Taking on New Adventures

It’s the start of a New Year, and here in New Orleans, this is the saddest and weirdest way to kick off a new year.

As many of you know, a terrorist (that’s what I’ll refer to him as) drove down Bourbon Street early New Year’s Day, injuring scores of people and killing at least 15 as of 6:30pm January 1st.

It was such an odd thing to wake up to this morning, especially after ringing in the New Year the night before wiht so much fun. Chuck and I spent New Year’s Eve out at dinner then at Pluck, our favorite wine bar, with some friends and great wine. It was a relaxing night that was a ton of fun. We talked about our plans for this year as well as some small changes in our lives that we want to make.

I had been asleep about 3 hours when something woke me up. It was Chuck’s phone buzzing next to my head since he had fallen asleep with it in his hand. I was about to yell at him but heard an alert on my phone, and realized it was someone texting if we were ok. I saw the multiple alerts about the mass casualty event and woke up Chuck to call around and make sure everyone we knew was ok.

After confirming our friends and his colleagues were ok, we fell back asleep for a little bit. Then we’ve been monitoring the news and making calls and texting friends all day. It’s not been the start of the year that we had planned. Obviously. But I am hoping it is a wake up call for all of us to keep up our vigilance for being safe as well as a wake up call for the city to be more diligent with safety measures.

Praying for the victims and the witnesses here. But also for those who lost wages due to business closures. Many needed that money to pay bills and more and losing a New Year’s Day salary and tips hurts bad.

Hopefully the next few days are better and this is not an indication of how the full year will go. Pray for New Orleans.