Relocating to Edwardsville,IL...please help find AP friendly groups.

[indiefolklore]

We will be moving to Edwardsville from Chicago this spring and i haven't had very much luck in any AP/ Natural Family Living groups in the area.

No LLL, Holistic Moms Network, Meetup.com or Yahoo groups. Which is a total bummer! I do run my own Natural Family group here at the moment and plan to continue one when we move but i was hoping to attend some sort of meeting to know how the area is, make sure i'm not stepping on anyone toes and address how strong the need for these groups are.

Any information you have to share on the area i would GREATLY appreciate! We seem to be riding blind into this one the only positive we have heard so far is that this is 'where all the hippies go to live'...which is right up our alley!

I know St.Louis has some to check out but we'd like to keep it in the neighborhood to minimize auto travel.

Thanks Again!

Christina

[lmevans]

Hi!
You are not alone (I am not alone!! yay! lol)
We are at Scott AFB (about 45 mins from you). We moved here at the end of October. I've had a hard time "connecting". Where I lived before, I had a lot of friends, close friends, and friends that were like-minded. I miss them like crazy!
I've been trying to find people "like me" around here, and I've had a hard time.

There is an LLL in Collinsville, IL which will be about 20 mins from you; also one in Fairview Heights, IL which will be about 30 mins from you. I'm actually planning on checking out the Fairview Heights one tomorrow! (and its about a 20 minute drive for me)

I don't know about you...but we rarely go into St. Louis. Except for Cotton Babies, Trader Joes and Whole Foods, this area has all the shopping we need.

If you find out any other groups, I'd like to know also!

It would be great to meet you. What are your kid(s) ages? I have a daughter who is almost 6 and a son who is 3 1/2. Hopefully we'll have another one in the next year or so.

[chels_c2000]

Hi I'm in Edwardsville and though this is supposedly where the 'hipppies live' they do seem be hard to find at times. I don't think there is a group around here. I am much more hippy than my friends and not even as much as I would like do to our finacial situation. I would love to meet up with our when you get here. Also, if you would have any questions about Eville let me know, just pm me. If you are moving and haven't bought a house yet. I would definately recommend looking close to downtown. If you are buying you will save tons of money if you don't live in a subdivision plus you will be in walking distance to lots of great stuff. Library, great coffee shop, and in the spring, summer, and fall the farmer's market on Sat. (you don't want to miss this, lots of organic local produce). Hopefully, we can meet up sometime.

[Momma Moo Martin]

Hello, Hello! My husband and I live in Edwardsville with our 15 month old daughter and we want to join your group when you get down here! I agree with Chelsey that living close to downtown is the best bet if you can manage it. I can easily reach the post office, bank, library, courthouse, education/homeschooling store, vegetarian cafe, police station, awesome global import store, and Farmer's Market (May-October) on foot with my little one. Also, my husband walks to the bus station every morning/evening to catch a bus into downtown St. Louis where he works. It's very nice! We actually just bought our home in September and we loved, loved, loved the buyer's agent we worked with - they were so unbelievably great! I would definitely call and talk to Paul. In fact, they actually specialize in people who are relocating to the area. Here's the website in case you're interested: http://www.edwardsvillehomes.com

Good Luck and I hope to meet you soon!

[indiefolklore]

I am so happy to get your responses and know that there are at least 3 mamas down there! We would definitely be down for meeting up with anyone. We are in the process trying to find a home to rent.

Staying close to downtown was definitely the idea. Being able to walk to the grocery store, parks and library are huge for us. When we were down there 2 weeks ago that orange house for rent on Troy (main road?) caught my eye and my husband took a look at it today, it seems like a pretty nice central location so maybe our house search (hopefully) will be short. Thanks for the link too, i will give them a call as well!

I like the vibe that i get from the area and everyone was extremely friendly and helpful. We did spend a lot of time at Sacred Grounds and Green Earth while we were there and with those two places and the people that we spoke to there we knew we would like E-ville just fine. We also heard the farmers market was awesome and we might even have a tent there for my business (childrens books), so now i'm actually kind of getting excited about moving.

A little more about us...
We're a pretty heavy Natural Family Living, vegetarian, laid back kind of clan.
I'm 26 and was a bit of a gypsy until i got pregnant. Family life has definitely slowed me down to appreciate family life a little more. But if we can manage a quick trip. Camping or any reason to explore we totally take it. So moving is always like an adventure for us. My son, Van, will be 2 in May and he either likely to be an only child or will not be having another sibling for quite some time. His father, Dustin, is 26 as well...for all intensive purposes i do refer to him as my 'husband' but we aren't married, but in our eyes common law.

So yeah, i will totally be starting a group down there and look forward to meeting you ladies in the future. Thanks for the tips and i'll let you know if we are in the area again soon to look at houses and maybe we could grab some coffee!

-Christina

[Momma Moo Martin]

Hi Christina,

I just thought about the fact that there is a little house that is for rent down the street from me. I saw it and thought of you. I'm sending you the website in case the orange house isn't a sure thing.

http://www.glsrent.com/index_files/page0042.html

I hope your search is going well!

[indiefolklore]

Thanks for thinking of us! That was one of the first sites that i checked when i knew we were moving, we called and the relators were quite rude. Since i'm trying to keep this a positive move i said forget about dealing with them.

We have been in correspondence with Paul and Merrill from the other link you provided us with and they are so friendly! But we are having a heck of a time getting down there to look at houses because we are in between cars and my husband has been working 24/7....so i think we might just take the orange house ( i saw only pictures) and hope for the best! We'll do a year lease and maybe find a better place next spring. I just want this to be as smooth as possible...now we just have to wait for the company to give us our moving package. I don't mind relocating i just hate the in-between phase!

[Momma Moo Martin]

Hmm....rude relators? I will have to remember that. I'm so glad that Paul and Merrill have been helpful! They're awesome! Yes, the in-between phase of moving at all can be chaotic. We just moved across town last September and it was intense - I can't imagine relocating all together!


Good Luck again - I hope the orange house works out if that is where you're supposed to be for now!

[mslissa]

We used to live in Edwardsville and loved it! I think it's a great place! We were in walking distance to the farmer's market and that made for some fun Saturday mornings. The zoo was only about 30 minutes away so we spent many days there.

We tried to use Paul when we moved there in 2002 and found him to be less than responsive. I guess experiences vary.

We do have our house on the market. It's in a great neighborhood off of St. Louis St. Two/three bedrooms, 1 bath. Built in the 40s.

I occasionally attended the Collinsville LLC several years ago and enjoyed it.

Good luck with your move!

[indiefolklore]

So the guy with the orange house didn't call us back all week after a few messages left we even offered to pay an extra $50 a month....no response. Apparently he sold the house and couldn't even call us back to let us know.

Back to square one with houses for us, Dustin has been looking at places all day and nothing seems to be a fit. Paul seems to just be looking in the paper and emailing us listings and while we appreciate it, we could totally do that. We'll be in Fri-Sun next weekend to look at some more places if anyone would be interested in meeting up for a cup of coffee!

mslissa - thanks for the luck, i think now we are really going to need it. what seemed to be an easy move just got a lot harder. you must have a beautiful house from what i remember of st. louis street, that is what a very large portion of our neighborhood looks like here and why we love it. old houses with character.

[mslissa]

Paul didn't even do that much for us. We ended up finding our house on our own. I hope something comes up for you.

The homes on St. Louis street really are gorgeous. That street is spectacular in the fall.

[lmevans]

Originally Posted by indiefolklore

I do run my own Natural Family group here at the moment and plan to continue one when we move but i was hoping to attend some sort of meeting to know how the area is, make sure i'm not stepping on anyone toes and address how strong the need for these groups are.
Christina

Christina, I think I said before that I had a great group where we lived before...I've been thinking of starting one here since, as you said, there's nothing available for "us".

I was wondering if you could help me out with starting a group. But of course, I dont want to step on your toes either!

[Momma Moo Martin]

Ugh! I'm sorry about the orange house, Christina! I'll keep my eyes open for places around here. I wish Paul could be of more help to you. My in-laws might be coming down this weekend (from the Rockford area, actually) but I'll let you know if they cancel and we can meet up!

Sending house-finding vibes your way...

[indiefolklore]

Imevans - I would love to help you out! Right now my online time is a bit spotty but feel free to PM with any questions you might have and maybe soon on one of our house hunting trips down there we can meet up to dicuss organizing a group for you.

MMM- The pickin's seem pretty slim right now but we're still trying to stay hopeful. Have a few places lined up to look at for the weekend including a promising loft. My in-laws are from Rockford too, enjoy your family time! We can always meet up at a later time, i have a feeling we'll be taking a lot more trips down there.

[indiefolklore]

Looks like we'll be down there sooner than we thought. The house hunting didn't go so great and even though the market would open up after May...my partners company won't let him wait that long.

April 1st it is....into an apartment which i'm not crazy about but my positive spin is that it will make us want to be outdoors even more, so i need to know where all the cool parks are! We will be moving into an old warehouse on Union which is right by the MCT Watershed Trail.

Ready to enjoy the good weather to come and meet you and get a group started as well! After the move, next month hopefully we can pick a day to all get together.

[lmevans]

Good luck with the move mama! Looking forward to meeting you and getting to know you!

[Momma Moo Martin]

Originally Posted by lmevans

Good luck with the move mama! Looking forward to meeting you and getting to know you!

If you need any help moving in, my husband has offered his assistance. I'm of course willing to help too but my LO probably wouldn't allow it. :P Let us know. E Union runs behind our house so we're going to be right down the road. Yay for finding a place that promotes being outside!

[lmevans]

Just wanted to check in and see how things are going...you'll be moving later this week, right?

[indiefolklore]

Hey ladies!

Thanks for the luck, offer of help and checking in. We're finally here but had some craziness to deal with before we left. I finally got internet yesterday which is kind of good because our allergies are awful today so i have an excuse to be on and catch up.

Since i haven't fully learned to drive my car yet (manual). I've been throwing Van in the baby backpack and checking out the area. Mostly just the parks, coffee shops and libraries to this point, it's been so hot!

We have a wide open schedule so if anyone would like to meet up, we'd love to! We go to the parks over by the Watershed nearly every day and will be there on Sunday for the Family Day. We look forward to also checking out the Childrens Museum and YMCA soon. Any other suggestions?

[SallyN]

Post here when you venture to anything in the city (or are you on facebook?) and we can try to meet up (we're way out on the edge of south county, so Edwardsville is a bit too far of a drive, especially when I'm trying to avoid car naps.

We have membership to the Magic House, so would be up for there almost any time!