A tour of New Orleans

There is so much work still to be done. I took some pictures of our neighborhood from the car the other day. Now keep in mind, this is one of the "decent" neighborhoods. Look at all the work that needs to be done! Some houses are fixed, some aren't and some just need to be torn down and rebuilt. It's aweful! I really hope this city can get it together soon. I sent Clinton out with the camera today to take some pictures of the 9th ward. When he gets them, I'll post them too.

This is my house, cute huh?

And this is a house on the same street that desperately needs to be fixed. The rest are all houses in the same area. Just proof that some are done, some are not.

This is Palmer Park. It has a playground, a track and a baseball diamond. Up until a couple months ago, it was completely filled with FEMA trailers and it's going to take forever to get cleaned up enough to take our kids there again.

Vote for Barack!

Florida will have their primary tomorrow. Next week, is super Tuesday, which coincidentally falls on Fat Tuesday (or Mardi Gras day). We will likely be at parades all day and then will come home to hear who took the most votes. I will be crushed if Hillary gets it. As a woman, I am very disappointed with the campaign she has been running and will be very unhappy if her negativity wins her a nomination. Louisiana votes on February 9th but I will be unable to vote since it's a closed primary and I am registered independant. I switched my affiliation this year from republican but I just couldn't make a full jump to democrat. Baby steps right? So if you are reading from Louisiana and are registered democrat, vote Barack for me. Since I can't!

More Mardi Gras!

We went to two more parades today. We saw the Carrolton Parade and the King Arthur Parade. We found another great spot on St. Charles and set up shop. I was thinking as the parades went on that I should be blogging about the weird things we get on the parade route instead of the parade itself. Today we got two huge combs and a backscratcher. Weird huh? I also was handed several strands of home strung beads that are just gorgeous. Gabe loves the bands and tried to march away with several of them. He is just too funny. I wish I had pictures of when he gave a pink teddy bear to a little girl riding behind a dance team. Dominic is getting into the parade spirit also and many of the float riders were handing him toys and beads. As you can see, he didn't make it to the end. He took a nice little nap in the back seat of the stroller about halfway through the second parade. The boys had a really great time and Gabe is already begging to go do it again. Make sure you check out the huge pile of stuff we brought back and also the video of gabe dancing at the end. It's pretty funny!

Mardi Gras has started!

We went to our very first Mardi Gras parades today. There are four parades going on in New Orleans today but we only went to two of them. We saw the Ponchartrain and the Shangri-La. They were really neat! We got bucket loads of beads and toys. That made Gabe happy! We even got hit with a piece of rubber poop that was thrown by a gorilla on a motorcycle! We will be skipping the evening parades this weekend but will probably catch a few next weekend. The last picture is all our loot! If you look close, you can probably find the rubber poo!

We have a walker!

Dominic took his first steps today. He's been standing unassisted for some time now but refused to walk. So today he took 4 full steps before he crouched down to crawl. It was pretty exciting but of course he refuses to do it again. I'm pretty sure he runs and walks when we aren't looking and he's just messing with my head.

Gabe has been bad lately, real bad. I'm not really sure what to do. He's learned how to talk back and he has a real smart mouth. I never, ever let him get away with it but nothing seems to deter him. Today was aweful. It seemed like he was in trouble the whole day for not minding or talking back. Also, when he gets real mad he calls me "Shaunee" What two year old does that?

Mardi Gras!

Mardi Gras is coming and I am so excited! This is going to be the first one ever and we're taking the boys to as many daytime parades as possible. We're going to avoid anything after dark because it just gets too "adult" for our taste. How fun will this be!!! I'm telling you, this city knows how to party! People actually decorate their houses here for Mardi Gras just like everyone else does for Christmas.

Parade Schedule:

SATURDAY, JANUARY 6
Phunny Phorty Phellows - Streetcar Route, 7:00 pm


SATURDAY, JANUARY 19
Krewe du Vieux - French Quarter, 7:00 p.m.


SUNDAY, JANUARY 20
Orleans / Jefferson
Little Rascals - Metairie, 11:00 a.m St. Tammany
Perseus - Slidell, 1:00 p.m.


FRIDAY, JANUARY 25
Orleans / Jefferson
Oshun - Uptown, 6:00 p.m.
Atlas - Metairie, 6:30 p.m.
Cleopatra - West Bank, 6:30 p.m.
Excalibur - Metairie, 7:00 p.m.
Pygmalion - Uptown, 7:00 p.m. St. Tammany
Eve - Mandeville, 7:00 p.m.


SATURDAY, JANUARY 26
Orleans / Jefferson
Pontchartrain - Uptown, 1:00 p.m.
Shangri-La - Uptown, 2:00 p.m.
Caesar - Metairie, 6:00 p.m.
Sparta - Uptown, 6:00 p.m.
Pegasus - Uptown, 6:45 p.m. St. Tammany
Olympia - Covington, 6:00 p.m.


SUNDAY, JANUARY 27
Orleans / Jefferson
Alla - West Bank, Noon
Carrollton - Uptown, Noon
King Arthur - Uptown, 1:15 p.m.
Barkus - French Quarter, 2:00 p.m.
Rhea - Metairie, 3:45 p.m.
Centurions - Metairie, 5:30 p.m. St. Bernard
Nemesis - Chalmette 2:00 p.m. St. Tammany
Dionysus - Slidell, 1:00 p.m.


WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30
Druids - Uptown, 6:00 p.m.
Thor - Metairie, 7:00 p.m.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 31
Babylon - Uptown, 5:45 p.m.
Chaos - Uptown, 6:30 p.m.
Muses - Uptown, 7:30 p.m.


FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1
Orleans / Jefferson
Hermes - Uptown, 6:00 p.m.
Aquila - Metairie, 7:00 p.m.
d'Etat - Uptown, 6:30 p.m.
Jason - Metairie, 7:30 p.m.
Morpheus - Uptown, 7:45 p.m. St. Tammany
Selene - Slidell, 6:30 p.m.
Orpheus - Mandeville, 7:00 p.m.


SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2
NOMTOC - Westbank, 10:45 a.m.
Iris - Uptown, 11:00 a.m.
Tucks - Uptown, 12:30 p.m.
Endymion - Uptown, 4:30 p.m.
Isis - Metairie, 6:00 p.m.


SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3
Orleans / Jefferson
Okeanos - Uptown, 11:00 a.m.
Thoth - Uptown, 11:30 a.m.
Mid-City - Uptown, 2:00 p.m.
Bacchus - Uptown, 5:15 p.m.
Napoleon - Metairie, 5:30 p.m. St. Tammany
Tchefuncte - Madisonville, 10:00 a.m.


LUNDI GRAS, FEBRUARY 4
Proteus - Uptown, 5:15 p.m.
Orpheus - Uptown, 5:45 p.m.
Zeus - Metairie, 6:30 p.m.


MARDI GRAS, FEBRUARY 5
Orleans / Jefferson
Zulu - Uptown, 8:00 a.m.
Rex - Uptown, 10:00 a.m.
Elks Orleans - Uptown, 11:30 a.m.
Crescent City - Uptown, follows Elks
Argus - Metairie, 10:00 a.m.
Jefferson Trucks - Metairie, follows Argus
Elks Jefferson - Metairie, follows Jefferson
Grela - West Bank, 11:00 a.m.
Choctaw - West Bank, Noon St. Tammany
Lions - Covington, 10:00 a.m.
Covington - Covington, follows Lions

I love Sundays!

So Clinton worked 6 days this week again. Sunday is his only day off. I really like when he is home. We're getting ready to go to the zoo soon. Pics to come! I think we will be meeting his cousin CJ and his wife Tasha there. We have been spending a lot of time with them lately and it's nice. I enjoy having contact with other adults sometimes (even though when you get Clinton with his cousins, it's hard to think of it as adult sometimes) They came over last night along with CJ's brother Brandon and stayed pretty late so I am tired.

Not much new has gone on here, that's why I haven't put up any new blogs. I didn't want to bore anyone. Dominic is trying to figure out how to walk. He took one full step yesterday and then fell down. Now I can't get him to even try. I guess he figures crawling is much faster. He is quite the crawler too. I wish I could find a contest around here to put him in because we would surely win!

The diet is going well. Yesterday I decided I deserved a little cheat so I had brownies and then pasta for dinner. Well, my head hurt so bad when I woke up this morning that I doubt I will be doing that again. Weigh in is tomorrow and I really hope it looks good! Tasha is on the same weight watchers diet as I am so that is good. I really hope we can motivate each other.

I'm going to try and put a new picture up with each post. I haven't taken any new ones since the park last week so I'm sharing an old one but it is one of my favorites. Dominic really loves his daddy. Sometimes I get a little jealous but I guess he figures he has me all day. I did sleep in a little today and when I went out in the living room, both boys were so excited to see me. That feels so good!

For all of you that leave comments, thank you! I love getting them and even though I am totally slacking, I will get to your blogs and leave some for you too. If you want me to link your blog, please let me know and I will do it. I know I've been lazy about linking my friends. Please link me to yours too.

Well that sucked.

So yesterday I joined the biggest loser competition on my mom board. For this we have to take pictures of ourselves and a picture of the scale to prove just how huge we really are. I haven't weighed myself in a while. Let's just say I cried. Then I looked at the pictures that Clinton took and cried some more. Unbelievable. So I joined Weight Watchers online (even though he swears I'm not fat and don't need it, he is lying obviously) and I did very well with what I ate yesterday. Today I am also doing very well. I'm a bit upset that my coffee (with cream and sugar) equals 4 points. Considering I was drinking 4 cups of coffee a day, I can see why I gained weight. It doesn't take a genius right? Couple that with the way I have been cooking and my addiction to chocolate and WHAM! fat girl! Our big shopping trip is coming up and I'm already making plans for what I want to get. It won't be pretty. I told Clinton he needs to help me and he really should lose a few pounds too. We'll see if we can do it!

And Sunday was family day!

Today we were all home together, which was so nice since Clinton works so much. He let me sleep in (this is turning into a habit that I will soon need to break) and I slept til 11! Once I did get up and got going, got the boys fed, napped and ready to go, we took them to Audubon Park. I'd never been there before but it's across the street from the zoo and it is huge! Clinton's cousin CJ and his wife Tasha met us there. Gabe got to learn how to ride his new bike. It was too cute. Unfortunately, he was more interested in all the people walking their dogs and flirting with the little girls running around. If his interest in girls at 2 1/2 is any indication of the future, I am in big trouble!

Day 3 and going strong...

on the blog that is. The diet notsomuch. I keep telling myself I have to wait until after the next grocery trip so I can buy better things. I am inching my way toward being better though, so that's a start.

Today was just another day, nothing spectacular. I don't want to bore anybody so I'll just post a few pictures.

This is my family in black and white

We survived!!

Well, we survived our first New Year's Eve in New Orleans. It was definitely more than I bargained for. Clinton came home from work early and we stayed inside, in the back of the house. There were more fireworks and gunshots in one night than I think I've heard in my whole life. The newspaper printed that last year they estimated over 600,000 gunshots fired and one of them even came down through the top of an ambulance in the French Quarter! Also, Clinton said a couple bullets came down through the roof of his grandpa's garage. They easily could have hit and killed someone. What goes up must come down. Why don't these idiots realize this? Makes me miss small towns for real! So the front page of the paper yesterday declared no one got hit by gunfire on New Year's Eve. Thank God for miracles, I thought for sure it would be a catastrophe!

Today was pretty boring. Did housework, surfed the net, played with the boys. We're on our way to the grocery store now to pick up a few things. Nothing exciting really.

A big thanks to Tiburon for changing my background and making me a banner today. She also installed my playlist. I have no idea how to do that kind of stuff and really appreciate her taking the time to personalize my blog.

As you can see, the whole city is gearing up for Mardi Gras already. They started putting displays up the day after Christmas, right along side the Valentine's day stuff. We're going to go to as many of the kid friendly parades and things as possible. I look forward to sharing it with everyone.

I have a couple of pictures to update but I think I'll do that after I get home and get the boys to bed.

New Year, New Resolutions

So I only have two New Year's resolutions.

1. Lose weight

2. Start (and keep) a blog.

So far, I have procrastinated both of those as I am sitting here on January 2nd starting the blog and eating Reese's Peanut Butter cups.

I've always been kind of anti-blog but I was going through some old posts on a message board and got really nostalgic the other day. It is kind of neat to keep a file of what has happened on a daily basis so I (or others) can come back later and remember. I suppose all this nostalgia is just another sign of getting old.

I was offered a job yesterday, working at home. The pay will probably be terrible but I can work from home, when I want and however much I want so I am going to try it. If anything, maybe it will pay an electric bill each month or something. Or better yet, free up some $$ for savings. LOL! That'll be the day.

So Gabriel is 2 1/2 now. Where did the time go? Just the other day he started singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and he knew ALL the words. I remember when he couldn't even talk yet and now he is singing me songs! He has the sweetest little voice too.

Dominic is 9 1/2 months and advancing faster than Gabriel even. He is standing on his own now, walking along furniture, eating solid food and starting to babble. He has four teeth already, I can't believe it. Where did my baby go?

Things are going well for our family. We always want more but when we look back at what we've had, we're doing real well. To think that just this past July, we moved here with nothing but beds and now I am freecycling to free up space in the house! I mean, I haven't decorated anything but the bedroom yet. That is coming. But we are comfortable and have everything we need and I feel blessed for that.