Getting Started

It's been a year and three months since my family and I moved from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Lake Charles, Louisiana. It only recently occured to me that it might be interesting, and maybe even therapeutic, to blog about the challenging transition. So my first several posts will be memoir in nature, catching you up to the present.

My husband Bob's job with PPG brought us to Lake Charles. I grew up in southwest Pa. All my family and friends are there. I knew leaving would be difficult. I looked at the move as only an optimist could, as a grand adventure. In April 2007, two months prior to the move, my sons (thirteen year old twins Eric and Andrew) and I joined Bob, who had already moved and started his new job in February, for the purpose of finding a house. He picked us up at the Houston airport and we headed east. I'd only been in Louisiana twice prior, both times years ago to New Orleans, pre-Katrina. The first thing that struck me was the landscape; it's flat. Completely flat. As anyone familiar with Pittsburgh knows, I was accustomed to hills, and lots of them. When we arrived in Lake Charles, the first sight I saw was industry. Massive tracts of gray and smoke. My heart sank. Was this Lake Charles?