Where did this blog name come from?

Good Afternoon!

I feel that before I dig any deeper into blog-land, I need to tell the story behind the name of this blog. Here goes nothing...

Honestly, as weird as it sounds, I heard the phrase for the first time at the luncheon following my Grandma's funeral. My Grandma passed away early September. Thankfully she passed peacefully in her sleep. She was an incredible 91 years old (almost 92)!!

I was sitting at a table with my Aunt B when she whispered in my ear "Heads up. See the man walking towards us? I saw him with a drink in his hand before the church service began" Please note- the service began at the church about 10am, followed by the caravan to the graveside, then finally the luncheon back at the church. Chances are this man woke up and had a drink with breakfast. Anyways, I mostly kept quiet and braced myself for whatever might come out of this man's mouth. As it was, he wasn't the best dressed man  I've ever seen and secretly, I'm not sure he washes his hands! But I digress.

Clearly Aunt B knew this man since she knew to give me the heads up. So when he arrived to our table, he made a B-line for her, gave his condolences her then proceeded to join the table for lunch. I found it slightly odd that this man joined our table as it was only family at the time. I embraced the "the more the merrier" AND  the "hopefully this man will provide some entertainment without giving me TB during lunch" mantras.

Originally the table included myself, Aunt B, Uncle J, Aunt J, and Uncle B. I tried to just sit back and watch everything unfold at the table until Aunt B dragged me into the conversation! It started with a simple introduction that I was her neice, then Aunt B continued with how my dad is her brother and that my mom grew up in Morton. I finally piped up because my mom didn't grow up in Morton, she grew up in Carmi. Our new friend responded to me "Oh, you're from the south." (background- apparently in Illinois, Carmi is considered The South.) I looked at him and said "Well yes, but I'm really from the south. Like North Carolina south. My parents are from IL but I'm born and raised in the south" He hesitated for a moment (I was a little unsure if he knew where NC is on a map).....and his finally responded, seriously, with  "You got south in the mouth?!?!?!?!?!" I'm sure the shock was witten all over my face but all I could do was simply respond with a yes sir because I had NO IDEA what he meant by his question! At this point, he was speaking Greek to me!

Now, just when I felt like things couldn't have gotten any more odd, my other aunt, Aunt J (who lives in Georgia by way of IL and CA) decides to use her two Master Degrees to declare "Well North Carolina isn't really the south".....OMG! Has this women lost her dang mind?! Uncle B and I looked at her like she had 57329647422824684185231864 heads! He carefully reminded her that NC is part of the south and IS below the mason-dixon line!

It was surreal. I seriously felt like I was in another relm. Two conversations that I could NEVER make up in my wildest imagination, happened back to back. I was speechless. Did I really just lose that many brain cells by sitting with the "adults"?? I kept looking around, hoping someone else was witnessing this trainwreck of a lunch conversation.

Its now been several months since that interesting lunch and I've not been able to forget this conversation. The rest of that week- the hugs, the condolences, the flowers, the prayers, the text messages, etc. were mostly a blur. However, I believe I'll remember that man's expression for the rest of my life. He was very serious about wanting to know if I had South In The Mouth.

Later, after giggling with my parents about the conversations, I learned that this man is actually a millionaire. Guess you never know what's gonna come out of someone's mouth whether it be north, south, east or west!

Hello Holiday Baking!

Hope you enjoy this sneak peak at the cookies for the Cookie Exchange party this evening! These are Lemon Vanilla Butter Cookies. I got the recipe from Our State magazine.



I'll be back tomorrow with the full scoop on all the cookie goodness!