A little background on Edie....
a blog friend who could be a BF in real life.
I've been reading her blog since the beginning.
When her children were little
And she decided to leave her practice as a pediatrician
And *doctor on her own children* by homeschooling.
She got me at *commitment*
Wow.
and
When she did a post on
(click on each of those links to see what I mean)
Edie loves her Lord
and her family.
.....the two things that mean the most to ME.
And though I don't KNOW her
we have kindred hearts.
We serve the same God.
The God who will bring Edie and her family full circle.
Though they have suffered the tragic loss
of a newly remodeled home (to a fire)
They know the grace that Jesus offers.
And they trust.
Today is Edie's birthday.
She has so much to be thankful for.
Another year.
Another year with the people that mean the most to her.
"Happy Birthday Edie" seems so trite...
And yet, it means everything.
Happy Birthday Edie.
Happy *another day*
....and because this is my favorite blog post EVER written
...and EDIE happened to write it:
Things you should know about southern women:
1. We love all things ‘hair’—’fixin’ our hair, dyin’ our hair, teasin’ our hair—-you get my drift.
2. We have two commandments: ~ thou shalt not go out in public without lip gloss and mascara ~ thou shalt surely have cute hair. Don’t mess with Texas. Or Tennessee.
3. We take pride in our warmth and friendliness—translated, we frequently invade your personal space. We’re huggers, kissers, touchers of all kinds.
4. We make strong eye contact and teach our children to ‘look in their eyes’ and say yes ma’am. Our children will probably be eating iced sugar cookies when they say yes ma’am. But they’ll say it. Amen.
5. We have been accused at times of being superficial…..call it what you like, but despite the fact that I’m reading “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas a Kempis, my daughter (Caiti) and I will certainly do hitchkicks and spirit hands (we were both cheerleaders) when MAC comes out with a new lip gloss. Y’all think I’m kiddin’ but I just pulled my psoas muscle tryin’ to see if I could still do a hitchkick.
6. We love makeup and all things girly. We love bows and glitter and ribbon and animal print and cookies with icing on top. I have yet to meet a woman, from say, Connecticut, who would dare add trans-fat and high-fructose-corn-syrup infested butter cream icing on to an already suspect chocolate chip cookie. Our motto, “what’s better than a cookie? a cookie with icing on top”.
7. Our official anthem is ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and watch out if this starts playing while we’re chatting with you at a Christmas party about the current economic crisis…..or the latest new shade of lip gloss. We scan the room for any sign of a girl who looks like she has cheerleader in her past and head on to the dance floor as we sing, “singin’ songs about the southland…..I miss Alabamy once again and I think it’s a sin”
Economics can wait. And you can borrow the new lip gloss while I dance….’cause I’ve already got the new color.
8. Our daughters are the ones with the ribbons in their hair……from birth. It’s just part of our morning routine. Did you have some breakfast? Brush your teeth? Put your ribbon in? We buy ribbon by the spool not the yard. In all manner of colors and patterns.
9. We monogram everything. We’re like sorority sisters who never got over themselves. Only sweeter. We suck you in to our various and sundry habits too. Move here from New York and soon you’ll be monogramming, eating iced sugar cookies, and teasin’ your hair. And droppin’ the ‘g’ from the endin’ of every word. And sayin’ y’all. And gettin’ your nails done.
10. We are almost always smiling. Because our mothers and Phyllis Diller told us that ‘ a smile sets everything straight’ . Which is why we’re all now considering Botox. That could be the one downside I see of being southern. All those facial lines from all those years of smiles and laughter. Mark Twain even said “Wrinkles merely indicate where the smiles have been”. Yeah, sadly we see that now. Thanks mom.
11. We love to have people in our home. We pay serious attention to how are homes ‘look’ from the outside…..is their plenty of lighting? Does it beg me to ‘stop by’? That southern hospitality thing is serious business around here. There’ll be place cards and token gifts and flowers and candles and lots of homeade desserts. Our guest rooms will have the latest issues of Southern Living and Cottage Living and we’ll go the extra mile to make sure you’re comfy. Granted, we’ll talk your head off and make you watch football and Steel Magnolias and probably invite you along to attend someone’s funeral with us…..but the experience will be memorable. And in case we forget to warn you, the casket will be open and various relatives will comment on how ‘Hank never looked better’. I never even realized this wasn’t standard practice until last year. I had already picked out my outfit and requested a hairstyle for my ‘departing day’.
12. We all have dogs. We keep our dogs inside. The image of Paula Deen cooking with the dog shedding his hair under her feet comes to mind. We love our dogs. And name them things like Sceeter and Scooter. Hypothetically, of course.
Speaking of cooking, we love bacon fat….and every southern women I have ever met has a jar of bacon fat somewhere in her cupboards. Be careful when you pull out a cup to get some coffee.
13. We overutilize the words honey, darlin’, sugar, sweetie pie……and that’s when we’re talking to the UPS man. We like our tea sweet and our cookies iced. We like our nails pretty and our jeans comfortably tight. We wear boots in the winter and flip flops in the summer and have very large purses which contain more makeup than the average female from Wisconsin has in her possession altogether. We realize that some of these qualities are short comings and make all manner of resolutions to learn and do better.
Y’all have any questions? ‘Cause there’s a lot of myths going around about Southerners and I could set the record straight. ~Edie
