I grew up in a military household, so moving from place to place isn’t a new concept to me.

Still, the thought of packing up a family of four and schlepping our way to a brand new city seemed daunting.

My husband, Charlie, and I had moved our clan to the Philadelphia suburbs a little more than a year ago for a job opportunity, but we hadn’t managed to make it our home. We never established a true connection to the area, despite its many attractions and the great friendships we made there.

I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t insanely happy living and working near the big city, but my new friend and co-worker, Cynthia Britt, explained it to me today.

“You’re a country girl,” she told me after we discussed my love of fried chicken with hot sauce and a side of black-eyed peas.

Hmmm, maybe.

After graduating in 1996 from Wesleyan College, a women’s college in Macon, Ga., I started my journalism career reporting on small town Perry at the now-defunct Daily Sun in Warner Robins, Ga. I later found my niche on the cops and courts beat and learned quickly that there’s never a lack of news in a small town. From the Daily Sun, I moved to The Union-Recorder in Milledgeville, Ga. where I also kept busy covering cops and courts and designing the newspaper’s pages.

I would gladly have stayed the rest of my life in Milledgeville had I not been bitten by a pesky little love bug. I met Charlie at The Union-Recorder while he was visiting from Michigan. A year later, I was living near Detroit and working as a copy editor and page designer at The Oakland Press in Pontiac, Mich.

Charlie and I got married and had both of our boys in Michigan. We made lifelong friendships there and will forever be fans of the Midwest.

I’m happy to say, however, that we are starting to feel right at home in Franklin.

I think Ms. Britt may have a point. I have always been a country girl at heart.