Top 5 Reasons I love Alabama

I love living in Alabama. I haven't lived anywhere else {See? I told you I loved it!}, but have traveled all over our grand country when I was hip and 20-something and had a job that paid me to do it.

There is just something about Alabama- home- that lures me back here. I even love that cheesy, over-played song Sweet Home Alabama and it makes me tear up a little bit if I'm out of state.

But there are a few other things that I love about the South, in general- and specifically Alabama:

5. We like to eat.
You'd better be hungry if you have a baby, lose a family member, have an outpatient surgery or it's a Tuesday. Because we bring you food- tons of it. I don't know why. It's just a rule.

4. We take our football seriously.
You probably know I'm an Auburn fan, thus a lifelong sworn enemy to Alabama football. I'm not bitter AT ALL that they are playing for the national championship tonight. WHAT. SO. EVER.
*Ahem. Wipes tears.* Where was I? Oh, yes.

What I do love is that nobody jokes about football. For instance, we have some weather in our area right now {see #1} that would normally call for some scheduled TV interruption with updates, etc.
There is a movement- yes, an organized and collected movement- that has been announced that come hell or high water- or snow- the weather people should NOT interrupt the game. There could be people dying down the street, blizzards outside your home or a fire at the trailer next door, but that football game better NOT be interrupted.
Thank you.

3. People call you ma'am.
I don't know why, but I like it. It just makes things nicer. "Could you move your buggy" sounds just a hair less testy with a ma'am added at the end there.

2. We know you.
If you are in a small town, people know you. They know your whole story. They were most likely 3rd cousins with your Aunt LuAnn's high school boyfriend. Or their Meemaw used to babysit for your former next door neighbor. It's not even a 6 degrees of separation; it's about 2 if you count knowing somebody from the grocery store.

We were down at the beach over Christmas and visited some family friends who we hadn't seen in a long time. Jason asked me how we knew them and this is the word-for-word explanation:

"Other Mama and Big Daddy were best friends with their grandparents Em and Elsie. So, mom grew up with their family and then their children moved to Alabama when mom did. Their son was the photographer at mom and dad's wedding and at ours {if you recall} and I went to school with all their children. And their cousins lived in the next town over and we have just always known them."
And it turned out that one of the cousins my age is married to a guy who went to high school and was college roommates with several of our best friends in Huntsville.

And that's how it works in the South.
I couldn't graph it if I tried.

1. We freak out at any snow at all.
Maybe it's because we can't drive in it.
Maybe it's because we don't see it very often {"Bubba, look at thay-ut!!"}
Whatever our excuse, we go absolutely bonkers at the prediction of snow. {I know it's really that we aren't equipped to clear the roads, etc, but it is fun to see everyone go crazy.}

It's snowing right now and is supposed to snow up to 2 WHOLE inches today. Schools are closing, there are wrecks everywhere and milk and bread are flying off the shelves at grocery stores.
I don't know what the allure of milk and bread is, either. Do people make milk sandwiches when they are stuck inside?

And just in case you think I'm exaggerating, this is the amount of snow on the ground: {kids in front of pre-school this morning. It closes at 11:30, but by gosh they were going for 3 hours.}





And this is the amount of bread left at Target this morning. Seriously.
You'd better like hot dog bun and milk sandwiches, but that's about all that's left. I'm sorry I can't report on the milk; I wasn't brave enough to go near that area.

Family, food, football and freaking out. Yes, that's Alabama. And I love it.

I can hear the base line of Sweet Home Alabama, so need to go make my milk sandwiches for the big game tonight.
Y'all take care now, okay, ma'am?

What's your favorite regional quirk or trait about where you live?

Our Man- Designed Home

I realized today, for the nth time, that a man designed our home. We have major rooms without ceiling lights (we have added them), crazy tile on the floors (there is no way to describe it- we have covered it up) and color coordinated bathrooms- including the toilets, sinks,floor and wall tile.

Our house was built in 1971, so that probably explains the pink, blue and yellow toilets (I HATE that we missed out on avocado green), but it also explains that the design field was probably dominated by men.

Here is my replication of our floor plan - or at least the path from the car to the refrigerator (egg-zakly to scale):

If you can't quite make it all out, on the far left there, you have a "Big, honkin' SUV full of groceries". Now, since we are all being guilted into being environmentally friendly, the groceries are in cloth sacks that weigh about 30 pounds each because you can fit so much in them. {Please note that my guilt does not extend to driving anything that would crunch like a potato chip in an accident- or smell like one driving down the street.}

You then pass through the 2-car garage that has never held one of our cars. This isn't because it can't be cleaned, but it has the bedrooms on top of it and apparently has to have these major poles in the middle of the garage to hold them up. And I guess cars used to be smaller than the afore-mentioned big honkin' SUV.

You got it.

We have a 2 car garage that NEITHER of our cars can FIT in.

Then you walk up 9 stairs, though the foyer, though the living room (aka train station), then into the kitchen (aka train depot).

What's the difference in a train station and depot? From what I can tell, the trains are loudest wherever you happen to be standing. That's all.

Now, you made it to the refrigerator to unload groceries! Congratulations! Now turn around and do that 5 more times! Who needs the gym?

And, do you notice where my laundry "nook" is? Right beside the kitchen so the little woman can get all her chores done at once. {And did you recall that our bedrooms/ clothes changing areas are waaaaay over on the other side upstairs?}

The laundry closet area also clogs up the only passage to the guest bathroom from the stacks of clothes that accumulate there. Luckily, our 3 year old has learned to do the pee-pee dance and hop over piles of clothes while trying to make it to the bathroom. He's got mad skillz. He gives our guests a tutorial when they arrive.

You can see the testosterone that built this home, can't you? I am super thankful to have it, but there are probably a few dozen things I would change about it.

I think if the man designer would have brought in a sack of groceries with 2 gallons of milk in it, then he might have come up with a new floor plan. Or else he would have run into one of the poles in the garage while not looking. I think I would have rather seen the latter.