The contract for Austin, Texas being pulled really deflated us. The walls were closing in on the tiny Motel 6 room. Although we were grateful for Beth and Kathy Piazzi and their wonderful Sunday dinners and having Dianne’s sister, Vickie Norman, doing our laundry for us, we needed to go. We had all we could take of Motel 6.

We had our final Sunday family gathering at Dianne’s other sister’s house. Steve and Sonja Kiester put on a spread! (They had a little help from the rest of the family bringing some sides and Vickie bringing her world-famous Red Velvet Cake!!!) We enjoyed the family for one final evening before making the move.

Dianne had began investigating different positions and Nashville had some openings. So with the prospect of Nashville being our new first stop and with Dianne’s brother Greg Johnson living in Chattanooga, we decided to make the move to the Extended Stay America in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The rooms are more spacious and have little kitchens in them. This would allow us to save some money by eating in more. Plus They are pet friendly, this is good considering we have the fur babies.

Now, before we go any further, it is important to note that SEVERAL PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit) positions were made unavailable to Dianne because she did not have PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support). With her last job of 10 years being at Georgia Regents Medical Center, which has a separate Children’s Medical Center, she did not have to deal with kids and PALS was not required for her to have. Unfortunately, most hospitals do not have a separate facility for children and the PACU (recovery room for all you non-medical folk) handles all patients. Having PALS would be a huge help to Dianne at this point.

We arrived in Chattanooga on Friday, September 26 in the early evening. The room was bigger and allowed us to move around without having to run into each other. Now we needed to work on Dianne finding a position, somewhere. With only one more check coming from GRU we needed to secure a source of income. Where was the new contract going to come from, we had no idea……