Walkabout

So, there really hasn't been much going on here; no outings to report! Yesterday, I had a holiday day off from work, so Rob and I walked around on Magazine street to do some window shopping and real shopping (and eating).  The only real shopping that we did was at Trashy Diva where I got a shirt for work and drooled over everything else in there - possibly my favorite store to look in.

Anyhow, Rob and I spent hours walking along Magazine.  It's fun to walk around here - it's free and there's a ton to look at:

Guitar cat rockin' it out

This person's display changes periodically.  Last time it was a bowling set up and I really wish I'd gotten a picture of that one!  Now it has a random midget skeleton.

We finished our day at Juan's Flying Burrito for dinner; this place is so freaking tasty.  We had the crawfish queso dip and wow, yum!! We are trying to not visit the same place twice yet so we can try new places, but this place is definitely already a repeat because it's just that good (and cheap).  Everything either of us has tried was so delicious.

But, back to walking:

Working in the French Quarter definitely lends itself to lots of fun lunch break walks along the Mississippi River or just around the Quarter itself.  I've started carrying my camera so I can take pictures of some of my favorite sights.  It has been raining so frequently for days on end that I haven't been able to venture out much, but today I could.

Love this Medusa picture

Obviously one of my faves.

However, it would be uncomfortable/awkward to get good pictures of some of the things I'd like to capture such as random vibrant hobos and panhandlers.  For example, I've seen some very dedicated clown get-ups (kudos to the bum in the wheelchair for entire face paint).  Catching random parades on Canal when I get off of work has also been fun - last week I caught my first set of parade beads on my own!  Wish I'd had my camera, but I'll make sure to carry it from now on.

My birfdee.

Today was my 29th birthday, and that hill is getting a hell of a lot steeper :p. We got an awesome Oreo Cookie cake from Whole foods....which I can't stop drooling over. Yeah, We ate cake for breakfast.

Afterwards, we went over to the WWII museum. That place was pretty cool. In fact, we only got half way through it. We had tickets for Tom Hanks' Beyond All Boundaries which we very interesting to watch. Strobe effects for the win.

We then made our way to John Besh's The American Sector for a lovely ass dinner. My wife got lamb meatballs and I got the creole shrimp:

i

There were also amazing pickles and cheese grits. Now to relax.

Insectarium Expedition

The weather here this week has been sooooo incredibly dreary and yucky; I'd really been looking forward to some quality time in bed with a book on my day off.  Definitely got some of that in, but didn't want to feel too lethargic, so Rob and I braved the weather and took the street car down to the Quarter to go to the Audubon Insectarium.  I'd gotten tickets for us from livingsocial * a few weeks ago, so we figured it was a good day to use them.

Awesome giant koi fish

Butterflies also enjoying the very rainy view of Canal

Feasting!

Rob was still soaked from our walk; attempts to not smile when posing with butterfly

Rolling the ball of dung

Big earthworm

Check out my sweet armor

We had a good time.  We were there for quite a while (at least 2 hours).  They did have some food prepared in the back of the museum with bugs.  Rob and I tried pretty much all of them - my favorite was the chocolate "chirp" cookies with crickets in them.

After a relaxing streetcar ride home (i.e. I almost fell asleep), we came home and relaxed.  

For dinner, since we were both home and wanted to cook together, we decided to try a recipe we'd found: Crab Cake Mac N Cheese.  In a quest to make this somewhat healthier, I swapped the regular pasta for Ronzoni Smart Taste macaroni and the cheeses for Cabot 50% reduced fat cheddar (normally I like the 75% reduced fat kind, but I figured since it needed to melt well for this that I'd get the 50%).  This dish took a lot longer to make than anticipated, but the result was well worth it:

The topping is a hot sauce/panko crumb mixture

Yum!

Good thing we both really liked it, because this recipe made a ton! With the swaps that we made, according to my BodyMedia food logger, one serving (I put in that this made 8 servings, and they're pretty generous servings) is 423 calories.  Not too bad.


* Livingsocial and Groupon have been a great place to find stuff on our "to do" and "to eat" list for cheaper.  We've used a few now; we keep all the ones that we have on the side of the fridge as a reminder of fun stuff to do together when we have some free time.

Rob's birthday is Wednesday, so we have another outing planned: the WWII Museum (Rob's pick).

Lazy Day Off and Baking Day

Today was my first day off since last Wednesday, which means it was time for some serious laying around, and also tackling everything that I need to do on days off.

I always have an inner struggle on my days off and chores in general: Rob is usually cooped up in the house while he's looking for a job, and when I'm off I like to do things with him around town that are fun and new.  However, sometimes I just want to lay around! I do generally have chores, and am trying to delegate more of them to Rob, but I don't want to treat him like a slave.  Unfortunately for us, yesterday we independently had too much coffee (abnormal), and were up pretty late.  At training for my job, there is always an assortment of candy and coffee, so I left there hyped up on too much sugar and caffeine, and had energy to burn last night.  I got a lot of my annoying chores done (hem pants, even worked out) last night, so today Rob and I needed to go grocery shopping and that was it on the "chores" front.

We drove out to a new part of town for us: the Westbank.  I wanted to see that Target, since the one in Metairie was less than exciting.  Overall, it was better than I anticipated.  We will have to go back to that area when we have more free time purely to go to World Market.  Anyhow, after that we came back and went to the Rouse's by us to pick up some groceries.

I still haven't gotten used to grocery shopping here.  I miss Publix! I don't like having to figure out where to get certain brands of stuff that I'm picky about (like Chobani yogurts - so good, only yogurt I really like, cheapest at Breaux Mart).  Also, another pet peeve when grocery shopping: all cashiers here put no more than 2 items per plastic bag.  Normally, we would take the reusable bags.  In Gainesville, most people used these.  Occasionally I like to get the plastic bags for trash can liners, etc., so sometimes we'd go without them.  However,  it seems like no one uses these here.  In fact, when they do put more than 3 items in a plastic bag, they double bag it.  I don't understand this! I usually ask them to put more stuff together, but I hate having to do that.  Mental note: keep reusable bags in car from now on.

Hennepin shows us the importance of using reusable shopping bags (she also shows us the importance of not having a disgusting dirty trash can in the background of your photos - we now have a new black trashcan.)

Our quest for healthy eating continues on, even though we both haven't been doing so great in that venture this week.  I made some of our favorite quick meal staples: individual thin crust pizza crusts.  These are so good, I usually make a double batch and bake the crusts and keep them on hand in the fridge for a quick bite.  Who doesn't love pizza? It's a great low calorie option that seriously takes less than 5 minutes to make when you have the crusts pre-done.  I also baked another favorite: brownies.  This recipe is really good and surprisingly healthy-esque.  It's not one of those weird diet recipes that has strange ingredients, either.

On tap for tonight: more relaxing, maybe a touch of working on something for work, and then dinner with friends! Yum.

Whats up,

I'm new to this city and I don't quite know how to feel about it yet. I'm unemployed and having a rough and aggravating time finding a job....however, I feel that it's very peaceful down here and there's plenty of stuff to do.

later.

Welcome!

Hello-

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a long time, but could never think of an appropriate or engaging topic.  I don't know how successful a topic this will be, but this blog will at least serve as an archive of what's going on in my life right now.

Just as a small backstory- my husband Rob and I have been married for a year and a half and we were living in Florida, where I've lived my entire life.  After several successful years at my career, and Rob not enjoying his job as much as he'd like to, I transferred with my job to a city that I've always wanted to live in: New Orleans.  After a completely whirlwind experience of moving here, we are finally settling into our new city and new lives here.

I want this blog to be about our new experiences here together, in our new city and our new(ish) marriage.  Also, hopefully this will give me incentive to keep up with people that I am missing from home and otherwise. Rob will be posting on here as well.  Stay tuned.