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When Amber and Sterling Marchand learned about the increased need food pantries are experiencing amidst the coronavirus pandemic, they knew they wanted to help. In June, the couple and their four children started a small food drive by placing a box in front of their Northern Virginia home for neighbors and friends to drop off non-perishables. “The box was filled immediately,” Amber told Southern Living, “so we continued to spread the word....

In an interview with Southern Living editor-in-chief Sid Evans last summer, celebrated writer Julia Reed described the first holiday gathering she hosted in her Greenville, Mississippi cottage: “There was lots of food, lots of booze, and lots of people I love.” It’s a fitting description of the Delta-born storyteller’s lively approach to playing hostess—something she did often and well until she passed away in August 2020, following a battle with cancer....

We’ve been saying it for years: There’s no pitstop like a Buc-ee’s pitstop. The beloved chain of Southern convenience stores, gas stations, and beaver nugget emporiums is one of the best things to ever happen to road trips. While the chain originated in Texas, it has been slowly rolling across the South with new sprawling outposts serving up Dr Pepper Icees and kolaches in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Now, that list is about to include a second Georgia location....

Hydrangeas will always be our favorite Southern shrubs because they produce some of our favorite Southern flowers. Hydrangeas have gorgeous foliage and showy blooms that never fail to brighten up our gardens. We’re always on the lookout for our next favorite hydrangea selection, and we’re happy to report that we’ve landed upon a new one this week. It’s Hydrangea paniculata ‘Chantilly Lace,’ a stylish shrub that has delicate white blooms and pretty, elongated green leaves....

I think my mother owns an ironing board. I don’t really remember her ever using it. My grandmother certainly had one, and she used it so often she had an entire ironing board cabinet built just for ease of use. She ironed her napkins, her tablecloths, even her placemats. She ironed her clothes, of course, her pillow covers, her doilies, and I remember seeing her steaming the curtains on her sun porch many times....

In its 200th year, Mississippi’s capital city is inviting everyone to drop in, and the timing couldn’t be any better. Over the past two years, Jackson has made quite the splash, largely thanks to Jackson State University (JSU). First, former NFL pro Deion Sanders signed on as head football coach at the HBCU (historically Black college or university). The following season, he led the team to its first championship in 14 years....

Rodney Smith Jr. found himself at a loss for words after mowing the lawn of two deserving military veterans on Tuesday. Smith is currently on his ninth lawn-mowing tour of the country, mowing 50 lawns in 50 states. In each state, the Huntsville, Alabama, native picks a group of people and surprises them by mowing their lawn for free. This year, he’s helping Gold Star families, Purple Heart recipients, POWs, and veterans....

Southerners buy gerbera daisies by the thousands on a regular basis. There are two main reasons for this. First, the red, orange, coral, pink, and yellow blooms are simply stunning. Second, the gerbera daisies they bought three weeks earlier are likely already dead. Gerbera daisies hail from South Africa, so you might conclude they’d like growing here in the South. You’d be so wrong. Gerberas don’t like our high heat, high humidity, and summertime frog-strangler thunderstorms....

It may be only March 1, but Hallmark Channel is already giving us our first glimmer of what’s to come for Countdown to Christmas 2022. And holy gingerbread, Rudolph, they are starting off with a bang. Today the network leaders in all things holly jolly announced that this season they will give us a movie called A Holiday Spectacular and it will feature Broadway stars Ginna Claire Mason who just took her final bow on Broadway as Glinda in Wicked and Derek Klena who was nominated for a Tony Award in Jagged Little Pill....

Privacy and protection: Establish what you’re aiming to keep in and out. Also, picket width and spacing are important; slats or boards butted together provide maximum screening, while lattice panels are not as private.The pros and cons of materials: Certain fence materials require more maintenance than others. For instance, chain link doesn’t rank high on style, but it’s virtually worry free and low in cost. For wood fences, choose from cedar, redwood, or ACQ-treated products, but periodic mending or repainting is necessary....

The tangy, tropical flavor of pineapple is a natural fit for balmy summer days and nights, whether you’re blending the fruit into a pina colada, mixing it into a fresh fruit salad, or using it to top off a pineapple upside-down cake. But because of the pineapple’s tough outer skin, it can be tricky to figure out how best to cut it to get the maximum amount of juicy fruit....

With many of us spending a lot more time at home these days, it might be time to get rid of that trendy-at-the-time wallpaper you can’t stand to look at any longer. A seemingly daunting task, removing wallpaper is actually easier than you think. Below, we give you a step-by-step guide on how to remove wallpaper, depending on which wallpaper type you’re dealing with. How To Remove Wallpaper The basics for removing wallpaper are always the same: To remove paper from your wall, use hot water in a spray bottle and wallpaper remover solvent (such as Zinsser 2488 DIF Fast Acting Spray Wallpaper Stripper ($16, walmart....

We’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but there’s an invasive species wreaking havoc on North American ecosystems that deserves our attention. Amynthas agrestis goes by many names. They’re called “Alabama jumpers,” “Jersey wrigglers,” “crazy worms,” and most commonly, “Asian jumping worms.” “Invasive Asian jumping worms got their name because of the way they thrash around,” Mac Callaham, a Forest Service researcher who specializes in soils, explained in a Southern Research Station blog post....

It’s happening. The news our couch potato selves have all been waiting for. Filming for season two of Netflix Original series Sweet Magnolias is underway in Georgia, and we couldn’t be more excited to see what’s in store for the guys and gals of Serenity. Perhaps especially for leading lady Maddie Townsend, played by JoAnna Garcia Swisher. Indeed, many of us are analyzing every last detail of the season one cliffhanger—spoiler alert: Maddie’s son Kyle crashed his car, and we’re not sure who was in the passenger seat—and wondering how season two will pan out....

Winter brings with it some wonderful things, like ice skating, movies by the fire, and big cups of hot cocoa filled to the brim with marshmallows. It also brings with it some less-than-ideal things, like shorter days, longer nights, and colder temperatures that can leave skin dry and flaky. If you suffer from painful cracked skin in colder weather, Walmart shoppers recommend O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Hand Cream. Let’s be clear, this is not a delicious-smelling, luxurious cream....

Everybody is coming up with their own ways to pass the time during the COVD-19 pandemic. For some people that means reading, while for others, it means binge-watching their favorite shows. For photographer Tim Doyle, it meant finally finishing up a poster project he’s been working on called “The Doorways of Memphis Churches.” It is exactly what it sounds like: a collage of the church doorways found throughout Memphis. “I’ve worked on this poster project off and on over the last two or three months, waiting for cloudy (but not rainy) days so there wouldn’t be harsh shadows in the doorways,” Doyle told Memphis Magazine....

Publix has begun a register campaign to allow customers to aid in Puerto Rico’s recovery from the ongoing effects of Hurricane Fiona, which claimed the lives of as many as eight people. Fiona’s Sunday landfall delivered flooding rains and an island-wide blackout to the U.S. territory. Heavy rain resulted in landslides, destroying roads, and isolating rural communities. As of Wednesday morning, more than 520,000 were without water and 1 million homes and businesses remained without power....

The obituary made me smile. Ellis Ray of Moundville passed away Saturday…he was a loving husband, father, and grandfather, who loved to fish and piddle. He will be greatly missed. I mean no disrespect. Quite the contrary, I smiled because Ellis, whom I never met, is my brother, bound to me not by blood but by a shared habit. We are piddlers. Or we were. Now I am left here, an earthbound piddler, to piddle alone....

The most wonderful time of the year has been extended in San Antonio, Texas! The thousands of lights that make up the San Antonio River Walk’s famous holiday display are typically switched off the first week of January, however, this year, The San Antonio River Walk Association has extended the free festivities until Valentine’s Day. “The famous holiday lights on the River Walk have been extended this year!” a social media promotion proclaims....

The coronavirus pandemic has derailed just about everything from sports to Broadway, and we have all had to learn how to adjust. Businesses have learned to adapt. Restaurants pivoted to curbside pick-up and patio dining. We are all learning to do things online more than we ever did, now seen as a lifeline instead of wasting time. And that’s exactly what many of our non-profits need right now: a lifeline....