Hello Monday, Hello New Orleans

I really don’t know where to start. I thought I would have been blogging every chance I had last week but each time I thought about starting, I got overwhelmed. There is just so much to say. Just so much. I’ll save the details for my mom and try to hit the high points from our first full week living in New Orleans.

It definitely takes a village to move the Donaldson’s. This post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t start with big thank you to: Mr. Olen and Mrs. Penny, Chris, Staci and Lauren, Kyle and Katie, Daddy and Nancy, Don and Mama, Scott and Sarah, Chris and Megan, Kris, Andrew, and Stasia. Whew. Without you all, we would still be trying to figure out how to fit the vacuum cleaner into the trailer in Valdosta. 

Hello old house.

But for real, Andrew and I never could have gotten out of our Valdosta house and into our New Orleans apartment without this generous, hard-working group of friends and family. Thanks, from the bottom of our boxes.

The first four days in New Orleans were a haze for me. I think the urgency to stop living out of a suitcase coupled with working full time and moving the previous week put me in an extended state of deliriousness. I can’t really describe it. Lots got done. The kitchen is miraculously organized (for now) and I must have experienced some level of creativity to get things arranged in a pretty way, but I don’t really remember. 

Hello newly organized cabinets.

I do know however, that we have the kindest neighbors we could ever hope for. They are the ones listed in my thank yous as Megan and Chris. They live across the hall and when they saw we were moving in, they jumped to action by helping us unload, bringing us a case of water, and giving us an impromptu tour of their (precious!) apartment so we could understand how it was all supposed to fit. On top of that, they had us over for dinner Tuesday night. They have already meant so much to us and it is only the first week. Not to mention they are fellow Georgia folks AND Megan also has a blog! 

Hello Megan, my neighbor.

I think I more or less awakened by Thursday. By then, things had gotten settled enough around the apartment and our cable was finally showing the color red so everyone on T.V. stopped looking like aliens. I could relax. We had breakfast for dinner with Scott and Sarah at their (equally precious!) apartment. It included a fantasy like cinnamon-roll-French-toast casserole (Pinterest find) that was for the record books. Maybe I’ll post it one day.

Hello bridge over the Mississippi.

The weekend felt like the week since we are not employed, but it was fun nonetheless. Andrew might have gotten hired for a job delivering furniture for a hotel liquidator but that is a post unto itself. I got a free quart of paint from Ace Hardware. We ate too much fried seafood at Deanies. We sat by Lake Pontchartrain and watched the sun set. And we went to our first NOLA church service at Mosaic.

Hello Lake Pontchartrain.

To sum up this already summed up account; I really like living here. It may be a little premature to say but I think I love living here. I actually think I love it more than I wanted to. I wanted to love it just enough to enjoy myself but not so much that I didn’t want to go back to Georgia. I’m starting to feel differently. Maybe this is what contentment feels like? I’ll keep you posted.

Linking up with #YOLO Mondays, Hello Monday, and Bits of Splendor

Go to still being [Molly] for a chance to win an amazing pair of cowboy boots!!!!!!!