life in the NO

Our new house is awesome. Our new neighborhood is awesome. It's in the historic district, and it's nice on the eyes. my bed is the brown one & i have a lovely view of the outside

This weekend was wonderful. I think it was technically the beginning to Mardi Gras. There was a parade at night, and the streets were just packed. I don't have many words to describe it... except one big party. & this was just a small taste of what Mardi Gras will actually be like. It actually will be pretty safe, so don't worry too much about me. How do i figure? well because just from observing last night, people will be too heavily intoxicated to cause any real threat to a person. hah, just sayin.

The girls on my team & i stayed in a house hotel in the French Quarter. It was such a neat place. It used to be someone's house, but it's huge. Every room is completely different from the other, so you never know what you will get. It had a beautiful courtyard and it was so nice to be able to just walk back and sleep when you got tired. I hung out with some pretty cool people last night. We went to iHop and we all destroyed 6 1/2 pancakes. we were all trying to win... we all tied and sunk in to a bit of a food coma.

Today we came back home on the ferry and our team went to a crawfish boil that we were invited to, to celebrate the bed bug ordeal being officially over! I had never eaten crawfish before... it was, alright. i think it was the fact that they still looked like they should be alive but weren't... i just opted for the snacks mostly, but i had to try... when in Rome, right?

Anyway, totally loving it here.
P.S. mom, you should visit me : ]

Abigail D.... in process.

This week has been absolutely insane. I've lived three places in the past five days. Our bed bug epidemic seemed to come to an end one lovely saturday as we moved back into our big bright lime green house. We were finally able to move all of our things out of a plastic bag and back into our house. Life was looking up!
Then Sunday night... it started.......!

Gordy came into our room at 11:30 and told us that he had got bitten by a bed bug and had about 5 more crawling on his bed. That was the final straw for just about all of us, and we packed up everything we owned and went back to the hotel we had previously moved from and thankfully had contenental breakfast to look forward to. we got to bed around one. This is a picture of my teammate Yasi, preparing to take everything out of the room. it was kinda hilarious.

The work week was absolutely incredible. I was a house captain this week along with a worker from Rebuilding Together. We worked on a historic house that had an elderly women, Miss Davis, living in it. It needed an exterior paint job. The place was so gorgeous. We worked with about 8 volunteers on the house, and i loved them! They were very fun to work with and talk to, and they would bring us lunch and donuts. (the best thing of my life)

The living situation... currently we're in a new place. it's in a nice area of town and our team is going to have to split up between two of these houses. Our whole team is spread over this small house. We're in sleeping bags on the floor... not so bad, except no hot water. I braved the freezing cold water once. We have to take the ferry every day to work, whereas before we lived next door to work.
Emotions were high. we're making it though. it's testing my patience

This weekend will be awesome. it's the first weekend of Mardi Gras. The first parade is tomorrow.

now we are going to watch a family movie on the floor now. i love us : ]

Abigail- in process.

Who Dat?

The Saints/Vikings game was tonight.
insanity here!
we went to a local bar to watch the game, it was so much fun. at every touchdown or really good play, they would play one of the many Saints songs and everyone would get up and dance.

i'm lying here in my bed, and i can hear music and car horns and excited people. this will be all night, i'm sure.

the superbowl will be ridiculous. i've definitely never been in the same state as a team going to the super bowl (poor lions) &&&&&&&& i'm stoked!

-abigail

DayssssInn

So, remember those bed bugs?
well the exterminator is coming! because of this we had to pack all of our stuff in plastic bags and move them outside, and then we got placed in hotel rooms. I'm very excited about this. I mean, i know the whole bed bug thing kinda stinks, and it's inconvieniant... but this is the stuff we'll think back on and laugh about.... annnnd nice beds/showers/free breakfast/cleanliness/going to to eat every night.

i think we're here till friday. schwing!

Abigail- in process.

building. salvaging. bed bugs!

i am in new orleans. i am totally enthralled by it's culture and beauty. i adore walking around it's streets. it's a big city, but small buildings. i can tell it's old & jam packed with history.

we live right near the french quarter, but it's still a pretty bad part of town. the salvage store is literally our backyard which is why there is the big freaky looking fence in from of our housing.
we can't go out without another person, because of the area.. but a lot of the crime is gang and drug related. also a lot of the people there know that we're there to rebuild their city for them, so they respect us. Americorps is pretty well known in this city.

today we actually had an all Corps service day. it was "a day on, not a day off" but we met up at a local camp with 4 other NCCC campuses. there's gotta be about 200 Corps members here in this city. i think it means a lot for people to see young adults care about them. it means a lot to let them know we care.

a goal of mine is to listen to stories. i want everyone i talk to to know that i genuinely care about them as a person, and i want them to feel the healing that happens to share burdens.

these are pictures from work. i love my team. we definitely work hard and play hard. living together has brought us much closer together. also living together we have come across some interesting things... dead mouse on the bottom of the couch... and here's the kicker. bed bugs!
my poor teammate meghan discovered some pretty annoying bites on her about three days ago and went in to get the bites looked at... sure enough. bed bugs. we found them!!! nasty, right?
we dumped the mattreses and got new ones and washed everything. i'll let you know who wins this battle
















love you!

abigail- in process.

NOLA

Welp, three days here and it's so amazing! New Orleans is utterly unexplainable. Our trip took 3 full days. We went through Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. We would travel about 8 hours every day, stopping for lunch & dinner. It was a fun way to live for 3 days. There was a lot of music listened to, laughter, conversations, sleeping, snoring (haha), and getting to know each other realllly well.


everyone would be completely knocked out in the mornings, except for me and tana who would drive. See that little gnome on the dashboard facing her? That is Cedric. Our traveling pet/gnome. We take him everywhere. He had a blast on this trip.


The drive was beautiful. i have more pictures here for you to see

here is where i will be sleeping for the next two months. top bunk is the best!

here is our house. it's surrounded entirely by fencing & a little barbed wire... creepy? yeah, but it is a bad part of town.
the work here is perfect. we're working directly with residents, and it makes everything seem so much more personal.

love you all & miss you

Abigail- in process, always.

the big red bags.

i will be living out of this for the next
two months.

New Orleans, here we come!

abigail-in process.

Round Two

This round we are headed to New Orleans to work with an organization called Rebuilding Together. They are the nation’s leading nonprofit working to preserve affordable homeownership and revitalize communities. New Orleans is a big focus for them currently, so my team and I will be spending the next two months with them.

The reasons I'm excited about this project are: traveling somewhere, experiencing New Orleans, learning more about construction, and definitely working directly with the community. We'll be able to interact directly with the people we will be helping, so it will be incredibly rewarding.

This week is "transition week" and is spent reflecting on last project and preparing for next project. It's good to be back with our whole Corps, and hang out with some people I had been missing. On Saturday we take off in our 15-passenger van headed for NO. I'm soooo ready!
We will be staying in a house that was basically designed to house teams of people. bunk beds etc. I'll definitely get some pictures of it when we're there. I will have internet access at our house, which is awesome. I'll be able to keep in touch.

just for fun... i had made this for my parents for Christmas to show off my lovely team. it shows faces & names. we are known as Earth 1.

-Abigail- in process.

my christmas break.

I had such an amazingly wonderful Christmas break, guys. It was a strange feeling yesterday when I woke up. I was excited to come back and start going again because we're going to be doing great things here... but I was also sad. It was different saying goodbye to everyone this time. 7 months is a bit longer than 2.
I loved being with my family, there is nobody in the entire world like them. I guarantee that to you. We are strange and we love each other passionately. Passionately enough to get on each others nerves : ]
When I first got home, my mom, dad and sister picked me up. It was unreal. I felt so disoriented... only after two months! They asked me what I wanted to eat, I replied... a really good cheeseburger. We went to Red Robins, schwing!
That evening, my brother took me out to my favorite pizza place. I thought it was just going to be the two of us, but he did something awesome. He had some of my friends there so when I walked in, I was shocked and excited to get to see them.


























Pajama Day was another success. (I stay in my PJ's all day on Christmas... it's becoming a major tradish)
I recieved a lot of neat stuff for Christmas, but top of the charts has to be my annual ugly vest from my loving and generally stylish mother...

so I spent break with people that I loved.
Some of my activity highlights of the break were:
- G's
-Fondue
-Girl's day with mom
-Two 18 year old girls building a fort (I hope Rach and I never grow up)
-Getting to play with my boys again for the Christmas youth group
-Dancing to Irish jigs with Ben & Maggie
-Playing and recording music with my dad
-Personal charades (puia's hotdogs, invisible man, pilgrims on the mayflower)
-Spending the night at Ash & Kyle's new house
-Jimmy Johns/Charlie's with friends
-Family bowling
-H-ing H H's on Christmas eve afternoon with my Deech
-almost sledding down Apple Mountain (next year...)
-Book Club, and exploring together how we can make our lives a better story
-Meijer Olympics
-Tim Hortons in the PM
-Autotune
-spelling out the word "urine" with human bodies
-midnight at the Seagers
-A&W w/ my boys
-making the Luke exchange on State St & River
-Kierstin's birthday party/ her Grandma rocking at the Wii
-stealing Luke's car at any given opportunity
-talking life with my mother at a really good restaurant
-Don't stop believing!



















annnnnd of course the annual game of scrabble played on New Years Eve with michael and my raunchy mothers. we love it.