Someday You'll Thank Me For This ~ The Official Southern Ladies Guide To Being A "Perfect Mother"

I just finished reading this jovial guide to that matchless creature ~~~ the Southern mother.

Written by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays, also best selling authors of Being Dead Is No Excuse and Somebody's Going to Die If Lily Beth Doesn't Catch That Bouquet, deliver a hilarious look into the trials and tribulations of being the daughter of a Southern mother.

Signs that you are the daughter of a Southern mother:

You are obsessed with who got Aunt Boo Boo's silver tea service

You never leave home without making your bed

You know about deviled eggs plates, pledge pins, and the importance of middle names

You speak to everybody, even tacky people

You know what tomato aspic is

and......

You might be a Southern mother if......

You run into a friend, and the first words out of your mouth

are "How's yo mo-thuh?"

You straighten up the house prior to your housekeeper's arrival

for fear she will quit if she sees how things really get someday

Southern society is arranged along matriarchal lines, since the Southern matriarch is a far more formidable being than the much nicer Southern male. She has to be this way; she was put on this earth with a sacred mission: to drum good manners and the proper religion~~ancestor worship~~into the next generation! If you weren't there in person in a Southern household, this is the best way to re-live what Southern mammas tell their daughters!

Up next......Somebody's Going To Die If Lily Beth Doesn't Catch That Bouquet ; )

~K~

Front Porch Sitting ~ Something Of A Lost Art?

There is something to be said about a good front porch. Even better, a Southern front porch. You know the kind I'm talking about; the ones large and long enough to have rocking chairs, a front porch swing, and of course a ceiling fan. Two of the houses of my youth had a porch big enough for a porch swing; and how I recall the memories of sitting on the porches and enjoying fresh sweet summer watermelon, and also, swinging with my Dad as we would watch the rain clouds roll in. My Dad's mother had two houses at different times, one porch being on the front, and later in a newer one, a porch on the back that ran the width of the house; the latter was good for shelling peas fresh from the farmers market, watching as my grandparents would make homemade ice cream, and sitting and listening to family and friends visiting and reminiscing of days gone by.

During evenings in the South you might still be lucky enough to often find people "porch sitting, or porch sittin' " as we say. Sadly though, I believe it is becoming a lost art. Way back when, people enjoyed sitting on their front porches in the cool of the evenings; it has often been said that the porches were extensions of the "front room" or living room, and it was also a way of escaping the heat, as many homes didn't have air conditioning.

The sound of laughter, good conversation, exclamations of "hello neighbor" or good evening" could be heard from one porch to another, or from those taking an evening stroll. It was a way of keeping up with your neighbors, hearing the latest gossip, taking time to enjoy the early evening hours in all of its quiet magic.

Yes.......I believe there is something to be said about a Southern front porch, and "front porch sittin' ". With their beautifully displayed ferns or other fragrant flowers in hanging baskets, to rockers and swings which have established unique creaks of their own over time, a front porch gathers the family around, welcome neighbors from far near and far, and causes us to stop, listen, and be in the moment.

In our crazy hurried world these days, I think we all could use a Southern front porch.

~K~

Welcome July

Welcome July......

Here's to more 100 plus degree temps, and living in the South, and some days you wonder if painting your face and coiffing your hairdo is a waste of time! It's not the heat that gets me, it's that dang humidity; 100% humidity, and sometimes from Spring until Fall, and yes, you will "sweat like a hog".......one of those good 'ole Southern expressions ~

Here's to tan lines, bronzed skin and freckles ~

Here's to backyard grilling, family, friends. pool time and if you're lucky, sweet summer rain.

Let's welcome July even with its sultry heat and humidity......because July marks the halfway point......we're that much closer to cooler weather way off in the distance, and it signals another year passing by quickly.

Welcome to new changes and life......you can't have one without the other!