Chad and I got married in June 2007. Over the next few months, we started saving money for a down payment for a house, and we started to look at real estate. We were living in Emeryville, across the bay from San Francisco, and we quickly realized that most real estate was out of range for us. At the time, we were looking at paying $500,000 for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, or we could pay the same amount for a fixer-upper in a run-down neighborhood in Oakland.

We quickly decided that it was time to move out of the Bay Area, and we tentatively decided on Atlanta. Chad had lived in Atlanta for 9 years before moving to San Francisco in 2004, but I had never been there. 

In July 2008, a year after our wedding, my Abbott family reunion was held in North Georgia and Tennessee. Chad and I took advantage of that reunion to fly to Georgia early and spend a week in Atlanta so I could get to see the city. Honestly, I had moved around enough since the age of 17 that I knew I could settle in and feel at home anywhere, but it was nice to get a preview of Atlanta before making the commitment to move. And so the decision was made.

One day that fall, Chad and I were walking to the BART train to go to work, and he said, “I’ve been thinking. Since we’re going to quit our jobs, pack up our things and move across the country, what if we take part of our down payment money and travel in Europe for a while? Is that a crazy idea?” I paused for about a nanosecond and said, “That’s an excellent idea!”

We left the Bay area in mid-March 2009, and we spent the next seven months traveling throughout Portugal, Spain, France and Italy. During that sabbatical, I kept a travel blog where I chronicled our journey, and my love of blogging was born. It was a great way to bring family and friends along on our adventures, and it became a journal and photo album that I have re-read over the years.

Since then, I have continued the travel blog for other international trips to France and Italy and, most recently, Antarctica and Buenos Aires. We’ve taken trips to other places during the last several years, but I’ve learned that it’s difficult to keep up with a blog if a trip is only one, two or three weeks, because there’s not a lot of “down” time. Some of those other trips that we’ve taken together but not posted on the blog include Jamaica, Panama (twice), Italy in 2018, and Madrid. I’ve also traveled for work without Chad to Bangalore India, Johannesburg South Africa, Sardinia Italy, and Grand Cayman, and he’s traveled to Bogota Colombia a few times without me. In hindsight, I wish I had documented all of those trips on the blog, but those experiences are on Facebook instead. Maybe some day I’ll pull together the info for those adventures and put it all on the blog.

After our sabbatical in Europe, we arrived in Atlanta in October 2009, so we’ve now been here 16 years. I’ve realized that I haven’t chronicled any domestic experiences on the blog, so 2026 will be focused on My Atlanta. I’m going to treat it as if we are visitors in our own city and make blog posts with fresh eyes. 

Some day, we will retire and move to Italy, and I want to create a journal and photo album so I can look back on our life here. I’ve also realized that, when I write a blog post, I slow down and really think about what I’m seeing and experiencing, and I take the time to process the experience in a different way. I want to do this for Atlanta.

I want to chronicle my experiences throughout the year, from the simple things like my commute to work which passes through historic neighborhoods to special events like local festivals and the World Cup. I want to document the places that are meaningful to me such as our beautiful Inman Park neighborhood, the Atlanta Beltline, and the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I’m sure we’ll have many amazing meals, and there will be photos of food, of course. 

Ultimately, I am blessed in life and am extremely happy in Atlanta. It’s been a great home for 16 years, and I want to get it all on paper, so to speak. I’m very much looking forward to this project throughout the year. Stay tuned for more blog posts, and I hope you enjoy the ride.