IHOP, Sunday, 12:30pm

As you can see, it has been raining and pouring here this weekend, but that would never discourage Sunday church goers from their pancake lunch.
In Sumter, they make sure going to church and going out to eat are the only things you can do on a Sunday. No items besides food are to be sold on Sundays until 1:30pm. We went out in the rain today forgetting this amazing law. It was not a total waste of gas. I did get a picture of all of these cars at IHOP. Enjoy.

The Locals

This is taken from a southern blogger. I have put in bold the things I have found very true. The rest I have no idea about...

"Southern Porch" by Thecanyon4me

There are certain things that only Southerners know or appreciate about the South. Northerners can try to understand, but mostly, they don't even know WHAT they don't understand. Some of these "jokes" go around and around the internet and back and forth through email. I don't know WHO wrote this...but I do know that it just had to be a real, true Southerner:

I LOVE Being Southern...

•Only a Southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption fit, and that you don't "HAVE" them, you "PITCH" them.

•Only a Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens, turnip greens, peas, beans, etc., make up "a mess."

•Only a Southerner can show or point out to you the general direction of "yonder."

•Only a Southerner knows exactly how long "directly" is -- as in: "Going to town, be back directly."

•Even Southern babies know that "Gimme some sugar" is not a request for the white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl in the middle of the table.

•All Southerners know exactly when "by and by" is. They might not use the term, but they know the concept well.

•Only a Southerner knows instinctively that the best gesture of solace for a neighbor who's got trouble is a plate of hot fried chicken and a big bowl of cold potato salad. If the neighbor's trouble is a real crisis, they also know to add a large banana puddin'!

•Only Southerners grow up knowing the difference between "right near" and "a right far piece." They also know that "just down the road" can be 1 mile or 20.

•Only a Southerner, both knows and understands, the difference between a redneck, a good ol' boy, and po' white trash.

•No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.

•A Southerner knows that "fixin" can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.

•Only Southerners make friends while standing in lines. We don't do "queues," we do "lines"; and when we're "in line," we talk to everybody!

•Put 100 Southerners in a room and half of them will discover they're related, even if only by marriage.

•Southerners never refer to one person as "y'all."

•Southerners know grits come from corn and how to eat them.

•Every Southerner knows tomatoes with eggs, bacon, grits, and coffee are perfectly wonderful; that red eye gravy is also a breakfast food; and that fried green tomatoes are not a breakfast food.

•When you hear someone say, "Well, I caught myself lookin'," you know you are in the presence of a genuine Southerner!

•Only true Southerners say "sweet tea" and "sweet milk." Sweet tea indicates the need for sugar and lots of it --- we do not like our tea unsweetened. "Sweet milk" means you don't want buttermilk.

•And a true Southerner knows you don't scream obscenities at little old ladies who drive 30 MPH on the freeway. You just say, "Bless her heart" and go your own way.

•To those of you who're still a little embarrassed by your Southerness: Take two tent revivals shots of Jack and a dose of sausage gravy and call me in the morning. Bless your heart! [I couldn't resist changing this one. ;)]

•And to those of you who are still having a hard time understanding all this Southern stuff, bless your hearts, I hear they are fixin' to have classes on Southernness as a second language!

•And for those that are not from the South but have lived here for a long time, y'all need a sign to hang on y'alls front porch that reads "I ain't from the South but I got here as fast as I could."

•Bless your hearts, y'all have a blessed day.

-- Anonymous

Hahaha! The South.

This is Koan. He is 2. He and Michaela are very good friends.


Our good friends the Kuemichaels(Jackie, Brandon and Koan) wanted to go out to lunch with us yesterday. I decided that I would let them pick where and not complain about it. (they like IHOP) Joe thought it would be funny if they picked IHOP because I do not want to eat there, or at the waffle house, or at Mourice's BBQ, or fried chicken!!! So he gets them to pick IHOP. Brandon said "you need more than tofu to help that baby grow". I said "what hummus?".(Jackie recently called me and told me that she wanted to try tofu and hummus for the first time and asked me how to prepare and eat them. lol.)
We drive to the IHOP at 11:00 on a Sunday morning. There are no parking spots. People are parked in places that are not parking spots. I think people were waiting in their cars in the street to get in! Baptists must go to church kind of early.
Next to the IHOP is an Applebees, THEE Applebees with the sweet waiter and his sweet tea. There were no cars in the parking lot, so we had no choice but to eat at Applebees. The Kuemichaels learned 2 valuable lessons. 1. I have a history of getting what I want. 2. On a Sunday in the south everyone dresses up, big hats and all, goes to church, then goes out to eat. Going out to eat is an all day affair.
Yeasterday, I loved the south.

State of Emergency

Because of that light dusting of snow, several school districts closed their schools and government workers state wide did not have to show up for work until 1pm. The snow melted before Michaela could play in it.

South Carolina Political Ad

"more gun control, more taxes, liberal ideas. That is wrong. is wrong for us!"

The south is the south. Not shy about it at all. Things are simple down here.

With that being said, how is it that Ohio elected George W. 2 terms in a row?

Every 4 years, the country remembers that Ohio exists. Way to redeem yourself home state.

Daycare

I don't even know where to begin. There is no quality daycare down here. The 1st daycare I visited is a definate NO. Oh good lord no. The workers were not interacting with the kids. They had a tv that was on all the time. There are no locked doors, no security. No high chairs. No outside play area. The "teachers" were all wearing sweatpants. Ugh. What a nightmare.

The second one I visited, I may go with. They have everything the first did not...except security.
I don't know what to do. I think there may be 1or2 acceptable centers in the area, but they are full of course. I just need 1 week of care in October.

City Girl Nees a Venti Grean Tea Lemonade Sweetened With Splenda

South Carolina does not have one single NFL football team, major league baseball team, or MLS soccer team.
They have a college team called the Gamecocks. They make shirts and flags and blankets and rugs that say "Go Cocks!"
I am not kidding.

Yay baby doctor

My first baby doctor visit was fine. We heard a heartbeat and I was told everything looks good and I am about 10 weeks along, or its a big baby already. I do not have to go anywhere else for an ultrasound and I feel pretty confident about the doctor.

I went to the cleveland clinic for Michaela, the Independence office with the marble floors, glass doors and fountains.

The better of my two choices down here is Palmetto Women's Healthcare. I was there for about 3 hours. I had to peek my head out of the office door to ask if I would see a doctor anytime within the next 24 hours.
Before I went pregnant on the receptionist, we were in the waiting room for a half hour. The receptionist had a few friends hanging around. There were two women who forgot how to bathe in the waiting area. I could not tell if both of them were pregnant. There were two children with them; an obese, cute, but obese baby, and a 3-5 year old boy. They both watched as the boy peed himself right down to his shoes, then proceeded to climb all over the only cloth chairs in the waiting room. They did nothing, all though, several minutes later one of them walked up to the boy and smacked him. That may be why. No one will ever know because she did not tell him, or anyone in the room.
This is why when the girls sent in the midwife to apologized for our wait and explained that the doctor had a lot of difficult patients today, I understood.

I miss the Cleveland Clinic, even though I am still getting bills from them.

Stereotypes Aren't Real. Please!

Sumter has a mall. It is carpeted. It takes about 2 minutes to stroll through. It has a Footlocker, a lady's Footlocker, a Kid's Footlocker, a sneaker locker, a champs, fried chicken, fried chicken, great steak and fry, Mr. Chicken, a Sears that sells only electronics and a department store called Belk. We passed about 5 waffle houses, 13 Baptist churches, 7 fried chicken places, 2 Walmarts, 1 KMart, and 2 trailer parks to get to the mall. The mall is 6 miles away. Down here incoming traffic has a stop sign to parking lots and existing traffic must keep moving.

While driving around on base I saw a truck that had 2 American flag stickers, 2 support our troops magnets one large confederate flag sticker and one little sticker in the shape of a heart and inside of the white heart it said "I 'heart' my USA"