Saturday, September 11, 2010


We had just moved to Temple, Texas, north of Austin.  Marc was just starting his five year radiology residency at Scott and White Hospital.  I was a young mother with two babies in a new apartment in Belton, [Chappell Oaks Apartments, I think].  

I had just quit my job as a pharmaceutical sales rep with TAP Pharmaceuticals in Tucson because we had moved and was transitioning into my stay-at-home-mom role.  I was lonely and hadn't established any friendships yet (but was starting a great one with Becky).  I didn't know any of our neighbors yet.  The bishop of our new ward (church congregation) and his wife had already been over to visit us and see how we were doing.  I still love that Bishop and Julie Atwood for that warm welcome that I desperately needed.   

I have a degree in International Relations from BYU.  Which means I took many classes on geopolitics, geography, international policy, and my favorite, Terrorism 301.  I was (and still am) fascinated by all the factions of global terrorists.   This also meant that I obsessed occasionally over whether or not my life would ever be impacted by extremists whose goal is to saturate and debilitate a society with terror.  Spending a semester in Madrid, Spain, opened my eyes to the power of the Basque Separatist terrorist organization, (called ETA) because my roommates were all Basque girls from Northern Spain. 

To be continued... 

1 comments:

Delia said...

Alright smarty pants. You are a really cool girl. Thanks for helping me remember. ;)