Our Southern Comfort Zone

"I miss my Tennessee home/And I've been away way too long/
I can't see this world unless I go/Outside my Southern Comfort Zone."
-Brad Paisley

When I hear this song, I think he must have written it for me, except that he put Tennessee instead of Georgia. I love New Orleans, which, while geographically located in both, should not be confused with the South or the Bible Belt. By my definitions, New Orleans is not in my Southern Comfort Zone. Yet I have experienced so much, seen more of "the world," and become a better person living here, so I know it's the right place to be.

The seminary is located in Gentilly (orange). We moved to Mid-City (purple).

The past few months have been super busy for us, but I am FINALLY getting around to posting pics of our new abode!! On March 1st we said goodbye to seminary campus (the "bubble," if you will) and moved out into The Big Easy fo' real - notice title of blog. The Cook family came to help us move mid-semester, and we could not have done it without them! We moved to an area known as Midcity, which the Atlantan in me constantly called Midtown when we moved here. In the same way, Midcity is also kinda the artsy/hipstery part of town. Not as nice as Uptown (think Buckhead), but not as hippie as the Marigny (think Little Five Points).

We got this at a festival. Presh.

Our neighborhood is very diverse. We have Caucasians, African-Americans, Latinos, young, old, students, and even some feral raccoons (what? yes!) living around us. Mona's Cafe, one of our favorite Greek restaurants, Finn McCool's Irish Pub, and Angelo Brocato's Italian Ice Cream Parlor are all within walking distance. Needless to say, it's a fun place to live. Josh and I just bought bikes, which Josh plans on riding to work and school. (I say wait until it is COOLER!) It's a good level of urban for me . . . walk to ice cream, take the streetcar to the Quarter, and get in my car to go to work. We like it.

My mom took this picture of us when she came
over my Spring Break to help us get settled. Thank you, Joy! 

We moved into a double Shotgun. Shotguns are the most popular style of housing in NOLA. Never heard of it? Here is Wikipedia's definition: A "shotgun house" is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than 12 feet wide, with rooms arranged one behind the other and doors at each end of the house. It was the most popular style of house in the Southern United States from the end of the American Civil War (1861–65), through the 1920s. 




From the outside, the "double" set up of this house kinda reminds me of our little Macon lovenest where we lived when we first got married (*sigh*), but the inside is quite different.

When you first enter, here is what you see . . .

 This is the living room from a different angle.

Then, we move right along to the dining room/office. This is supposed to be a 2nd bedroom, but I just don't see how that works unless you are SUPER close to your roomie and want anyone who comes over to visit to just hang out in your room. Oh wait, I think I just described a college dorm. But no one voluntarily chooses to live that way, right?!

Set up for Easter lunch, as noted by the fancy cloth napkins.

Just a normal day

Josh's "office" . . . formerly a room, now a wall.

Notice the lovely AC window unit. All I will say about that is that I am eternally grateful to whoever thought of Central AC and will never take it for granted again. ;) Ok, I'm being slightly sarcastic, it's really not that bad, and it's cheaper too! But it is strange to me that more houses don't have Central AC when you live in a place with an average heat index of 100 degrees in the summer. Guess that's what we get for living in a city where many of the houses are 100 years old.

Then, we enter the little hallway. To the left, a bathroom.

Some fun hanging lights we found at the World Market.
They were supposed to help light up the shower area but are really more for decoration. :) 

Then we move on into the bedroom. At first I was weirded out by the thought of people walking through my room. And as you know, it's not so much because of the neatness factor (as I am a liiiitle OCD about cleanliness), but more from the privacy aspect. (See how a roommate would have to walk through your room just to get a glass of water?) But that's just normal around here, so we've gotten used to it. I still haven't decided if it makes Josh neater or it just makes me straighten up more often. :)

Entering the bedroom from the hallway

A different angle, pre-redoing the dressers

After redoing the dressers

We painted these dressers that we've had since we got married. 
I think Josh had them in his room as a kid! We used chalk paint, and they turned out really well. 
I felt like I was on that old show "Trading Spaces."  BEFORE . . .

And AFTER!

Finally, we arrive at the kitchen. We searched for a place with a kitchen that was not in the back, but they are hard to come by period, but especially in our price range. We were excited about more room space, but quickly realized we had no counter space. So we created some.

Josh built this himself! Cheaper than buying and island, and we can always use the shelving later on.
Marrying a handyman was a good idea! :)

We originally painted it with chalkboard paint. The one project in my life I felt could be Pinterest-worthy.

It was super cutesie, but just not practical, as we would use the space to cook and then wipe all the writing off when we cleaned up. So it became red!

And now you've arrived at the back of our house. We have a small area behind the house with a shed and grassy patches. It looks like a tropical jungle now that we are in the "rainy season" in southern LA. I would like to make a garden at some point, so we'll wait to post pics of the backyard whenever I get around to that. 

So that's it. If all goes as planned, this is our little casa for the next two years. And we have a couch that is great for sleeping on for when y'all decide to come visit us!! :)

Post-Birthday Ponderings . . . Youth is Wasted on the Young

As I sit and write this, I have been 25 years old for almost one whole month now. I was rather dreading this birthday, mostly because of what Josh refers to as my “Peter Pan Complex.” Basically . . . I don’t want to grow up. He says it is because of this that I still enjoy child-like things . . . for example, going to elementary school every day, hanging out with nine year olds, painting my nails crazy colors, and eating Goldfish and Life cereal. (Apparently, these are not adult foods.)

Beautiful birthday flowers from two of my students!

The past six months or so, whenever I would think about my birthday/turning 25/being a quarter of a century old, the John Mayer song “Stop This Train” would automatically pop into my head. (This is also the singer who penned the phrase “quarter-life crisis,” which is what I thought I would probably go through.) Here are a few of the lines:

Stop this train
I want to get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't

But honestly won't someone stop this train

The train of life keeps moving. In fact, it just keeps getting faster. Yet even John Mayer eventually figures out that you can’t stop the train, and that’s not a bad thing. I, too, know this. I want all of the adult things in life (marriage, children, a house), but I just don’t want to grow up. I want the wisdom and experience of an adult without the age. 

Josh made me a delicious and definitely not nutritious birthday dinner - Fettuccine Alfredo (my fav!). Yum!

I started thinking about that scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” (Josh’s favorite movie of all time . . . everyone should watch it) where George and Mary are walking down the street together after having just re-met and fallen into the pool and all of that. They are singing “Buffalo Gals” and stop at the old house to throw a rock and break a window to make a wish. The old man who is watching them yells out, “Why don’t you kiss her ‘stead of talking her to death?” and when George seems confused by this he adds, “Ahh, youth is wasted on the wrong people.”

I got to Google Hangout chat with almost my entire family at once! (We missed you, Matt.) Technology is so wonderful.

As one who spends all working days with youth, I feel this is true . . . youth IS wasted on the young. They think they have it so hard. "Fourth grade is the hardest. Homework is the hardest. Baseball practice is the hardest. Not having the newest iPhone is the hardest." (Yes, I hear this.) The older you get, the easier and nicer those "hard" things of the past seem. When they’re even younger, little kids don’t want to take naps. I would LOVE to be able to take a nap every day! And so the cycle continues. One day, we'll look back on these "hard seminary days" with longing.

This is my last week with those young, silly 4^th grade kiddos. They have been such a great class. They revived my love for teaching. And this year has flown by! The more years that pass, the faster they go. My mom has explained this phenomenon to me like this: When you’re four years old, waiting for Christmas is torture. It seems to take so long. As it should, because you have to wait a quarter of the length of your life to be repeated. Now, Christmas comes after 1/25 of the amount of my life. And one day, I will only have to repeat 1/80 of my life before Santa returns. (I’m sure I did not explain the math correctly on that, but you get what I’m saying.)

A chilly birthday celebration weekend in Destin, FL. Yes, as if tanning was not difficult enough for me in the heat, this weekend confirmed it is impossible with goose bumps.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. As I stated in the title, these are my post-birthday ponderings. Just musings about life. Interspersed with some fun birthday pics. And while Josh is still a youngin’ who doesn’t understand, he will in a few days when he joins me at the ripe old age of 25. (May 31^st to be exact . . . you should give him a hard time.)  :)

Mardi Gras Break!

Hi friends,

I thought I would procrastinate from doing school work a little bit longer by blogging! The past few months have been so busy for us. I can’t believe we’re already halfway through February. It seems like I was just writing our Christmas card update. We went home to Georgia for Christmas and spent time with both families as well as friends. It was so nice.

This past week, I was out of school for Mardi Gras break. That is definitely one of the best perks of moving to New Orleans . . . a week off of work that I didn’t have before! We went to a handful of Mardi Gras parades with friends. I think Josh goes for the people-watching. I go for the throws. We even had friends in two different parades this year and got to see them ride by! I won’t launch into my whole spiel about Mardi Gras (you can look at my blog post from last year), but I will say that Mardi Gras is so much fun and not the wild and raucous party as it is stereotypically described. Of course, you can find that if you really want it, but most parades are family-friendly. The whole city comes out and the people standing next to you become your friends for the evening (until you catch the beads meant for them ... don’t do that).  There’s an open invitation every year for friends to come visit for Mardi Gras. Our couches are pretty comfy, and we have room for a blow-up mattress. We are only here two more years, so you need to take us up on it soon. :)

Endymion . . . we saw the world's longest float!

The Superdome lit up for Mardi Gras!

Zulu . . . we saw our two friends and got two coconuts!

Josh is serious about gettin' him some throws.

Speaking of making friends in the city, we are moving! Josh and I found an apartment in Midcity. We are excited about moving off seminary campus and into the city. It is closer to church and Josh’s work. We are looking forward to being within walking distance of some of our favorite restaurants and the streetcar so we can go downtown without having to drive.  Also, it will get us out of the seminary bubble and give us a chance to really be in and among the people of New Orleans. The rent is higher, and we will not have some of the conveniences we have grown accustomed to (e.g., no central heating and air-gotta invest in some window units), but we have been praying about this for months and feel like it is really what we should do.  We feel like meeting our neighbors and living for Christ in our community will be good practice for church planting after seminary. Please pray for this new ministry and adventure! We move March 2, so I’ll post pictures once we are settled!

Hope you all are doing well! Love from NOLA!

Christmas Card Update

Merry Christmas to all! This is my favorite time of year! We sent out our first Christmas card this year! It was very exciting to have our own and not just be included in our parents’. Rather than adding a letter in our Christmas card telling everyone about our lives over the past year, I decided to update our blog and include a link to it in our card instead. It seemed the easiest way and would allow for more communication throughout the year.

For those of you just reading this blog for the first time, I’ll try to condense what we’ve been up to over the last year. I guess I should rewind a little before that. We moved to New Orleans in the summer of 2011, just a few months after getting married in March. Josh started working on his M. Div. at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I was teaching 2^nd grade at a school outside the city.

This past summer, we made numerous trips back and forth to Georgia to be in various friends’ weddings. It was so nice to relax and spend time with friends and family. We also got to visit Josh's sister, Jennifer, who lives in Washington D.C. and show Josh the sights for the first time. Sadly, during this time, Josh’s Maw Maw passed away from Ovarian Cancer. It is good to know that she is cancer-free and pain-free, but we still miss her a lot, especially around the holidays.

After much prayer and consideration, I decided to apply for jobs at a different school for this year. The environment I was working in was very difficult, and I was losing my passion for teaching. A friend from seminary helped me get a job at Belle Chasse Primary School teaching 4^th grade. Up to this year, I thought I didn’t want to teach children older than 3^rd grade. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I love the older kids! They are old enough to know the basics but at this prime age where they still love school and are so curious and excited about learning! Unfortunately, 4^th grade is the year of high-stakes standardized testing in Louisiana. I do not enjoy the pressure that puts on me or my students, but I won’t get into that . . . :) This year has really helped me grow to love teaching again.

Josh started working at Village Coffee Shop in the city last year, and he continues to work there part-time when he is not taking classes. (I must admit that I am drinking a delicious Peppermint Mocha made by him as I write this!) He took Greek this past semester, and I do not envy him! He has spent many hours going over flashcards, and I have fallen asleep to the sound of him saying random Greek words out loud in his office.  He feels called to plant a church after seminary. Maybe New Orleans, maybe anywhere; we are still praying and thinking through that and have time to decide.

We are really enjoying our time in New Orleans. We love it here! We have joined a church, and enjoy our weekly Community Group in addition to serving with the Kids’ Ministry. There are always festivals to attend. Josh’s family came to visit us in the fall, and we took them to the Blues and BBQ Festival as well as the Lousiana Seafood Festival. In November, we attended our favorite one, Po Boy Fest.

We have officially become Saints fans this season and got to go to our first game this fall. It was SO much fun! I won’t tell you who we were playing or the score of the game when we broke their perfect winning streak, but I will say that we had family members disown us over Thanksgiving break when they found out. ;)

We have decided that rather than pushing Josh to finish seminary in three years (which they tell you is doable, but is hard to do), we are going to continue to enjoy our time here and make it four years total. One and a half years down, two and a half to go. This year seems to be flying by. I’ve always heard the older you get, the faster it goes. I am finding that to be true.  I am sure it will feel like no time at all before we are saying “Remember when we lived in New Orleans . . .” For now, we will continue to make the most of our time here. Come visit us in the Big Easy! We love having friends come so we can show them around and eat some beignets.

We hope this finds you doing well this holiday season. 2 Corinthians 9:15 says, “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.” We are thankful this Christmas for our many blessings, for the gift of Jesus, and for our friendship with you. Merry Christmas and love to you all!

We Survived the Storm!

This was written Sunday, 9/2, but we did not get internet back until recently, so I am just posting it a week later. 

Well, I feel that we have experienced a New Orleans rite of passage this past week. Against the pleas of family, we decided to “shelter in place” for Hurricane Isaac rather than evacuate. I feel it necessary to blog about why we decided to stay.

Last weekend, talk of Tropical Storm Isaac turning into a hurricane became serious. This year I work in Plaquemines Parish, which you have probably heard of on the news recently. The southern part of this parish experienced total devastation during Katrina, and many of the teachers and families of my students lost everything. Understandably so, they do not take hurricanes lightly. On Sunday, when they could see that Isaac was making its way towards us, they cancelled school Monday through Wednesday. The seminary did not decide until Monday afternoon to cancel its classes Tuesday through Thursday, which did not give us much time to decide if we should leave or stay as they were predicting Isaac would make landfall on Tuesday.

When that happened, Josh and I talked through our options. We could evacuate to Georgia to stay with family or go to Mississippi to stay with friends. Either way, it was spending a lot of hours in the car and a lot of money on gas (which, if you remember our summer, was not something we really wanted to repeat). Isaac was supposed to only be a Category 1, come in Tuesday, and be gone Wednesday, so we decided to stay and weather the storm!

On Monday, Josh and I read up on hurricane readiness, filled our refrigerator with water, our pantry with nonperishables, and our freezer with ice. We got our candles ready and charged our cell phones and laptops. Tuesday was a little vacation. We slept in and spent the day cooking and baking in order to use all of our food that might go bad. I joked about not knowing that I would gain weight during a hurricane!

Tuesday night, while we were asleep, we lost power. We woke up Wednesday to a dark apartment, so we opened the doors and windows and listened to the falling rain and wind. It sounded liked the waves at the beach. We played Monopoly by candlelight (Josh won) and ate the rest of our cooked food. Isaac had slowed down and didn’t really hit New Orleans until Wednesday afternoon. We were good waiting it out.

Wednesday, the hurricane hit and there was a lot of rain and wind, heavier than a typical summer storm. On Thursday, Isaac moved out, the wind and the rain calmed, and with it, our breeze. Our cell phone service never died, so we were able to talk to family and friends and let them know we were ok. (We would take turns keeping our phones on and charge them in the car when necessary. We also rationed out our laptop power and watched movies on them every night.) We drove around campus and surveyed the damage. There was a small amount of flooding (not much more than when there is a heavy rain here), and most of the water was already receding. There were a lot of smaller branches all over, and about ten trees had fallen, but there was no major damage to buildings or cars. Overall, campus had survived pretty well!

Thursday night was warm, and when we woke up Friday, it was hot and humid! Josh went to the coffee shop he works at to help them set everything back up. That was the first time either one of us had left campus. When he came back, I was sitting on the couch “grumpy” (as he called it). The air was so warm and still. And without a water heater, our showers were ice cold, which should have felt good, but I didn’t like going from sweating to shivering. I’d had to clean out our fridge and freezer and throw away food, which aggravated me. And the smell was not pleasant either! All in all, I was not in a good mood. Josh kept assuring me that the power would be on soon. We’ve realized for future reference that Day 3 is my breaking point without power! (I’m more high maintenance than I thought!)

That night was pretty miserable, so we woke up Saturday morning and headed out to somewhere, anywhere with air conditioning! We used a gift certificate we had to Cracker Barrel for breakfast (thank you, Nana!), walked around Wal-Mart, went to the mall, ate some FroYo, stopped by Target. We kept checking back on campus and found power trucks working on the lines! We came back and joined some other seminarians, sitting in the grass, staring at the men in the bright yellow vests, hoping that somehow our desperate stares, fanning, and wiping of our brows would help them turn the power on faster! :) At 6:45, one of the men hollered, “Go inside and check your lights!” They were on! And the air conditioner! And the oven! And the refrigerator! And the TV! And the washer and dryer! And the hot water in the shower! All the little things we take for granted. It was thrilling!

Tonight at church we sang the lyrics, “And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?” A hurricane? And that’s when it hit me. God was with us through all of this. I never felt in danger. I didn’t lose anything. I didn’t feel liked I “needed” God. But He was there, and He did protect and spare us. I thought that not having AC for four days was horrible, but for some Isaac was truly horrific. The city itself was spared, but the surrounding areas have experienced tragedy yet again. I’ve already heard of one teacher at my school who lost everything in Katrina and has now lost everything in Isaac. People had trees come through their roofs, flooding, and more.  “What can stand against?” Nothing; not even hurricanes. Yet it’s still so hard to understand the “why.” Why does this happen? I’m not writing to answer that question, but to simply acknowledge that this storm has changed my perspective in some ways. I will be thankful for all the little things that I take for granted . . . at least for a little while. And then God will send something else to remind me that he is taking care of us and watching over us, and that I’ll always “need” Him.

Tomorrow we are doing disaster relief work in the city. I’m sure I’ll have an even bigger perspective then of all that has happened. For now, please pray for the thousands who are still without power, the areas where the flooding is not expected to go down for weeks, and those who cannot afford the repairs that are needed to their houses or businesses. Love to you all. We’ll keep you posted.

Hip, Hip, Hooray! It's One Year Today!

Today marks one year of the little Cooks living in the Big Easy! It’s hard to believe that we’ve been away from Georgia that long. Looking back on it, the time has flown by. It seems like we were just unloading the moving truck in the NOLA heat. So much has happened over the last 12 months. There have been challenging moments, but overall it has been a good year, and we are glad to be here.

When I last wrote, summer was just beginning, and now summer is coming to a close.It has been wonderful to take a break from our normal hectic schedule. In June we spent almost three weeks on the East Coast. We traveled to Georgia first for Josh to be in a friend’s wedding (number 4 out of 5 this year). Then we headed up to Washington D.C. to spend the week with Josh’s sister Jennifer. She has been working for a Congressman for about a year and a half now, and we really wanted to visit while she’s living there. We walked our feet off but had a lot of fun exploring all of the national monuments and Smithsonian Museums. Jenn even hooked us up with a special night tour of the Capitol, and we got to see areas they don’t show people on regular tours. It’s nice to have connections!

                Sadly, we ended our visit to D.C. by learning that Josh’s Maw Maw was not doing well. She had been battling Ovarian Cancer for almost a year and had quickly gone downhill. We had visited her in the hospital when we were in town for the wedding, but since we left she had been sent home with hospice care. Josh, Jennifer, and I quickly traveled back to be with their family during the last week of her life. On June 15^th, she passed away. While we are glad that she is no longer in pain and is celebrating in heaven, it was very hard to lose her. Meanwhile, Josh and I had to leave at the end of the week to travel to South Carolina for Josh to be in our fifth and final wedding of the year! It was a bittersweet time, enjoying a happy occasion with friends but also hurting from the loss of Maw Maw. We traveled back to Georgia for her funeral on Sunday and then headed back to New Orleans late that night. It was a crazy trip with lots of traveling back and forth. Total, we estimate that we drove around 2,855 miles and spent about 39 hours in the car!

                The rest of the summer was full of little trips. We went camping at Gulf Shores with some friends over the 4^th of July, to Panama City Beach with Josh’s family to spread Maw Maw’s ashes, and I took a solo bus ride to Atlanta to spend time with my family since I had not seen them at all this summer. I realized that I had jumped right into school the day after we moved to New Orleans and had not come up for air until this summer. It was not until summer break that I’ve had time to get homesick. So the trip home was good for me, although I was sad that Josh had to stay behind and work.

                School is about to begin again, and I will be starting my new job at a difference school as a 4^th grade teacher. This is my third year teaching, third new school, and third new grade! Please pray for me as I transition into this new role. The pressure on teachers for their students to do well on the 4^th grade standardized LEAP test can be overwhelming. Pray that I enjoy my new job but that I can find a way to organize my time and separate school life from home life. Josh has been working all summer. (I’m so thankful for his hard work!) He is starting his second year of seminary in a few weeks. Please pray for him as he gets back into the school mode and all the extra work that comes with it.

Thanks to everyone for your continued support! Hope you’ve had a wonderful summer as well!

Sweet Summertime!

It’s summertime! We made it! Woohoo! One of the perks of both of us being on a school schedule is that we have this summer off! Last summer, we worked at Ingleside Baptist Church right up until the day before we moved to New Orleans. This summer, I finally get to enjoy one of the greatest perks of being a teacher . . . 9 weeks without students, lesson planning, grading, or getting up at the crack of dawn! Josh claims that I will quickly get bored, but I promise him I will not. I plan on cleaning the apartment, reading lots of books, and enjoying time at the pool (something I did not get to do last year). 

Josh finished his 2^nd semester of classes. It’s hard to believe he’s a third of the way through seminary, in theory – we might stretch it out a little longer. He will continue to work at the coffee shop this summer but is not taking any classes. Between the two of us, we were/are in 4 weddings this summer. Mine were both in May, and they were beautiful! (Congrats to Caroline Niziol and Christy Link!) Josh’s are in June, so it just didn’t work out for him to take classes with all the traveling to Georgia, South Carolina, and even Washington, D.C. to see his sister, we will be doing over the summer.

Another answer to prayer is that I have a new job next year! I just found out last week that I will be teaching 4^th grade at Belle Chasse Primary this coming August. Fourth graders will be a huge jump from my little 2^nd grade kiddos this year, but I am very excited about it. Plus, one of my friends from seminary campus works there and is moving from 3^rd up to 4^th to teach with me! I feel so honored and blessed and can’t wait to see what this next year has in store. While I’m not naïve enough to think that it will be easy – 4^th grade is the big year for standardized testing in LA – I have prayed a lot about what to do next year and feel like this is where God wants me.

It’s been a while since my last post. Josh went to Canada back in March with his church planting class and it really confirmed that is what we’re supposed to do after seminary. We’re not sure where, but we do know that God is calling us to start a church. So that is something you can join us in praying about. We still have at least two, maybe three, more years here at seminary. We love our new city, but we’re also eager to see where God wants us to go next. Always an adventure with the Cooks!!

For now, we’re content to rest and enjoy this time off with each other, friends, and family! Goodbye for now.