Brace Face
As Ruby starts her first full week seventh grade this week, I have been going back in time to my own middle school experience. I remember the excitement of getting a locker and the (much more short-lived) thrill of…
Author: Eve Crawford Peyton
Bittersweet Back to School
I’m always melancholy at the end of summer, an old habit that never left me even though I am no longer the one who has to go back to school (if only because now I never leave). I’ve bought…
Listen to the Kids
Do you ever have those days where you’re scheduled for a full day of pre-start-of-school professional development and you have to still do your full-time job and you’re somehow president of the PTA at yet another school and your…
Accepting My Age
Excerpted from Eve Crawford Peyton’s blog, Joie d’Eve, which appears each Friday on MyNewOrleans.com It goes so fast. Everyone says it, typically folded in with some “cherish every moment” drivel that I never feel like listening to because “every moment”…
Friends Come First
For someone who has been the maid/matron of honor in at least three weddings, calls everyone “my best friend,” and has been putting off writing this for at least 45 minutes while texting about seven different people, I had…
Summer Loving
All at once, I am eager for summer to end and I never want it to end. I love the pace of summer. I love the extra daylight. I love not having to worry about homework and quizzes and…
Hurricane Hysteria
Well. That was fun. At the beginning of the week, my biggest worry was whether my older daughter would get her preferred art elective and if I had saved enough calories for a glass of wine with dinner. By Wednesday,…
A Healthy Diet
For all of my childhood and adolescence, I was tiny. Not just short – although I’m 5-foot-nothin’ – but tiny, like size 0, make-jokes-about-how-I-skinny-I-am, count-my-ribs tiny. I gained weight in my early 20s at my first sedentary desk job,…
Fireworks Fiasco
Three years ago, I had a total bummer Fourth of July. You know how they say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail? I guess I failed pretty solidly. I had no plans to watch the fireworks,…
Ruby Reps Roller Derby
It is a constant source of amusement to me how very different Ruby, my somehow-now-12-year-old daughter, is than I was. In school, I loved English and struggled with math; she is the exact opposite, making high marks in math and…
Dog Tired
Before I had kids, I would talk about my dog when my co-workers complained about their kids. “Jordan slept like crap last night,” my officemate Cathy would say by way of explanation while refilling her coffee mug for the…
Manageable Summer Goals
Three years ago, I made a summer “bucket list” for myself and my kids. It included going to the beach, having a picnic, making this cake, and going to White Linen Night. I went to the beach with my mom…
Book Club
When people find out I work at a school, the first question they invariably ask is, “Do you get summers off?” The answer is no, but that’s OK with me. With the students and most of the teachers gone,…
Camping It Up
Ruby leaves for camp on Sunday, which means I am deep in the weeds w/re: packing. Just like last year, I have a sense of what she needs (thin towels, three bathing suits, 10 pairs of shorts, a sweatshirt,…
Memory Lane
I recently headed out to Pensacola, anticipating a pleasant mini-vacation with the girls – we’d have a cozy night in the hotel before dropping Ruby at her roller derby clinic, and then Georgia and I would explore until she was…
Introducing… MILO
I held out as long as I could. I didn’t want another dog. I didn’t think my heart could take it after losing my first baby, Loki, twice (once in the divorce and then for good when he died of old…
They Say It’s Your Birthday
When I found out my first daughter, Ruby, was due at Christmastime, the logistics of her birthday were the last thing on my mind. I learned I was pregnant with her about a month-and-a-half after a 14-week loss, and…
Flooded, Again
It’s a well-known fact that this city loves its traditions: Red beans on Monday. King Cakes on Jan. 6. Bonfires on the levees. There are blogs I could write again and again: Must-eat Jazz Fest foods. Mardi Gras survival…
Not-So-Happy Hour
I think about the future of journalism a lot. In fact, I work with the future of journalism a lot. Some kids already have the fire in their bellies to be the next Woodward or Bernstein. Some kids already…
Accepting My Age
Excerpted from Eve Crawford Peyton’s blog, Joie d’Eve, which appears each Friday on MyNewOrleans.com It goes so fast. Everyone says it, typically folded in with some “cherish every moment” drivel that I never feel like listening to because “every moment”…
Tears of a Clown, or Why I’m Really the Problem
I’m the first person to admit that I don’t like live music that much. And yes, I know that this, much like not liking shrimp, is enough to get my “NOLA Card” revoked. But I am an introvert who doesn’t…
Adulting: Spring Break Edition
When I was in high school, “spring break” was something I watched on MTV but never experienced. Whether it was by design, I still don’t know – the rumor was that they only gave us three days off so…
Memory Lane
When I mentioned last week I was heading to Pensacola, I was anticipating a pleasant mini-vacation with the girls – we’d have a cozy night in the hotel before dropping Ruby at her roller derby clinic, and then Georgia and…
Road Trip!
I’ve heard my friends with kids talk about “travel sports,” but honestly, I am still not sure what that means. I know what those two words mean separately, of course, and so I can take a guess at what they…
Ruby Reps Roller Derby
It is a constant source of amusement to me how very different Ruby, my somehow-now-12-year-old daughter, is than I was. In school, I loved English and struggled with math; she is the exact opposite, making high marks in math and…
Shipwrecked
Excerpted from Eve Crawford Peyton’s blog, Joie d’Eve, which appears each Friday on MyNewOrleans.com There are many sacrifices we make as parents, and so it was that I found myself planning on taking a vacation day – a gorgeous…
Flat Family-Friendly Fun
Where can I take Flat Stanley in New Orleans?
Accepting My Age
If my kids are getting older, I must be, too.
New Day, Old Company
Remembering my days as a baby journalist
Down With the Flu
A true Carnival bummer
Joie d'Eve
Living, loving, laughing, and learning in the new New Orleans
about
Eve is further proof, if any is needed, that New Orleans girls can never escape the city. After living here since the age of 3 and graduating from Ben Franklin High School, Eve moved to Columbia, Mo., where she received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism and became truly, unhealthily obsessed with grammar.She had originally intended to strike out to New York City and work in the cutthroat magazine industry there, but after Katrina, Eve felt a strong pull to return home, to her roots, her family, her waterlogged and struggling city – and a much more forgiving work atmosphere that would allow her to skip a routine of everyday makeup and size 0 designer label business suits and enjoy the occasional cocktail or three with an absurdly fattening lunch. She moved back home in January 2008 and lives in Mid-City with her two daughters, Ruby and Georgia; her stepson, Elliot; and her husband, Robert Peyton.Eve blogs about the joys and struggles of living in post-Katrina New Orleans, the unique problems and delights of raising a child in such a diverse and challenging city – including her experiences with the public education system – and her always entertaining and extremely colorful family.Eve has won numerous writing awards, including the Pirates Alley Faulkner Society Gold Medal, the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence award for column-writing and Press Club of New Orleans awards for her Editor’s Note in New Orleans Homes & Lifestyles and for this blog, most recently winning the award for "Best Feature Affiliated Blog."She welcomes comments, advice, empty flattery, recipes, drink invitations and – most especially – grammatical or linguistic debates.
