Back to Metairie

Well, what can I say...it's been a long month since our lives changed in the blink of an eye.

We remained in Orlando at Glenn and Tammy's until last Sunday (9-18-05)...we were there for about 20 days in all and in two other Florida cities 3 days. We entered Louisiana last Monday for the first time in 3 weeks since we evacuated from Hurricane Katrina. We knew we were going home to a house full of wet items and mold, but nothing could have prepared me for what it was really like when we arrived.

The first 5 minutes in the walk thru of the house, things seemed ok. But once we got started throwing things away, it was difficult. And the smell...whew! It is just unbelievable!! I can't get the smell out of my nose. Everywhere you go, you smell it. We worked all last week on getting the molded items out of the house and managing to save what we could. However, the things we wanted to save, we had no where to put them! Luckily, Scott's good friend, Colleen, has a garage that is or should I say was fairly empty, so we were able to store boxes of our belongings there. I salvaged some of my clothes that are all spread out at my friends' houses getting washed. But we had to throw away so many things that as of yesterday afternoon, it covered from the street to the front of our house on the lawn! Luckily, just a few minutes ago, the bobcat picked up the entire front yard of stuff! We watched our lives of all these years leave on a bobcat and into a dump truck!!! Who would have ever thought!?!?!?! Not me!!!!!!!!!!!!

The house was gutted and was sprayed with chemicals yesterday to get rid of the mold and we may not return for a week. We are staying at my Uncle Phil and Aunt Linda's house in Metairie (they didn't get any house damage). We are very lucky to have a place to stay. It is hard though, not going home to your own house everyday.

Oh and I am back a work and have been for a week now! We are preparing for the kids to return next Monday, October 3. We are hoping to have a lot that enroll and come back, because if we don't, we could loose our jobs.

This whole thing is just one big nightmare that I want to wake up from. I feel like I have been walking around like a zombie for the past month. I want my life back like it was, but it won't be like that for a long time.

You never know how good you have it until it's gone. I never in a million years would have thought I would be homeless, eating MRE's from the military, wearing donated clothes, getting free groceries from the local churches, going to Red Cross for help, applying for FEMA, etc, etc, etc, but I am and so is most of the city! It is just crazy!

I will post pictures soon when I figure out how to download my pictures onto my work computer. The pictures will tell more of our story, but will never capture what we have all been through as a city. Please pray for our city and all of my family and friends. So many have lost so much more than I have and I pray they will be ok, too, one day. We will survive this! New Orleans will prevail!!!!