Hudson and I try to go at least one walk every day. Sometimes things are too hectic and we never get out there, but for the most part, we take a good three mile walk every day.
I love walking around our neighborhood and looking at all the houses, big and small. Checking out all the old trees. Looking at the houses that have clearly been occupied by the same owner for 60 years and those that have been updated and have recaptured their charm with cute fixtures and new paint.
Then I encounter the great smells like a fire in the fireplace or the smell of someone’s laundry coming out of the dryer vent. I love to walk close to supper time to get the smells of meat on the grill.
This is one of my favorite things in the world. It may be nosey, but I find so much comfort in knowing that everyone is going along with the routines of the day by doing laundry and cooking supper.
On the way home from choir practice tonight, I heard the song Sweet Southern Comfort, which is seriously overplayed even years later, but is so much fun to sing in the car. I just like calling out the Southern states.
My list of Southern comforts includes:
1. Hearing Louisiana Saturday Night on the radio.
2. An all-night conversation with some of my best friends.
3. A random phone call from my mother during the day followed by another random phone call just an hour later. Just because she felt like saying hello.
4. Arnold Palmers made with Firefly
5. A piece of snail mail written in familiar handwriting.
6. The way my boy lights up and squeals when his daddy walks in the door every evening.
7. The smell of chocolate chip cookies baking.
8. My bedroom being filled with the scent of laundry and dryer sheets (because our laundry “closet” is in our bedroom).
9. Finding Pretty Woman, Father of the Bride, or Steel Magnolias on TV.
10. A summertime thunderstorm at 3:00 in the afternoon.
11. Hearing someone say “sugah,” “dahling,” or “wawta (water)”.
12. Azaleas and dogwoods in bloom.
13. Bourbon pecan pie, beignets, and strawberry shortcake.
14. The sound of old hymns like The Solid Rock, Holy Holy Holy, It Is Well, and How Great Thou Art. I also cry when I hear my family members sing I’ll Fly Away. Might even cry just thinking about it.
15. The old, nostalgic feeling of being a child and pulling up to my grandparents’ house in Arkansas and getting excited about seeing all of my cousins.
16. Hearing my parents talk about their days as Southern youngsters and, through them, hearing about my grandparents’ days as Southern youngsters.
17. Seeing cotton off the interstate in Louisiana.
18. Seeing the pecan trees growing in front yards in Louisiana.
19. Looking for the “Crossett Light” with my dad and cousins.
20. Sitting in the living room at my Aunt and Uncle’s house, singing old hymns and giggling about the way my grandmother would always take the highest part when harmonizing.
Southerners, what are your southern comforts?
Non-southerners? What little things give you comfort and remind you of home?
Oh I love being from Louisiana!
Amen to Arnold Palmers made with Firefly! Another southern comfort fav of mine is eating watermelon cold from the fridge over a bunch of newspapers to catch the juice and seeds. Or catching fireflies at dusk.
Thanks for taking me back to my childhood!
Southern Comfort: Sweet Ice Tea and having a Southern Gentleman open the door for me.
I totally agree with your list! Can’t forget fried catfish and hushpuppies though! Have you ever seen the Crossett light? We went last year and my friend and I saw it, my husband couldn’t though. As crazy as it sounds we really think we saw it and were making it up because we were seeing it move in the same places, weird.
I LOVE hearing old hymns…we unfortunately don’t hear them enough at my church anymore (I know I’m in the minority – but I’d rather hear them over the newer praise songs any day). My all time favorites are Old Rugged Cross, How Great Thou Art, and Just as I Am. It reminds be of sitting between my MeMommy and Granddaddy in the FBC that I grew up in. Awww, thanks for bringing back those memories – and what a great week to do that! 🙂 Happy Easter!
As a Texas girl what reminds me of home is fried okra, pot roast, Texas country, the sound of a football game, sweet tea, boys in cowboy boots, two stepping, and summers.
Southern summers are magical
Ahhh
this post made me look back on some of my childhood memories
I love all those movies!!!
Love u lots!!!
Loved this. Old hymns gets me every time. It reminds me of going to church with my grandparents when I was a little girl and my grandpa singing the “low” parts of the song. Love it. I also love the sound of a train at night. I find that very comforting.
What a great post!
A few Southern thoughts:
pine straw and a wood burning fire
sweet tea with lemon & mint from the garden
Grandmother’s old china & quilts
Spanish moss
family reunions
oh, I could go on and on…
every single one of these I can totally understand and love. Thanks for the smile.
I loved many of your southern comforts myself!! I can’t imagine not having memories like we do of the south! I got a kick out of the Crosset Light!! I made that trip during my college days with my now husband & many friends! Fun times!!
I didn’t know your grandparents lived in Arkansas! 🙂 Being well above the Mason-Dixon line for the time being, my favorite Southern comfort is hearing familiar colloquialisms that are distinctly Southern. I think my mom takes the cake in that department!
I think the South really comes alive during the summer! It may be cooler further north, but I wouldn’t trade a sweltering hot Texas summer for anything.
I love hearing everyone’s sprinkler systems come on a 5 in the morning, the gardenias in bloom, lemonade and barbecues…
Sweet tea, SEC football, Amazing Grace and Here I am Lord, big hats worn to tea, flip flops most of the year, cicadas buzzing in the early summer evening, and the smell of honeysuckle and jasmine…Love being a Southern gal.
I’m not from the south, but my mom’s amazing homecooking brings me comfort! And the scents of home.
My favorite southern items would be sweet tea, bluebonnets growing on the side of the highway (I’m from Texas), songs on the radio you can two-step to, and I’m going to agree with a previous commenter on the flip flops and smell of honeysuckle
My husband and I do the same thing you do when we walk the dog at night – check out other people’s homes (we are especially interested in any additions made to the back because we hope to bump ours out, too). So, you are definitely not alone in “spying” on people 😉 I am from Northern Virginia (arguably, not exactly the “South”), but those sticky hot and humid summer days are quintessential to feeling “at home” in the summer to me.
Restaurants that serve Sweet Tea!
And I totally agree with most of yours, especially the baking cookies, the movies and seeing B light up when C gets home!
My favorite southern comfort is coming up this weekend, Country Ham for Easter. Cookouts, gatherings, SEC football, and just hanging around chatting up with anyone who stops by. Boy do I wish I lived in the south right now but I am truly thankful that I have family in the south to visit.
Being from Kentucky, I would have to say horse racing for sure…..also, sweet tea, soup beans and cornbread, oh and things that are personalized with monograms! That is such a southern thing isn’t it? If it’s on silverware, tea towels, or my daughters clothes I love it!
By the way, thanks for posting this!
One of my best DC friends – who grew up in Pittsburgh – moved last month to Baton Rouge (her husband, whom she met in DC, is from LA). Just yesterday I sent her the youtube link of Louisiana Saturday Night and said, “You’ll need to know this song!”
I’m a Southern girl in NYC, and your post made me want to high-tail it home right away! I love, love, love old hymns…especially I’ll Fly Away. My Granddaddy played it on his fiddle in church one Sunday night, and that memory is burned in my brain…it was fantastic. I love sweet tea being served at every restaurant, baskets of hush puppies, hot nights (in NY I always need a sweater at night and it drives me crazy), and church on Sunday. I can’t wait to get back down South!!!
Love this list! Didn’t know your family was from Ark too…I will be there this summer…I need to check out the Crossett lights!
Where should I start… Sunday dinners at my granny’ s house (which in the south everyone knows is lunch -supper is in the evening) and on every Tuesday night she made a soup bean supper (She is 87 and still makes both these meals weekly). Taking turns hand-cranking the old ice cream machine at family get togethers. Playing Red Rover, Red Light -Green Light and Kick the Can with my cousins and catching lighting bugs. Sitting on granny’s back porch, breaking beans and listening to all the “women” talk about life. Sucking on honeysuckle and eating blackberries off the bush. Singing along with not only Lousiana Saturday Night but also a big one for us was Swing’in by John Anderson (Just a Swing’in). In Ky, we have the Ky Hot Brown and Derby Pie as our favorites and our drinks would be the Mint Julep (of course) and I guess -Moonshine! Gotta Love the South!
I love this post, Erin. For me: I love the feel of a Southern morning, dewy and green, hinting at the warmth the lies ahead. I love the open promise of an afternoon, wandering through a thicket on a trail, hearing a creek bubbling in the distance. And I love sweet tea on a big front porch after supper, sitting in a falling-apart rocker with kin beside you.
awesome post!! i love being a southerner 🙂 even with my super country accent. i love old souther hymns. How Great Thou Art makes me cry like a baby everytime!
Great post! I love those hymns and could hear them in my head as I read the titles. Some of my favorites are long days spent in beach chairs by the edge of the ocean, shrimp and grits, sweet tea with fresh lemon, the first weekend of college football – even when it’s still 95 degrees out, and cookouts on porches with Citronella candles and fireflies.
Love this post Erin! Holy Holy Holy and Seek Ye First are two of my favorite hymns. Did you know that our wedding song (the walking back up the aisle as married folks one) was “I’ll Fly Away”? It was really special because my great aunts started spontaneously singing, and the rest of the guests joined in.
I love the smell of wet paevment after a summer thunderstorm, picking blackberries but trying to avoid chiggers, fireflies, and that first humidity-free, bright blue sky, crisp Saturday that signals it’s football time!
Mmmmm, FireFly….
Can’t buy it by me but we have a friend who always hooks us up when they travel to KY!
Love that stuff! Espeically in the summer on the patio!
I love your list! Nothing makes me feel like I’m home more than someone with a deep Texan drawl saying “Y’all”
Beautiful post, brought tears to my eyes. I just lost my mom suddently about three weeks ago – cherish every single one of the random phone calls!
I’m not Southern, but a lot of my mother’s family is. I remember driving down South each summer when I was younger. I have small strange little memories like gather spanish moss (because you couldn’t get that when I was from) and drinking sweet tea and hating it (I was a strange child who did not like sweet things).
As an adult living thousands of miles from where I grew up, whenever I see a glass Ball Jar it makes me smile, and it brings me back to my roots.
There is nothing better than sitting outside with a breeze blowing and smelling the sweet perfume of honeysuckle and wisteria. Pansies happily smiling in planters and in yards makes my heart sing. I heart being from the South!
Love this list! Some of mine are an ice cold glass of sweet tea with a slice of lemon, Sunday dinner with the family, grilling out, sitting outside as the sun sets on a summer night and listening to the crickets chirp. Oh, and I’ll Fly Away gets me every time!
Love your list!
Mine are: the long, winding roads in Mississippi leading up to my grandmother’s farm
that first smell of salt water as you hit the Gulf Coast
the freshest heirloom tomato dishes eaten out on the patio
– The sight of an old John Deer tractor and a clothes line.
– The dessert table at a “Covered Dish Supper” or “Dinner on the Grounds” (Nowadays, we say “Potluck” but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.)
– Boiled Peanuts, Grits, moonpies and of course, sweet tea–wine of the South!
– Front porches with swings, rocking chairs and hummingbird feeders.
– The smell of Avon Skin So Soft which reminds me of my Grandma and remains the best way to keep the nats at bay in the summer.
– Congealed salads–I detested them as a kid, but when I see one nowadays, I smile becuase it reminds me of a bygone era and sweet church ladies that have gone on.
– Seersucker suits and bowties on men and little boys.
I miss the South! Great post! It was nice to walk down memory lane for a minute.
I love the small of a farm. It makes me feel like home. Fresh air, manure spreading in the distance and crops around. 🙂
Love this post and I agree with you on a lot of these-summer thunderstorms, azaleas blooming, pecan pie, snail mail, and anything made with firefly. Also, “sun tea” iced tea that seeped outside all day in the sun, flip flops, lightning bugs at dusk, grilling out with friends, and so much more!
This makes my heart yearn (for most of the above). But right now I’m sitting on the back porch, taking in the most gorgeous spring day with the sounds of birds in the trees and the dog follicking in the yard. Later on I’m planning on making a big loaf of zucchini bread. Ahh, sweet southern bliss.
I loved this post – thank you for sharing your southern comforts! Mine are fireflies on warm summer nights, long walks with the pup and my husband during sunset, seeing the dogwoods bloom all over Atlanta, grilling out and having friends over, swinging on our porch swing, chick-fil-a lemonade… I could go on and on. 🙂
I think the biggest comfort is the sound of rain (I’m from Oregon, it rains 9 months out of the year where I live), especially a rainy saturday when you are inside cooking stew or roast chicken and watching movies. Picking black berries by the river, horse back riding, hiking up a really tall mountain and seeing the valley below, the smell of fresh cut hay, bottle feeding baby calves, grilled corn on the cobb, camping… oh now I am wanting it to be summer right now!
LIGHTING BUGS, hot summer nights, sweet tea and sitting on the porch with my mom talking about life! I miss all of those things, especially the hot summer nights now that I live in Seattle. I’ll never forget the night my in laws (from Seattle) saw lightening bugs the first time ever. It was magical.
wow- this post and all of the comments are making me wish i was a southerner! instead, i’m an Arizona girl so my comforts have to be: the smell of rain during the summer monsoons (and laying in bed listening to the rain on the roof and seeing flashes of lightning during summer nights), a spicy chimichanga with good salsa and a margarita, the most beautiful sunsets you’ve ever seen, flip flops nearly year round, the smell of mesquite burning in the “winter,” feeling the summer heat from the pavement on your face as you walk outside from a building (sounds weird but i like it), the excitement of sleeping with the windows open when after nine months it finally cools off, cacti in bloom, the sun coming up at 5 am, mariachis, the smell of chlorine after a day at the pool…
My hubs fried chicken and mashed potatoes…yum yum!
It warms my heart to read that one of your favorite things is getting a phone call from your momma and then another an hour later. I lost my mom about 6 months ago and that is one of the things I miss most…talking on the phone all the time. I love your blog ~ just found it a few days ago. What a cute life you have created for yourself! (Super cute baby too!)
Oh, this post made me so excited to get back down South for the summer! My favorite Southern Comforts are Live Oak Trees and Spanish Moss, walking barefoot in the grass, tire swings, gentlemen who open doors, fried chicken and mint julips!
I like the sound of locusts at nighttime in the summer, people eating fried chicken without verbalizing their fear of the number of calories being consumed, and pie. People just don’t make good pie up north or out west. Good post!
I am a Texas girl so I guess I am not technically a southerner, I did go to undergrad in Nashville though. We sang Holy Holy Holy at our wedding. Not very wedding-ish but it’s my favorite hymn and I couldn’t resist. Loved this post. Happy Easter!
Oh my goodness. I moved up north, Minnesota, from Kentucky seven years ago and not a day goes by that I don’t miss something. The southern hospitality and charm, the slow drawl, calmer/ relaxed days, good home sweet tea and pecan pie. There are so, so many things that make the south special.
I was just home last weekend and I’m already homesick! I’m a Carolina girl, so naturally, I love cruising to “Carolina Girls” on the radio on a sunny day with the windows rolled down. Another Southern comfort is spending a blissfully warm spring afternoon on the quad in Chapel Hill. And I love watching thunderstorms in the distance on the Blue Ridge.
I’m not from the South.. the farthest south I’ve been is Oklahoma LOL, and I’ve had 2 homes (California and Washington State) LOL so here goes!
1. the smell of crushed grapes (wine country)
2. the smell of Russian Olive Tree’s and Lilacs in the summer/late spring
3. Waves crashing against the rocks (when I go to the beach, it’s the ultimate comfort.. I’m too far away now)
4. the smell of cookies baking (for sure LOL)
That’s all I’ve got!