A GRITS Life

I am what some people refer to as GRITS. I am a Girl Raised In The South. This blog will be a glimpse into my life and of course the lives of my family and friends. Don't worry friends and family I won't use your real names.......maybe.

Now a little about me to get started. I was born and raised in the southeast corner of Alabama. The town I live in is small enough that everyone knows who you are. In other words my children can't get away with a thing, because everyone knows who they belong to.

My children go to the same school that my husband and I went to and graduated from. They even have some of the same teachers we had!

I met my husband "T" when we started first grade. It was love at first sight.....umm...no not really.....I actually don't remember much about him from that first year, he was kind of quiet. Oh, well. We actually became friends years later. We used to go on double dates but, not with each other. I dated a friend of his and he dated another girl. We started dating each other in November of our Senior year (1979) and we have been together since. This past May we have been married for twenty-six years. We dated two and half years before we married.

We have three beautiful children. Two boys "Z" and Big E and our youngest the princess of course is a girl. Our oldest fights fires for a living, the middle child Big E is about to start his Senior year in high school and the princess is in the "I hate Mama and life in general" stage. You know those early teen years. (Lord, please help me to remember that she will outgrow this stage......right?.....umm Lord?.....did you hear me?)

We have been through a lot of life changing moments in our lives and I will tell you about all of these as they come to me. But, those will come later.

Well now a little about being raised in the South. You must always say yes Ma'm or no Ma'm. You are supposed to always be polite even when you are really mad as spit. Oh yes, southern ladies NEVER ever spit. When you live in Alabama you have to pick a football team, either Auburn or Alabama. Even if you don't like football you still have to choose. Most southern girls do like their football and during the Iron Bowl (Auburn/Alabama game) it is ok to throw all of your genteel southern lady rules out the window. This is not the time to be polite, you have to make sure that your team can hear you through the TV. Southern girls are taught to hunt and fish when they are young and most continue to enjoy these past times for the rest of their lives.

Being a southern girl can be very misleading to non-southerners. Just because we have that slow soft southern drawl does not mean that we are soft. We are not! We are some of the strongest women you will meet. We can hop on a tractor and pull a peanut trailer on Saturday and show up for church on Sunday morning dressed to the nines. We can stand by our men but, we can stand up to them too (if need be). We can be opinionated, sassy, gentle, quiet one minute and loud the next. We can be many things and we can go many places but one thing never changes........we are GRITS. Girls Raised In The South!