but it turns out, I LOVE it here! Life is so different here in the south, we're going on our 1 month anniversary here and even though i could do without the humidity, I wouldn't change anything about my life right now ....well 'cept for having my kids with me and grandsons on my lap.
Life moves at a much slower pace here. I've learned that unless I'm particularly "long on time" I try to not ask the cashiers at the grocery store "how are you today?" because they WILL tell you and they will start at their toes and work their way up to the top of their head (got a bunion on my little piggy and my knee is actin up a bit, my hip hurts some, must be from jumpin on the trampoline with them childs, my hair is attrocious" and they they proceed to tell you about their kin "my son.." it cracks me up because i don't think they're really talking to me, they're just talking to be talkin cause that's what they do here. Folks like to talk and they'll talk to you about everything under the sun. For hours. And the folks in line behind you don't seem to mind at all. Nobody is in a hurry here it seems. And while it's been an adjustment for my hyperactive self, I'm adapting just fine and learning to relax. I can't tell you the last time I slept in..well, yes actually I can...both yesterday and today....slept till 9:00 yesterday and nearly 8:00 today - to some thats not really sleeping in but when you get up at 4am during the week that's like sleeping an extra week. And when i woke up I wasnt' all panicked because it meant I was going to be running late for whatever it was i had to do because here, i don't have to do anything on the weekends except for what I want to do and I love it.
Sundays are my favorite. We sleep in and then get up and have our coffee on the balcony and lounge around and watch tv and read the paper and eat some breakfast and then we get cleaned up and head to the grocery store. Yep, going to the grocery store is about as exciting as it gets on Sunday because everyone is in church and nothing really opens until at least noon - if then. There are churches on every corner and several throughout the blocks in between. We've have a bapitist church on the corner next door to a methodist church across the street from the lutheran church next door to the catholic church next door to the....get the picture? The Saturday paper has a whole section dedicated to just church adverstisements, and they're all so pretty. Here's a few in our neighborhood:
Speaking of the paper, I love the paper here. Sure it's full of all sorts of news - good and bad - but one thing they do is they celebrate their people. On Sundays, there's an insert called "20 under 40" where they highlight 20 people under 40 y/o that have made some sort of positive impact on the community. High School football is where it is. 2 weeks ago they had a "city wide pep rally" to kick off the football season, we sadly didn't go because we were out driving around MS, that had about 5000 people there according to the paper - that's 1/3 of Vicksburg residents!! For a High School football pep rally?? are you kidding me? no i'm not, there's about 15,000 people here. Town shuts down for church and football...gotta love that! Plus in the paper they talk about all ages of folks - from the little kids to the old - someone does something good? it's in the paper e.g. "Billy Marks helped Mrs. Ella Simpson across the street even though he was late for school, way to go Billy!" kind of stuff. The wedding announcements are wonderful....quarter of the page for each one and colored pictures...love those.
We sit out on the deck of our apartment in the mornings on the weekend and the evenings during the week and folks will walk by and just stop and talk or drive by and wave...it's so different here. Maybe it's not so much different here as it is that I'm different. hmm. I'm not nearly as stressed or hurried as I was in Washington. I don't worry about trivial things like I did there. I'm not all wrapped up in anyone's business but my own because I don't have to be. I love that Don and I have been able to work through our differences because I love him and Ive rediscovered him in a way I thought was long gone...we sit and talk for hours about nothing...we make fun of each other's accents...we are stronger now than we've ever been and we're settling into our new life just fine thank ya.
So anyway, back on track.. as I said, runnin to the Krogers on Sunday is the highlight of the day. Groceries are comparable...somethings are more expensive some less. Things that cost more here are potatoes (which kills me coming from the potato capital of the world), milk, cherries ("frum the nathwest sugar, theys cholesterol free" said the lady at Walmart who was giving out samples -- I had to laugh and thought to myself, "I've had the real thing, fresh from the trees, not going to buy them here - especially at 5.89/pound!. Most fruits/veggies are cheaper here though -- watermellon, cantelope, strawberries (OMG to die for!). Milk is $2.39 for 1/2 gallon and we paid $3.29/gallon for gas yesterday and big beef steak tomatoes are only .49/pound. Booze is cheap here too - gallon of Jack Daniels goes for about $30-35 depending on where you shop, beer is about $10/12 pack. I love going to the grocery store here - so many different things than what I'm used to seeing in the store! like what? well like gallon jars of pickled pigs feet - now, I know that they sell them in Washington but not like here...quail eggs...ewwww....you can even buy quail and squirrel (yes, I said Squirrel!! it's open season all year long here! but you have to ask for it special) in the meat department of some stores...eww again lol....hog jaws..don't really want to know how to cook that....salad isn't really a staple like it was in washington because these folks have "greens" and I have found I LOVE them too! I had a wilted lettuce salad for lunch the other day and all I can say is OMG it was awesome! back home we could order fish like salmon cause it was so fresh but here it's not so much - the fish here to buy are like crappie, trout and my favorite? catfish..spicy grilled? yes please! But if you don't feel like cookin then Krogers got ya covered and come Sunday after church people will wait in line for an hour to get some of Kroger's chicken...seriously you can't get anywhere near the deli on Sunday afternoon and the other cool thing about shopping on Sunday afternoon is you get to see all the church folks dressed up and let me tell you...them folks dress to the nines!
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Can't figure out how to get pic to flip and save - ut all those people? yep...in line for Chicken at the
Krogers! there's like 30 people in line! |
So then I got to wonderin...where do all those folks go with their chicken? well our Sunday afternoon led me to that answer....
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These people had serious food going on today! they had crockpots and bbq'ers and smokers and I told
Don we needed to stop and be polite and we'd probably be invited for the best food yet! |
So the other thing we do on Sundays is take random drives...pick a road and take it...we find all sorts of cool places and sometimes? sometimes we just make a big ol circle and land right where we started. I was worried about learning my away around and have figured out that if I get lost head for the freeway or just keep driving and eventually I'll get back where I need to be.
Here's some of the pics from today's drive along with some misc pics of our hometown:
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| Love love love the street lights here...my village came to life! lol |
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Our living room....walls are concrete...have to use velcro tabs
to keep pictures on them lol...love the hardwood floors and chandeliers.....take note of the clock on the wall...have a story to follow on this |
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Lizard getting his "tude" on...they bounce their heads up and down, stop, and blow their chins up like this
as a self-defense mode |
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| HOLLY! in our courtyard...beautiful! |
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| Took this to show the cobblestone streets downtown |
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| Driving downtown |
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One of the many many antebelum mansions here - this one was built in 1802
Ante-before and Bellum-before the war (that was learn something new everyday thing today lol) |
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| Antebellum home - built in 1807 - it's for sale too but I don't know the price |
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| Hill down to the river |
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| Hill up from the river |
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| Muddy Mississippi River...so pretty...beach on the other side is Lousianna |
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| Bridge between Mississipp and Louisianna |
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| One of the many memorial marker sites |
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| Waffle house (duh)...YUM for CHEAP! |
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| Liquor Store - you can get your car washed while you shop and the ol boy washes it by hand! |
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| Oh look! another lizard!!! |
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| The road that "Samantha" the GPS girl insisted we take...yea, we turned around lol |
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| Dock from which we were fishing - Natchez state park - absolutely beautiful |
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| Trying to catch the big fish we kept seeing jump - didn't happen lol |
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| no...haven't ventured in yet....but think about it...shoppin and BBQ all in one place? Man I love it here! |
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| Real flame in the lantern |
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| Don playing with the resident cat |
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| Old pipe organ at one of the churches at the military park |
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| OLD Fire truck |
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| Welcome center at the military park |
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| Courthouse in Port Gibson...about 40 miles from here...built in 1817...GORGEOUS |
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| This is the old Vicksburg Court house - now its a museum and you could spend all day and not see everything |
and that my friends is the end of todays blog...taken me practically all day to do this because I had to go get pictures of some of the stuff I was gonna tell you about it..
Love ya all!!!!
Love! Keep them coming. Oh how you make me miss the south... So happy to hear that you are enjoying life there, even with the humidity :)
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