Just got back from a northeast tour that reminded me sometimes you have to leave home to be reminded of where it is. Great time spent in Maine with the family, in Boston with friends and in Pennsylvania meeting a whole new group of family and friends.
Last year New Orleans was just an idea, a figment of a plan and now as we are about to ring in 2010 I am going to do so in this adopted city. Where people have been drinking since last night and at midnight tonight the city will gather around a giant gumbo pot and watch it drop. Yeah you read right. Here we don't watch a ball drop. We watch a gumbo pot drop. Oh Yes.
Last year I spent New Years watching MTV's countdown alone in my apartment in Beacon Hill. Playing Wordmole on my Blackberry and trying to answer the always challenging question - how did this become my life? I find myself faced with the same question this year. Except instead of asking it because everything is in pieces at my feet I pose it out of a place of simple awe and gratitude. I feel so lucky for this year, for all the good and the bad because they led me here. To a new town, a new profession, a new group of wonderful friends who compliment, not replace my old friends and my boy. Who saw me when I couldn't even see myself and who loved me in spite of myself.
I don't make resolutions and I got out of the prediction game along time ago. So right now I am just going to be thankful. For my life, my health, my family, my friends new and old, my cats, my job, for all the opportunities that lay ahead and for Huey.
Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
It's the Holidays...
Why do people put Christmas lights on Palm Trees? I feel like I am living in a Jimmy Buffet song.
A big upside to living in the south though...nobody is politically correct enough to say "Happy Holidays" so everyone just walks around saying Merry Christmas. There is something liberating about that kind of stubbornness. While the rest of the world worries that the holiday cards they buy might somehow offend someone, people in NOLA seem perfectly content to assume everyone celebrates Christmas.
It has finally gotten cold here. Some mornings it has even been in the low 40s. I know I know. Not really cold. But because of the humidity, the cold here permeates your bones. Its as if once you get cold you can not seem to warm up. The kids try to sneak sweatshirts and mittens on under their uniforms, the teachers don't take their coats off. The mobile classrooms have holes in floors that keep a constant flow of cold air that fights the already struggling heating system for control.
4 school days left till winter break. 4 school days and one day of professional development until winter break. Even though there is SO much to do before I come home, it feels good to be almost there. So Happy Holidays all! From my Palm Tree to yours..."may your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmas' be white...."
A big upside to living in the south though...nobody is politically correct enough to say "Happy Holidays" so everyone just walks around saying Merry Christmas. There is something liberating about that kind of stubbornness. While the rest of the world worries that the holiday cards they buy might somehow offend someone, people in NOLA seem perfectly content to assume everyone celebrates Christmas.
It has finally gotten cold here. Some mornings it has even been in the low 40s. I know I know. Not really cold. But because of the humidity, the cold here permeates your bones. Its as if once you get cold you can not seem to warm up. The kids try to sneak sweatshirts and mittens on under their uniforms, the teachers don't take their coats off. The mobile classrooms have holes in floors that keep a constant flow of cold air that fights the already struggling heating system for control.
4 school days left till winter break. 4 school days and one day of professional development until winter break. Even though there is SO much to do before I come home, it feels good to be almost there. So Happy Holidays all! From my Palm Tree to yours..."may your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmas' be white...."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)