Friday, July 20, 2007

Friday Five


My, my, how the weeks just seem to fly by. Time for another edition of the Friday Five. Y'all may not hear a whole lot out of me for the next few days. Starting Saturday, I'm on the schedule for sixteen days straight with no break, so my posting my be a touch spotty. I know I have more awards I need to get out, plus I need to write about my..erm, run-in with an overzealous hair dresser. I told y'all yesterday I was going to get highlights. I may need to go find someone to do some low lights. That, or pray that my hair grows fast so I can cut out some of this blond.


Anyhoo....


Five Things I Love About Where I Live
(picture above, fountain in Forsyth Park, Savannah, GA)



1. Humidity.

This sounds stupid, I know. Everyone always complains about the humidity: it messes up their hair, makes them feel sweaty, whatever. All I know is, it's nice to not have to run a humidifier so my husband can breathe. I also like the way the air feels first thing in the morning when I open the door. It's kind of damp, almost caresses my face, like it's just trying to let me know it's there.


2. All the young men call me ma'am, all the old men call me dear, and all the women call me honey.

There are women in this world who find it demeaning when an elderly gentleman calls them "dear", but I find it endearing, as long as it's not in a lecherous way, and it almost never is. And while some people feel old when someone calls them "ma'am", I think it's a lovely mark of respect that we just don't see much of anymore. As for the women, well, I also call everyone "hon", especially if I can't remember their names! I think, perhaps, I was born to be southern.


3. The Food.

No question about it, I love southern food: fried chicken, grits, greens with ham hock, pecan pie, fried pork chop sandwich, barbecue. About the only thing I can't handle is okra. I had a bad okra experience in my teens.


4. Rainstorms

Now, I don't like severe weather (does anyone???), but I love the summer thundershowers we get here, usually late in the afternoon. It's a product of the humidity. It's almost as if the sky just gets so full of moisture, it just can't handle it anymore and it explodes. And it really does help the heat a little bit. Just as soon as I think I can't handle the oppressive heat outside anymore, one of those lovely cleansing storms opens up and drops the temperature about ten degrees, and I can open the windows for a while. The best part is, we rarely get tornadoes here, so I can at least not panic too much if they declare a severe thunderstorm warning.


5. The Beach

I've always been a water person, ask any of my family. I grew up around the Great Lakes, and now I live less than an hour from the Atlantic ocean. The sound of waves and the smell of the sea calms me down, and I love watching The Four Year Old run in and out of the water. She's happy, the husband is happy, and I am happy. While I wouldn't mind living in a beach cottage year round, the great thing about living this far inland is if we get something less than a Cat 2 Hurricane, I probably won't have to evacuate.


Okay, that's my five. I get to play radio DJ star for the next two weeks filing in while other people take vacation, so don't expect me to post every day. I'll try though, if only because you have to see this ridiculous hair.


Have a good weekend!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love these Friday Fives. It makes me think about things I usually don’t, and it makes for great Friday dinner conversation.

1. The wildlife. I have herds of deer, ( I’m not kidding, herds ) wild turkeys, chipmunks, groundhogs, coyotes, duck, geese, rabbits, raccoons, muskrats, fox, and numerous birds, including 3 kinds of hummingbirds that either visit or make my place their home. Everyday they continue to delight me.

2. The small town life and sense of community. Never have I lived in an area where everyone knew everyone else and banded together they way they do here. It’s not unusual for someone driving by to see you in the yard and stop to say hello, or introduce themselves, or to invite you to a gathering.

3. The changing seasons. Each season brings something fresh and new. Spring and summer with the wildflowers and everything green. Fall with the forests of trees in color, and even though I hate winter, since moving here I have learned to appreciate the beauty of a blanket of snow covering everything untouched by city life.

4. Night time. It is so dark here at night that you can’t see your hand in front of your face. If you look into the sky you can see all the stars. In the summer the fireflies light up the creek and forest until the wee hours of the morning. In the winter when there is a full moon it makes the snow glow in the trees.

5. The feeling of finally being where I belong. Knowing that this is the place I can call home for the rest of my life.

the rotten correspondent said...

Fun topic, Jen. Good luck with the work run and the, uh, highlights. Isn't timing wonderful?

Five things I love about where I live...

1. The way the weather changes. They say in Kansas if you don't like the weather wait five minutes and it will change. I love the wind and the thunderstorms especially.

2. The seasons. I'm a Fall Freak, but finally, after growing up in Southern California, understand why people go so gaga about Spring. I like snow when it's falling and when it's first on the ground, but it gets old quick.

3. The College town atmosphere. We're in a little blue pocket in the midst of much red around us. There's not much you don't see around here. It's also a relatively small town, so there's a real sense of community.

4. Downtown. We have a real live, vibrant downtown area that we can actually walk to. It's an old town, so the downtown area has a lot of history to it. And there are quite a lot of independent stores there, with only a few big chains. All the big box stores are in a different part of town.

5. The schools. They rock. Of course people here don't think so unless they moved from somewhere else. (and actually, a lot of people here are from somewhere else). The class sizes are wonderful. If they hit 20 in a class it's a crisis!

Jo Beaufoix said...

Jen I'm sure your hair is great, especially for Radio hee hee, but you'll proabably get used to it or it will calm down.
If not, you could always buy a big hat and wear shades as your being Ms Showbizz for the next couple of weeks.

We'll miss you but have fun.

I love aunt Barbie and RC's five but I find this a bit hard...

Here goes.

1. We're an ex-mining town which has been through a huge amount over the last 40 years or so, yet the people are proud and warm in the most part and very generous.

2. My town is full of history. It was once the centre of Sherwood Forest and is surrounded by some beautiful countryside and historic places of interest such as Newstead Abbey which was owned by the poet Lord Byron, Nottingham Castle, Newark Castle and Bolsover Castle (we have castles). The ruins of King Johns Hunting Lodge is about 3 miles away from my house - you know, The Crusades, Richard the Lionheart, et al, and we have Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, the oldest Inn in England which was built in 1189AD.

http://www.triptojerusalem.com/castle_rock.php

3. Even though it's quite a large town I always bump into someone I know when I go out. Some people might not think this is a good thing but I like it.

4. The area around Mansfield is green and vibrant. There are many large parks as well as agricultural land, and there are rolling hills of verdant green in every possible shade.

5. We're kind of in the centre of England which means it's easy to visit anywhere in the country.
We can be in London in a couple of hours, get to Scotland or Ireland or Whales equally fast, and there's so much to see for such a small country/group of countries.
I love the UK. It's where I feel I belong. It's not perfect but it's my home.

See you soon Jen. Hope Chloe and Zoe are settled.
x

Poetess said...

Hi Jen

What are grits. I live in Britain and am not familiar with those.

1. Weather warmer than home
2. Multi cultural
3. Great shopping mall
4. Like being a stranger in town
5. Vibrant

Jen said...

Hey poetess,

Grits are a southern staple, dried, ground corn. If it's treated with lye, they're called hominy or hominy grits.

Here's one of my earlier posts about them:

http://southernsnowball.blogspot.com/2007/05/kiss-my.html

You boil them to cook them. I like mine with butter and salt, some people like them with jelly or brown sugar.

Anonymous said...

Let's see. 5 things I like about where I live.

1. It's somewhat quiet. I like it quiet.

2. No one knows who the heck I am. I've lived in places (especially in my TV days) when I could rarely step out without seeing someone do the classic double take.

3. The weather. It reminds me a lo of my hometown of Charleston (except that there's not a beach nearby you can escape to)

4. The arts scene. Raleigh is pretty good when it comes to that.

5. No one bothers you here. Don't want to deal much with people who are going to constantly bother you here.

There it is, Not much of an exciting list. Oh well..

Dan said...

Jen, thanks for visiting my blog when I was on vacation! That was very sweet of you. I've never been to Savannah but it sounds pretty cool. I'll have to add it to my list. :)

www.ayewonder.com said...

Really enjoyed finding your blog. I do a sumilar thing on mine called 5 x 5. Its five lists of five without explaination.
I love lists so it was fun finding your's. WIll be back.

Poetess said...

Hi Jen

Thanks for that. I am informed. Sounds good.

Poetessxxx

Unknown said...

Well, I'm glad you're having a goodf time here in my town and you and the fasmily love it. Now that you're here, we got some rules you'll need to learn. If you haven't read them yet, here's the link...

http://savannahnow.com/node/327149

Learn 'em now. There's a test on Friday...

Molly said...

You sound like a very positive person. I enjoy summer thundershowers too. Although the Indiana might be different than your variety in Savannah, I love the darkening sky before the storm, the lightening during the storm, and the freshness of the world after the storm.

Have fun being a radio DJ star. I look forward to your highlights picture.

Jen said...

Gurnal : you are what makes your list exciting, seriously. I still feel a little like it's my fault you ended up in Raleigh, anyhow.

Poetess , I'm happy to educate anyone and everyone on the merits of grits. *grin*

Mike thanks for stopping by my blog, your lists are veryimpressive, too!

mjd it's funny that you should say I'm a positive person, because I've always felt like such a pessimist! Maybe there's hope for me yet.

And you should all go check out the link Sam posted here in the comments. It's a rather tongue-in-check guide for living in Savannah. Funny stuff.