Our family is about to move to Fort Mill

[Leigh Fransen]

My name is Leigh, and my husband Eric and I are moving to Fort Mill with our two girls, ages 5.5 and 3, in November. I grew up in Charlotte (off Verndale off Sharon Amity) and attended Windsor Park Elementary and Eastway Junior High before we moved to Texas. My husband is thoroughly from small-town Minnesota, but we've spent the last 3 years in South Florida. Fort Mill is where we plan to settle down until the kids are grown at least.

We are unstructured homeschoolers. We try to eat organic, or at least all-natural, foods, as much as possible. Once we're settled in our new home, I want to start container gardening for our vegetables, and possibly keeping pet chickens for the eggs. I need to learn how to compost! (I'm thinking of trying a worm bin.) We try to use homeopathic remedies whenever possible instead of running to the pediatrician with every case of pink eye or earache. My girls love playing, arts/crafts, being read to, visiting the library, cooking, animals, and other kids. I'm currently on a plastics-reduction kick with toys and other household items, so I am thrilled that they love to play with their wooden blocks and kitchen set. We are really looking forward to exploring the area and meeting people.

My husband owns an internet marketing company. He designs websites, runs pay-per-click campains, does search engine optimization, and other things like that. He loves to play softball, hockey, and golf and also enjoys short-distance hiking, reading (business books or spy novels), and travel.

I'm a midwife. I'll be teaching childbirth education and probably going into private practice around January 2009. One of my goals in coming to this area is to try to provide more birth options for the women of Charlotte. I also enjoy reading, hiking (short distance), cooking, travel, and surfing the internet dredging up all kinds of random interesting things. I recently learned how to knit dishcloths and I enjoy that, but I don't know that I'm going to move into anything more complicated any time soon.

We are especially looking forward to meeting all of you alternative-types! Go ahead now and post your own rambling introduction, I'd love to read it.

[Pat]

Leigh, welcome. I think I recognize your name from MDC. (Oh my gosh, I just realized we have no smilie icons!!)

I want chickens or ducks! We have 6 cats, instead. We have a vermiculture with worms for composting. But, they eat much less kitchen waste than we produce. It'd be terrific to have a large area with worms for composting. We recently had both a regular garden composting class and a vermiculture class. If we have enough interest, we could probably set up some more. My calendar is overflowing at the moment, though.

I think the next MNO is Oct. 1st. Yep, here it is

Location: Melting Pot, 901 South Kings Dr., Charlotte, NC
Date: Wednesday October 1, 2008
Time: 7:30 pm - 10:30 pm

Also, our next Holistic meeting is about "Birth Awareness", we'd love to have you join us. We meet on the third Wednesday of each month. So, Oct. 15th, at 7:30pm at EarthFare-Ballantyne.

Hope to meet you soon.


Pat

[Leigh Fransen]

I am on MDC. You may recognize me as one of those people who struggles with the whole consensual living concept! Stuggles as in, respects it and tries to understand it... but isn't about to start giving others advice about it.

[Pat]

I struggle to keep my mother's voice from coming out of my mouth too! Consensual living is a whole different paradigm than I grew up with, that is for sure. So, mostly, our son helps and guides (read "insists") on us learning to consider his needs along with our own. He is my little zen master!

Pat

[Leigh Fransen]

OH about the MNO and the Birth Awareness... why do you have to have them RIGHT BEFORE I get to town? I would so love to have come to the Birth Awareness meeting. But I'm rolling into town the last week of October. Bummer!

If you're looking for a midwife to come, have you contacted Lisa Johnson and Damaris Pittman? They are the two I know.

[Pat]

You know, I hadn't thought about including a midwife, until you mentioned it. Rena Henson is a doula and she located the presenters for us. I'll check with her about the presentation duration. We may do a separate 'homebirth' gathering, if there is enough interest. Thanks for the suggestion.

We'll have another MNO in November.


Pat

[Anna]

Welcome Leigh :)

My girls are 8.5 and 10.5. We live in Matthews/Weddington area (south Charlotte). We have lived here for almost 7 years and love it!

At the moment we have 3 back yard chickens. We used to have more but all but one was killed in a predator attack. We love them very much and really miss the ones who died.

I've always been intrigued by worm bins but I figured I'd see how it goes with Pat - LOL! We are best friends and neighbors. We use homeopathy and eat natural, whole foods as much as we can. I'm experimenting with raw food at the moment.

We are unschoolers and my girls love animals, nature in general, reading, dancing, etc.

I'm not great at intros and new to "ning" but wanted to say hello and welcome.

~Anna

[Leigh Fransen]

I would love to come over and meet your family and your chickens!

My uncle is your mayor, btw. If you live in Matthews. :-)

[Anna]

Sure! The chickens are fun to watch. How funny that your uncle in the mayor!

My address is Matthews but I'm in Meck. Co., Pat, who lives in my neighborhood, is in Union!

Anna

[Terri Wilson]

I've been thinking about having some land with our next house to have some chickens and maybe a milk cow. My dh thinks I am crazy. GL with getting your private practice underway. Lord knows we need more birth choices here in Charlotte.

[Art]

We have moved from Fort Mill not by choice just helping and aging family member. I think yo will find it a good place to live. We lived on Kimbrell Rd and had planned to be our last home, seems God had other plans. I like the east to get to Charlotte and the small town feeling. So i pass my enjoyment of Fort Mill to you and your family. :~))

Art