Excuse me, what's your name?

I'm loosely defining a newcomer as someone who has lived in the Charlotte area two years or less.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk if you have been here three years or 30 years.

By that two-year standard, I’m an old-timer. In fact, some people joke if you’ve lived here five years - and come November I will have - you are a native. On the other hand, some natives feel like newbies because of all the changes Charlotte has gone through - i.e. condos and restaurants and cultural venues uptown and light rail, to name a few.

Still, I don’t feel completely settled in Charlotte. Sure, I’ve figured out the various Queens roads, but still rely heavily on Mapquest for getting around. And I have a hairstylist I love, but finding her took four years.
I can tell you what made me start to feel less new to town: when my husband and I bought our house, making Charlotte the first and only city we’ve owned a home. That was in our first year here.

Then, in our second year, we adopted our dog, Loretta Lynn - talk about a great way to get to know your neighbors. Last summer, the four of us - oh, yeah, we had a baby too - went on nightly walks around our ‘hood. We met a woman with a baby bulldog and a talked a lot with a young couple whose dog looks like Fozzie Bear. We checked in on our favorite two standard poodles. We waved to people we didn’t know and to others we knew only by the names of their pets or kids. And Charlotte began to feel even more like home.

Got a settling in story to share? Please do.