Taco Tuesday and Skype

Today is Tuesday. The Walkers moved to Canada a week ago. Seems like forever since we've seen them. We knew it would be hard to let them go, so we squeezed in every minute we could with them before they left...road trip the weekend before, lunch at our favorite pizza place on Sunday, one last Taco Tuesday, dinner and a slumber party on their last night, and then breakfast, photo shoot, and a travel goody bag before they pulled out last Tuesday morning.

They left on a Tuesday. It had been our summer tradition to eat homemade tacos with our friends every Tuesday night--Taco Tuesday. We would all gather at the Walkers' and bring some sort of taco-appropriate food. Krystle would put it all together and we would take our plates buffet-style through their little kitchen.

Now I know they probably didn't mean to, but the Walkers moved out of the country on a TUESDAY! And even though we invited the rest of the gang over that night, no one could come eat tacos with us. The Walkers were gone, and Jason and I ate our tacos alone, in mourning. We even cried. We cried when we hugged the Walkers goodbye that morning, we cried again on the way home from work that night, and we cried after we ate our tacos.

But this is a new week and it promises to be much better. Why, you ask? Are the Walkers loading up the Penske and heading back to the lower 48 for Taco Tuesday tonight? Nope (although if Canada doesn't work out, we're hoping to lure them down to Florida with us). This is a better week because we have joined the world of video chatters. Thank you Lord for Skype!

What is it about video chatting that makes it seem like you really are together instead of in different countries? I mean, we've talked on the phone with the Walkers lots of times since they left, but last night in the comfort of our own home, we didn't just talk. We hung out with them for an hour. Maybe it was seeing them on their couch...the couch we used to sit on for Taco Tuesday, where we watched "Big Bang" every Monday night after singing the theme song together, where the girls curled up with our Snuggies and the boys ate snacks on the tray contraption that folded down from the middle cushion, where Bun Bun used to get in trouble for playing hide-and-seek. Maybe it was seeing their familar gestures and facial expressions that we could only imagine before. Maybe it was seeing all of us in our comfy clothes, girls with no make-up and ready for bed, the way we usually were when we'd drop in on each other unannounced. Whatever the reason, it made my week. We love the Walkers. We love Skype. Maybe tonight we'll even have Taco Tuesday together!

High School Football

Last night was Friday night. What do people do in the south on Friday nights when the summer comes to an end and school starts back up in the fall? They go to high school football games of course. Decked out in school colors, toting stadium chairs, spirit gear, and toddlers in cheerleading outfits...there is no place else a true blooded southerner would rather be.

I have always considered myself a football fan, but let's just be honest...my old high school team was going nowhere fast. If I hadn't been required to show up to every game with my cheerleading skirt and pompoms, I'm not sure I would have chosen to spend my Friday nights at the stadium. But in the south, football is a big big deal. My husband's old high school in Tallahassee sends most of its top players to division I college teams and has seen at least 4 kids play for the NFL in recent years. Their football program is now running a capital campaign to build a brand new stadium, complete with a jumbo tron. Wow.

So we've lived in Mississippi for two years now, and we hadn't yet experienced the joy of a local high school game. Lucky for us, our neighbor and good friend teaches up the road and invited us all out to see our hometown team play last night. The only problem was that one of the girls she invited, another one of our best friends, happens to teach at a rival high school. She scoffed at the invite, and none of us thought we could get her to come. Even after shoving her in the back seat and threatening to take her against her will, we thought it was a lost cause. But after receiving a good dose of peer pressure and uttering one small profanity, she reluctantly conceded. None of us were surprised when she came back out to the car wearing her own school colors instead of the team we were going watch. All six of us crammed in one car, made our way through the atrocious traffic jam en route to the event, and settled into the stands to enjoy one of the south's simple pleasures. Aaaaaah, high school football :)

Limbo

So my husband is done with seminary...kind of....except for one more independent study...and 2 online classes. But we're moving...at some point. I have a job watitng for me back in my old office at home...unofficially. Our house if full of boxes and packing supplies...but I'm not sure how fast I should keep packing. Our Mississippi tags expire in August so we're going to Florida next weekend to switch them over...but we haven't quite moved yet. We just loaded some of our best friends up in a moving truck to Canada. The rest of our friends are still here (thank goodness!) which makes this a great place to be, but we are leaving...sometime.

So we move on with life in the in-between, with whatever right now is supposed to be.  So thankful for our friends and family and for God's faithfulness to provide for us. We are up for whatever adventure comes next, and whatever adventure today brings, even if it involves a little more limbo.

Hollywood, here we come!

          

So what could be a more perfect way of wrapping up our two years of living in Mississippi than to be in a movie filmed here? Nothing! So that's what we're doing! The movie is called "The Help" and is based on Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel of the same name. All of us read it last year and we went to a casting call with friends a few months ago. Well, Hollywood called us back last week to say they just couldn't go on with the movie unless we agreed to be in it, so....we said yes! Today was costume fitting in Greenwood, MS where most of the film will be shot. Filming for us will be next month in one of our favorite areas of Jackson called Fondren. If we're lucky, maybe we'll even be in a scene at Brent's Drug Store, a 1940's soda fountain where we have shared a few chocolate cokes with our BFF's (and the place we were hanging out when we decided to go to the casting call). Watch out Hollywood! We are on our way! Next task, set up our pages on IMDB :)

Sweet Tea Dreams

So the first thing you have to do when you create a blog is think of a blog title. Hmmm. My friend has the greatest blog ever: Ruby's Ramblings. She's so cute and full of '50s style, and her cute little nickname Ruby is perfect. And her blog background is all cute little cherries...so her. She is one of those people that is overflowing with individuality. But what do I call my blog? What says, "That is so me?"

Ruby and her hubby call me a hippie. I am from the Northwest and I recycle. Seattle is my favorite city. I love to cook when my husband isn't hogging the kitchen. I was a cheerleader once upon a time and still break out in cheer when the time seems right. I love to take dance classes and I flirt with yoga. I met my husband in Atlanta doing inner city ministry and have lived in the south for 10 years now. Wow. 10 years. I am now a college football fan.  I can fix collard greens that would make any black woman proud.  I eat black-eye peas on New Year's Day. The word "y'all" is a regular part of my vocabulary.  And for the forseeable future, it looks like we're sticking around down here. So for now, I guess the south is a big part of my life.

So what do I love about the south? Hands down my favorite thing is the sweet tea. Being from the Northwest, I had no idea that sweet tea even existed until I moved here. Sweet tea? What do you mean sweet tea? Like peach tea? Or raspberry tea? No, just sweet tea. Tea that is brewed with real sugar while steeping in boiling water, then poured over ice and sipped on the front porch in a rocking chair. Sweet tea that is served at restaurants in a dispenser that says "Sweet Tea" right next to a dispenser that says "Unsweet Tea". (I don't know why they have the unsweet tea dispenser; I don't think anybody drinks it...maybe to appease the Yankees). Southerners, you can't even get sweet tea in the Northwest. They would look at you like you were crazy and would have no idea what you were talking about. They do a lot of things right up there...tree hugging, snow skiing, Asian cuisine, coffee...but man are they missing out on the tea.

But guess what? I have always loved sweet tea, even before I knew it had name. I love tea. I drink tea all the time. I take it hot with lots of sugar. Black and sweet. The adults in my family used to ask me if I'd like any tea with my sugar whenever we'd eat at Chinese restaurants and I could have an unlimited supply of it in my own personal tea pot. So imagine my surprise when I attended my first social function in Atlanta and I tasted the iced tea. Oh wow. It was my kind of tea! I had found my people--a whole region of sweet tea drinkers hiding below the Mason-Dixon line just waiting to be discovered. I found them. I found sweet tea. I am home.