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Good-bye 2021
In 2021, I lost my father, making my siblings and me, orphans. Adults, yes, but orphans, nonetheless. After my mom died in 2019, I knew that sooner, rather than later, we would be also burying my father. In some ways, I was surprised, but in some ways, not. I was very fortunate that I was able to go home the week before he passed and see him. Something, I didn’t have the chance to do with my mom. For that, I am grateful. Losing my dad in February just made the year all that much harder, and it had just gotten started. It colored everything, and I don’t think I realized at the time how much that it has affected me. I felt untethered and adrift for much of the year. I’m just now feeling like I am maybe emerging from that, but it’s still difficult as many of you are all too aware.
I plodded through three semesters of grad school, hating nearly every second of it and just praying to get through the final semester beginning in January. Teaching has been much more difficult this school year than last, so much so that I will either find a way out of the classroom in 2022 or will leave teaching altogether. It’s just been rough. Bacchus, our Italian greyhound, passed away on Halloween at 12 years old, so that hit us pretty hard. I know that many many more people had it much worse than us, but I will be glad to put 2021 in the rear-view mirror.
While it seems like it has been all doom and gloom, it hasn’t. Sága, one of the puppies we raised and that became a guide dog, retired due to some issues with her handler, and we got to adopt her, bringing us to four yellow labs in the house. It’s never a dull moment. Joel and I took a quick vacation to St. Augustine and had a wonderful time! It was nice to get away and we plan on going back soon. All of us have had our vaccines plus a booster, and Amanda had her textbook published in October! In November, I had a life-changing surgery that maybe I’ll share in a future post. I’m determined to have a better 2022.
So, for 2022, my goals are to get back to regular blogging and I’m adding a podcast! More info on that later. I am also planning to do more things to feed my creativity. I’m going to participate in a 52 weeks photo project and I’ve picked up my knitting. I’ve also cleaned out my craft room and purged it. I’ve kept the things that I want to create with, so I’m excited for that. Knitting is back too! I’ve pulled out some yarn from Must Stash Yarn and started on a shawl. I’ll do a blog post on it in the next couple of days once I can get a good photo of the yarn. I may bring back the Hurricane Sock Party from 14 years ago so if anyone wants to participate, leave a comment, and watch my Instagram for more info.
I wish everyone, a safe, happy, and joyous New Year. Let’s make 2022 a good one!
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Merry Covid Christmas to Us. Blogmas 12/25/21
Well heck. We did everything right, all of us have had three doses of the vaccine, wear masks in public and at work, and we still got Covid. More than likely, I brought it home from school. I would have assumed that I had allergies had I not tested when Joel started feeing bad. Sure enough, both of us tested positive for Covid. I’m guessing it is Omicron based on symptoms. I’ve since tested negative as I am thinking I was at the tail end of the infection. We were supposed to be in Atlanta for the first time in four years and we are so upset and disappointed. We didn’t decorate this year and opted to open presents on the 22nd just before Joel and I took the Covid tests. Amanda is still negative thank goodness. I’m trying not to be annoyed by knitting, reading and watching YouTube. It’s not working. 🙁
The Christmas of our Discontent. -
Distracted—Blogmas Day 10
Be right back, Christmas came early. Setting up my new computer.
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Sunsets. Blogmas Day 6
We get some pretty spectacular sunsets from my backyard. I missed tonight’s, but caught the last bits of it. Florida in December, got it love it.
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Blogmas Day 3. A Foggy Start
Foggy morning on campus This morning I woke up to a rather foggy morning here in Florida. The closer I got to the river, the thicker the fog got. This above photo was taken on campus about 6:15 this morning. Yes, I was already at work. I needed to get a head start today. Anyway, our TSA kiddos came in this morning to check in and to test their bridge to see how much weight it would hold. They built it yesterday, had to let it cure and then tested it this morning. They are prepping for our state competition in February. Speaking of which, some of the weekend will be spent on registering for that event and working on a parent letter home.
Testing a bridge After school I had an amazing facial that just made my whole month. I’ve been going to Elizabeth for a couple of years and she is awesome and such a wonderful place. Tomorrow is an early morning photoshoot at the beach and then I have some things to do around here, including cleaning out my closet. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Hope your weekend is amazing!
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Random thoughts on a Sunday (NaBloPoMo Day 6)
1)Sometimes I have too much to do and then I freeze and procrastinate and then panic to get everything done. I think maybe it has something to do with working under a deadline for so many years.
2) I used to hold my tongue and not speak up when I thought people were being ridiculous. I’ve gotten over that.
3) Most of the time, I like my dogs better than people.
4) I’d love to experience a real Fall and a real winter so I don’t feel like me knitting stuff is an exercise in futility.
5) I would love to take a month off, go to the mountains with books, knitting, my camera and my writing. (alone, well, maybe I’ll take Bacchus…Amanda wouldn’t let me take Idunn)
6) Maybe for #5, I’ll go to Scotland instead.
7) Bacchus would need a sweater. I’d have to knit him one or five.
8) And booties.
9) I miss my family in Louisiana. All the time.
10) I watch too much Bravo Tv.
11) I wish I was still writing as much as I used to.
12) I’m really not liking my job this year. I loved it last year, and this year I feel so out of my element that I hate going to work some days.
13) The only thing getting me through this year is working with my TSA kids.
14) I’ll be 45 on my next birthday, and for some reason, that is starting to bother me.
15) I drink too much tea. (well, how much is too much, really?)
16) I’m in desperate need of a manicure.
17) Mariah Carey is annoying.
18) I really need to more organized. I think it would help my feeling of always barely treading water.
19) I need to learn to say NO
20) My favorite meal is my mom’s roast, rice and gravy, blackeye peas and cornbread.
This was all train of thought, and that is a tad scary. lol Feel free to share 20 random things in your post.
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I left my heart in Louisiana
Thirteen years ago, my husbnad took a job in Florida and uprooted me from everything that I had known for the first thirty years of my life. For those thirty years, I had grown up in, lived, worked, got married and had my daughter in Louisiana. I didn’t know anything different. I worked with family and I could guarentee that if I went anywhere ‘in town’, then I would run into someone that knew me or knew my parents. I fully expected to live there the rest of my life.
As things go when you make those plans, plans unexpectedly changed. We moved. To Florida. Fifteen hours away from everything I had ever known. Let’s just say that I didn’t take it too well. It wasn’t like we had a choice. My husband needed a job and there was none to be found there. I had always thought that we would move, but maybe to another city within the state. I didn’t expect FLORIDA. The only parts of Florida that I was really familiar with was part of the Panhandle as this is where we would go for vacation. I had been to Disney World once, but seriously, that is just a bubble within Florida, so that didn’t really count.
After the move, Joel started work, Amanda started school and I, well I, got depressed. I missed everything. I missed my family, I missed the food, I missed FRIENDLY people. What people don’t tell you is that when you move to this area of Florida, you might technically be in a southen state, but you live surrounded by people from New Jersey. The Monday after our move, Joel handed me the keys, a map, said, “Everything is in a grid pattern, you can’t really get lost. If you get to the Gulf, turn around.” Uh, ok, thanks, that is real helpful.
Eventually,we settled in, I got my Real Estate license so that I would actually get out of the house, started knitting, met some Linda and Kathleen though a knitting internet group, and started making friends within Keller Williams where I worked. While I began to like living here, I still missed Louisiana, and I still do. I watched in horror when Katrina hit New Orleans, stared in disbelief when Rita took out southwest Louisiana a few weeks later, and more recently, teared up when a gunman changed Lafayette forever.
I often think about what it is about Louisiana that makes me long to go home. Everyone says that once you visit New Orleans, you never forget it and that she calls to you. Well, that may be true, but for me, it is the rest of the state. There’s just something about it.
It’s the friendly people, the work ethic, the willingness to help out a neighbor, or a stranger and expect nothing in return.
It’s the food. You haven’t had lived until you’ve sat outside in the late spring at a table covered in newspaper and a pile of crawfish, corn and potatoes in front of you.
It’s gumbo and LSU football on Saturday and Saints football on Sunday.
It’s the swamps of the Atchafalya, the Christmas Festival at Natchitoches, the hunting in the Kisatchie Forest, the fishing at Toledo Bend, duck hunting in Monroe and Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
It’s zydeco music in Lafayette, gospel music in central Louisiana, and jazz in New Orleans.
It’s family.
It’s home.
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Champagne’s Swamp Tours, Road Trip Day 4.
We decided that our swamp tour would be the last thing on our scheduled trip through South Louisiana and after looking a brochures and looking at Yelp and TripAdvisor, we settled on Champagne’s Swamp Tours in Breaux Bridge. Breaux Bridge is a quick twenty-minute drive from Lafayette. My mom wasn’t into the airboat type tours, so this one, using flat bottom boats was perfect. Champagne’s has been name a TripAdvisor 2015 Award of Excellence winner. After taking the tour, I can see why. The people there are super friendly and the guides are wonderful. This is the only swamp tour in Breaux Bridge that has its own bathroom facilities and the ability to purchase water and cold drinks. The $20.00 per person ticket price was well worth it. I was so impressed that I wrote a TripAdvisor and Yelp review, and I never do that. We arrived for our 10am tour and was glad to see that it was overcast as summer in Louisiana can be a HOT! Our tour was on Lake St. Martin and it was so peaceful and beautiful. Our guide, Andy, was a great storyteller and was very knowledgable about the area and the lake. I highly recommend this and will go back.
Our transportation for the tour.
Kayakers headed out for the day. Kayaks can also be rented. I love to kayak and would do this in the fall.
Cypress trees under a cloudy sky
Andy telling us about the lotus flowers.
The seeds in the pod are edible.
After our tour, we drove up to Arnaudville and had lunch at The Little Big Cup and then headed on towards Grand Coteau on our way to I-49. This little town is home to a convent and a boarding school. The town has done a great job making it an antique lovers destination with cute shops and cafes. We only explored a tiny bit of the town, but it is one place that I’d like to go back and spend more than the hour that we did this trip.
After our quick stop in Grand Coteau, we headed back to Dry Prong. We were tired, and too full from all the good food that we had eaten, but we had such a wonderful time and I’m so glad that we did this. I can’t wait for us to do it again. Sunday was my dad’s birthday and Father’s Day, so that was so nice to be able to be there to celebrate. I had Monday to myself, so I cooked dinner for them, packed and flew back to Florida on Tuesday. It was the longest time that I had spent at home in years. I plan on going back for a few days in the fall and then for at least a week next summer.
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Louisiana Road Trip Day 3.
We headed out of New Orleans on Friday, but before we left, I snapped this guy jamming out and DJing his own concert. He was having a great time!
Headed out of the city, you can see the Super Dome peeping out from behind the building.
After we left New Orleans, we headed toward Lafayette via Hwy 90. Going via Hwy 90 did two things. 1) We stayed south of I-10 and didn’t thereby avoiding Baton Rouge traffic and 2) it’s a prettier drive.
Yep, a real, honest to goodness, paper map. Hwy 90 is in red.
Approach to the Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge as we were leaving I-10 and headed toward Hwy 90.
We headed toward Houma where we stopped at the cutest little Tourist Center. The ladies there were so nice and helpful. If Houma sounds familiar it’s probably because you’ve seen at least one episode of Swamp People. We didn’t see Troy, but you can just see how proud this area is of their ‘boys.’ I would love to do a ride along and photograph one of those gator hunting trips. (Yes, I’m crazy.)
A few photos from our stop at the Tourist Center. In our family we read pretty much every historical marker that we come across. This one was at the Tourist Center.
Our first destination was to Avery Island , home of TABASCO. This island, while home to the bottling plant, is also home Jungle Gardens. The gardens were beautiful and very peaceful. Lots of places to have a picnic or just to sit out on a quilt and read. We were there in the summer, so past peak bloomng season, but in the spring, this place is a riot of color with tons of flowering plants and trees. There is a $1.00 toll to get on the island, and to tour the gardens, there is a small admission fee.
Visitor’s Center and gift shop
This is a driving tour. Of course, the adventerous are welcome to walk it, but summer in Louisiana, I’m staying in the comfort of the air conditioned car. After our tour of the gardens, it was time to head over to the TABASCO bottling plant. The plant runs four days a week, and wouldn’t you know it, the day we were there, they weren’t running. You can still go in, get a tour and see the machines and visit the country store. They give you miniature bottle of TABASCO as part of your tour and anything TABASCO that you would want can be found at the country store. I bought some wood chips that were made from the barrels that they age the TABASCO in for my brothers when they use the smoker.
We left Avery Island and headed toward our hotel in Lafayette. Our plan was to finish up our road trip with a swamp tour on Saturday, then head back to Dry Prong that afternoon.
Sugar cane fields.
Before we go into Lafayette, we made a stop in St. Martinville, home of the Evangeline Oak and Acadian Memorial. In this location you can find the story of the Acadiens (Cajuns) and their journey from exile in Canada to the swamp of Louisiana. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is know for his poem Evangeline, a bittersweet love story about two lovers who were seperated when Canada exiled the Acadiens. The memorial to this poem is also found here. You must stop in the museum and plan to spend a good amount of time as the volunteers are very friendly and will tell you the amazing history of the Cajun people.
After our tour through St. Martinville, we drove the short thirty minutes to our hotel in Lafayette where we grabbed some dinner at Cheddars and shopped some at World Market. I love World Market, but as the nearest one to me in Florida is over two hours away, I take advantage of when I can shop! The drive from New Orleans to Lafayette is approximently two hours, which is nice, because if you aren’t in a hurry, you can do what we did and stop and sightsee along the way. Next trip, I think I would like to go down and the Houma area and spend a little more time, maybe do a swamp tour in that area. In my next post, we’ll wrap up the road trip with a swamp tour on Lake St. Martin and a stop in Grand Coteau.
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NOLA, Day 2 Part 3
One of the things that New Orleans is known for is music. Music can be found at any time of the day around the city. If you want to listen to great music, just walk around the French Quarter and will not be disappointed. As we were walking through Jackson Square, we came across this wonderful band playing their hearts out in the ridiculous June heat. They were so good and had gathered quite the crowd. They didn’t have a sign to indicate their name, but I wish they would have. Everyone in the crowd had a smile on their faces and a group of children were having the best time listening and dancing along. On my next trip, I am planning on going to some of the music clubs along Frenchmen St.
Play for that money! (they had gathered quite a bit already)
This little boy was really moved by the music, he danced and tumbled to to the music.
Hot and humid in New Orleans, but still they played on.
They didn’t mind me taking photos.
This wraps up the New Orleans posts. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the rest of our trip through South Louisiana.