My friend Leesa, who happens to be a fantastic REALTOR in Wake Forest, NC, posted about a new site that emails you discounts from local businesses each day.  Surprisingly enough, when I went to check out Living Social, I found that they are also offering deals in New Orleans.

Past daily deals have included restaurants, pilates classes, wine, teeth whitening and more.  It’s an easy way to try a new place without spending a fortune and you can purchase deals as gifts too.  Signing up is as easy as providing your email address and daily deals will be sent directly to your inbox.  You can share them with friends via Facebook, Twitter or email – wouldn’t that make for a fun and inexpensive get together with friends? 

When you order, you are given your own private link to share with friends.  If 3 or more of them buy the same deal, yours is FREE!  Pretty darn cool, right?

Living Social is currently operating in the following cities:

• Atlanta
• Austin
• Boston
• Charlotte
• Chicago
• Cleveland
• Dallas
• Denver
• Houston
• Los Angeles
• Minneapolis-Saint Paul
• New Orleans
• New York
• Oklahoma City
• Orange County
• Philadelphia
• Portland
• Raleigh-Durham
• San Antonio
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• San Fernando Valley
• St Louis
• Tampa
• Washington, D.C.

Hmmm…discounts while on vacation, anyone? 

Anyway, it’s fun, free and easy – give it a whirl!  If you’ve used Living Social, feel free to share with us how you like it.

Photo credit:  Greenpeace USA 2010 on flickr

There is an immediate need for some items and two drop off points for all donations.  If you can help, please bring your items to:

East Bank Location

Jefferson Chamber Office
3421 N Causeway Blvd
Suite 203
Metairie LA

West Bank Location

Gretna Economic Development Assocation
711 Second Street
Gretna LA

The following are the items that the Gulf Response Involvement Team needs:

• Clorox Wipes
• Plastic Measuring Tapes (like ones used for measuring fabrics/sewing)
• Knee-high Rubber Boots
• Duct Tape
• Clear Plastic Storage Bins with LATCHABLE lids
• White Terrycloth Towels
• Solid Foam Camping Mats (for cutting to line turtle cages)
• Yellow Kitchen Cleaning Gloves
• Safety goggles/glasses
• Bug Spray
• Aveeno face sunscreen
• Coppertone spray sunscreen
• Zip Ties/Cable Ties
• Heavy Mil Lawn Trash Bags
• Hand Saws
• Blue Tarps
• Ratchet Straps
• Bungee Cords
• Nets (all shapes and sizes for catching wildlife)
• Ziploc Bags (gallon and quart-double zipper seal for preserving samples)
• GPS Units
• Baby wipes
• Orange soap hand cleaner soap
• Binoculars
• Dry Bags
• Grease Pens
• Mechanical Pencils
• Clickable Sharpies
• Waterproof Paper
• All-in-one Printer & Copiers
• 1″ & 2″ 3-ring Binders
• Printer mailing labels
• Scissors
• Large Ice Chests
• DC to AC Power Inverters
• Paper Towels
• Disposable Blue Shop Towels
• Bolt Cutters
• Box Cutters
• 3 gallon Lawn Sprayers
• Plastic Folding Tables
• Heavy Mil Visqueen Plastic Roles
• Rope
• Dawn soap
• Large Trash Cans with Lids
• Garden hoses
• Leatherman Multi-tools
• Waterproof Digital Cameras
• 2 GB SD memory cards
• Video cameras
• Pliers
• Mustang Lifejackets
• Rain gear
• Chest Waders
• Nitrile gloves
• Gauze pads
• Forceps
• Mini hand-held propane torches
• 8″ x 10″ dry erase boards and markers
• Disposable sterilized scalpels
• Clipboards with internal storage
• Letter Sized File folders
• Backpacks for making field kits
• Mini pelican cases
• Aluminum foil
• Small ice chests
• Small hard-plastic swimming pools
• 300 gal Rubbermade Tanks

I know we have some of the most generous people in our community and I hope that everyone can make some type of donation, no matter how small.  The good folks at GEDA have agreed to transport all donations to the East Bank location, so you don’t even have to cross the river to help out!

We’ve all seen the heartbreaking photos and news footage of the affected wildlife.  Please give.

If you are new to town, it’s a great way to explore your new city, even with the kids in tow.

New Orleans Area Activities

Audubon Zoo

Aquarium of the Americas

IMAX Theatre

Insectarium

Louisiana Children’s Museum

Visit City Park – take a ride on the pedal boats, play in Storyland, ride the train and the carousel in the amusement park

Take horseback riding lessons in Audubon Park

Tour Mardi Gras World

Don’t worry about the weather – visit the Monkey Room indoor playground

Visit the National WWII Museum

West Bank Activities

Go fishing, hiking or canoeing in Bayou Segnette

Cool off in the Bayou Segnette Wave Pool

Join a local swim club – check out Bellemeade Swim Club, Park Timbers Swim Club, Aurora Country Club or Terrytown Country Club (1785 Carol Sue)

Watch glass blowing artists at work

Day Trips

Blue Bayou Water Park – Baton Rouge

Weekend Trips

Visit the beaches along the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida

We welcome you to our city and wish you a fun-filled summer!

Food, arts and crafts, games for the kids, carnival rides, live music…it’s all here, right on the West Bank this weekend.

Partnering with Catholic Charities, the festival this year will be providing help to people out of work in the fishing industry due to the oil spill. I can’t think of a better way to spend my money than to support this cause and the people who have been so severely effected by this disaster.

Besides, where else are you going to see Cowboy Mouth for only $5? Get out there, have fun and support your local economy.

My favorite moment of the 2009 series was when Waylon Thibodeaux performed Matilda.  Old school, but so much fun.

Can’t see the video? Click here

Each Friday evening, you can bring your lawn chair or blanket and your dancing shoes out to the market for the free concerts.  Food and drink are being sold on site, so leave the ice chest at home.  Family friendly and a fun way to kick off the weekend, here’s the music line up:

May 21   Michael Carballo and Esplanade
May 28   Aaron Foret
June 4   Skeeter and the Swamp Pop Band
June 11  Crescent City Hitmen
June 18  Treater
June 25  Empire Blues Band
July 2     Jr. & Sumptin Sneaky

Concerts last from 7-10 pm, but you can get there early to grab the best spots.  Don’t you love living on the West Bank?  Have fun!

The Farmer and Fisheries Market is located at 484 Sala Avenue, Westwego, LA

It’s that time of year (before the heat sets in) that everyone is out in their yards and gardens, sprucing things up and showing off their curb appeal. The petunias I planted earlier in the year are in full bloom and I’m enjoying them while they last…soon it will be time to replace them with something a little more heat tolerant.  The black eyed Susans came back on their own, the salvia gave me a little surprise when it started sprouting up too and the first of the irises bloomed this week.

Are you ready to start working in your West Bank garden? Here are some recommendations for local nurseries that can not only provide you with a selection of plants and flowers that will grow well in our zone, but can usually give you a little free planting advice to go along with them.  You won’t get that at a big box store.

• New Orleans Garden Center and Landscape in Algiers
• Rose Garden Center in Marrero
• Banting’s Nursery in Bridge City
• Patio Gardens and Landscape in Marrero
• Nine Mile Point Nursery Farm in Westwego

No space for a garden? Plenty of plants do well in containers that can fit in even the smallest of spaces.  Or, you could search for homes for sale on the West Bank of New Orleans and find the perfect place to plant your own roots.

For more information about home buying or selling on the West Bank of New Orleans, or relocating to or from NAS JRB New Orleans, please

Unfortunately, while we are surrounded by delicious meal choices every day, there are people in our city who are going hungry.  Every week, almost 42,000 different people use the emergency food services of the Second Harvest food bank.

From the Second Harvest website:

One in eight people in Louisiana is struggling with hunger. An elderly neighbor, a child’s classmate, a coworker or member of your church – someone you know is hungry.

The good folks at Second Harvest run programs designed to fight child Hunger and provide senior nutritional support in 23 parishes across south Louisiana.  But they need help.

I’m sure you’ve seen the news reports that the local food banks are being overwhelmed with requests for assistance at a time when their state funding has been cut, corporate donations are down and the need is higher than ever.

That’s why the West Bank Living Team and the rest of the Keller Williams West Bank office have chosen Second Harvest as the beneficiary of Red Day 2010.  Red Day is our annual community project day, where Keller Williams agents all around the country will be volunteering in their own communities.

We will be out on the West Bank, dropping off grocery bags to be filled and setting up donation boxes wherever we can from May 1st to May 13th. If you have a business that we can put a donation box at – please, let us know. If you are interested in donating privately, we can arrange to pick up from you.  If you see us in front of your local grocery store, please add a couple of items to your list and help a hungry child, family or senior citizen.

Need more information? Call Lisa at (504) 616-6262 or Terri at (504) 258-5178.

We are giving where we live…please join us by doing the same.

I recently had a chance to stop and snap a few photos of the area and thought I would share them with you:

About NOMA:

The New Orleans Museum of Art, the city’s oldest fine arts institution, has a magnificent permanent collection of more than 40,000 objects, valued in excess of $200 million. The collection, noted for its extraordinary strengths in French and American art, photography, glass, African and Japanese works, continues to grow. The five-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at NOMA is one of the most important sculpture installations in the United States, with 50 sculptures situated on a beautifully landscaped site amongst meandering footpaths, reflecting lagoons, Spanish moss-laden 200-year-old live oaks, mature pines, magnolias, camellias, and pedestrian bridges.  Read more…

View of the museum from the walking trail

As I wandered around the grounds, a sound caught my ear.  Upon investigation, I realized that one of the huge oak trees was filled with oversized wind chimes that were dancing in the breeze. 

Wind chimes hanging in the oaks

Family friendly and filled with beauty, NOMA is open Wednesday noon-8pm and Thursday through Sunday 10 am – 5 pm.  While the museum itself is closed on Monday and Tuesday, the sculpture garden is free and open to the public 7 days a week

More about the New Orleans Museum of Art

Get directions to the museum

Relocating to New Orleans? For information about home buying or selling in the community, or relocating to or from NAS JRB New Orleans, please

People who live in New Orleans know that the next line is “and they all ask’d for you” (If you don’t know this local tune, listen to the Meters perform it here.)

If you are new to the city or are in the process of relocating, you might not know that New Orleans boasts one of the finest zoos in the U.S. That hasn’t always been the case, because I remember how sad and smelly it was when I was growing up.  For years, attendance was low as locals rejected the zoo as sub-par.  My, how things have changed.

Now, the Audubon Zoo is one of the most popular family destinations in the city and the beautiful spring weather we have been enjoying drew us down for a visit this weekend.  Vibrant and colorful, with the animals in their natural habitats, the zoo is a magnet for families and visitors alike and is one of the best managed places to visit in New Orleans.

With a focus on education, the zoo provides detailed information at each exhibit about the animals on display. There are zoo keepers and volunteers spread throughout the grounds for the opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the residents too (and no, I did not touch that Burmese Python!)

On the Discovery Walk, I was thrilled to find the Eco Pond and see that the Audubon Institute is encouraging and educating about sustainability.  In the same section of the zoo, we found a small garden where the kids can see fresh herbs and vegetables growing.  Some of the vegetation is still showing signs of the hard freezes this winter, but for the most part everything was lush and green…a testament to the folks in charge.

Two of the most popular species for visitors are the white tigers and the white alligators

For a child raised here, no trip to the zoo would be complete without visiting Monkey Hill. Built in 1933 with earth hauled from the river and excavated from the Audubon Park lagoons, this was the first hill in New Orleans.  When I was young, I remember this was my favorite part of a trip to the zoo, since New Orleans is so flat.  At 27 1/2 feet high, we thought we were climbing a mountain!  The Hill has definitely changed over the years, though.  What used to be just a grassy hill now has a water feature and deck levels for playing.

Just past Monkey Hill is the Louisiana Swamp Exhibit, with black bears, alligators and other species that are indigenous to southern Louisiana.

Of course, the zoo is filled with the expected elephants, giraffes, lions and tigers. The exhibits are divided based on the origin of the animals, with Primate World, the African Savanna, the Asian Domain and more.  As is probably the case in most zoos, the primates had the biggest crowds as parents and children alike watched the monkeys, baboons and gorillas…and the primates disdainfully ignored us all.

Audubon Zoo is located at 6500 Magazine Street and is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 am – 5 pm with free public parking.  For more information about special events, online ticket sales and family memberships, visit the zoo’s website or call (800) 774-7394 or (504) 581-4629.

Relocating to New Orleans?  For information about home buying or selling in the community, or relocating to or from NAS JRB New Orleans, please

It’s not a plantation that you’ll find on the tour list, because over the years it has been a house of ill repute, a restaurant and now is the scene of weddings and parties throughout the year.

We recently had the opportunity to attend a wedding and rehearsal at the Plantation and I was so impressed with the facility and the grounds. The wedding guests all remarked what a beautiful setting it provided and the majority had never even heard of the place before, much less peeked behind the scenes to the gorgeous grounds that surround the house.

The front yard is filled with shade trees, including oaks dripping with spanish moss, and the front porch provides a respite from not only the heat, but from the noise of a crowded party as well.

Every where I walked, there were flowers and statues tucked into corners and into the landscaping. Anyone that has ever met me knows that I’m a sucker for flowers, so I couldn’t resist taking photos along the way.

I tried to do some research on the property, but had very little luck digging up anything of substance.  The current owners do have a Facebook fan page, where I found this:

A Little History: In the early 1950′s a madam named Norma Wallace was chased out of New Orleans. She “set up shop” in Waggaman at Cedar Grove Plantation. In 1963 she went to jail for her “dating service”. In 1964 she wanted to become an “honest” women. She opened a steak house at the same location. Feeling that the name Cedar Grove was boring, she named the restaurant Tchoupitoualas. She actually “stole” this name from the plantation across the river now called Colonial Country Club. Today we honor both names to represent all of the plantation’s 220 year history. We also still have the Red Room where the ladies of the evening were introduced to their dates.

Weddings can be held in the parlor or under the covered outdoor pavilion that offers a bucolic view. Don’t worry about the menu for your event, either.  We were stuffed to the gills with entrees, salads and passed hors d’ouevres and the staff was still making their way through the room offering more food.  According to the bride, the prices were very reasonable and the management was easy to work with when planning the wedding and reception.

The Cedar Grove Tchoupitoulas Plantation is located at 6533 River Road in Waggaman, LA.  For more information about holding a party, wedding, reception or other event, visit the website or contact Jill Mercer at (504) 431-5743.