Halloween

Halloween in NOLA is a big deal.

People GO ALL OUT.

This town is believed to be one of the most haunted cities on Earth.

There are actual people here who believe they are real vampires

and people who have ghosts who talk to them in their homes.

(pretty much just a lot of weird, crazy people)

But I just don't get it when people say

that Halloween is their favorite holiday.

Seriously??

A night where you get to dress up in a costume and eat candy is your FAVORITE holiday of the year?

Chris says he thinks its because it is the first 'big' holiday after a long break with no holidays.

Maybe it is just because Fall has such beautiful weather.

I think some people love it so much because it can easily be a 'zero family involvement' holiday.

Christmas and Thanksgiving are completely family orientated. 

You get together, cook and eat a big meal, give presents, talk about what all you are thankful for,

and yadda yadda.

Halloween for many adults is just is a fun holiday with no mess. You can celebrate with just friends and not have to do the whole family shindig. It CAN be made into a 'just me and my friends' excuse to party.

This may especially be easy to love for people who are not close to their families or have lost loved ones.

Now all that is just a meganism. Completely just my thoughts.

I love to dress up and be silly, but Christmas totally takes the cake in my opinion for being the greatest holiday.

Tonight Chris and I went for a run, ate chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese for dinner, and watched a couple episodes of the tv show, 24, off of netflix.

Overall a pretty good Halloween considering it's just the two of us here.

P.S. Chris and game up with the MOST LEGENDARY costume idea for the 2 of us to dress up as when we move back to GA. Let's just say....... it will be one for the memory books.

Oh.. OHHH how it will blow all of your minds.

Guess we are just gonna have to wait 2 more years until we can show off our awesome costume idea to everyone back home:)

It will be well worth the wait

Snotty

Recently Chris has been maga snotty!

His wittle nose is all stuffyed up and poor thing keeps sucking back up the mucus with yukie gurgling sounds.

I wish he would just blow it all out instead of trying to suck up in his nose.

Ewww..... 

off to go make him down some mucinex and give him a roll of toliet paper to use as tissues!

Neon Leggings

Ok so I get it,

your trying to cross the street.

Just like the chicken, 

all you want to do is get to the other side.

I also understand that you don't own a car,

might have walked a couple of miles already,

or rode a crowded bus with a lot of crazies staring you down.

But.... really, you're going to step out from the median in front of 2 lanes of cars coming at you without looking.

Oh, and how dare I forget to mention that you also are on you phone yacking away.

Yea, so thanks for making me slam on my breaks, screaming in fear that I'm about to run your butt over,

and the car behind me having to make a mad swerve not to hit me.

Oh and you just continued to walk,

 not even noticing my car

(which by a miracle) 

has stopped 3 feet away from you, 

without at much as a glance my way.

Lady wearing the bright neon purple leggings, pink sweatshirt, 

short blond choppy hair cut,  

and cheetah print cell phone case,

you are one lucky dog. 

And if I was you

I sooooooo wouldn't try my luck with THIS little spunky driver again. 

Do You Know Him?

Gets Me EVERY time I watch it!

Teaser Revealed

So here are the results to the teaser I posted about on Monday.

Chris and I have had the plans to make something for our sweet seminary friends to congratulate them on their pregnancy for several weeks now.

After surfing pintrest Chris actually found an idea about making a sign.

We went to MY FAVORITE store in the city,

The Green Project,

and found an old piece of scrap wood.

I have written several blog posts about this store and how they take scraps from old NOLA houses that are about to be demolished and then resell them.

Lucky us, the piece of wood we found had already been painted the perfect shade of white.

I think it came off of the top part of an old window frame.

Then we got home and I got busy making a stencil for the letters we wanted with my cameo machine.

Instead of just using the vinyl letters we decided to make a stencil and use black paint.

After a couple coats we peeled off our stencil,

and this was the result! 

Then we took it out back and tried to rough up the edges a bit with some sandpaper. 

Chris and I absolutely loved it and it was so much fun making this sign.

It totally made me wish it was for MY sweet baby's room!

How He Loves Us

Oil

So one night last week around 7:30 Chris got the itch to go out and change the oil in my car.

Yea, it's dark at 7:30.

So he moved my car over to a spot in the parking lot that's under a street light.

The only problem was that there was this really big camper parked that blocked our view of the road.

It was like we were all by ourselves.

There are some pretty rough houses right on the other side of the railroad tracks behind that fence.

I even woke up the next morning to hear on the news that around midnight that night

there had been a shooting killing 4 people at one of those houses.

Yep... we're just stupid.

Changing oil in a spot that campus police can't see us.

All by our lonesome.

and in under an annoying street light that was the most obnoxious yellow color.

I was fine until I heard some people talking just on the other side. Then I got kinda spooked.

At least Chris was almost done then. 

He checked it out, made sure it was good to go,

and we got outta there.

 I know that little fence ain't gonna hold nobody back. 

Teaser

Chris and I spent some of our Saturday making this thing......

hmm.... what could it be???

....  what could it say...........

Go Time

Every Sunday night around 6:00ish

it's GO TIME.

It turns into a dash to get the little stuff I have been putting off all weekend done before Monday.

Tonight I finished up laundry,

put clean sheets on the bed,

Chris helped me finish my weekend grading for school,

did the dishes,

cleaned up some knick knack clutter,

 and swept the kitchen floor.

Overall a pretty productive 30 minutes.

Aspects of a Beautiful Saturday Morning

Not every Saturday morning can be as wonderful as it is around here today.

I was greeted with my internal alarm clock waking me up around 5:30 this morning.

Of course the only morning I get to sleep in and I still wake up around the same time I would on any regular work day.

I stayed in bed until 6:30 and was forced out of bed in fear of waking the grizzly bear breathing beside me.

I got up and piddled about, made myself some coffee, and a toaster strudel.

(I am going to have to write about Chris and his toaster strudel craze he is going through right now sometime later)

Then I went around and opened up all the blinds and turned on the tube to watch whatever was on TLC this morning.

The sun is beautiful here today and I can already tell that the weather is going to be perfect.

Its beams came in and streamed in all of my Saturday morning bliss.

I have been blessed with all of Chris's shoes conveniently placed next to our sofa.

No I did not move his shoes so they looked like this,

he actually just leaves them here all week so they are ready to go whenever he is coming/going to class.

Every Saturday morning I take all his shoes from this spot and move them to his closet,

but these 3 pairs always make their way back here.

Of course he is not the only one guilty of leaving shoes in the living room.

Here are my tennis shoes. I admit that I normally don't leave them just laying on the floor and usually kick mine off in my closet when I come in from a walk/run.

(by the way I do a WHOLE lot more walking than running. Trying to work on my stamina)

I then just mosied on over to the our 'catch all' table.

As you can see, it is usually catches all of Chris's stuff.

Everything that has been in his pockets all week gets thrown here.

I have a purse for this stuff, he has this table.

and I really, REALLY shouldn't say anything bad about Chris and his junk on our little table by the door,

'cause look at my dining room table.

I've got my laptop set up, a bucket full of papers that need to be graded, work insurance paperwork that I've been trying to sort out, and a grocery store list that I've been working on.

My table has looked like this since last weekend too. 

I know it's ridiculous  but every night this week I've had something to do from school that I have brought home to work on.

Oh and who can forget my piles of laundry that I am blessed to need to wash today.

At least Chris took the time to sort his stuff into piles.

Yes these are my blessings of a beautiful Saturday morning. 

Whoa

Chris came in tonight,

dropped the car keys on the table,

pointed right at me,

and said with the most serious face I have ever seen him have,

"Don't you EVER go get gas across the street."

after getting over my shock and picking up my jaw from lying on the floor,

I replied with a squeaky

"umm... ok."

See here's the deal. I have already had 2 incidents with weirdos trying to mess with me at the SAME gas station right across from campus.

Since those 2 incidents, I don't get gas anymore.

Nope, I make it home and ask Chris to go get gas for me, OR if I'm out in a safer part of the city I will get gas there.

I know not to go around where we live.

Chris was sitting at the gate of campus waiting to cross the street to go to a gas station.

While waiting for a break in traffic he watched a car get jacked!

The guy getting gas wasn't very smart because he left his car unlocked with the keys in it.

When he went to the window to pay, some sketch dude jumped inside his car and drove off.

Chris says at first he didn't believe that had just happened,

but after he watched the poor man sprinting after his car he just felt terrible.

Thank goodness Chris hadn't left to go get gas 5 minutes earlier because it might have very well been our whittle car that got stolen.

meanie

Yea so just go on ahead,

rub it in.

Get some dirt and some spit in there to add to the mix while you're at it.

Everyone has fall break except me

and I am major jelly.

Chris gets over a week off.

I get nothing.

Chris has no school until Ocotber 29th.

I have to go everyday.

He is just being a big meanie head.

Since he is runnin' and skippin' around spreading his joy,

I sit and sulk.

hmmm.... can't WAIT until the summer. I'm gonna get a full 2 1/2 months to rub it in with some salt to add to his wounds. 

I ain't afraid o' no ghost

With all the stories that have been pouring in the teachers lounge here lately of our schools 'ghost' that has been haunting the halls,

I figured my blog peeps might get a kick out of it.

I've heard stories of teachers and janitors who are dead serious about ghosts intervening.

(yes that pun was intended)

Stories such as mysterious growling noises being heard in class that sound as though someone was standing right behind you,

police guards being called up at school after hours because the janitors reported classroom doors that are supposedly 'locked' slamming closed,

clocks flying of walls in intervention classrooms,

voices saying "Hurry Up" to teachers who are leaving the building when there is no one there,

 a spookie figure wearing boots seen walking down the hallway,

even child's toys that were taken up by teachers miraculously making their way back into student desks.

Yea... right.

As Chris says when I come home and tell him the latest story being shared around the tables in the teachers lounge..

Well,

who ya' gonna call?

Ghost busters

I jokingly even said once last week that maybe the mouse I heard in my classroom piddling around was not really a mouse, but just the ghost messing with my inner fear of rodents.

Yet, someone didn't notice my sarcasm when I made that statement and now some of the faculty think that the ghost feeds off of our fears.  

I'm sorry but I just don't buy it.

Now don't get me wrong,

I still get the major creeps when listening to their stories,

and I was terrified the first time I saw the movie Paranormal Activity,

but I don't believe it.

I think that the human imagination can fabricate all kinds of stories to the point where people REALLY believe what they actually made up.

With all that being said...

when I am walking down my part of the hallway around 7:20ish all by myself in the morning, KNOWING that I am the only one there in my part of the building,

the little hairs on my neck still stand up. 

I'm not scared of a ghost, I am just scared from all of the stories I have heard and I have allowed them to affect my feelings while walking down the hallway.

With as sensitive as all these fellow coworkers of mine are, I think I could easily pull a couple of pranks on them:) Now all I have to do is come up with a couple tiny 'ghost' plots to scare them.

Humm... maybe I should move around some of the students chairs in one of their rooms or better yet, turn in all their student computers and type something on Microsoft word as a message.

I don't know I'm still in the planning stage!

...Be warned...

Mwahh ha ha

funnies

( i soooo remember being a kid at the car wash and listening to my mother make up stories for the water drops racing down the window. There was always that one who moved super slow and then 'didn't make it' and got washed away.)

(yes I had a pretty awesome childhood)

(nerd fact: Have you heard about how they are predicting a bacon shortage? Crazy right!! The price of bacon is expected to get super expensive. I read about it on fox news so it must be true:)

Gretna Festival

Sunday Chris and I made the trip out to the Gretna Festival.

To me the best and most exciting part was riding the ferry.

It is ridiculous that I have lived just a couple of minutes from the Mississippi for a year and a half,  and still had not crossed it.

My excuse:

well, so far there hasn't been anything on the other side of the river that I've needed to cross it for

On the 30 minute ride on the ferry it was super windy. In fact the past couple of days the weather has had a very MILD chill in the air. My hair was going all over the place and the reflection off the water made it incredibly hard for me to keep my eyes open in the picture. 

(Notice the long sleeve fleece I threw on)

(whew I am lookin' a mess here)

Deja Vu anyone?? Yes that movie with Denzel Washington was filmed right HERE:)

When Chris and I got home we plugged in the movie and watched scenes that were filmed exactly where we were standing. 

The Gretna frestival was exactly like the fair back home. 

Same kind of Carnival Rides and attractions.

They even had the game where you have to try and throw a ping pong ball in a bowl to win a goldfish.

There was A LOT more music at this Festival with Big and Rich on stage and several other local artists.

In fact there were NUMEROUS stages around the park and big bands were all playing.

I believe Chris and I counted 5 concerts all going on at the same time.

My peeps at home will connect with this.

In our fair at home they have the cotton gin and steam engines.

Here in NOLA we have one little bitty steam engine on display. 

The food stations are also a lot better here.

Everything was seafood and creole inspired.

Instead of just candy apples and funnel cakes,

they also had numerous poboy stands, crawfish by the bag, alligator on a stick, oysters on the half shell, and crab cakes.

Chris and I settled on splitting a meat pie and seafood nachos.

The nachos were delicious and he even licked the little tray clean of dip.

(it tasted a lot better than this picture made it look)

My pictures don't show that many people,

but trust me there were thousands there.

The whole festival was spread threw out many blocks.

The outfit of choice for most people was to be decked out in all Saints Football attire.

With Drew Brees going for a new record for the most touchdowns consecutively thrown who can blame them for showing some spirit!