Super Amy

The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge.

Three of the reasons I want to take part in this challenge:
A) I’m making it a personal goal to write more often — not necessarily to blog more often, but just to write more in general. But when I have this digital canvas just sort of sitting here, waiting… what an opportunity to embrace!
B) This is going to be fun. It sort of reminds me of the old Friday Five (fellow 2003 bloggers — remember those?). There is a sort of instant motivation that comes from having writing cues, and considering that so far, I’ve given you (millions of) SuperAmy.com readers all of twelve blog posts (record low?!) so far in 2009, a nice yearly overview couldn’t exactly hurt.
C) I think that 2009 really has been a great year, and I find that the more good things I think about and remember, the more positive I am on a daily basis. So here goes.

Already, I’m a few days behind. Already, I love this project because it’s very forgiving of people who are a few days behind (or don’t want to answer all of the questions, or want to twist the questions into something else, or want to answer all 31 at once), which I perpetually will be, but I hope to answer all of them.

December 1 Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?
As tempting as it is to talk about my return trip to Winchester, which reunited me with some amazing friends, or my cavorting about Galway with my sister, and I think those excursions might technically count as my best trip in 2009. But I want to talk about my most memorable trip in 2009, the one that kicked off my year to a great start: New Orleans. It was a road trip south, along with brother Corey and dear Hannah, and started with a New Year’s Eve celebration in Mobile, Alabama — the one and only epic Moon Pie Over Mobile event — before we finished out the drive to Louisiana. My experience has been that everyone who visits New Orleans leaves with a pretty strong opinion either for or against it. My entire life, I’ve always been fascinated with cities that have such a distinct individual culture. In such a big country, where people often move between several states in their lifetimes, it’s easy to find different cultures in different regions of the country, or even certain states, but it seems increasingly rare to find a single city where such a concentrated and unique personality still remains. I would read about New Orleans, or see people taking trips there on the Food Network channel or some such, and it seemed almost as if it were a different country. I love that! So all of that to say, I had pretty high expectations going into this trip, and having heard how much of the history Katrina wiped out, I was a little nervous about being let down.

I had the most wonderful companions ever — Hannah and Corey are both so awesome to travel with! Laid back and up for anything, with no agendas or requirements, we basically set ourselves up for tons of adventure and no room for disappointment. Both of them are super-thrifty to a fault, much like me, so we stayed at only the finest of super-budget damp motel accommodations, and ate at only the most authentic of cheap New Orleans dive eateries. I absolutely love New Orleans. It is a city that feels different — a little spooky, a little blue, but easy to love. I have so many delightful memories of that trip. We ate lunch with complete strangers just to get seats at a Cajun restaurant in the French Quarter.
We had extremely late-night beignets at the Morning Call Coffee Stand in Metairie. We canvassed St. Peter street end to end several times, beneath the nighttime deluge of an ankle-deep mini-flood of our own, looking for Preservation Hall (which we eventually found, and despite being soaked, enjoyed the incredible legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band). Honestly, I think this counts as one of the top most memorable trips of my lifetime — it couldn’t have felt any more like I wanted New Orleans to feel. I think it’s rare for a trip to so delightfully meet all of your expectations (especially when they are as high as mine tend to be), so that makes this my most memorable trip of 2009.

December 2 Restaurant moment. Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?
Mellow Mushroom with my Best Mexican, Wendy. Everything about it was amazing. We ordered a custom pizza — spinach, avocado, sun-dried tomatoes, extra cheese, and mushrooms on my half. It was probably the best pizza either of us have eaten in our entire lives.

December 3 Article. What’s an article that you read that blew you away?
I don’t read a ton of articles really, at least not beyond news and basic interesting reads — nothing that would “blow me away” so to speak. Probably the most fascinating reads for me have been the articles found through the Compassion Twitter feed — specifically from bloggers’ trips to visit Compassion centers across the world and interact with the children. The more I read about this ministry, the more I love what they’re doing. I love hearing about all of the hope found in the children’s centers where Compassion is working. I currently sponsor two boys (Tipu from Bangladesh, and Hemanand from India), and love reading their letters and hearing about the difference God is making in their lives. I’d love to make it over to visit them some day, but until then I’m more than inspired to read the accounts of those who have traveled with this ministry. (If you’d like to sponsor a child, I’m making it oh-so-easy for you with this handy new Compassion widget on the right sidebar.)

I don’t think I can handle a fourth tonight, so maybe I’ll tackle December 4th in the next batch.

Listening to: Phoenix – Armistice (thanks, Abby!)