Returning from the ether to blog again feels like stretching before a run after I've gone weeks without running. Like making a lunch date with a friend I haven't seen in years. Or like dusting off an old recipe I haven't made in a while. Anticipation. Familiarity. A little self-doubt thrown into the mix. And once I get going, a wholehearted desire never to let myself go this long without doing it again.

I told myself that I was taking a break from blogging because I was more interested in concentrating on my life than in writing about it. I realized upon closer examination that that wasn't really true, though. I still spent just as much time on the internet; I just transferred my internet energies to Facebook. Bits and snippets instead of quality writing. Keeping up with 500 of my closest friends and family members and commenting on a small fraction of things that were happening in their lives, instead of reading the blogs of people who inspire me. Publishing hilarious/poignant/ephemeral choppy phrases here and there instead of making a concerted effort to communicate in a structured way.

There are things I really enjoy about Facebook. Where else can you get nearly-instantaneous polling data on which color of vinyl siding you should put on your house? Or recount quickly a ridiculously funny thing your preschooler said, or share photos from a birthday party for family who weren't there, and for most of the friends who were there? It has brought me much closer to people I never would have imagined having much of a relationship with. But then again, so did blogging. I just forgot that. And blogging works differently. It takes more time and effort than Facebook.

What I don't enjoy about Facebook is the feeling that there's always more to see, always more posts to read or friends to catch up with or photos to comment on. I stopped reading my news feed a long time ago because I never had time to scroll through it all, but I try to keep up with family and close friends as I have the chance. Yet I'm still always missing news, photos, and funny stories from the people I've forgotten to check in on. And I still feel a little jealous when I read posts where other people have commented in really sympathetic, knowing ways to something I didn't even know was happening. I think a lot of those people spend way more time on Facebook than I do... which leads me to wonder a bit self-righteously what they might be missing out on in their own lives. Or maybe they just don't have as many "friends" as I do. Quotation marks intended. So can we all agree that Facebook is great in some ways, and maybe not-so-great in others?

The main reason I wanted to come back, to dust off the old space I used to occupy here, is to give myself something structured to get me through a very major life change. We're moving from Louisiana, where we've lived for the past 8.5 years, to Virginia, where I've dreamed of living ever since I met Jack. So much about Virginia is exciting and beautiful, and I feel deep-down that Virginia will fit who we are while helping us become the people we want to be. Yet the thought of leaving this home we've made for ourselves, these friends, this school, this church, this bizarre state and way of living, and this tiny, imperfect house, is sometimes more than I can stand. I've needed to let myself get lost in writing about it, and the 420 characters to which I'm limited in a status update just isn't the right venue.

My advice for today is this: put yourself in situations where you can look around the room and realize that you love every single person in that room. This has been happening to me more and more since we found out we were moving. Honestly, I've never felt more popular in my life. I have all of these "last dinners" and "farewell get-togethers" to get through — time-consuming, emotionally difficult, but wonderful — and having numerous chances to appreciate all of these dear friends is a blessing in the midst of the crazy.

My dear old blog will be getting me through the next two and a half weeks as we prepare to leave Louisiana. I will need it even more when we're in Richmond and I'm getting acclimated, making new friends but missing the old ones, and making a new routine but missing the old one. Check back, and shoot me some words if you feel like leaving your mark.

Labels: blogging, Louisiana, observations, Virginia

• posted by erica 2/11/2012 09:50:00 PM
•  2 comments

Okay, now you finally get to see why we love the Sprayground at Jambalaya Park (in Gonzales) so much. Video and pictures from my real camera, instead of my phone. Proof of its awesomeness. Kent currently calls it the "sray-plah." I don't know where all those consonants come from, honestly, but it's very cute, just like all of his speech these days.

I think we've been four times in the last couple of weeks, sure to be repeated throughout the summer. I just need to get stronger sunscreen, because the sun is very unforgiving of my SPF 15 down here.



In case you can't tell, Kent is yelling, "K run away, run away, run away!" while he scurries to and fro. He does a lot of this ridiculous behavior at home, too.


Kent clutches his trusty Nemo bucket


This is the big thingy in the middle of the sprayground that dumps water as the cones fill up, one by one. You can tell the hard core kids, because they're the ones standing under it, just waiting to get soaked.


Here's our friend Gregory, holding someone else's water gun.


Kent hands Gregory's Pooh bucket back to Gregory's mom. What a good helper.


And here's some splashing fun — this is Kent's favorite feature, the yellow ball that sprays water. Kids are often climbing all over it, but it's just the right height for Kent to enjoy from the ground.

Below, you can observe Kent's many moods, all in the course of a minute or two. Sorry, I couldn't pick just one. I love the way he and Gregory interact and watch each other.






This is one of those days when I think, why in the world would I *not* want to be with him all day? Sun, water, and my little boy. It doesn't get much better.

Labels: Kent, Louisiana, photography, SAHM, video

• posted by erica 5/13/2009 03:33:00 PM
•  3 comments

Mardi Gras 2009

Mardi Gras photos so far. Parades, loot, and a funny boy.

(translating toddler-ese: "FLOHHHHHHH!" is what adults would call "floats")

Labels: holidays, Kent, Louisiana, photography

• posted by erica 2/22/2009 10:09:00 AM
•  0 comments

I have the hiccups. I hate hiccups. They usually hurt, and I hate feeling like I'm not in control of some part of my body. This is why I also hate being tickled.

Anyway, I've been thinking in odd moments today about how I've sorely neglected my blog since I joined Facebook. So ha, those of you who kept bugging me about joining... you get to read random status updates and have me send you a hundred thousand Lil Green Patch plants, but you don't get blog updates nearly as often. And to those of you who aren't on Facebook: (1) Good for you. Resist! and (2) I'm really sorry I've been so absent here.

So here's a quick catch-up on the last few days. Jack's birthday was great. If you read Jack's post, you already know that Kent painted Jack's wrapping paper for all of his presents. I did a photo shoot on Wednesday with Kent dressed in some of Jack's work clothes, so Jack got an email with a link to this album on the morning of his birthday to cheer him up at work. Kent and I were very creative and conspiratorial. It was great.

The Queen of Sheba cake was a big hit (and I highly recommend this recipe, which I ended up baking in two small oval-shaped casseroles because she scared me away from using my apparently-inferior 9" cake pan). The frosting was much better than most, because it uses semi-sweet chocolate and butter instead of a bunch of powdered sugar, and I loved the chopped almonds inside the cake. It's a rich cake, not too sweet but with a pronounced chocolatey-ness (yum), so it was nice to have something to break up all of that. The cardamom-honey strawberries on top just made it even better.

Moving on... Kent was awake for over 3 hours in the night on Friday night, so Valentine's Day had a decidedly different feel to it than usual. We were all dead tired. I had bought Jack some fancy chocolate bars for him to open that morning, but he wanted to take me to Whole Foods to pick mine out because he's afraid of my choosiness. We hit the farmer's market first thing in the morning, where Jack bought me some red and pink dianthus plants to put in pots (much more sustainable than cut flowers) and we got a few veggies, including green tomatoes that I'll soon be frying to serve alongside red beans. Whole Foods was our next stop, and the good people at Dagoba tempted me with their Roseberry and Lavender & Blueberry flavors, so I got two delicious chocolate bars to enjoy. After lunch, Jack, Kent, and I all ate bites of all four of the chocolate bars, and since these chocolates are so rich and full-flavored, there's almost no way to overindulge, because a few small pieces are enough. I've virtually eliminated Hershey's, Dove, Cadbury, etc., from our house, replacing them with a few bars of the real, dark stuff.

On Saturday evening, we went over to a church friend's house for a Mardi Gras get together with jambalaya and vegetarian chili, then headed downtown for the Krewe of Orion parade just after dark. It was raining slightly, so we got a little bit wet, but it was a fun, short parade with impressive floats, and we caught some HUGE beads (I think they're getting bigger each year) and an all-important plastic cup commemorating the parade. Some of the more enterprising kids stand really close to the floats and end up catching stuffed animals, balls, glow sticks, and the like, but we didn't get that close with Kent, and those things wouldn't have meant that much to him this year, anyway. He was most excited about the floats and the beads he got to wear, and he also started dancing and bobbing each time a band marched by. I think about half the bands were playing the Hey Song, which I remember well from high school band and had a lot of fun listening to again. And again and again.

Kent's two new words yesterday were "float" and "beads", and he kept requesting more of each after we left. That's his big thing, saying the name of something over and over, then saying "moh" and signing it until we calmly or impatiently tell him that there aren't any more right now. He's actually just started putting two words together, usually in the form of "more [insert current fascination here]", like "more raisins" or "more floats". We did tell him that there will be more parades this coming weekend, not that the concept of "this weekend" means anything to him right now. It's still such fun to share Mardi Gras with him and let him experience all the non-drunken revelry and excitement.

Sunday was a good day, too. We caught up on sleep on Saturday night, and then after church, we had the return of the Soup & Pie Luncheon. Five amazing soups (including duck & deer sausage gumbo, lentil soup, and black bean soup with avocado/tomato salsa on top) and homemade bread would have been enough of a draw, but then there was the annual pie contest to really get things going. I'm the chair of the Fellowship Committee this year, so it fell to me to help plan the event and award the prize necklaces (pie tins on a strand of Mardi Gras beads, which I constructed) after our judges chose the winners. We had discussed in our meetings ways of making sure that everyone got to sample the pies, since in previous years, the 13-and-under crowd tends to descend on the pies before others get a chance, so we ended up slicing them into tiny slivers, providing only knives and forks for people to serve themselves instead of wide pie servers (just TRY and get a big piece that way, HA!), and putting out little plates. This worked pretty well, but it didn't deter me when I went through the line from trying to get small pieces of as many types of pie as I could. I managed to fit 7 different kinds of pie on this one tiny plate, enough for Jack, Kent, and me each to have a few bites of each variety on the plate. Kent is a pecan pie guy, so he turned down the key lime, blueberry, etc., and we ended up bringing home a few slices of leftover pecan pie to ration out to him over the course of the next couple of weeks.

Also, I'm having some moms and kids over for a painting playdate on Thursday, and we're going to see how the kids do at painting their own Mardi Gras masks. I just love the combo of toddlers and paint. It's such a surprise to see what they come up with. Wish me luck, and wish us good weather so that we can paint outside instead of trying to corral a bunch of small people with fast legs in our not-very-big kitchen.

I've already spent an hour writing this post, so I think I'm going to hit "publish" and call it a night. Mardi Gras pictures will be forthcoming, perhaps after all the madness has concluded and we're in the somber period of atonement afterward — I'll definitely make a Picasa album to share all our parade pictures so that you can see everything through Kent's eyes.

Labels: church, greening, holidays, husband things, Kent, kitchen adventures, Louisiana

• posted by erica 2/15/2009 10:09:00 PM
•  1 comments

My first first: my first knitted sweater. I've started one before, but I set it down and never picked it back up because it was taking forever, and I'm kind of impatient when it comes to wanting results. This sweater, however, is done on large needles with chunky yarn, and it's not a full sweater, so I was able to finish it in a weekend instead of taking an entire decade or more. I used this pattern by Stefanie Japel, after I saw her episode of Knitty Gritty last week and realized that her sweater was totally approachable. As I was knitting, I made several modifications: I tried it on and didn't like the length at first (I think I had been looking at the wrong size in the pattern), so I kept going for about 16 more rows. I also put in two buttons instead of one to help it stay on better, decided to go with cropped sleeves instead of long, and, when I realized that all of that fuzzy brown yarn had the potential to look like a grizzly bear, I added some fuchsia details on the front trim and the sleeves to make it more girly and colorful.

If you look at the pattern, you'll notice that it's very different than what I ended up with. Besides the changes I mentioned, she has the button at the very bottom of the sweater, but as I was trying it on before I finished it, I realized that I could put buttons a bit higher, and force the sweater into the sort of pointed shape at the bottom that you see in my photos. If you follow the rows of stitches with your eye, you can see that the sweater "wants" to be connected at the bottom, where it's actually the widest, instead of a few inches up; I thought it was pretty cool that putting the buttons in a different place forced it into a different shape entirely. Knitwear has such cool properties that non-stretchy fabric just doesn't have.

I really didn't set out to modify the pattern, but it was so straightforward that I found it very easy to figure out what I wanted to do differently as I was going. Also, I completely understand now why knitters get so gung-ho about top-down sweaters; knitting it in one piece beats the heck out of knitting a front, a back, and separate sleeves, and then trying to stitch the whole thing together without making it look terrible.

I've worn this both of the last two days over t-shirts and have felt very cute, and it also looks great over a long-sleeved tee — that was my original intent for it, but it hasn't been quite cold enough this week. I'll have to keep this sweater in mind whenever I'm wearing maternity shirts again (no, not right now), because the length would be just perfect with a big ol' baby bump sticking out underneath. I think I'll try to make another one sometime, playing around with thinner yarn in a lighter color and seeing what other shapes I can come up with.

My second first: it's weird to admit this, but I've lived in Louisiana for almost six years now, and tonight was the first time I made red beans and rice. I haven't eaten much red beans and rice since we moved here, thinking it was just sort of a non-exciting dish, but I suddenly got excited last week about making red beans, so I decided to buy some and give it a shot. I mostly followed the recipe on the package, omitting the meat, so I sautéed some onions, bell pepper, and celery (a.k.a. The Trinity) with parsley and garlic, then added the soaked beans, vegetable stock, salt and pepper, and a bay leaf (that was Kent's job, one he took very seriously). I boiled them for about an hour and a half, and they thickened up pretty well, but I stuck a potato masher in there a few times to help them along.

I also made some Zatarain's jambalaya mix, sautéed garlic green beans, and Texas toast (again, with garlic... might as well go all the way, eh?). Kent actually loves the jambalaya mix, even though after every bite, he sticks his hands up to his tongue and says that it's spicy. To adult people, it just sounds like "sahhh!" I think he mostly likes eating it because "jambalaya" is fun to say. His version is something like "balala."

A few bites into the meal, I was so proud of how well everything came together that I decided we needed to go full-throttle into the Louisiana thing and listen to some Zydeco music. We have this fun CD that my late stepfather bought a few years ago when we all visited Avery Island and the Tabasco factory store, so we popped it in, and Kent ate his balala and Texas toast and grooved to the Zydeco beat. He wasn't a huge fan of the beans, which surprised me a bit. I decided that they needed a name that's more fun to say, so the next time I serve them to him, I'll try calling them Zydeco beans and see if that helps.

So now, full of beans like the chihuahuas in Skippyjon Jones, I am heading off to bed. I have more posts in the works with funny stories, pictures, and videos, but you'll have to wait. The teaser: today, I tried to incorporate Kent's little stuffed tiger-kitty, Mike, into everything we did, resulting at the end of the day in matching outfits.

Labels: craftiness, Kent, kitchen adventures, Louisiana

• posted by erica 2/03/2009 09:50:00 PM
•  4 comments

I dropped Jack at the Mobile bus station early yesterday morning so he could catch a bus back to Baton Rouge, and Kent and I started driving east. Our plan had been to stay in Atlanta for a couple of days and then head on to Virginia, but we had a glitch in our Atlanta plans, and I was making such good time from having left so early, that I decided to go for broke and drive all the way to Blacksburg in a day. It was only slightly crazy. I felt the strong desire to be in one place for a few days where I could get my bearings and not feel like I was imposing on anyone, and Kent's grandparents *have* to take him, so here we are. We got in around 9:30 last night, and those last couple of hours of driving were pretty rough, between my fatigue, the darkness, and the windy mountain roads. I practically fell into Ron when I got out of the car, and after getting Kent to bed, I went right to sleep, myself. He had slept the last few hours in the car, so at least he didn't lose much sleep on our crazy road trip. He actually did a lot better than I would have thought, so it wasn't as hard as I had imagined that morning when I thought, "Can I really drive 12 hours in one day? With Kent??"

Ron likes to do Iron Butt rides on his motorcycle, 1000 miles in 24 hours, and they even give out pins and certificates and stuff if you have gas receipts and get people to sign that they witnessed you in each place. I decided yesterday that they should have a Toddler Component to the Iron Butt ride. That'd really be a test of will. I didn't quite make 1000 miles yesterday; according to Google Maps, it was 752. It felt like 1000.

Jack, on the other hand, made it back to Baton Rouge safely, and after being sent home from work because they didn't have anything for him to do, he went home and cleaned up the yard. The rest of the day he spent studying, playing with the cats, and sweating, and then just as he was about to go to bed last night, the power came back on. I remember very well the feeling of sheer elation that washes over a person when that happens. I always thought I was hallucinating when the fans started turning again, the few times that we've lost power for extended periods in the summer. He was going to invite friends to stay at our house, so I think he's calling around town and seeing if anyone needs a cool house, or at least a cool refrigerator.

So we're apart for now. Even though our house is livable, the city really isn't because of long gas lines and few grocery stores being open. I'm planning to stay here in VA for a few days, then head to Winston-Salem for a couple of days early next week to visit my grandmother and other friends in town. I'd guess that Kent and I will be back at home within a week, but since Jack is in Baton Rouge and will be able to assess the situation, I'll let him decide when it's a good idea for us to come back. I miss him and our home already, but I'd rather not be in a chaotic city where people are scrambling for resources.

It's still just so unreal. I can't believe the storm hit only 4 days ago. It feels like eons. I feel like I've lost all sense of centeredness, like I'm just sort of floating, homeless. It's good to be with family in a comfortable house while I try to get that centeredness back.

Labels: hurricanes, Louisiana, travel

• posted by erica 9/05/2008 10:14:00 AM
•  5 comments

So I'm blogging tonight from Mobile, Alabama. Yes, Alabama. We decided this afternoon that it was time to leave town, and during Kent's hour-long nap, we packed everything we needed and then hit the road after he woke up. The danger from the storm had passed, but Baton Rouge got hit so hard that the entire city was without power last night. It was dark, windy, and crazy quiet. We heard on the radio today that about half of the city would have power restored in the next several days, while the other half would get it back in 3 to 4 weeks. This all depends on whose substations got demolished and whose didn't, and since we had no idea which group we fell into, we decided it wasn't good for Kent for us to stay in a hot house with no way of keeping food cold (or milk, especially). We did okay yesterday (lost power around noon) and today with the food we had in the fridge while it was still cold, and we had a nice supply of soup, granola bars, applesauce, and baby food, but since everyone in Baton Rouge was scrambling for resources, I was feeling the increasing pressure of not enough food to last however long this outage might be. It was getting kind of scary.

After we got on the road with a plan only to drive east, I called my mom on our way out of town and had her find a hotel for us, and we were thankful we only had to drive 3 hours from home. I realize how lucky we are to be able to just pack up and leave town, given how many people in south Louisiana are without transportation or infrastructure. Gustav hit so much harder than any of us thought it could. Baton Rouge has apparently never seen destruction like this.

We had qualms about leaving our cats, but we left them with a lot of food and water, and we plan to call friends tomorrow and find someone to come feed them every day. I grabbed our church directory while we were hastily packing, so we ought to be able to get in touch with someone near us if none of our close friends are in cell phone range (which is pretty spotty throughout the city). I was definitely in a post-apocalyptic mentality and have only gotten over that in the last couple of hours, after we got a hotel reservation. It's incredible how we can be so used to having everything modern and fast and easy, and it can all just go away like this and throw us into survival mode. I would have felt a little crazy anyway, if it had only been Jack and me, but now that we have a child, everything is more complicated. Exponentially moreso, I think. I was practically beside myself last night with worry, kicking myself for not leaving town when I could have on Saturday (though there were SO many unknowns) and wondering what in the world we were going to do. Everything feels better now. And we're just taking things one day at a time, hoping our neighbors will call soon to let us know that our power is back on and that our lives can start to get back to normal.

We have wifi here, so I'll post more later. Keep your thoughts with everyone affected by this enormously destructive storm.

Labels: hurricanes, Louisiana, travel

• posted by erica 9/02/2008 09:50:00 PM
•  3 comments

Things are okay right now. Obviously we still have power, and our internet connection is better right now than it has been in a week! We're getting a lot of wind and rain, but it's no worse than some of the heavy storms we have in the early summer, it's just lasting longer. Last night was pretty freaky for a while, because there was a tornado peeling through the area to our east, heading for us, apparently. The Weather Channel even had this thing about how it was going to be in our neighborhood within 15 minutes. So I was a little freaked. It was very dark outside, so there was no way to see it. It never made it here, and we haven't heard much about damage to the area where it was spotted because all the local stations are still covering the storm in general and probably aren't too eager to send all their camera guys out.

I've been filming a little (not taking any major risks, don't worry), so maybe I'll have some footage to share. It won't be terribly exciting, though, since we don't seem to be getting the brunt of it. We feel pretty safe this morning. Last night, Jack and I made our individual predictions for when we'd lose power; I said 9 a.m., and he said 2 p.m. We shall see.

More as this develops.

Labels: hurricanes, Louisiana

• posted by jack 9/01/2008 09:14:00 AM
•  1 comments

We're staying at home for Gustav. I had thought seriously about taking Kent and going somewhere inland, leaving Jack at home with the cats, but the closest place I could get a hotel reservation is a town in Alabama, six hours' drive away on a good day, meaning it would probably take at least twice that long, given how congested the highways in Louisiana and Mississippi are. CNN said an estimated 1 million people fled the Gulf Coast yesterday. Nuts. We think that the worst thing we'll have to deal with is a power loss, and even though it gets hot very quickly, I'd rather we all stay together, and I think we'll deal with it.

Our internet has been spotty all week. We haven't figured out yet whether it's our connection or our cable modem, but we've barely been able to connect long enough to check email, and even then it only works once a day or so out of MANY times that we try. It's pretty frustrating. I'll try to keep everyone posted, whether we're posting from home or from someplace around town with wifi, and hopefully there won't be any major trouble.

For now, though, I'm off to make pancakes, and then Jack and I are beginning our first day as Sunday school teachers for the toddler music class. We don't quite know what to expect, and Kent may be the only kid there sometimes, but we're really looking forward to singing and banging things with all the other kids and parents. Woot!

Labels: church, hurricanes, Louisiana

• posted by erica 8/31/2008 08:11:00 AM
•  2 comments

It's already starting to feel like Gustav is an imminent threat. We had a mild, unrelated storm yesterday evening, but it had lots of wind and distant thunder and certainly felt like a sign of things to come. Here's hoping this guy dissipates or at least weakens before it makes landfall... though that hardly ever happens. I had a strong urge to listen to Aaron Neville's cover of Randy Newman's song "Louisiana, 1927" yesterday afternoon while I was walking around campus. It's about a huge flood that happened in 1927, though I heard it after Katrina when NPR did an interview with Randy Newman about writing the song. I listened to it so many times in the year after Katrina that hearing it now still brings back the memories and emotions I don't often recall on purpose. The chorus is this soulful, soaring melody with the simple lyrics, "Louisiana, Louisiana / They're trying to wash us away / They're trying to wash us away."

So as you can guess, hurricane preparations are underway here in Baton Rouge. We went to the grocery store last night to bulk up our hurricane box (that we made two summers ago and have been replenishing periodically), and they were already out of gallon and larger-than-a-gallon jugs of water. They were also out of a lot of kinds of bread, but since we like the whole-grain stuff, we had our pick of that. If we had wanted pasty, tasteless white bread (as my mom calls it), we would have been out of luck, though, and we saw several dismayed people enter the bread aisle and curse under their breath. We got several little propane tanks for our gas grill, which we didn't yet own during Katrina and which should make food options a lot better if we lose power. I think we'll be okay as far as stuff that goes in the hurricane box, though the worst part of losing power here in the summer/fall is always the lack of air conditioning, and unfortunately, extra A/C doesn't fit in a hurricane box. We'll navigate that one if it arises, I guess. We're going to wait until Sunday to make a decision about whether to hit the road toward Atlanta, depending on how things are looking as the storm approaches.

It's pretty ominous, though I do take comfort in the fact that our state seems to have learned a great deal from Katrina and Rita and the authorities are already mobilized, with water/food/law enforcement resources on hand to get to whatever part of the state might need them. As much as former Governor Blanco was criticized for her handling of the storm's aftermath, her administration made great strides in getting state agencies ready for another catastrophic event, but since she wasn't reelected last year (she didn't even try, largely because of her abysmal approval rating), Governor Jindal is getting most of the credit, I think. Ah, politics. Anyway, I just feel glad that we've collectively learned so much about how to handle disasters. So many things are already happening proactively, days before the hurricane hits, rather than days after, as the case was three years ago. Our church sprung into action immediately after Katrina as New Orleans evacuees were pouring into Baton Rouge, and we had an impromptu shelter set up for several months afterward. It all just kind of happened as the need arose, in a very inspirational way, actually. This year, there are already lists of volunteers for different jobs and plans in place for any kind of support we might need to lend our community. Also, Jack's office (the state Department of Insurance) even has employees driving pamphlets to evacuation shelters around the state, letting people know about how to contact their insurance companies in the event of property damage. Who in the world ever would have thought to do that before Katrina? Now, it's just one more check mark on that very long and very practical list of preparations. It's impressive to watch the state come together like this to mitigate whatever might befall us.

Keep your thoughts with the Haitians who've already been affected, and whomever else does get hit by Gustav. I'm trying not to be pessimistic, just realistic, as we've seen up-close exactly what a Gulf hurricane is capable of.

Labels: hurricanes, Louisiana

• posted by erica 8/29/2008 04:44:00 PM
•  1 comments

Well, more precisely, I need pencils that still have erasers left. Such is the recurring problem of a music analyst who finds herself sketching musical ideas and then erasing them furiously. Maybe I should invest in some of those pencils with fancy erasers that wind out, or the ones that come with replaceable erasers. Of course, that would make me like Jack, with his silly school-supply fetish.

Seriously, though, I feel the whole back-to-school thing very acutely this year, and I'm not even going "back" to school. My university is still happy to take my tuition money for my 3 dissertation hours, but the diss is a constant thing in my life now, not delineated by semester breaks. The diss doesn't take summers off, and thankfully, neither did my advisor, even though I wasn't technically registered. I'm itchy for fall, though. Something about knowing that football season approacheth makes me very eager to wear jeans and sweaters and study outside on a blanket and buy a new backpack, even though I use a tote bag now. I think I'm nostalgic for the student I used to be. I remember what it feels like to stroll through campus on a sunny autumn day, unencumbered by strollers and toddlers that are Far Too Noisy to take into the library, and find a nice piece of earth to plop down on for an hour or two of quality reading and analysis time. Having him in school two days a week will allow me to do this, sort of, though when I try to recapture that past student-hood and stroll nonchalantly, I never quite feel the part. I feel like I have a huge blinking sign over me that says, "I'm not really a student — I'm a MOM!" 19-year-olds in their lazily slung-on workout clothes and flip flops will eye me with a mixture of curiosity and revulsion.

I'm also nostalgic for cooler weather and can't wait to get outside with Kent now that he's walking and is noticing more about his surroundings. And pointing. We'll have nature walks and collect things to adorn our dining room table. Just not when it's still 85 or 90 degrees with 127% humidity. I wish fall didn't take so freaking long to get here in Louisiana. Around October, it'll be pleasant enough to be outside, and then it'll be downright lovely in November, when we'll probably have our windows open most of the time and the air inside our house will be fresh and tasty. Fall air is tasty.

What month is it now? Still August? Yeesh.

Labels: dissertation land, Louisiana, SAHM

• posted by erica 8/20/2008 10:33:00 AM
•  2 comments

Today was one of those really lovely sunny days that makes me love springtime in Louisiana. The weather is warm and clear, the sort of weather that seduces graduate students to move here when they visit in March from someplace colder and less sunny, even though it tends to turn ugly in the summer when the aforementioned students realize that it gets sweltering. Nobody I know... I'm just speculating.

We started off the day by performing our civic duty and voting in the primary, which I think makes the fourth time Kent has voted with us since he was born. Jack, Kent, and I then went to NOLA for a meetup with the Attachment Parenting group I've just joined, and it included coffee at PJ's and then a short walk to the Maple Street Children's Book Shop for story hour. I've taken Kent to story hour at Barnes & Noble before and want to take him to the library, whenever I figure out when theirs is, and he usually seems to have fun. He doesn't really look at the books very often, but being around the other kids is good, and I think it's a fun and beneficial outing to get him used to. Only one other mom from the group came, with her 6-month-old daughter, though one of the other moms just gave birth on Friday to her second boy, so she's excused. We had a nice time and were actually able to give someone else advice (!) on road tripping with a baby, including our Very Brilliant realization at the end of our Christmas trip that turning on the radio to a staticky station helped Kent fall asleep when he needed to.

After I recommended Pantley to the other mom and we chatted for a bit, we said goodbye to her and her daughter, and then my little clan walked a block to Fresco Cafe, where I've eaten with both Jeannette and Lauren on separate occasions. It's an excellent pizza/Mediterranean place, and we had a delicious and peaceful lunch on their covered patio overlooking the passersby. Maple Street is one of the quieter streets in town, but the bookstore, coffee shops, and great restaurants make it one of my favorites. Plus, you can't beat eating outside on a sunny spring day in New Orleans. I told Jack that I think food tastes better outside.

To complete our culinary tour of the roughly seven-block radius, we stopped for chocolate-hazelnut gelato at an authentic place (owned by real Italians!) that I just heard about from one of the AP moms. Boy, do I love gelato. I could have eaten the whole bowl by myself, but Jack and I had decided to save calories and pennies by splitting one, so I reluctantly turned the bowl over to him every once in a while.

On our way out of town, we drove by Jeannette's old apartment building, which is still uninhabited two and a half years after Katrina. Crazy.

The New Orleans we experienced today was the one I love, the one that Jeannette introduced me to, one I probably never would have known without her influence. I was thinking on our way out of town that we could have gone to Jackson Square and the French Quarter, or tried to do some of the touristy or more adventurous things, but I prefer the quiet, sunny, eating-gelato-on-a-lazy-afternoon New Orleans. It's relaxing and totally refreshing.

I'm thrilled to have found this AP group, because I'm getting to know other parents who value a lot of the same things I do, AND because it brings me to NOLA more often. It would be easier if it weren't an hour and a half's drive from home, but it's worth it for days like today.

Labels: eating out, Louisiana, SAHM

• posted by erica 2/09/2008 07:48:00 PM
•  3 comments

Wow, this is my 500th post. It seems like only yesterday, I was blogging about my 400th post. It's funny how much more frequently I've felt the need to update my blog since Kent was born.

We just had a minorly eventful weekend, starting with Kent's refusal to poo for 3 and a half days, which led us to call our pediatrician's office on Friday night and subsequently give him BabyLax. The things you become concerned about when you're a parent are astounding. I had no idea I'd be keeping such a detailed mental tally of his poo day by day, but there you have it. The BabyLax worked like a charm, and so we all had a very interesting hour after we gave it to him. There just kept being more poo. Finally, he finished, and we all went to sleep, and then he pooed once more in the morning, just to get himself back on schedule. He's been great ever since.

We went to the Spanish Town parade on Saturday, hanging out with a bunch of friends from church during and after the parade. We walked out to the end of the block to the parade route for about five minutes, but with no sunshade for our little boy, it was getting hot, and I was having trouble defending him on all sides from being attacked by flying beads. They can do some damage, and I kept fretting that he might get clobbered. Plus, the whole thing was just way too overstimulating, for Kent and for Jack and me as well. We're kind of non-crowd people now that we have a small child.

Hanging out inside turned out to be more fun, and Kent got to get some quality time in with his friend Quentin, who's three weeks younger than he is. They're the hit of the party anytime they get together. I took several pictures, but this was my favorite. Their expressions are priceless.

We're skipping the New Orleans parades tomorrow, but assuming we're still here next year, it should be great fun to do Mardi Gras with a toddler, for at least the first few minutes!

***

Wow, I feel like I should have done more to commemorate The Big 500, but I'm too tired.

Labels: blogging, holidays, Kent, Louisiana

• posted by erica 2/04/2008 09:04:00 PM
•  3 comments

A friend of mine recently asked this, and I realized I haven't really posted on my day-to-day existence much lately. Incidentally, sorry to those of you who've sent emails asking how I am... I can reach the most people with the least effort by blogging instead of writing emails, and since my computer time is at a premium for like the next decade, I have to do it this way. Kent has bravely won his first battle against an ear infection, but he's still teething (No Teeth yet, just bumps), so sleep is erratic and awake time is full of irritability. For me and for Kent. We're making it, though.

Friday was a blur of crying and frustration — one of those days when I didn't eat lunch until 2:00 (and then it was only because I drove through someplace and took lunch to Jack's office so he could hold Kent while I ate), and I didn't take a shower until about 4:30. This is not the norm, but it's happened a few times lately, and on those days, I feel completely defeated by parenthood. But once Kent goes to bed, Jack and I spend some time relaxing or watching TV or whatever, we sleep, and the next day is brighter.

I was about to do a run through of the past several days, but I suddenly can't remember anything we did on Saturday. Oh, right. We went to the eye place and I ordered glasses, and then we went to Lowe's and ordered a water heater, which was just installed yesterday. Our old one was still working pretty well, except in the summer when the attic got too hot and the thermostat on the water heater thought that the water was already hot enough, so it stopped heating... that was always fun. The thing that was making me increasingly nervous, though, was the fact that the water heater was as old as our house (24 years) and lived in the attic, so if it rusted through or something, we'd be looking at flooding throughout our house and thousands of dollars worth of damage. Not fun. Now the new water heater is in, heating beautifully and helping me breathe a sigh of relief.

Sunday was a nice day. We went to church for the first time in a month (out of town for two weeks, then ear infection last week), catching up with our friends and getting to see Kent's friend Quentin be baptized. Quentin is three weeks younger than Kent, so we're calling them friends already... especially since the last time they got together, they sucked each other's thumbs. Very cute.

After lunch at home and a short Kent nap, Jack and I decided we should go for a walk out on the levee downtown, since it was a sunny day and we all needed some fresh air. We made a pit stop inside the Louisiana Art & Science Museum, which we'd never visited before but which we decided we should get a family membership to when Kent gets a little older. That place rocked. Then, we walked out on the levee, where it was a tad too windy for us to stay long, but we got some great pictures.

Here's Kent nursing while we sat on a bench. Like I said, it was kind of too windy, but he was hungry, so he didn't mind much. We were both wrapped up in Jack's fleece jacket, making it nice and cozy.


Closer shot of him nursing, taken by me. This is the adorable, calm face I see while he's eating.


I also managed to snap a good pic of the old state capitol building before we left. I love this, especially the fleur de lis fence. *So* Louisiana.

Okay, well, that gets us to Sunday evening, and I still haven't finished this post, though I've been working on it all day off and on. Maybe I'll be like Anne and post in two-day chunks, though her regaling us with tales of their Christmas cruise to Australia is probably slightly more interesting than my tales of water heaters, levees, and No Teeth.

I'll post another update soon, if I don't completely run out of steam. Bath time.

Labels: house, Kent, Louisiana

• posted by erica 1/15/2008 01:00:00 PM
•  1 comments

Lest you think I've forgotten about all things Non-Baby, I have devoted a bit of time lately to thinking about food as well. Two new food experiences of this past week have been the following:

1. Vietnamese spring rolls with our friends Nikki and John. They brought over shrimp, tofu, many chopped vegetables, and an awesome peanut sauce that Nikki whipped up, and we each rolled our own spring rolls in rice paper wrappers right there at the table. It was such a fun night! I'm not sure how many I ate; I lost count at five. Not only were they excellent and new to us, they were also a very Kent-friendly food. Since they were already cold, it didn't matter if stuff sat around for a while for one of us to hold Kent. (He likes to be held and has very little patience for our putting him down for longer than a few minutes, so Jack and I are slowly mastering the art of Tag-Team Eating.)
2. With apologies to my vegetarian readers: my first attempt at cooking jambalaya, which made today's lunch. I'm not sure if it really counts, since I made it from a box, but I did add some real Cajun Andouille sausage (pronounced "ahn-DOO-ee"). Incidentally, this was also my first experience removing sausage from a casing. Yum. The sausage was VERY spicy, but oh-so-tasty and very authentic Louisiana cuisine. The rest of it is now in my freezer, patiently awaiting another foray into Cajun cooking. Not sure when that'll be, but there had better be several glasses of water close at hand.

Labels: friends, kitchen adventures, Louisiana

• posted by erica 9/12/2007 09:08:00 PM
•  4 comments

Nicole and her friend Colleen were here to visit us this weekend, and we had an excellent visit. It was pretty low-key but very fun, and it was nice to finally meet Colleen, who I've heard about but had never managed to meet before. On Saturday, we went to the mall and then out to dinner with a few of our in-town grad school friends at a yummy local Italian place. Yesterday, we had a lazy morning, and then they watched Kent for a few hours while Jack and I snuck away to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We didn't think we'd get to see it while it was still in the theaters, but Nicole insisted that we go, and since she and Colleen both babysit all the time and were happy to do it, we were happy to let them. It was the first time we had left Kent alone for a real outing, not counting the time we left him with Jack's parents for a little while when we were taking care of Jennifer and Rob's cats. I had a harder time with it at first than I thought I would, and I was definitely ready to see my boy again when we were driving home. I totally trust Nicole and Colleen, but I was still really nervous and kept telling them random stuff about him before we left. Oh, well. This is what new parents do, right? Anyway, it was a great movie, and we enjoyed getting a chance to leave the house for a date. Since it was the first movie theater trip we'd taken in a while and probably the last for quite some time, we decided to go all out with popcorn, Coke, and Milk Duds. Yum.

This morning, we went to a beignet place in town that we never knew existed until John told us about it on Saturday night. Beignets, sort of like a cross between a funnel cake and a doughnut, have been made famous by Café du Monde in New Orleans, but there are great beignet places all over the state. It's a must-go-to locale for any people who come visit us from now on, for those who are planning a trip to the Bayou. I hope you like beignets — you will by the time you leave, anyway. It was great, and really packed for the Labor Day holiday.

We also went to campus to see Mike VI, the newest tiger mascot, since Mike V passed away this summer and his replacement just arrived last week. Mike VI was relaxing in the shade (and who could blame him??), so we didn't get a very good view, but we saw some paws and a raised head periodically, and it was a fun thing to do anyway. We never thought about visiting the previous Mike the Tiger, but I'm glad we finally got around to seeing the habitat and paying homage to the mascot. Cool tiger.

What a fun weekend. More people should visit. Hint.

Labels: friends, Louisiana

• posted by erica 9/03/2007 06:13:00 PM
•  3 comments

I went to the doctor today. No change. Boo. I guess Kent is happy where he is for the moment, so good for him.

I was such a grumpus by the time I left, though. I had had to wait quite a long time to see the nurse practitioner, because my doctor is on a vacation with her family this week and has sent all of her patients elsewhere. Once I finally saw the NP, she was great, but it took a while to get to that point. Then I had to drive a LONG way home in the blazing afternoon sun and nasty traffic, and by the time I got home, I was a big ol' ball of tension.

Seriously, the sun just needs to go away. I'm sure there's a logical fallacy in there somewhere, but I can't handle oppressive sunshine, afternoon traffic, AND third-trimester exhaustion/frustration all at the same time. Thankfully, I had a chance to lie down and listen to some soft music when I got home, and then Jack and I went out to dinner and then walked around the mall for a little while (since it's too muggy and buggy in the summer to take a walk outside). We just got home, and I feel better.

Me, me, me. I, I, I. This is why people have kids, right? So they'll finally get over themselves and stop being so self-centered? We'll see. =)

Labels: belly, Kent, Louisiana

• posted by erica 6/21/2007 10:31:00 PM
•  3 comments

So I said I'd blog about our visitors from this past weekend, and it took my looking at Jack's blog to remember that I hadn't done it yet. Whoops.

On Friday, I picked up Lauren and Steve at the BR airport, then we swung by Jack's office to show them around since it was on the way home. We had some yummy broccoli pasta stuff, salad, and bread for dinner and previously-made minty brownies for dessert. We also attempted to watch a movie that we had recorded (The Insider), but the audio was so screwy that we had it turned all the way up and still couldn't hear the dialogue. Bummer. We'll have to track down a DVD of it at some point and watch the rest, because it looked really interesting once we started watching it.

On Saturday morning, we slept in (well, the people who aren't pregnant slept in) and then headed to the downtown farmer's market to wander around. Lauren wanted to get some veggies for baby shower food (and, as I promised her, she found some awesome ripe tomatoes), and we also found some good bread, hummus, and other goodies. I love our farmer's market — it's low-key and is mostly a bunch of people selling stuff out of the backs of their trucks, and I love the free samples! After we marketed for a while, we took them to Louie's Cafe for lunch, a classic greasy-spoon diner on campus with an eccentric short-order cook. They have awesome burgers, breakfast stuff, and salads, and they have several vegetarian things that Jack likes, so it's one of our favorite places to take out-of-towners. I've also heard that it's a popular place to go for pancakes when all the bars close, though not being a bar-hopper, I've never experienced this particular aspect of Louie's myself. We then headed to a cluster of neat shops near downtown, where Jack and I found a really cool blue and green metal lizard to hang on Kent's wall. I'm totally loving our animal motif in there, and we're definitely stretching it beyond regular elephants and lions. =)

The afternoon was taken up by naps and sitting around reading (Steve seemed to enjoy perusing our baby books and magazines all weekend), and then we did enchiladas for dinner and rewatched the Lost season finale. We all love the show, but in different ways: Lauren and Jack love reading about it online and speculating wildly about what will happen next, though Steve and I prefer to let the show's creators surprise us since I think we both realize that we can't predict what's going to happen anyway. It's a crazy show! Anyway, it was fun to see the finale again, and it helped pass the time while we waited for Mom and her fiancé, Bill, to arrive at the NOLA airport and then drive to our house. They got to our house around 11 something, visited for a little while, and then headed off to their hotel so that we could all sleep!

We took Mom and Bill to church and then lunch at a cool local bar/grill place that has really yummy Sunday brunch, while Lauren and Steve got together with Jennifer for shower preparations. After brunch, all the planners decided to do their various jobs to bring the shower together, and Jack and I snuck away for much-needed naptime before the shower. I had been sleeping pretty poorly the past couple of days, waking up for several hours at a time and then having trouble falling back to sleep, so a nap was in order so that I could regain my perky, loveable personality to celebrate the baby with our friends. The shower was great — Jack and I felt very loved and supported by everyone, even the people who weren't able to come all the way to the swamplands to celebrate with us.

We grilled Asian stuff, plus pineapple and plums for dessert, on Sunday night, though grilling took longer than we had thought it would and we ended up eating pretty late. Jack's such a good grillmaster, even when one of the propane tanks runs out and he has to figure out how to rehook everything up in the middle of cooking. It was still nice to have everybody around the table, and hanging out at home gave us a chance to get to know Bill a little better as well, which was great! We also got everyone to try Abita, our favorite local beer. Yum.

On Monday, we had a lazy breakfast of pancakes and bacon, and then Mom and Lauren helped me sort the baby loot into clothing, feeding, and various other piles. I've done quite a bit of laundry in the past few days so that everything is clean and ready for my kid, including the onesies and pants and tiny socks and also all of his sheets and towels. It's crazy to imagine that this wiggly entity inside of me is going to be wearing socks and onesies soon.

We shuffled Lauren and Steve off to the airport in the afternoon, and then Mom, Bill, Jack and I headed to NOLA to meet up with one of Bill's aunts and then eat at Commander's Palace, a very swanky and well-known restaurant in the Garden District that Bill has been wanting to try for some time. His aunt grew up in NOLA, moved away for school, marriage, and raising her family, and then came back in the 80s (I think) and has been living there ever since. She was really neat to talk to, because in addition to being a witty conversationalist, she's an art historian and has traveled all over the world. She told us we had to stop by if we were ever in NOLA again, so whenever we end up going back (probably at Mardi Gras if not before), we'll swing by and say hi. Dinner was sooo good, but I was presented with a large head-on shrimp on top of the piece of fish I ordered, so I calmly removed its head and tried my best not to alarm my vegetarian husband.

I'm pretty sure I fell asleep in the car on the way home, and we left Mom and Bill at their hotel and said goodbye since they had to leave at first light to get to the rental car place and then the airport on time. Happy sighs have been had all week as I think about how wonderful it was to see everyone. We'll have many out-of-towners once the baby comes, since he's quite a draw, and I'm really looking forward to those visits! We make it to NC, VA, and PA a few times a year to see friends and family, but it's cool when people can make the trip here and see us in our element.

Labels: belly, eating out, family, friends, Kent, kitchen adventures, Louisiana, nesting, what to watch

• posted by erica 6/01/2007 06:18:00 PM
•  2 comments

I'm fighting some kind of weird coughy/achey/dizzy thing, so I haven't been feeling so hot in the past couple of days. I thought it was allergies at first, but it hasn't spread to my nose, just my throat (and I guess my lungs). I feel like someone with a cough who's also been recently hit by a bus.

Oddly, I still feel like cooking, so I have a pot of tomato sauce simmering on the stove in preparation for tonight's dinner, eggplant parmesan. I even got a good fresh baguette for us to crunch on and mop up sauce with, and I'm going to make a plum tart for dessert with some plums we've been meaning to use up. I burned my tongue a minute ago while tasting the sauce, but it's so worth it to make my own that I don't really mind. I've thought about getting a pressure cooker so that I could make big batches of stuff like tomato sauce or preserves and then can them, but I'm not sure how often I'd actually use it, and a pressure cooker would take up a lot of space in a cabinet. It'll go on the Sometime List, I think.

We have a partially-assembled changing table in our living room, because Jack got started on it last night but then didn't quite finish before trudging off to bed (I selfishly went to bed early and didn't help him because my crud had wiped me out for the evening). The combination of his needing to check regularly on the fantasy baseball draft (please, will it be over soon??), coupled with his frustration with poorly-written assembly directions, precluded finishing the job, but I'm hoping he'll do it tonight before or after yummy eggplant parm.

It's been sunny and close to 80 degrees most days this week. I love March in Louisiana. This is the prime time of year for people to visit here, I think, because they get sucked in like I did when I came for my grad school visit. I was coming from cold, windy Philly to a sunny, beautiful Southern climate... I didn't stand a chance. =) Summers have become tolerable, but the milder heat of the spring is really quite nice. It makes me want to eat outside whenever possible.

Labels: baseball, kitchen adventures, Louisiana, nesting

• posted by erica 3/23/2007 06:03:00 PM
•  0 comments

Today was the annual Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade in downtown Baton Rouge, and Jack and I convinced our friends Matt and Steph to go with us to partake in the revelry. They had done a bit of the parade thing in years past, but not the Spanish Town parade, which is the biggest one in town and is always a lot of fun (we went two years ago). We stopped at Whole Foods on the way to get some takeout from their awesome global cuisine bar, and we got there early enough that we could pick out a spot, open up our camping chairs, and have a little picnic before the parade started.

The parade got going a little after noon, and once the sun came out, it was really nice. Plenty of people around us were sloshed, but we went the alcohol-avoidance route ourselves, especially Sober Pregnant Erica, who would really enjoy an Abita Turbodog but who is coping nonetheless. We caught a bunch of beads and Steph also got some plastic cups, including one that I caught but didn't want to keep, since we have a massive collection of cups from the NOLA parades last year. There are always stuffed toys and other things that some of the krewes throw, but unless you're a slutty girl or a cute kid, you don't tend to get anything like that. That's okay. Next year, we'll have a cute kid in a Bjorn. =)

We also got wind of an open-house party happening at the home of a friend of ours from church, who lives just off the parade route, so we hung out there for a little while after the parade, had some gumbo, and chatted with our fun church peeps for about an hour. One of our friends was circling the group with a camera, and she took a picture of Jack and me in all our beads to commemorate Kent's in-utero Mardi Gras. I thought that was cute.

After we trudged back to the car and then dropped off Matt and Steph at their car, we swung by our local produce place to get our Annual Flat of Strawberries. Most of them are sitting happily on the kitchen counter, waiting for me to do yummy things with them, but we did have to dig into a few after we got home and had some awesome strawberry shortcake. I don't think I'll like waiting until April or May for strawberries whenever we move away from here. It's the perfect kickoff to spring, which seems to be right around the corner.

Labels: belly, eating out, Kent, kitchen adventures, Louisiana

• posted by erica 2/17/2007 07:09:00 PM
•  4 comments