I'm Really Bad About Updating This...

Yea, it's been a while, huh? Well I'll just give y'all a basic run down of what's happened since my last post.

I have: turned a year older, had a visit from my dear friend Leanne,  had visit from my father, eaten my first raw oyster, learned how to put siding on a house, learned how to build walls for a house, had a 24 foot ladder fall on top of me (I was just bruised, no "real" injuries), been to a Budweiser party (and was treated to free drinks!), seen Steven Tyler in Jackson Square, cheered on the Saints even though they win some and lose some, been to Memphis and walked around Graceland, been homesick, gotten in a car accident (no "real" injuries again, Carl the Cobalt was just bruised), consumed a portion of the world's largest mac and cheese, put in baseboards in a few houses, swam in Lake Pontchartrain, run a Habitat site all by myself for an afternoon, gotten one hell of a crazy sock tan, seen Charlie Daniels play "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" live, and danced the night away on Frenchmen Street.

So there are the highlights (and some lowlights?) of the past month and a half.

I'm still loving it down here despite the pangs of homesickness that come from time to time. I really miss all my friends back in Raleigh, the rowdiness of home games at Carter Finley and cheering on the Wolfpack, working indoors and relishing the A/C, and most importantly, I miss the beach. I never realized how much salt air soothes my soul. I plan on driving to Biloxi once my car is fixed and soaking in as much salt air as humanly possible. Also, my family is coming here for Thanksgiving and that'll cure some of the homesickness as well.

New Orleans is really amazing and the people here are so gracious. When the group from Budweiser came to volunteer last weekend (they brought 260 volunteers!) I led neighborhood cleanup. Basically I just walked around the neighborhood and chatted with all the locals and Budweiser people. The people in the neighborhood were so grateful that we were not only building houses but helping clean up the area as well. They shared stories of their experience with the Katrina disaster and their die hard love for the Saints. The Budweiser people were so eager to clean up and help out in any way that they could. They did joke about not wanting to pick up any competition's products (i.e. Miller High Lifes and Heiniken) but they knew that what they were doing was meaningful to the community and they couldn't have been better sports about it.

I love days like that.  Days where the volunteers are eager, the sun is shining and there's a gentle breeze, hard work gets done, and I can end the day by celebrating with the wonderful people I've met or just peacefully drifting off to sleep.  On a side note, I no longer work with my other AmeriCorps friends.  We've all been split up and are working with our own site leaders, so now the training is over and the "real" work begins.  I am paired up with Catfish, aka Andrew, who was my house leader for the Katrina Anniversary Build in August.  We're quite the pair and I've already been dubbed with the nickname Nemo because of my small stature and constant struggling on the worksite. Haha. I'll be the only AmeriCorps to help build a two-story house which is exciting and daunting. I'm not really bragging about it because at some point I'll have to roof that two-story house and we all know how terrified I am of that.  (If you don't know, see my last blog entry.)

In a nutshell, that's my life here in the Big Easy so far. Living free, working hard, and loving (just about) every minute of it.