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Tours may be postponed, our favorite musicians may be spending a lot more time at home, and life sure looks different than it did pre-Covid, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t new and exciting things to entertain us. In fact, one of our favorite Southern celebs has just premiered a brand-new podcast for our ears’ delight. Living & Learning with Reba McEntire debuted this week, exclusively on Spotify. McEntire recently spoke with Southern Living and told us all about it....

When Jen and Neal Jackson moved into a house in Homewood, Alabama, the old fence surrounding their side yard didn’t add much to the overall feel of their landscape. However, it did help create an ideal play area for their children, as well as all the neighbors’ children. So the Jacksons contacted local garden designer Terry Slaughter to find an alternative to the old fence without losing the practicality of the secure play area....

When it comes to hot chocolate recipes,there are countless variations on the classic. From thick dark chocolate, to red velvet and pecan pie, here are seven of thebest hot chocolate recipesto cozy up with this winter. Rich n’ Thick Hot Chocolate For this recipe, it’s all in the name. Combine melted dark chocolate bars and cornstarch to create the rich, chocolatey flavor and thick, smooth texture. Top it mug with homemade marshmallows and whipped cream and serve....

Three weeks into the new year, and the noise of gym discounts and dairy-free diets is finally starting to settle into the background. In a month that’s cluttered with resolutions and predictions for the year ahead, it’s always refreshing to bump into a trend you can actually get behind. This year, it’s the staycation. According to Pinterest’s Top 100 for 2020, a relaxing hometown retreat is where it’s at for the year ahead....

Historic character meets modern design at this beautifully renovated, adults-only bed and breakfast in Midtown Atlanta. Convenient to Piedmont Park, the High Museum of Art, the Fox Theatre, and the Margaret Mitchell House, Stonehurst Place couldn’t occupy more prime real estate. And it’s rare to find an inn with this much character in an artsy neighborhood near major attractions. Built as a private residence in 1896, the property remained in the same family for more than a century, so it was spared some of the unfortunate renos that can happen when a house passes from owner to owner....

Breadcrumbs are most often used in cooking to either coat a vegetable/meat or they are mixed into a meatloaf or casserole to give structure and absorb moisture while in the oven. With this in mind, it’s important to know what the breadcrumbs are doing in the recipe you’re using before you replace them with something else. Coating Meat/Vegetables Eggplant parmesan, fried squash, and mac and cheese can all benefit from a layer of buttery herbed breadcrumbs to create a crisp and flavorful exterior to an otherwise soft vegetable or side dish....

There’s just something about Christmas at a classic Southern resort. The whole celebration tends to go soft and glowy: There are grand trees festooned in seas of lights, elegant Christmas dinners and holiday breakfasts laid out on gleaming china, mugs of hot chocolate by the fireplace, and cheery visits with Santa. If you’re lucky, you can also catch a parade, sit down to a holiday tea, and decorate some Christmas cookies....

When a sweet tooth hankering strikes, nothing delivers quite like The Cheesecake Factory’s Fresh Strawberry Cheesecake. Or Celebration Cheesecake. Or Key Lime Cheesecake. And of course there’s the Oreo Dream Extreme Cheesecake. And…Well, perhaps a cheesecake sampler platter from The Cheesecake Factory would hit the spot, no? Well, dearest readers, if you’re hoping for more cheesecake in your life right about now, it’s time to act swiftly: Through the end of today, Thursday, April 15, The Cheesecake Factory will give you a $15 “e-Bonus Card” when you purchase a $50 gift card online....

Hold onto your margaritas y’all… the official trailer for season two of Sweet Magnolias is here! The first look at the show’s highly anticipated sophomore season reveals plenty more drama, romance, and friendship to come. Fans will also finally get answers to that cliffhanger ending right off the bat. “As season two opens, Maddie, Helen, and Dana Sue learn who is in the car,” the synopsis teases. “But that’s just the first of many surprises that come out of Prom Night—surprises that reshape relationships all over town....

I know a mouse and he hasn’t got a houseI don’t know whyI call him GeraldHe’s getting rather old, but he’s a good mouse. “Bike” – Pink Floyd I hate to pick nits with songwriter Syd Barrett, founding member of my favorite psychedelic rock band, Pink Floyd, but the only good mouse is one who hasn’t got a house, specifically, mine. The same thing goes for another rodent, the chipmunk. Unfortunately, this chipmunk that I call Alvin, disagrees....

The dog days of summer call for pitchers of ice-cold lemonade. This refreshing beverage is incredible easy to make at home, requiring only three ingredients: lemons, sugar, and water. Squeezing lemons one by one with a handheld juicer is a labor of love: Not only does it take a while, but it also can be tough to extract all the possible liquid from the fruit (not to mention to the inevitable hand cramps)....

In the depths of the Great Depression, groups of librarians known as the “book women” loaded up their horses with books and journeyed deep into the Kentucky mountains to deliver reading material to the state’s poorest, most-isolated communities. Though long since forgotten, The Pack Horse Library initiative was one of the most unique aspects of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Implemented and managed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) between 1935 and 1943, the program was created to help lift America out of the Great Depression....

What is it about Southern weddings that turns all the wedding guests into color commentators—in appropriately hushed tones, of course. Sit on a church pew with Mama’n’em, and you’ll hear a running commentary from the moment the organist begins the prelude until the happy couple ride off in their limo, horse-drawn carriage, or camo four-wheeler (you never can tell in the South). So if you’re looking for things to say at a wedding in the South, you’ve come to the right place....

Winter: a season when slow cookers are put to good use, gatherings translate to bonfires in the backyard, and the winter blues hit hard. But, my winter woes didn’t come from the freezing temps or the ice on my car windshield. It came from the heap of pills that collected on my plush sweaters. Fuzz was everywhere. As a Florida girl who wasn’t used to temperatures below 60, I didn’t know what to do to save my limited winter wardrobe....

Why do people who could certainly shell out the big bucks keep coming back to the unassuming green tube? It’s insanely effective, and in ways that go way beyond just your face. Much like the long-beloved Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream, it helps soothe many skin woes, from hydrating dry skin—it works wonders on elbows, cuticles, cracked heels, and other problem areas—to providing a dewy base for makeup to smoothing down stray strands of frizz....

The only thing we love more than a cheap, easy hack is one that also reduces waste. So you bet when Apartment Therapy published a super helpful list of ideas for how to repurpose used tea bags (y’all know we’ll drink plenty of iced tea this summer!) we couldn’t click fast enough. Like citrus peels, tealeaves have a whole host of magical powers and you should probably think twice before tossing one again....

While they have ancient roots dating back to Mesopotamia, kaftans catapulted to fashion popularity in the 1960s thanks to fashion houses such as Dior and Balenciaga. These couture clothiers found inspiration in dreamy and elusive destinations such as Morocco and Turkey where loose-fitting yet meticulously draped and climate appropriate garments were a daily, centuries-old choice for women and men. Come 1966, Vogue had declared the kaftan an essential piece of clothing, and by the end of the decade and well into the 1970s, kaftans were in their heyday....

Summertime is prime reunion season in the South, and as we inspect our coolers, hose off the No. 3 washtubs, and stock up on the “Cream Of” soups for all those casseroles, it might be fun to reflect on reunions past. If you think about, you’ll recall some common threads—at least, our Facebook Brain Trust did. Let us know what we missed. MENU FOR A FAMILY GET-TOGETHER Deviled eggs (served on a deviled egg platter) Tomato and cucumber salad (homegrown, of course) Sliced tomatoes, cantaloupe, and watermelon from the garden Squash casserole, green bean casserole, potato and onion casserole, sweet potato casserole Chicken casserole, chicken poppy seed casserole, chicken tetrazzini Congealed salad Banana pudding (the real kind with meringue) Vats of baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw, and macaroni and cheese So much fried chicken it’s about to topple the table A big bucket of KFC from one of the non-cooks (or casserole haters) in the family A foil roasting pan heaped with ribs or pulled pork Those little “dinner twin” rolls that you don’t have to warm up 7-layer cake (chocolate or caramel) Chocolate sheet cake Peach cobbler Great Aunt Martha’s prized coconut cake, on a towering cake stand, reigning over the rest of the table Homemade ice cream Soft drinks (aka Cokes) iced down in a No....

Not much beats the childhood joy of discovering a giant chocolate bunny in your Easter basket. Though when it comes Easter candy, it appears some states don’t feel quite as strongly about those chocolate bunnies as we do. Recently, career search website Zippia.com used Google Trends to determine what Easter candy states were most interested in based on search trends around Easter time (more specifically, the two-week timeframe around Easter 2020)....

How should I hang a chandelier? The lowest portion should be 27 to 30 inches above the tabletop. Of course, there can always be exceptions, depending on the fixture and your ceiling height. How big should a rug be in proportion to the table? A rug should be at least 2 feet larger than the table on every side to keep the chair legs on the rug at all times....