Collards, Black Eyes, & Explosives

For the first day of 2009, I wanted to stay true to the southern tradition of eating collard greens and black eyed peas on New Year's Day... so I found this great recipe to try. For most of my life I've always managed to find a friend who has already prepared said southern meal so all I have to do is show up. This year that is not the case so tomorrow I am going to attempt to cook everything myself, which is pretty scary if you know my cooking. We went out earlier today for the ingredients and ummmm, apparently Iowa people don't eat collards- because just like grits they don't seem to exist in our grocery store! Seriously? So we drove 30 miles to another town that did not have collards either. OMG! I finally found one store that had them in a can and grabbed them along with all of the other ingredients.

I LOVE how the collard can says 'southern style'.
And I got me some black eyed peas too Mmmm Hmmmm.

Wish me luck tomorrow with this little project.

Right now it's time for us to go shoot some fireworks off our deck. We stocked up in Missouri on our road trip....





I know, you can take the redneck out of Georgia, but you can't take Georgia out of the redneck.






Happy New Year Y'all!

See you in 2009!

Return To Sender

Mr. Mailman never ceases to amaze me, you won't even believe this one. We decided to get him a gift card to the local hardware store as a thank you for all he has done (sorry CLP, I decided against your thoughtful suggestion LOL). Anyway, I was going through our pile of mail today and found a letter from the post office and I still can't believe what it said...

Apparently it is against 'postal regulations' for a mailman to receive a gift valued at over $20, who knew? Our mailman is SO honest that he asked the POSTMASTER to return the $30 gift card we got him. OMG! Our Atlanta mailman would have gotten the card, looked over his shoulder, and pocketed it for sure!
We really do live in Mayberry.
I am full of mailman love once again.
I also found this....

Now Cheryl, I know everyone is just DYING to be featured on my blog and all- but the Postage Due trick has already been done. Let's get a little more creative next time.

Back To 3 Dog Nights

We rolled into Mayberry a little before noon today. Good to be home!
It was bittersweet for our boy Banjo though, he had really liked the idea of being an only dog over the past 10 days. He was less than thrilled when we told him that our next stop was to pick up Pete and Olive.


Of course Pete and Olive were so ECSTATIC to be free from boarding that I couldn't get them to sit still long enough for a decent picture.



Poor, poor, Banjo.
I hope he doesn't tell the others how much fun he had without them.

Goodbye Grits

Today is our last day in the south so we figured we'd better get over to the Awful Waffle for some grits because we can't get them at home in Mayberry.

Mmmmmmmmmmm grits!


Banjo refused to face the camera for his Waffle House shot.


And since yesterday just wasn't the same without Banjo, I thought on our way out of Nashville we should show him some of the things he missed while he was in the slammer pet resort.




Banjo loved the 'Musica' statue on Buddy Killen Circle.




And although this is the best shot ever, sadly I didn't plan it that way! I only noticed how perfect it was after I uploaded the pictures. Awesome.


Got a better view of the St. Louis Arch this time too.


We drove a few more hours and called it a night in St. Joseph, MO.
Tomorrow we will only have about 3 hours of driving until we are back home.
Ahhhh, back to the corn Mañana.

Elvis & Cornbread

Our big day in Nashville is finally here. First stop the pet resort to drop Banjo for the day and night.
It's OK Banjo, we will be back in the morning I promise.

Pooooooooooooooooor Banjo.

Dog free for the day our next stop was 'Tootsies'

We went inside but didn't see anyone famous.

Unless you count Elvis.

Or other fake famous people.

Another double Elvis sighting...or could have been the whiskey effect.

Had to hit a gift shop...

and REALLY wish I had bought this. A CORN DOG!

Speaking of dogs-this is really embarrassing but after about 5 hours we missed Banjo and went back to get him out of the resort. Seriously retarded. funny thing is they didn't even charge us for his short stay!
I guess we are just old and boring, because after rescuing Banjo we hit Bar-B-Cuties and went back to the room and consumed cornbread shaped like pancakes.

Then we called it a night.
We have turned into cornbread shaped LOSERS.

Love Your Mother

It's always hard to say goodbye to your mom when it is time to head back home. Thank God ours always manage to say or do something that makes it a little easier to leave them.
As we were pulling out of the driveway in Savannah Darrin's mom waved and said, "be careful, have fun in Nashville, find a cardboard camera and take lots of pictures, ok?"
Um what? I think Savannah Belle had been in the eggnog already this morning. We cracked up about that all the way to Atlanta. And when we got to Atlanta, we were greeted at the door by my mom sporting her BRIGHT green shirt that said, 'Ask me about my Granddog'. OMG.
If it's not one thing it's your mother!
Which is probably what Banjo was thinking when I got him this Atlanta gas station souvenir.

Sorry Banjo, couldn't resist.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

The sound of the ocean has always been one of my favorite things-it just soothes the soul, ya know? We took Banjo to Hilton Head for his first beach experience today, it was 78 degrees and He LOVED it!
At first he wasn't too sure what to think....



But it didn't take him long to jump right in.





I'm pretty sure he likes the ocean better than snow because he didn't want to leave.

Can you blame him?

Well tomorrow we are leaving this beautiful weather and heading home but we are going to stop in Nashville for a night or two first.


Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night....

Not A Creature Was Stirring, Not Even...An Oyster?

It might feel weird for the temp to be 75 degrees on Christmas Eve, but who's complaining? A perfect day to cook oysters at the Dodd house. YUMMY.
Back in Iowa it is probably 5 degrees....um yeah, about that.
Anyway, here's how we do it in the south.
















Merry Christmas Y'all!

Banjo Gump

It is so nice to back on our old stomping grounds in Savannah, GA. I thought it would be fun to put Banjo next to touristy things we wouldn't have been caught dead posing by when we were locals. Here we go:

#1 The Waving Girl


#2 The Olympic Torch Sculpture


#3 Lady & Sons (Paula Dean's Restaurant) Hey Y'all!


#4 Forrest Gump's Square


#5 Bernie's on Riverstreet
Now, Bernie's used to be called Mates and that's where we all threw down back in the day. The reason for the picture is this fancy new sign they put up since we were here last..oh Savannah, why do you have to go a changin?


And OMG- I think this poor tourist was trying to give Banjo some change! Good Boy!


#6 The SCAD Box Office


#7 Bonaventure Cemetery... Last but not least, this is my favorite place in Savannah. And of course I had to pose Banjo by my favorite Angel.








This particular angel and I go way back.
Merry Christmas my Angel.

For every soul, there is a guardian watching it - The Koran