Welcome to State of Hospitality!

I’m so glad you’re here! During the month of October, I’m participating in a 31 Day blogging challenge hosted by The Nester. I’ll be writing on Southern: A Way of Life for the month. I hope you’ll come back to visit and in November, I’ll be back to my “regular topics”.

The challenge begins today and I’m a little giddy to tell the truth. Why? Because today is a BIG day, not only am I posting from my brand new dot com site but it’s October 1st and I’m showcasing my brand of what being Southern is all about for all the world to see. For the back story, see here.

So, sit a spell and take your shoes off, get comfortable, because Southerners like a tale to tell and to make a long story short is always going to make a short story- long and the long story- longer.

The Mason-Dixon Line was established in the 1760’s and symbolized the cultural divide between the Northeastern and Southern states. The line was set between Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Delaware. The United States Census Bureau defines the South as comprising the above four states plus Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and the states of the Deep South: Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The South invades your bones and soaks down into your skin deeper than the humid drops of heat. Walking and talking slow is a manner of living and a matter of survival because to do different requires a taxing exercise in heat endurance. Family and faith matter here and stories are told and retold; sometimes with more embellishment than the last retelling.

Hot, sultry summer nights are filled with lightnin’ bugs, the smell of honeysuckle blossoms, and crickets, frogs and katydids chirping. Mouth-watering foods like fried chicken, greens, blackeyed peas, sweet cornbread, cheese grits, iced tea, watermelon and fresh tomatoes are shared around a family table. In the South, gracious antebellum homes, genteel manners, and history etched deep into the landscape speaks of a past that still bares the scars.

Proud of their heritage, good and bad, Southerners have a fierce loyalty that runs deep in their veins. I’m Dixie born and no where else feels quite like here.

By clicking the link below, you can watch my daughter and me share our version of “What is the South”

Doodlebug and I discuss, “What is the South”

I’m so glad you dropped by and I hope you’ll come back tomorrow : )

To view all of the posts in this series, click here and if you’d like to check out others participating in this same writing challenge visit, The Nester here.

Blessings,

Mimi

“I will say to the north, ‘Give them up !’and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth” Isaiah 43:6. NIV Bible