The January Cure

Second to spending time with friends and family, my favorite thing about the holidays is the purge of belongings that comes right after. This year we really went for it, organizing and cleaning like never before. We also signed up for Apartment Therapy's January Cure , so each day we will get a task to get our house in better working order between January 2 and February 1st. We'll update the blog each week to show our progress. So far the tasks were simple: set up an outbox, buy flowers (we always do this), create a needs assessment list for the whole house, buy green cleaners (didn't do this because it seems more green to use the rest of what we have + I clean everything with vinegar), and clean the floors.

Here's our needs assessment list as it stands after week 1:

Living room
Clean out cabinet

Broken drop ceiling tile
clean behind couch

Bedroom
Mending box
Clean out closet
Organize drawers
Dusty chandelier
Burnt out bulbs
Broken drop ceiling tile

Dining room
Old computers
Broken drop ceiling tile
Christians closet
Christians drawers

Kitchen
Clean out fridge
Clean behind fridge
Pantry
Organize utensil drawers
Fix broken drawer

Bathroom
Clean out chest
Organize under sink
Replace shower curtain
Move medicine out

Laundry room
Organize side wall
Organize shelves
Vacuum
Spray paint lamp

Outside
Get furniture
Compost
Move spool to front

I wish there were before photos. Actually, it's probably best that there aren't. Trust me, behind the closet and cabinet doors, we were messy. The end of the day resulted in three boxes and one garbage bag full of stuff ready to be donated. And with the help of a gift card to The Container Store, we can all sleep a little easier.

The Closets: hers and his 

 The Kitchen Drawers 

organized hardware drawer

just forks, spoons, knives, and bottle openers :)

medicine moved to the kitchen

utensil drawer now holds only the most frequently used 

this drawer has everything else

The Pantry 

love from the container store

The Bathroom

Also with the help of the container store

Happy cat in a clean home :)

My Mom Came Last Weekend...

And it was great. I miss her a lot already. Friday night we went to Maurapas, it was great as usual, Saturday we grilled out because Christian's brother Jeremy and his family were in town, and Sunday my mom and I rode bikes to the ferry and biked around Algiers Point. We also went to two open houses, one in the Bywater and one in Algiers Point. We are considering more and more a place of our own, more on that later. Here's the weekend in pictures.

Walking around the Quarter Saturday afternoon:

houses decorated for Halloween in the Quarter

Amy, Jeremy, Eme, and Rex

After grilling out Christian, Jeremy, and Eme went to the House of Shock (not my thing) and my mom and I walked around Frenchmen. 

ran into Natasha!

Sunday:

so relaxed...

This couldn't be sweeter:

I bought a remake of this sign for my dad. saw the real thing in Algiers 

Post Surgery and Evacation

taped up windows ready for the storm 

Sunday afternoon C and I were laying out in the blazing sun, next to the pool, not a cloud in the sky when he begins sharing with me his concern about this storm heading for New Orleans and about how surely my school will be closed this week.  And of course with no experience with hurricanes or evacuating, I say, "Look at the sky, you're being irrational. There's noway they'll cancel school." Two hours later I get a call that school is closed through Wednesday. We head to the store to get supplies and they have been all but emptied of anything nonperishable. That's when I start to believe, him and my concern about his scheduled surgery begins to build. We packed our bags and agreed to head to Mobile right after the surgery.

Preparing:

In spite of the storm I go ahead with cooking my healing chicken and dumplings for C after surgery, it's a combination of my mom's chicken soup and my mother in law's chicken and dumplings soup.

 We taped up the windows, got all the important stuff out of the way, packed our marriage certificate, passports, wedding albums, hard drives, and the family jewelry. We sat everything by the front door ready to go so that when I brought C home from surgery all I had to do was pack the coolers with everything perishable, pack the car, and drive East.

Surgery:

Before hand I cheered C up by showing him some memes. Here's a scene from our future car ride:

ready to go

after surgery, standing already!

 The car ride:

Erin, my BF from high school, was along for the ride

C in the back seat, leg propped up, pets in tow 

This week has really flown by! And carnival is in full swing! Beginning next Wednesday the city will be all but shut down to driving after 5; it's an amazing sight to see!

Some highlights from the week:

1. I woke up to a dead mouse (my cat is a true hunter) in by bathroom (possibly TMI) but I am really proud of myself because Christian is out of town and for the first 15 minutes of my morning routine I had all but resigned myself to leaving it for one of my male friends to sweep up later in the day. But, "no!" I said to myself. And I swept it into a dust pan and tossed it in the garbage, still twitching, all by myself. Go me!
2. I had a very sobering conversation with one of my students while we worked on test prep. He told me sometimes he cries at home because school is so hard for him and he knows he'll never catch up. I was stunned by his honesty, and asked him if he had always felt this way about school, or if this was a new thing this year. He said it was new this year, because being a junior is harder than he thought and he worries he will not pass to the next grade. The hardest part of my job is difficult conversation with students, because he will most definitely be with us for at least two more years, and I just don't know how to have this conversation in a constructive way. 
3. My star student I spoke about last week cursed out one of his teachers and we had a really long conversation during his hour detention about respecting women and things a person should never say. One step forward, two steps back. 
4. It's almost Spring and time for teachers to decide whether they will return or not. Teacher retention is an issue for every Charter in Nola, and has a huge impact on the students. It's always a high anxiety time: finding out who will be asked back, who will leave on their own, and who will stay in the trenches for at least another year.

Christian is coming home from Baton Rouge today, and I can't wait. It's been a long week apart. Tonight is the Apocalypse Ball and tomorrow is the official opening of 1239 Congress; they will be a part of the Second Saturday St. Claude gallery walks from now on. Christian's showing his "Looking down series" and all the prints are literally taped to the ground. There's some symbolism here about the viewer interacting with the art, and I love it.  I'll take lots of pictures.

An interesting article from the New York Times about how the Achievement Gap now has more to do with income inequality than racial inequality:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html?_r=2&hp 

Welcome! by Lauren

My name is Lauren Hardy and I have been an avid blog follower for the last several years. Reading other people's blogs fulfills my constant longing to be involved in other peoples' business without them ever knowing I was there. There was even a time a few years ago when I had my own blog (check it out here) but it was short lived because my purpose was limiting, and I was super lazy about updating it, and I was confused about who my audience should be...

Solution: a new blog, and a partner (my husband) to make sure that we are always up to date. You see, in so many ways Christian is strong where I am weak, and visa versa. For example, I hate to sweep and he doesn't seem to mind, I know the ins and outs of every account we have from Chase to Netflix and he pleasantly takes the backseat. In this same spirit, Christian is much better at keeping track of his online presence, and I often forget about these things, sometimes for weeks. 

So, there you have it, a blog with a purpose: to open up our life to our family and friends around the world, who we often don't see enough of. And who knows, maybe you'll learn something about love, being thrifty and earth friendly, and what happens when two people meet the love of their life at 18 and decide to make work: f-o-r-e-v-e-r...

Oh, and we're super obsessed with our animals, so please excuse the many photos to come that we clearly think are too adorable to keep to ourselves: