And the Winner is…

…Chicago! News! News! News! When we moved to New Orleans in 2009, we planned to stay 3-5 years–unless something compelling changed our minds. Nothing did. We enjoyed much of our NOLA experience, but neither of us ever fully acclimated to the Big Easy, we arrived in the midst of a wave of other Northern Carpetbaggers/Outsiders […]

Giving Care to Z

  Caregiving is a complicated business. It is hard, but also rewarding. It is painful, but also results in humor and positivity. It is a challenge, but I find I am grateful for the extra burden. I haven’t been in a dedicated caregiver role for another living creature close to me in awhile, but since […]

How Did You Meet?

When I moved back to Chicago from Los Angeles in 2001, I decided that I wasn’t meeting anyone interesting in my everyday world and that I should try on-line dating. I registered for both Match.com and Matchmaker.com and tried my luck. I found the whole process intriguing in those early days of digital matchmaking and […]

Parades & King Cake & Beads & Weather, Oh My!

I can’t believe another Mardi Gras season has come and gone!!! This one was fantabulous!!! I’m a late comer to Mardi Gras and I had never attended a Mardi Gras parade prior to moving to NOLA.  I celebrated Antigua’s Carnival and j’ouvert morning as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but that 10-day festival celebrates England’s emancipation […]

Breaking My Heart

Terry started working in New Orleans three months before I officially made the move here myself. I made a number of visits to check out the city and help find housing; however, I didn’t officially make the move from Chicago until August 2009. I packed up our condo and coordinated the movers while still rehabbing […]

On Shirley Temple Black

As a girl, I loved Shirley Temple. As a PCV/RPCV, I respected her involvement in foreign affairs and diplomacy. As a woman in my mid-40s, newly diagnosed with breast cancer, I admired her being so key in the 1970s to removing the secrecy surrounding this nasty disease. As a breast cancer survivor, diagnosed at the […]

Compendium of EMWA–January

com•pen•di•um [kuh m-pen-dee-uh m] noun, plural com•pen•di•ums, com•pen•di•a 1. a brief treatment or account of a subject, especially an extensive subject; concise treatment: a compendium of medicine. 2. a summary, epitome, or abridgment. 3. a full list or inventory: a compendium of their complaints. So, my January Compendium of EMWA goes something like this: Things […]

The Iceman Cometh!

Wow! January was a handful! At school we had bomb threats, broken water mains, and inclement weather impacting five of our school days. Two days were no school days; one was a no student day; another was a delayed start; and one resulted in the school being evacuated while the bomb dogs could sniff the […]