Things I Learned in the South

This one comes via an email courtesy of the Boss Man's wife. True Southerners will most likely nod their heads in agreement to each statement.

• A possum is a flat animal that sleeps in the middle of the road.
• If it grows, it'll stick ya. If it crawls, it'll bite ya.
• "Onced" and "twiced" are words.
• It's not a shopping cart. It's a buggy.
• People actually grow and eat okra.
• "Fixinto" is one word that means preparing to do something.
• There is no such thing as lunch. There is dinner, and then there's supper.
• Sweet tea is appropriate for all meals and you start drinking it when you're two.
• "Backwards n forwards" means knowing everything about someone.
• You don't have to wear a watch because it doesn't matter what time it is. You work until you're done or until it's too dark to see.
• You don't push buttons, you mash them.
• Distance is measured in minutes.
• You switch from heat to A/C in the same day...quite often in fact.
• All festivals are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain or animal.
• You know what a dawg is.
• You carry jumper cables in your car - for your own car.
• You only own five spices: salt, pepper, Tony's, Tabasco and ketchup.
• The local papers cover national and international news on one page but require six pages for high school sports, NASCAR and gossip (known locally as the Riverfront and Chatterbox sections).
• You think the first day of deer season is a national holiday. Wait, it isn't?
• You find 100 degrees a bit warm.
• The four seasons are almost summer, summer, still summer and Christmas.
• You describe the first cool snap (below 70 degrees) as good stew weather.
• Fried catfish is the other white meat.

I hope you've enjoyed these Southernisms. I'm off now to pack for a trip to Gatlinburg for Thanksgiving...the redneck riviera of the Smokey Mountains! I hope you enjoy your turkey and sweet potato casserole this week. Kiss your babies and count your blessings!

You Know You Live in Bama When...

Okay, so I know I should be working but I just had to share this with all of y'all (yes that is proper Alabama grammar). This little feller was apparently killed today by a Decatur Parks and Rec worker while mowing the grass around the Point Mallard Golf Course. I don't know what kind of snake it is, but in my book the only good snake is a dead snake. I do, however, know the following...

You know you live in Alabama when:

a) even the guys who cut grass for a living are this good-looking

b) you wear shorts and snake boots together and nobody gives you a second glance

c) the grass isn't brown and still needs to be mowed in November

d) you hold up a hacked-apart snake on a stick for your buddies to take pictures.

Halfway to Hatching

It's official. I'm halfway there (I could easily slip into a Bon Jovi song here but I'll spare you all of that). I'm now 20 weeks and 4 days and counting. As I sit here scratching my growing belly (it's at the starting-to-itch point) I'm completely stressing out about naming this child.

I guess I should mention that we don't know yet whether it will be an "innie" or an "outie", as so lovingly coined by SOP with her first pregnancy. My docs have apparently taken two weeks vacation, so we won't know the gender until after Thanksgiving. I sincerely hope none of their patients go into labor over the holiday...I'm afraid nobody would be there to catch the baby!

So for now, JB and I will just argue about what name to give the child. I can't believe the names some people stick on their precious little babies. It's a stressful decision - this is something the child will carry throughout life unless they seek the help of a lawyer to change it when they get old enough. Family names are coming up pretty much a bust for us. Sorry Visa (grandma Diane) but there's no way I'll name a child Jason Earl Jr. I'm convinced Poppa (grandpa Earl) must have filled out that birth certificate paperwork while she was recovering from the c-section meds.

Naming Birdie was easy. She has my first name, a tradition I wasn't about to break since every first daughter has the same name pre-dating the American Revolution. I fell in love with the name Brantley the minute I met one of JB's basic training buddies, so that one was a given. And her third name comes from my Nanny. We never for one second could agree on a boy's name, so I guess it's a good thing she was an "innie."

I'm not sure what we'll do if baby #2 is an "outie." And I'm really afraid that may be the case this time around. Everything about this pregnancy is different from my first, which isn't altogether bad. I was miserable from day 1 with Birdie. I was enormous and my nose got so wide you could've parked a Greyhound bus inside it. I lost my ankles and my ability to wear real shoes 3 1/2 months before she arrived. For crying out loud, I gained 59 pounds!

This one has been relatively easy so far. My trips to the head for morning sickness (which really should just be called all day sickness) only lasted four months instead of five. I've only gained about 5 pounds and I still have skinny ankles. However, my skin has decided to revolt in a way that it never did the first time around. And my hormones have made me a raving lunatic, which I'm sure my husband enjoys. But I guess we'll know whether to buy pink or blue in 9 days...unless of course the baby decides to hide. In which case I may show up at the OB's office daily until we know for sure!