I begin today’s blog with a geography lesson. When I first met Kenn, he lived just north of Cincinnati, and I lived south of Nashville, about five and a half hours away from each other. The only state between Tennessee and Ohio is Kentucky. Now for my Texas friends and family, Cincinnati is to Ohio and Kentucky as Orange is to Texas and Louisiana…… sort of. At night, as you drive over a hill in Kentucky, nearing the Ohio state line, the bright lights of Cincinnati are just beautiful! And as you near the Texas state line…..well, there’s the Orange city limits sign.

Anyway, Kenn sold that house and, while it was a smidge too big for one person (it had SEVEN bathrooms!), it had some wonderful personalized parts, namely Kenn’s train room. He is into model trains, and even put tunnels through his foundation for them to travel through! Now, he lives in Tipp City, just north of Dayton, Ohio. It’s about 45 minutes north of the sold home. About two and a half hours northeast of that, is Massillon, where he works with his cousin, Tim. Massillon is near Canton and, while it’s hard to fathom for Texan folks, you are almost out of Ohio real estate! An hour north of Canton is Cleveland, which is on Lake Erie.

Kenn has lived in Ohio his entire life, except for two years when he was a child. I, on the other hand, have lived in Texas, New Jersey, Georgia, and now Tennessee. As we have tried to decide the best time to get married (still haven’t figured it out!) we have also tried to figure out where we will live once we are married. As it turns out, Murfreesboro is not right for Kenn and Cincinnati is not right for me. A couple of years ago, Kenn owned a lake house on Norris Lake, about 30 minutes north of Knoxville. After looking online for several months and seeing HUNDREDS of houses in many locations, we narrowed our search to the Norris Lake area.

While each of us had personal preferences (i.e. he wanted a train room, basement, and big garage and I wanted main level bedrooms and laundry, and not too many bathrooms!) both of us hoped for fewer but bigger rooms, and something pretty to look at out the windows. We decided to go look at houses in person in mid September, mainly as a distraction for me. Earlier that week, I had made that horrible decision about Krystal, and needed something to get my mind off of it. We set out with a real estate agent to look at 18 homes scattered all around the lake. We had ranked them, and wouldn’t you know that our number one choice went under contract right before we started looking! I ALWAYS scratch pending homes off my list (whats the point in looking?!) but since this was our number one, we decided to take a look. And of course, it left the others in the dust!!! While the pending sale was sketchy to say the least (someone from Dubai wanted it, sight unseen, no contingencies) it was still under contract. After our search was over, we made the decision to build if the house sold. Meanwhile, I prayed that if it wasn’t the right house for our future, the Dubai thing would work out. Well it didn’t work out, and I am now sitting in my new great room, updating my blog, and occasionally looking out at the spectacular view of Norris Lake. I am closer to Ohio, the same distance from Atlanta as before, and three and a half hours away from Murfreesboro. Kenn is here as much as he can be, and will happily move here permanently once we are married. We have met wonderful neighbors, some of which have promised to look out for me while Kenn is away.

I am amazed as I look back at the twists and turns my new life’s road has taken. I’ve learned that life throws you curveballs on a regular basis!  In the meantime, Casey is trying to adjust to yet another new home.  Bless his heart.