I am a married mother of three girls and a NOLA girl at heart. NOLA stands for New Orleans, Louisiana. I always thought I would remain there and even move into the Big Easy one day. Life happens and it is never the way we thought it would be.

I married my husband in March 2005. We had everything going for us. He was an auditor for a large bank and I was a cardiac nurse at Touro Infirmary. My husband accepted my five year old daughter as his own and we had our first child on the way. We were getting settled into our new life, dealing with co-domiciliary status with my ex, and preparing to become a family of four.

August 27th was just like any other Friday. I took Ashleigh to daycare (school would start Monday) and went to work. Later that evening, we went to a book signing at Barnes and Nobles, grabbed pizza on the way home, and went to bed early. We were not as attached to our phones back then so we missed the call from my sister-in-law telling us that Hurricane Katrina was headed our way. I just heard on the news earlier that night that Hurricane Katrina was going to hit Florida again as a category 1 Hurricane. I dismissed it as baby storm; not one that was going to change our lives forever.

Saturday morning, I woke up early and saw the answering machine blinking. I left to put gas in both cars while Ashleigh and Skip slept, washed clothes, and then began packing. I had no idea what to pack. We never evacuated for a Hurricane or Tropical Storm before. Sure we bought all of life’s necessities (batteries, water, bread, snacks, etc.), but we did not pack suitcases full of clothes. I grabbed maybe five days worth of clothes for everyone, all of the baby gadgets, and baby clothes. I didn’t pack treasured items or pictures. We all thought we would be back home in a few days.

We were fortunate enough to have somewhere to evacuate that was FREE. My in-laws lived in the country about an hour away from the city. We had a generator, a lot of food, and plenty of room. What was supposed to be a few days at most, turned into 14 months of living in a new life. Culture shock anyone? I went from driving 20 mins to be in downtown New Orleans to the country. We sat down to eat dinner, looked out the window, and you would see cows. Beautiful scenery, but cows. I didn’t do cows and guess what? They do not moo, they grunt!

We had no electricity. Ashleigh and I became dehydrated after a couple of days. We kept drinking, but August in Southeast Louisiana and no air conditioner is not a good thing. I started to have contractions and Skip and I decided that we needed to get to a place with electricity or our baby was coming 3 months early. The Lee’s came to the rescue! Skip, Ashleigh, and I went to Baton Rouge for a few days. A hot shower and some air conditioner makes the world a better place.

Now we joke that we barely remember our first year of marriage, but I can tell you that I remember before that late August weekend. Then life picks up after Loni turned one and we moved into our house.

This post was supposed to be about me, not how I moved to a little town. I guess I needed to let this out. I have had several nursing jobs through the years. Now I teach Medical Assistants, CNA, and billing/coding students along with my side gig too.