The Move and the Horoscope

 For a year now I have been working on the prospect of moving my family to New Orleans. I love New Orleans! It wasn't my first choice of locations, but after moving back to my hometown of Lafayette, LA, after years away in Memphis, Holland, and Hawaii, it was nice that a move from Lafayette to New Orleans was a close one (2.5hrs). New Orleans is also close to my parents who also live in my hometown of Lafayette. 

Prepping for the transition to New Orleans, for the past year, I studied the housing market, neighborhoods, schools for my kids, gyms, flag football, all the numerous things necessary to move with small children. 

I chose New Orleans because after three years in my hometown, it seemed like the only place my husband was willing to go! We just moved from Hawaii, he'd say. The proximity of New Orleans made it a good compromise in destinations for my husband who was reluctant to leave.

Being here in Lafayette has been great and awful at the same time. My daughter was born here and a childhood friend helped deliver her. I am surrounded by support from family and childhood friends. Soon after having my wonderful blessing of a daughter, we went into quarantine and were homebound... but also next door to my parents, who have been a huge support... most of the time.

While here, we have also had our struggles, for example, we evacuated or endured many hurricanes. A tree fell on our house and we replaced the roof. Another time, a few trees fell on our fences. The weather here has become so crazy when there's only a little damage, like a neighbor losing a wall and the majority of the city not having power for three days, we all consider it an "easy" storm or "good luck" that it wasn't worse! See some images of hurricane damage in our Lafayette neighborhood. I think this was Ida? Or maybe Laura... it's all a blur.

Trees in a neighbor's driveway after a hurricane.

The river behind our house flooded over our yard many times, even submerging the play house roof a few times.

These are trees covering the road we live on.

That's my mom in front of a neighbor's hurricane-damaged house.

We remodeled the house we live in, while living in it, in three phases: bathroom, kitchen, then basement. The bathroom renovation occurred at the same time that I got pregnant so all my night bathroom runs had to be done to a different floor. My dog got pregnant and had seven puppies. There were strangers in my house while I was working from home and cranky with lack of sleep, medications, and first trimester fatigue.

Here are some shots of the bathroom remodel.

And the puppies!

Sadly, my parents were watching the mom when I went to hospital to have my baby and the momma doggie died. We kept two of her babies but the grief of her loss was rough.

The second renovating project was our kitchen when I was far into my pregnancy. The last month of drywall mudding was so dusty we lived in a hotel for a couple of weeks and set up a crockpot, hot plate kitchen in my living room. Here are some before pictures. I had the wall between the kitchen and dining room removed and I moved the stove and sink to a new island in the center of the kitchen.

After pictures:

The third renovating wave, I had a breastfeeding newborn constantly woken up by inconsiderate contractors with their various emergencies. This is when we enclosed a 3-car carport under our house's main level. Instead of housing junk, it would now be an exercise room, art room, and office. After enclosing it, water began pooling, which we noticed during a storm late at night. Our son got busy with the caulk gun and my baby sat in a rocker as my husband and I frantically tried to stop the leaks. I do not recommend Bayou Painters--the contractors who enclosed the carport!

This is the before shot of the carport. And my children the night it flooded:

And the (almost completed) gym:

We never completely finished it. The ceiling still needs to be painted and the water still pools a little when it rains. The toddler also spilled some dark gray paint on the blue floor.

Oh, also, simultaneous with all three of those renovating projects, I was also renovating another house here in Lafayette. I had bought a duplex. Its tenants vacated after I bought it (their moving was not related to the change in ownership!) but not before we witnessed a substantial wave of their drama. While moving out, one of them was attacked in a bloody knife fight by a "friend" whose veteran PTSD was triggered. The tenant was stabbed 14 times and rushed to the emergency room! Later, he rode his bike to pay his final rent to me and a car hit him. His bike was damaged but he was okay. He was a drug addict, the house was filthy, and we still find drug paraphernalia hiding in crevices like between bricks outside and in old fireplaces. There was dried blood all over his side of the house from his struggle in the knife fight.

That has turned into this:

While renovating the house we lived in and the house we were remodeling, a few of the things that came up were a busted septic system, a bathroom vent that only vents to the attic instead of through the roof, water pooling into the newly enclosed carport through cinderblock walls, dirt collapsing into our basement, and the aforementioned hurricane damage.

It has been a stressful 3 years for me. 

The plan to move to New Orleans was acutely focused on making the transition easy for our children and dogs. We would visit often and have summer camp there in a rental before making the permanent move. Our summer plans also involved a trip to Hawaii that would end two days before summer camp started.

But the day we returned from Honolulu I learned two things that flipped my world upside down. 

1. My husband accepted a job in AUSTIN!, and

2. He had Covid!

No one else had Covid so he isolated away from us and we prepared for New Orleans without his help. The kids went on to their New Orleans camp and I managed to push through the overwhelming stress of our developing life situation! (We were confident after many Covid tests and no symptoms that we did not have Covid.) 

Since then, my husband has relocated to Austin and my children and I are taking our time with the move. They have a week in their New Orleans camp. 

Oh, and! the posh house I rented in New Orleans ended up having a broken air conditioner and we had to switch rentals for a couple of nights while the a/c was repaired!

So. 

Now let me assure you that I am going somewhere with all of this!

Earlier this week, I had an astrogeology reading. Based on my time and place of birth, this lovely astrologist told me how my life works at different locations on the planet. 

And lo and behold, with no information about it, she said that this area, my hometown of Lafayette Louisiana is a place where I will:

1. feel like an outsider 

2. have genius insights 

3. have constant and chaotic random dramas related to houses!!!!

So it looks like she hit that nail on the head!

And it's probably best that the New Orleans move won't be happening because that is also within my area for house trouble. I seriously can't take more of that. 

She also found that Austin was a great place for me spiritually being on my Neptune line, which seems relatively reassuring compared to this house-oriented turmoil in Louisiana!