What's in a Word

When I moved up here, I had to learn a whole new vocabulary. Some things took me a while to catch on to. I'm not the only one who has had to make some adjustments. Our church used to be surrounded by fields. One day a man originally from New York asked Spencer's dad what was planted in one of the fields. Spencer's dad said in true southern vernacular, "Them? Them there's sweet 'taters." Every time we would start talking about southern speech, that man would bring up what Spencer's dad said.

Here are some common words and their translations.
Boot: trunk of the car
Mash: Push (ex: mash the peddle)
ill: in a bad mood (He's really ill today.)
hain't: ain't or haven't (I hain't got none)
snaps: green beans ('cuz you snap them in pieces after you pick them)
peach plum: apricot (that took me six years to figure out)
on it: a phrase you thow in a sentence anywhere you feel like (ex: I was walking yesterday, on it, and I saw the funniest thing, on it. There was this fox, on it, and he was carrying a sock in his mouth, on it.)
creamed potatoes: mashed potatoes
pocket book: purse
string beans: another word for green beans
solja (soldier) beans: soy beans

Some of Granny's specialties:

Zink: sink

Mackyroni: Macaroni

dyneemite: dynamite

piller: pillow

earbobs: earrings

Spencer, Sho, Sierra, Grandaddy, Granny, Cameron, Papa, Brittany, and Zach

(Mema was the photographer)

More on Food

Cameron thinks he knows how to cook

I thought I'd continue this discussion on a post instead of through comments. Mary was asking if I'd ever been to a pig picking. Yes, is the answer. They are quite common around here. Speaking of pigs, there is a restaurant here called Bill's Bar-B-Que. On Sundays on the buffet, they have a pig on the grill that you go up to and pick your meat off of. Spencer's dad and grandad grill a whole 100 pound pig every summer for our camp meeting at church. In order to turn the pig over, they have to take four boards and put under and over the pig and flip it that way so it will get done on both sides.
This last Friday night, the guys had a wild game meeting at church. They all dress up in their hunting gear and bring their guns, hunting videos, trophies, and whatever else it is that goes with hunting and fishing. The guys at church cook up a lot of food and whole lot of men and boys from community come for the occasion. My point of this thing is the food that the guys cook. Anyone had beaver stew? How about a fish stew or rabbit meat? Spencer brought home some of the beaver stew. Spencer just made me taste some of it. It tastes like beef stew. I have also tasted alligator tail before. It was cut up in little pieces, breaded, and fried. The breading was good, but the meat had a little bounce to it.
Other than the gross stuff, there is some really good food here. Big buttermilk biscuits filled with melted cheese running everywhere as well as sweet potato casserole and banana pudding are a few of my favorites. There are also all the vegetables seasoned with hamhock as well as the collards and turnip greens. Of course, I don't cook that stuff very much because I don't have the touch for that. But when we go to Granny's house (Spencer's grandma) we have it all.
How about you? Anything different or unusual lately?

Cameron knows other people can cook better!

(By the way, Cameron is Spencer's one and only sibling.)

Kids

Here's some pictures of my sister, Revka and her kids. Don't have a good picture of her husband. I'm sure he doesn't mind.
Revka and Candace.


MacKenzie sneaking food at her house.


















Alexandria just learning how to sit up.


















Had seven kids under 5 on Friday. Three of them were Revka's kids. All were well behaved, but I had a splitting headache when the day was done. Maybe it was because Johnny came earlier and left later than normal, or that Candace had to get a bath because she had an accident, or that Johnny threw up while I was feeding him supper. I don't know, but I was sure glad to have peace and quiet that night. Spencer and Zach and Spencer's dad were at a hunting thing at church and my girls went with Spencer's mom for a while. I had until 10:00 that night to get myself back together.

Guess What?! Guess What?! Guess What?!

I'm NOT spastic! Did you hear me?!!!! I'm not, I'm not, I'm not spastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's what people at church said the other day. They think I am very calm.
Can't wait to hear the comments on that one.

Home warming tip 25637

Never throw your butane lighter into the fire along with the kindling wood. It creates a sticky, stinky mess. No explosion though. I'm not the one that did it either.


My turn to teach Pee Wee Club tonight. The

lesson is on sharing. My kids don't need any help

with that-they're perfect angels--hahaha!

Spencer has the teens on Wednesday nights. I'd

much rather be in there with him. I'm with ages 5

and under 24/7, but this is the group the Lord

has let me help with, so that's what I'll do. I help

out a great lady anyway----my mother-in-law.

I'm so stupid and He's baaaaaaack

I kept wondering why I never saw any comments on my pages. When Davida e-mailed me and said she had put one up there, I knew something was wrong. ... especially when I did not see it anywhere. I decided I better check things out. When I went back to the page that tells how to moderate comments, I read the information again, and TA DA!! I got it working. Now if I had only been smart enough to pay attention to everything I read the first time! Anyway, I had fun reading everyone's thoughts all to once.

Johnny, the little boy I take care of, came back today from a day off yesterday, so it was back to getting up at 6:30 to be able to cheerfully???????? greet him at 6:45. Does anyone else hate mornings as badly as I do?

Well, it's back to Pilates for me before everyone wakes up, and I start my picking up after spills and messes again.

My sweet husband and I

Spencer's B-Day

I'd rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than ride in a car with Ted Kennedy.

Spencer really liked that saying and said I should put it up here, so here's to you, Spencer.

Haven't done much today; Spencer has the day off for President's Day. It's also his birthday todaywhich makes for agood day off. Got him a mirroredTarheels license plate for his truck. He has really wanted one of those for a few years. That ought to create more love between him and some of his co-workers. Did I say love? I really meant good natured aggrivation. He'll probably end up coming home with some Duke stuff and dumping it in the trash.
I'm in the process of making a supper that Spencer really likes....steak, grilled onions and bellpeppers, baked sweet potatoes, salad, and if I don't procrastinate too long, I'll make him a cheesecake. Sounds good, doesn't it? Maybe I'm just hungry. Do the sweet potatoes give away how deep in the South we are? Funny, when I lived in Texas, I thought North Carolina really meant North. I mean, a place where it occasionally snows surely has to be the North!!! Anywhere north of where I grew up was North. Boy, wouldn't some of these Southerners be shocked!
Planning on going to Lowe's tonight so Spencer can spend his gift cards on some tools that he's always fussing about not having. Ought to be a fun trip. :)

A Day With Mema

Thursday and Friday were unseasonally beautiful-mid 70's. On Friday, Spencer's mom, known as Mema to our children, dropped by and took the kids to the park for a few hours. They had a really good time. Good thing they got to go out and play, it was snowing and sleeting on Saturday. Winter is finally here.






Saturday, Spencer's mom and I took the kids to a second cousin's birthday party at Chucky Cheese's. We were there close to three hours. I was very ready to come home. I like Chucky Cheese's, but three hours of trying to keep your eye on three kids in THAT place is mind boggling. In the mean time Spencer and his dad went and cut firewood for both of our woodburning stoves. It's a lot of hard work, but it sure beats paying a high heating bill.

Today, we went to Spencer's parents house after church to celebrate Spencer's birthday which is tomorrow. Sierra loved the spaghetti--too bad she threw it up in the nursery at church tonight. She sat in the corner of the bathroom while I was cleaning up the mess and said YUK!! Yea, no joke Sierra!


P.S. Be sure to look at the updated "highschool friends" entry.

Meet the Fam

Well, my husband, Spencer, has been an aggrivator from day one. I don't know why things should change now. I told him last night that I wanted to put this picture of us up here and to please smile. (He does not like to smile in pictures.) So, he went out of his way to look pitiful. He had a lot of fun doing it too. FINE! Under threats of sabatoge to my blog, I'm putting the picture up here anyway! Other than loving to tease people, Spencer is a great husband, and teasing isn't such a bad thing most of the time. We have a lot of fun together.

Zachary is our first child--born 10 months after we were married. He is really tender hearted and sweet. He works really hard at making our house a "happy" home. Being sweet does not mean that he does not act like a boy. He loves to wrestle, to be a cowboy--especially rope horses and ride bulls, and above all, he loves his guns to play army man and to go hunting with. I guess the thing that has most thrilled us with Zach is that he asked Jesus to save him this past summer. There was no pressure from us for him to do so. He just told me one day that he needed to be saved. Thank the Lord.

Brittany arrived seventeen months after Zach with a 100% natural and 100% painful birth. The 100% natural was not by my choice and will not happen again if I have anything to do with it. That's just what happens when you get to the hospital in the nick of time because the nurses tell you to wait some more before coming in. Back to Brittany........for now, she is our........... (I had to remove this section)............ dare devil. However, she also spends time with her Polly Pockets, and loves looking at books, as well as running around keeping up with her big brother. She is very smart and is trying to learn how to read. We enjoy her energy and love to hear her talk. One of her special words is "bisik" for biscuit.







Sierra, our baby, is a clown. She does anything to get a laugh-funny faces, noises, running in circles, etc. She's learning to keep up with the other two, and is already learning how to defend herself very well from the larger little forces. Sierra has her soft side too. She is very cuddly and loves anything that resembles a doll or stuffed animal.

Highschool Friends updated

First picture: Eric, DJ, Davida, Krista, Sho, Mike, Laurie, Lynlee
Second picture: Amy, Mike, DJ, Sho, Lynlee, Courtney, Davida

Although it took us two years to get together, it was a blast. Hope to do it again some time with more people.

Had a nice time with Spencer last night with a candle lit dinner at an Italian Restaraunt and then ended up at Wal-Mart getting a new iron and ironing board. Zach thought my other board was a horse to ride. The "horse's" legs were a little weak that day, and the "horse" never quite recovered. We are taking Zach for real horse riding lessons soon.

Blame Sarai and Lynlee

Well...It's always hard to get something started, but I read my friends' (Sarai and Lynlee) blogs and thought it might be fun to do......so here goes, and if you don't like it, blame it on them. That's what you do with friends right? Especially ones you've had since 7th and 9th grades. :)

Today is Valentine's day. It's not just a time for your loved ones, but also a time to remember friends too. Happy Valentine's Day, y'all. Sometime soon I'm going to post a picture of some of us from highschool that got together this past summer in Tennessee. None of y'all sue me because I didn't ask your permission first! One day, I'm going to try to get Spencer to scan a picture of us when we were still in high school and put up there too. I might try to do one of those that we took at Epcot Center. My, my, haven't we changed since then.......I bet you wouldn't even recognize some of us--Mike!

Speaking of Valentine's Day, Spencer and I are going to drop off our three children (Zachary, Brittany, and Sierra) with one of their grandparents and go out to eat at a restaraunt we've heard is really good. It will be nice to have a little peace and quiet, but I am always so happy to see my kids again. I love the smiles and hugs when we get them back.

Well gotta go exercise some more of my last baby off of me while everyone is taking a nap. Does anyone else do Pilates?????