Writing to Remember

Moving.  It's an awful project but somebody's gotta do it.  My plan is to box up everything but the children!  In all seriousness, this is quite the project and I have wondered if I would pack something too early and then need to unpack it again.  And I've found that to be true.  Here is what I have unpacked the most...envelopes.  I never use snail mail, but for some reason I've needed to mail items and needed those silly envelopes.  Go figure.

My crock pot was packed away and then it came out again as well.  Lesson learned-keep the crock pot out.

Luckily, I have labeled well and hope that I'm staying organized.

It's been around a month since we moved to Arkansas.  And I'm thankful we aren't back to a month ago when we were hauling our stuff across two states!  Whew!  That was a whole lot of work.

We seem to be getting into some sort of routine.  Justin and Jaxson head off to school.  Julie and I have lots of bonding time during the day. 

Usually when Jaxson gets home from school, they both play dress up.

Or draw pictures.  Or play outside when it's nice.  

Grocery shopping is always an adventure down here.  Remember when I found the smoked turkey necks by the collard greens?  Well, I've had other fun food finds too.

Pickled Pigs feet.  Huh.

Can I tempt you with hog jowl or hock?  What is hock?!

Larry the Cable Guy has his own line of chips. 

But with every weird (to me!) food that I find, I can name off many foods that I love.  Shrimp Po'boys, crawdads, and Golden Flake Dill Pickle chips are just a few.

Jaxson is doing real good in school.  He struggled with math when we first got here but he just brought home this test. 

Yay!  I was very proud of his A+.  He worked hard for it.

And the weather here is crazy too.  It's gone from 80 degrees to in the low 20's in just one week.  Tonight we may get some snow fall, but it won't stick.  And then by Thanksgiving it will warm back up again.

Which is good.  These leaves are not going to rake themselves up!

I've been working hard in my yard to get the leaves picked up just so another windstorm can blown more back in!

I'm officially in the deep(er) south now.  And let me tell you, my accent is giving me away that I am not from here.

First, when we were traveling from in the longest state ever (aka Tennessee) the lady at the gas station stated, "You aren't from here..are you?"  Once I said no, she said that my accent gave me away.  My accent?!  I don't have an accent-ha!

When we registered Jax for school on Friday and the lady in the office told us that his teacher was Ms. Lallllll.  I felt dumb asking her to repeat it so I figured I would look it up on his papers when I got in the car.  Again, the whole accent thing is getting in the way.  His teacher's name is spelled Ms. Lyle which I would pronounce LY-ul.  But down here is Lallll.  

Which is funny because this brought me back to the time when I was dating Justin and we were talking and he said the word "ollll."  Even based on the conversation topic, I still couldn't figure out what he was talking about.  I finally had to tell him I had no idea what he was saying.  To which is he described it as "what you put in the car engine."  Finally, it clicked.  He meant "oil."  Which us Washingtonians would say OY-ul.  

Clearly, I'm on an accent learning curve here and it's really entertaining me.  I wonder how long it's going to take for the kids and me to start picking it up! (I think Justin's already eased back into it!)