Did you grow up with Mother’s Day corsages for Sunday services? In small-town Alabama, you’d better believe I did. This coming Mother’s Day will be my first Sunday back at church after a long season of “doing my praying at home,” as one member of my family used to say. And since Mama missed the Mother’s Day service last year, I have no doubt she’s looking forward to an especially fine corsage come May....
When we were growing up, Easter morning came with a teeny bit of agony for my two little sisters and me. Before we could go to the living room to see if the Easter Bunny had hopped by our house, the three of us would be forced to sit at the top of the stairs, where we’d wait, impatient and antsy, as my dad led us through a sort of call-and-response, which he filmed on his bulky ’90s video camera....
Sure, falling asleep at night only to have a nightmare can be an unpleasant experience, but I’d argue waking up to a stiff neck is even worse. And waking up to a stiff neck multiple mornings in a row? That is the stuff of real nightmares — and exactly what happened to me one week in late March. The first morning I woke up to my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad stiff neck, I blamed myself, thinking I must’ve slept in a strange position to cause me to wake up in the worst upper back pain I’ve ever experienced (a fresh departure from my usual lower back pain)....
Elizabeth Bonker hasn’t said a word since she was diagnosed with nonverbal autism at 15 months old, but that didn’t stop her from giving the valedictorian speech at Rollins College on Sunday. Bonker, 24, delivered the moving address via a text-to-speech computer program. “God gave you a voice. Use it,” she told the graduating class of 529 students. “And no, the irony of a non-speaking autistic encouraging you to use your voice is not lost on me....
On Passover, families gather around the table to retell the story of the Jewish people’s escape from Pharaoh’s rule. Items on the Seder plate bring their journey to freedom to life. Passover is the one major Jewish holiday where the service is conducted at home and not in a synagogue. The Seder plate serves as sort of an interactive guide for that service. Roasted Egg (Beitzah) An egg is a symbol of an ancient sacrifice made at the Holy Temple....
It’s safe to say that one family’s luck went from bad to very, very good this week thanks to a helping hand from a larger-than-life celebrity. Shaquille O’Neal was driving on Interstate 75 near Gainesville, Florida, on Monday when he witnessed a motorist’s tire blow out on the busy highway. The NBA legend—who lives in the Orlando area—pulled over to the side of the road to offer assistance to the stranded family....
BUY IT: Starting at $21 with code 10SNUGSAVE (orig. $35); amazon.com Not only is the memory foam pillow said to help relieve headaches, ease neck and back pain, and improve sleep (all within only a few days of use), but many reviewers are calling it the best pillow they’ve ever owned and say that after trying it you will never want another pillow again. “I think I have purchased 20 pillows in the past two years searching for a pillow that would provide support for my neck while still being soft, and I have finally found it,” one reviewer wrote....
Day two of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo was historic for Team USA, when, for the first time ever, American women won gold in fencing and taekwondo—and they’re both from the South. Lee Kiefer bested Rio 2016 champion Inna Deriglazova of Russia to become the first American to win an Olympic gold medal in individual foil fencing on Sunday. She is also the first American to earn a gold medal in any individual discipline of fencing....
AJ Wolf and his decked-out Harley Davidson have been spreading Christmas cheer throughout Cross Plains, Tennessee, for the past seven years. But this year, the man known locally as “Motorcycle Santa” was inspired by the coronavirus pandemic to hit the road a few months ahead of schedule. “After 2020 rolled in, so many people became unhappy, the cheer level dropped, there is sadness, there’s all kind of stuff happening that we sure don’t need, but it’s here,” Wolf told WTVF....
Headed to Louisiana? Don’t miss Metairie, a small town located on Lake Pontchartrain’s south shore near New Orleans. Surrounded by water—the lake to the north and the Mississippi River to the south—and papered with parks, entertainment venues, and historic businesses and eateries (where you can catch a king cake or two!), this is one Louisiana spot that you’ll be glad you visited. See the Sights Set out on a drive along the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway between Metairie and Mandeville to take in the views over the water....
Welcome back to The Farm Stand, your weekly guide to seasonal Southern produce. Aside from maybe rocking chairs on the front porch, a beat-up pick-up with a blue tick hound in the bed or a pig ear sandwich at the Big Apple Inn, nothing sets a Southern scene quite like a wild muscadine vine. Just like the word peas means something different down here, the image of a grape in the mind of many a Southerner might look more like a blushing green or deep aubergine orb found out in the brush – put in carboys to bubble into wine or boiled down on the stove into jelly....
When it comes to making a dazzling first impression, Lake Lure, North Carolina, doesn’t take any chances. Visitors driving in from Charlotte, about 92 miles southeast, catch introductory glimpses of its clear, deep waters from the highway, which winds around the fingerlike inlets before depositing them at the center of town. People coming in from Asheville, about 28 miles northwest, get sneak peeks of the lake from a small bridge as they cross the spot where the Broad River flows into it....
The show must go on! During the coronavirus pandemic, those in the entertainment industry have had to get creative, whether it’s livestreaming a concert from their basement (hey, Keith Urban) or talk shows conducting virtual interviews via video chat. Ree Drummond’s hit Food Network series, The Pioneer Woman, is no exception, with her children stepping in for her standard 20-or-so-person television crew from the U.K. As we learned in a recent in-depth post on ThePioneerWoman....
There’s a bed-and-breakfast in the small South Georgia town of Moultrie, Georgia, and it looks like it belongs in a Hallmark movie or on a greeting card. It’s The Barber-Tucker House, an inn located on a magnolia- and oak-lined street with a canopy of Spanish moss waving overhead. The bed-and-breakfast prides itself on its Southern hospitality and its picture-perfect setting, so it’s no wonder the establishment’s motto is “Where Hospitality is a Southern Thing....
Perhaps you’ve seen a brightly painted pattern on the weathered face of a dilapidated barn as you’re driving down a country road. Though you likely didn’t give it much thought at the time, these surprising squares of color are becoming part of the rural landscape. The phenomenon began with Donna Sue Groves, who’s long had a fascination with old barns. As a child on road trips to visit her grandmother in West Virginia, she would count and categorize barns along the route, from the dilapidated ones to the beautifully maintained....
There’s no denying that Southerners are a fiercely loyal bunch. We proudly wear our team colors even when they’re suffering (yet another) losing season, and you’d better think twice before you start trash-talking Aunt Missy’s pound cake. This same devotion also applies to the brands we keep in our kitchens; and when it comes to ice cream, our allegiance lies squarely with Blue Bell. Here’s why we can’t get enough of the Texas-born treat....
Great cooks appreciate that a sturdy Dutch oven, whether classic black cast-iron or a colorful enameled finish, is a smart cookware investment that will last for years with proper care. No vessel does a better job when it’s time to make hearty stews, but it would be a shame to limit our versatile pot to only a handful of recipes. These pots can go on the stovetop, in the oven, and (in most cases) on outdoor grills and campfires....
We usually associate Mardi Gras with New Orleans and all the parade revelry in the French Quarter and Uptown. But the oldest carnival celebration as we know it—parades, masked balls, kings and queens, and mystic societies—happened in Mobile, Alabama. Like Louisiana, the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Alabama got a heavy dose of French culture from early explorers. All along the coast, you’ll see streets and towns named after French brothers Pierre Le Moyne Sieur d’Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, sent to America to locate the mouth of the Mississippi and guard French territory against interference from the Brits and the Spanish....
If you didn’t learn how to braid when you were younger, the idea of doing something like a French braid on your own can seem daunting. For those who learned the ways of the Dutch braid, or even the fishtail braid when they were kids, braiding is an easy task. The good news? It’s never too late to hop on the braid train and start looking like Elsa every day of the week....
As the number novel coronavirus cases in the country continues to increase, our anxiety is high. We are being instructed to help slow the spread of the virus by social distancing. This new buzz phrase that suggests we not congregate in large groups is becoming a way of life. That means most schools are closed, shifting our children’s classroom to the kitchen table, and many companies are having employees work from home as well....
