Anyone who has called me about there subscription or called the News Herald for one reason or another may have noticed I am not from the south.

The questions I always get are &uot;you are not from around here&uot;.

I proceed I am from Michigan. Question 2 is &uot;How did you get to Ahoskie, North Carolina?&uot;

Let me start from the beginning…

I was working at as a circulation manager in a small resort town in Manistee, Michigan.

Manistee is located on Lake Michigan.

I moved there in the springtime and experienced summer living in a little cottage on Portage Lake.

Every day after work, the golden retriever and I could be found with sand between our toes.

Life was great, until October.

The weather was colder on the lake but I could still put on a jacket and venture out.

Then it happened, the weather got colder and snow started to fly.

I have lived in Michigan all my life, so snow was the norm from November till May.

Lake effect snow though is something, though, I have never experienced.

Saturday would come and could not get out of my cottage.

I would bundle up and grab a shovel and dig a tunnel to my car.

The car would run for an hour after a short &uot;please don’t let my car get stuck&uot; I would take the long drive into town.

One day after stomping the foot of snow out of my boots, out of the blue a newspaper recruiter called me up.

I was to the point if she said she had a circulation job on the sun I would say great so when do I start.

She said she had the perfect job for me in Ahoskie, North Carolina.

I got out the atlas, it took a minute, but I found it.

A few weeks later, I loaded up everything I own in my Ford Focus en route for Ahoskie.

Everything I own consists of lots of clothes, shoes and a little black cat.

Traveling in the car for 20 hours with a cat is a column for another week.

My Dad mapped out the route from my sister’s house in Detroit to my apartment in Ahoskie.

He put post-it notes to mark every state I would go through and numbered them in order.

I only took one wrong turn in Washington, DC but somehow ended right back where I needed to be, stuck in traffic for hours.

It seemed like forever, but the cat and I got off 95, and headed toward Ahoskie.

It’s hard to believe, but in March I will have been here two years.

I have yet to acquire a taste for pork barbecue, but I do find myself saying &uot;ya’all&uot;.

I went from not knowing a soul to becoming active on the community and making friends.

The Roanoke Chowan area is a great place to live and I am so glad I found my way here.