Our New Orleans Trip

April and I had a nice trip. We left a little later than we wanted to on Friday morning but still made it to New Orleans with plenty of time to get to our piercing appointments. When we arrived at the shop we were asked to choose our jewelry and the piercer came out and looked at my ear. She told me I have a shallow daith top and she needed to assess it a bit more thoroughly to determine if it was piercable. After measuring and looking, she determined that she would feel comfortable doing it, but she used a larger gauge ring and it is larger in diameter as well. She told me there is a chance that it could migrate and that it will take an entire year to heal, so I will just baby it as much as I can, avoid sleeping on it, and hope for the best. She looked at my tragus and found that it was still open from the last time I had it pierced, so she just used a taper to open it and inserted jewelry into it. To be honest, it hurt worse than the daith piercing, and it is still sore at the three day mark, but once it stops hurting, I won't have to deal with the healing process, so that will be nice. It also saved me $30 not having to get it repierced. After it heals up really good, I will get a smaller hoop put in.

I didn't get a picture of April's trio piercing. I'll have to have her send me one. It turned out really cute, but of course it was pretty sore. After we finished with our piercings, we checked into our hotel and then we went to eat sushi. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a grocery store to get some pop for April and we picked up a couple of bottles of liqueur to make 'buttery nipples.'The ghost tour provided buy one get one free hurricanes, but they were expensive and we found it was cheaper to buy our own alcohol. We each had a drink before we headed to the tour. The tour was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. We weren't out ghost hunting, but rather the tour guide walked us around the French Quarter and pointed out old houses where weird things are purported to happen. There is a lot of history in New Orleans, so I paid more attention to that rather than the ghost stories. We got back to the hotel after 10:00 p.m. and I was beat. We had walked over 18,000 steps, which wouldn't have been bad if I was used to walking, but I have been lazy for the past several months. Many of the sidewalks are tilted because they have settled. New Orleans is built on silt and sits below sea level, so it is essentially sinking. Things have to be built back up regularly. Walking at an angle made one of my knees hurt, and I compensated with my other foot, so I was sore on both sides of my body and very tired.

The next morning we checked out of the hotel and walked back to the French Quarter. We ate lunch at Cafe Beignet because you can't go to NO and not eat beignets. We also ate a veggie sandwich that was surprisingly good. The line was long, so it took us a good hour and a half to get our food and eat. After that, we walked around a little, but there was nothing either of us was interested in looking at and we were still worn out from the day before, so we decided to just head home. We got home around 4:30 and I hung out with April and Ben for awhile before heading home. I ended up going to bed around 10:00, so with the time change, I got a good night sleep and felt much better yesterday. I made a trip to the grocery store to get some healthy food because I decided it's time to get back on the WFPB way of eating. I need to lose about 10 pounds (maybe 15 to feel really good) and the only way I can maintain my weight loss is to eat mostly plant food. After I purge the highly palatable foods from my diet for a week or so, I really enjoy eating that way. It's just so much easier to eat junk food like bean burritos and tortilla chips. I have been eating vegetarian all along, but I have been a junk food vegetarian, which is why I have gained some weight. Thankfully I haven't gained much, but I can't wear my jeans right now, and that is my goal.

Well, I am off to cook some rice and sweet potatoes. I hope you all have a wonderful week!