Q&A: On living in NOLA and elsewhere

First, let me say that I have loved getting all of y'alls questions - they really get my creative juices flowing. Some of the topics are so obvious that I have no idea why I didn't think to talk about them before! So, feel free to keep the questions coming.

A few people asked about what it's like to live in New Orleans and why we've lived elsewhere. So, here goes.

Ally, one of my favorite bloggers, asked: How many days are there parades? And how does any business get done in New Orleans during Mardi Gras season? I won't give a full history of Mardi Gras, but the Mardi Gras season typically begins in January after Twelfth Night on Epiphany and continues until Fat Tuesday. Fat Tuesday always falls 41 days prior to Easter Sunday and is the day before Ash Wednesday. This means that the Mardi Gras season changes every year. Fun fact: Thatcher's 21st birthday is on Fat Tuesday! You can essentially think of Mardi Gras as the city's last hurrah before we all give up drinking and gorging ourselves on king cake - ha! Fat Tuesday is the only night where bars close in New Orleans - at midnight, you can see cops riding on horseback through the French Quarter to clear everyone out.

The parades start about 2-3 weeks before Fat Tuesday, with the biggest and best parades happening the weekend immediately before Fat Tuesday. Now, there are technically parades all over the state, but in New Orleans there are about 20-30 parades in total. Keep in mind that the parades are just one aspect of Mardi Gras - the season is also filled with debutante parties, balls, king cakes and crawfish boils. It really is a season that is deeply engrained in our culture, much like you would celebrate any other major holiday. In fact, most people decorate their houses as seriously as they do at Christmas time.

In the days leading up to Mardi Gras, nothing does get done! The city essentially shuts down for a few days, and you don't dare try to drive anywhere (and most likely you WILL get stuck while they let floats or tractors pass if you do venture out). You start to live by the parade schedules and routes, but it's just part of living here. Sadly, I work for an organization based elsewhere, so I would have had to take today off to head out to the parades. The husband is extremely busy at work (more on our careers in another post!), but I hope that one day we'll be able to take Thatcher out on Mardi Gras day!

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Andie, another NOLA girl, asked: Other than New Orleans, where would you like to live? After having Thatcher, I can honestly say nowhere. We moved around a ton after college, and I honestly loved every second of that and made some wonderful lifelong friends (many of whom read this blog to stay in touch!) That said, I love, love, love being so close to my parents and brother. My family is extremely small, so it's really important to me to be near them, and while there are some aspects of life in New Orleans that drive me insane (pot holes, crime, and the cost of living), to me it is home. The husband is way more eager to live elsewhere. He gets more easily frustrated with the "dysfunction" here and is open to moving. I won't rule it out as a possibility, but I am very content here (who doesn't love seeing their parents practically every day?) If I had to pick, I would likely choose somewhere in the Southeast, and I lean towards smaller cities. I think I'd like places like Nashville and Charlotte, for example. I don't love traffic, concrete and huge crowds (basically, I'd never live in New York). We strongly considered Denver at one point, and I love the idea of San Francisco...but in reality, I am happiest in a small city in the south. We loved Tampa and never planned to leave. Which brings me to...

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Maria and Emily asked: "why Tampa?" Basically, by chance. I majored in finance, so I interviewed for a ton of jobs in New York during my senior year in college but knew that I'd be miserable. I don't agree with concrete jungles and loud noises. When an opportunity came along in Tampa, I figured, "why not?" It was a small city in the south and surrounded by water. Plus, it was an hour flight from New Orleans. It ended up being one of the best decisions I made. Sure, it was scary to move to a brand new city where I knew no one right after college, but it was a transformative and positive experience. I was pushed out of my comfort zone and forced to make new friends. The husband actually started in DC after college but soon realized that he couldn't live without me and moved to Tampa (this was about a year after I moved there).

I moved to Tampa intending to live there for 2-3 years, and we ended up loving it. We had an amazing group of friends (some of whom just visited us for New Year's), we immersed ourselves in the culture (thankfully they have a mini version of Mardi Gras called Gasparilla) and we were really quite happy. Unfortunately, in late 2006 we found out the the founder of the hedge fund where the husband was working intended to retire, so the husband had to find a new position. I was miserable in mine (more on that in my career post), and I was busy planning our wedding, so I told him the country was his oyster. He interviewed for a position in Arizona, and I agreed to move without ever stepping foot in Phoenix (true story). That's a post for another day, but we ultimately moved back to New Orleans for him to attend business school. We still miss Tampa. A lot. Unlike the stereotypes, Florida is not just for retired people and vacation!

 

Stay tuned for more on what we do for a living, how I balance work with having a baby, our thoughts on leaving Thatcher with baby-sitters and some of my favorites!