feared.

When you are adjusting to a new environment and managing details, weird things can happen. Some people may remember on my original "Ponderings" blog the story of how I thought my car was stolen but I had put it in the wrong garage. I have a bonehead story for you that I think beats that one. I went out walking yesterday and all of a sudden I heard this continual buzzing tone everywhere I went. I thought it was something going off in the complex, so I took a walk outside the area. I still heard it. It was bugging me now, so I took a short drive. I still heard it. Now I started getting nervous that I had developed some sort of tinnitus or ear problem. Oh God, I thought, how could you bring me to Nashville to dig all the music and now have something go wrong with my hearing?

My friend called to check on me and told me to lie down and if it wasn't better, she would come get me. I decided to bring her over to take me to a change of scene, thinking that might help. When she arrived, she heard the ringing tone, too. She did all kinds of checks and told me to call the emergency maintenance to tell them something was wrong in the apartment. Then she walked closer to me and said "I hear it around you." I had my purse nearby. I dumped it out and we discovered the culprit was my pocket key light alarm which got moved to the alarm position...but the battery was dying, so it emitted this tone instead of the usual loud blast. I didn't care how stupid I felt calling back maintenance to tell them to cancel the emergency call. All I cared was that I wasn't having a hearing problem and I was thankful to God.

Today we had some thunderstorms. After all my running around was done, I took a nap as I watched the storm outside my window. Then the weather moved on and we had a beautiful sunny afternoon.

It was a most wonderful day.

Settling in...

All things considered, I am pretty well organized. I still feel a little bit like a fish in a different pond of water, but now that I have TV and cable, things are starting to feel more normal. I don't have any furniture yet and it will be some time before I have most things, but I am doing some creative improvising, like sitting up against walls with pillows at my back. I am getting a loveseat sofa first, so that will help.

But boy, this traffic out here, I tell ya. Me and the Geo are learning how to step it up and go. We don't have much choice.

This morning was the first time I watched the Weather Channel without fear, because I didn't have to worry about the weather in the upper Midwest any more for travel plans. I did notice MN is getting more snow though. Heh heh heh. Sorry, I know that's not nice but I couldn't resist.

I'm here...

Well, we made it to Nashville this morning. My friends got here yesterday morning, made everything fit into the minivan, and we covered about 10 hours on the road before stopping for the night in Marion, IL. The weather cooperated all the way and I am very proud of how my Geo Metro did. That is the most surreal part about this whole deal...it is so strange to be driving my car out here and not some rental car with fancy gadgets that make me nervous.

No, we didn't make our goal of getting to church on Easter, but that's okay. We're safe, we're happy...and we're tired.

More later when I'm back online full time.

Happy Easter, everyone.

"Good" Friday???

4/6 5 p.m.

I’m still in St. Paul. And I’m not going anywhere tonight. What a nightmare this day has been.

I stayed the night before in my apartment complex guest room, which was the best thing I could have done for myself. It was as classy as any 4 star hotel room. So the next morning, somewhat calm and hopeful, I go to Caribou Coffee with my laptop to check my e-mail and thought I would check the flight arrival web site. The tranquility quickly became short lived, as I saw “flights in and out of O’Hare are being delayed by one hour due to wind.” Great. That means my friends would never make their connection. I was expecting the phone to ring any time to give me the bad news, but it didn’t. Gee, maybe that meant no news was good news and their flight went off.

Nope. 11 am, when they should have landed, came and went with no word. Back into panic mode. I was scrambling for the airline phone number when the phone rang. Sharon and Kate were now on the road driving to Midway Airport from O’Hare to make it to a Northwest flight that was scheduled to leave at 2 pm and arrive at 4. They didn’t tell me because they knew I would be a basket case, which of course, I was. That’s how my family raised me--to worry about everything.

In the meantime, I had to get to the airport anyway around 2 pm to get the minivan picked up. I had to put Kate on as a driver, but couldn’t do that because she needed to be there to get added. The good folks at Alamo/National Car Rental were kind enough to let me get the minivan checked out anyway and even found the last big stow and go one they had. They also didn’t have a problem with me not letting me drive it off yet as I waited. After all, it was only a couple of hours wait.

Nope.

The 4 pm estimated arrival time then turned to 4:30 pm. Then 5:30 p.m. Then 8:30 p.m. Then 10 p.m. There was a maintenance problem with the plane, which escalated into having someone come from O’Hare to fix the plane. A few phone calls went back and forth from my friends and me, and it turned out I had more current info than they were being told on the ETA because I was sitting there watching the screens flip.

As all this was going on, I was shuffling like a zombie from the baggage claim area back onto the tram and back to the rental car area more than a few times. The folks at the rental counter were patient but I am sure very tired of seeing my upset face giving them updates and asking would it still be okay to keep the car parked and no one would take it if did, right? (For this reason alone, I recommend renting from Alamo or National Car Rental). As time wore on they were getting concerned they would have a space issue with returns coming in. So, they directed me to a tight space near their exit area. First of all, I hadn’t counted on even driving this thing at all. I was hoping Kate would be the driver. Remember, I’m a gal with a Geo Metro who never drove anything larger than a compact car. So here I was singing a hopelessly off key but earnest chorus of “Jesus Take The Wheel” as I tried to negotiate the space and not slam into the blue poles on the side. Fortunately, He did. He even got someone who had their personal car parked in the area rounded up and out of the way.

Finally, once Northwest decided to admit to my friends what I already knew, that the next time they were telling people the flight would arrive was 10 p.m., the dear souls, who even considered driving from Chicago from Minneapolis, gave up the ghost and decided to stay over in Chicago and book a flight out the next morning. Smart move. They would be more rested and they deserved to rest in comfort. After all, they had it worse than I did. And I wouldn’t have to drive the minivan again in the evening. So I took the van home while it was daylight. The good news is I think this thing is big enough to do what we need it to do. Another of my worries.

I am sure glad I paid a full month’s rent, for at least I still had a place to stay. I didn’t have any more furniture here and I would have had to stick my friends on the floor with pillows and blankets. Our caretaker here kindly lent me her cot and a few pillows she was tossing. She would have put us up in the party room if needed be. My apologies to the people below me though for the creaks from the cot.

So will Kate and Sharon get out of Chicago and make it here? It shouldn’t be so dang complicated to get from Chicago to Minneapolis! You know, they are still on Northwest, and the “S” word is in the forecast for tomorrow. But I’m letting go of that usual worry for my own sanity. Will Wendy, Sharon and Kate finally be on the road to Nashville? Stay tuned.

Winding down...

For all those who wondered why I decided not to work right up until my move date, well, here's the answer for you. Final cleaning to get things in pristine condition to expectations is a full-time job. I'm sure there are many of us who don't have time to do a full round of housecleaning each day inbetween jobs and life. Trust me, even if you think you are a super neatnik, you will find dust, dirt, grime and forgotten about junk in places you didn't even know existed when you take on this task. I've got another full day of this to go before the arrival of the junkmen.

There's stuff everywhere, I can hardly move, but I'm almost ready. With April snow coming to MN (early April? Yeah, I could have called this one), I am certainly ready.

Update: something messed up at Comcast so I am being shut down at home a day earlier. Next post here will be after the move. Keep the prayers coming and I'll update as soon as I find access when I get to town.

Wow, now it's less than a week...

Here we are, with less than one week to go for the move. I finished up Friday where I have worked for 12 years. I think I can say by the number of lunches I had with past and present co-workers, gifts and well-wishes that I went out on top. I remember when I left Connecticut for St. Paul 18 years ago I had pretty much the same reception. I believed if I can do this there, I could in MN. And, I did. So, I am holding fast to the same belief in Nashville.

I am pretty well organized and on track for final packing and cleaning. I am working out of open boxes for needed things. My guesstimate would be that I will have probably thrown out 100 or so bags of trash before all this is said and done.

I am very much at peace and calm, but I am sure the stress will kick in later this week. Will the junkmen show up on time? Will my friends' flight be on time? Will we get the right vehicle and will everything fit? I am not watching 5 day weather forecasts. Cold Canadian air is coming to MN this week and you know what that means. I will be so glad to be done with stressing over travel weather.

Please remember me in prayer for all the above items and safety on the 15 hour journey.