Sailboat Reflection

WELCOME

Welcome to my blog about our new adventures about moving from sub-tropical coastal South Carolina (Charleston) to a city in the Sonoran Desert (Tucson). My first struggle is to learn to spell Tucson correctly as I tend to want to switch the c and the s!
Just a brief history of each city first:
Charleston (formerly Charles Town) was founded in 1670 and moved to its present location in 1680 by English settlers. Charleston was a focal point for the American Revolution (1176-1785) and was seized and was under British control through 1782. it was also the first state to secede from the Union and the first shot of the American Civil War was fired here on to Fort Sumter where the Union army was holed up. It is city filled with history and has been beautifully preserved. It is continually voted as one of the best cities to visit and the friendliest people.
Tucson, Arizona is located about 120 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the Mexican border. The Spanish colonizers tried to seize the land from the local Native tribes in the 1770's, It was officailly founded by the Irish exporer Hugh O'Connor in 1775 and is one of the oldest cities in the United States.Tucson is considered one of the "Mega-Trend" cities of the 21st century. It has the beauty of the Sonaran desert as well as being surrounded by five mountain ranges. It is also considered a very "artsy" area which is good for me. It is a huge area for photography and hopefully, will make me grow and push myself further in that field.
Tom will be working at Raytheon Missile Defense Systems. He will doing speechwriting and other executive communications duties.
We are looking forward to all of our opportunities and hope you will check back with my blog from time to time to see how "jen's journey" is proceeding.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Staying in Charleston

Tom is back in Charleston and we are staying here. Thanks for all the people that have "welcomed us back"! We are happy to still be in Charleston although a bit disappointed to not be going on an adventure! Tom is back in the job market again and we will keep everyone posted as to our next status

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Official News






It is with mixed emotion I will be bidding adieu to Charleston on April 23rd. We officailly have a contract on our house as long as nothing unforseen occurs. The scariest part is not having a home to move into out there yet. I will be going out Aril 6 to give house hunting another go. I am sad to leave all the great friends and family that I have here. And I have just recently met several new friends but hope to be able to continue those newly formed friendships from across the country. I truely hope many of you will feel welcome enough to come out to visit us. I especially hope that some of my photography friends will come out to do some shooting excursions.
We have been very blessed to sell our house so quickly in this market. And that was our 3rd offer in two months!
I worked downtown at one of the galleries yesterday, which I so enjoy. But afterwards I took my camera on that cold and windy afternoon to the old bridge (to Sullivan's Island in the village), which is one of my favorite spots in Charleston and shot some photos that I will share here.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

My Tuesday


My Tuesday was a good one. I accomplished a good bit of personal business in the morning then was greeted by the smiling face of my 3 year old great nephew, Greyson. It is so nice to have some little body so glad to see you and the unconditional, unspoiled love of a child. He lives in Georgia so it is so special every time I have the opportunity to spend time with him. He came as a special treat to come to Charleston with his dad all alone. His dad (my nephew) is here to do the special effects at Seacoast Church for their annual passion play at Easter, The Thorn. It is an awesome and moving show. Greyson and I went to my neighborhood play park and had a grand time swinging, see-sawing, and sliding! When I returned to my car I had a message from my friend Debbie reminding me to me her in North Charleston to eat before our concert. Well, thank goodness she called with a reminder message because I thought our show was TONIGHT!!! So I had to take Greyson along for the eating part until my sister could pick him up from me. (Thanks to my friends for not minding that I had to do that!)
The show we went to see is a Mexican duo, Rodrigo y Gabriela. They were the most awesome acoustic guitarist! They play rhythemic guitars with a bit of folk rock and latin rock. Gabriela stole the show with her hand moving beyond eye following speeds and playing almost all of the guitar, not just the strings, to produce rhythemic percussion. And the crowd was quite eclectic and attracted people of all ages. Take a listen to them if you can.
And when I talked to Tom after the show he was already in bed! It was 7:40PM there! I think the new job is really taking it out of him. You would think the time difference would make it hard for us to talk in the evenings because of me going to bed but it is actually the opposite. Tom is always going to bed about the time I am settling down! Well, such is our new life...

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Toms Pictures






















The sunset photo is from the road in front of his apartment. The mountain views are from houses and yards he looked at for us this weekend and the ponies were just because they were so cute!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Saturday in different time zones!











So Tom and I are still living in EST vs. MST. The worse new is that we in SC are changing to daylight savings time while he, in Arizona, is not changing to daylight savings time. Now our struggle to live in a two hour time difference will change to THREE hours!





Tom has every other Friday off (nice!). So yesterday he went house hunting for us yet again. He found a couple of houses he really liked that are older but a bit past our upper end of our price range. I will post some photos from his hunting tomorrow. Today he went to one of the municipal golf courses there. He said that for a "muni course" it was awesome! That's the second one he has played. Weather was sunny and in the low 70's. Perfect!





Here in Charleston I met up with a new photographer friend, Deanie. She and I met up and went to Folly Beach to go to a craft show. We first had lunch a little place called Taco Boy. It was very eclectic cool and was very crowded as the area was having a St. Patty's Day pub crawl. My food was very good. I had a shrimp tempura taco, black beans, and a japaleno cole slaw. I recommend it if you are out that way. And check out the bathrooms which are unisex. Then we went to the Tides of March craft show where I ran into lots of people I had not seen in a while. That was a





really nice treat! And I was spurred on to go by an e-mail of another new photographer friend I had met one day while working at Charleston Crafts. Laura is from Indiana and has a condo here and comes to Charleston when she can. She had a booth and I had the opportunity to see her beautiful work. I appreciate her letting me know about it so I could have this very nice day (although a bit chilly from the wind) seeing so many people today. And Deanie and I got to spend some extra time shooting a few photos together.





Thanks to all who helped me have a nice day when I am missing my hubby on the weekends!