One experience leads to another......

 We are all shaped by our experiences. Two people can go through the exact same thing, yet their experience can be vastly different. The more we experience the more our minds open.  Experiences allow us to have empathy, teach us tolerance, and expand our world.

  I am constantly reminding myself, that this is all just a learning experience. I keep asking, why? Why did we get sent here? We don't belong here. We are fish out of water. Oil on water. Well, you get it.
  I have learned a lot so far. Today I will shed some light on this:

-Racism is no joke real, out in the open, and people don't even bat an eye. It's just the way it has been forever, so why really change?

We put up a basketball hoop in our driveway. We were told, "You might not want to do that, it will attract the wrong type of kids."  What does that even mean? We knew what he meant. Anyway, not one white kid in the neighborhood played ball at our hoop, so that became obvious real quick, on what he meant. Like with any group of kids, we set rules. And if those rules were broken, they weren't allowed on our property. It went well, until recently, when bigger older kids broke three windows on our garage and wouldn't fess up to it. Guess, what? No one plays ball in our driveway anymore. Such a shame for the good kids, but rules are rules.

My oldest daughter was asked by her math teacher what race she was......this alone should have sent me up to the school screaming like my hair was on fire, but it was what followed that had me so in shock I couldn't even speak.  When my daughter asked why, and said, "Um, I'm white", the teacher replied with, "Well I am just making sure, because of "all this"." Pointing to my daughters face and hair.  For the record, my kids get tan in the summer, and their hair is dark brown. But who the hell even cares about that!???! I should have nipped it in the bud there, but I just let it go. After all, it was still only the second week of school and I didn't want to alienate myself even more!

Another fun thing that happened to my oldest was when a boy liked her, and asked her friend about her. Her friend's reply to the the boy was, "She doesn't date black boys" See, none of my daughter's white friends are ALLOWED to date black boys. This blows my daughter's mind.(and mine, although I am just not as naive) This has never even occurred to her. Anyway, when she told me this, I immediately said, "how do you think that poor boy feels?!" The next day at school, she set her friend straight. This was all said to the boy without her knowing anything about it, until after the fact. She made it clear that her parents didn't care who she dated as long as the respected her.

One day my oldest and I were at Kroger. Now, at this particular Kroger there is a sushi counter, with a Japanese person making the sushi. Sort of hard to believe, I know!!  Anyway, I was grocery gettin' and I hear this lady yelling. Literally YELLING at the man behind the counter.  See, he doesn't speak or understand much English. She is asking for a napkin to wipe her hand off. She touched "something gross".  She is so pissed off at this poor guy for not speaking English, that she doesn't realize there is a roll of paper towel right around the corner. She walks away, still yelling about how she can't believe he can't understand her. (Frankly, I can't understand some of these Southern peeps, and they are speaking English) Everyone in the store is staring at her, but no one does anything. My blood was boiling. I think I had just had it with all the intolerance I had seen over the past few months. So, I calmly walk by her and say, "instead of yelling you could have looked for something yourself, like that roll of paper towel, right there >>>>" I kept walking. And I could feel her boring holes with her eyes into the back of my head.  I hear her say, "what did you say,? what did you say?" In no way was I going to get into a fist fight in the middle of Kroger, so I keep walking. Now, the ladies at the deli counter, where I moseyed over too, were acting like they didn't hear any of it, until, I asked for the manager.  I could see their sly smile and their eyes light up. Not that this matters, but they were black and it was like they couldn't believe this white chick was going to stand up for a non white person.  I tell the manager what just happened and in no way, was it his employee's fault and that I can't stand to see a human being treated that way, and how is in ok for everyone to just "watch it happen"?  I mean this is NOT Wal-Mart, for God's sake.  He apologized, for the wacko lady, but I was just making sure Mr. Sushi, wasn't going to lose his job, because of her.  My daughter thought I was awesome for doing that, and said, "What if this was 20/20, and John Quinones was here?"  I replied, with "Well it would suck, because I don't have any make up on!"

There have been so many other examples. Small things. Comments on the town's FB page, kids getting in trouble at school because of their skin color(of course that is a perception and not a proven fact), the Rebel flag, still on the state flag, and other observations that my whole family has made. Small things become a big thing.  So, yes, racism is just under the surface here. And maybe it is that way everywhere? I didn't grow up that way. I didn't see the things or hear the things that I do here. This state, after all, played a roll in the Civil Rights movement, everything is named after Medgar Evers. But because racism is still so prevalent, this state will never really change. Destined to always be at the bottom.  If you have always live this way, how will you know there is better?

I rest my case.
http://www.msnewsnow.com/story/24500979/celebrating-robert-e-lee?utm_content=buffer9281e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
 

SNOWPOCALYPSE!

  My wonderful friends to the North have had an absolutely miserable winter! And over the years, I have endured many a harsh winter. One winter that comes to mind, was about 4 years ago. Blizzard after blizzard, and below zero temps for weeks on end. Thought I was going to lose my mind, with snow days. So, this morning, has me LOL-ing. Woke up to a dusting of snow, literally a dusting, and school is closed. There are accidents all over the place, so I won't be going anywhere today. I don't really need some idiot ramming into me, because they don't know how to drive in the massive amount of snow that's on the ground. It's a good day to snuggle with the kids, who are missing their dad, and get out our sleds.....oh wait.....never-mind. 

  A friend this morning, reminded me(I may have blocked it out) that from the very beginning of this move, it has been CRAZY! Of course all Army families go through at least one awful move at some on their path to retirement. We have been somewhat lucky, and have had decent moves. This one was a doozy, for sure. It started when the packers showed up to pack our house (15,000lbs of stuff) with 2 people, and told us it was a two day job. Well, anyone with a brain, would know that it was mathematically impossible for them to pack our house with two people in two days. They quickly realized their mistake. When they finally load our life's possessions onto the semi, they tell us, "Oh, the driver quit, we have no one to take your stuff to Mississippi."  Uhhhhh, what????  They say that they will be putting all of our stuff in a wear house, until they can find a driver.  We were given no possible date for this. We all know that stuff in a wear house is never good. Things "walk away" and get "misplaced".   There was nothing we could do about it, phone calls were made to discuss our displeasure, but we were at their mercy.  So, we arrived at our new home, with no possessions, except what we could fit into our two cars.  We think, ok, it won't be long until they get a driver, I mean everyone needs a job these days. 

Turns out, we were too optimistic. Why would we expect a "door to door" move to take a month to complete? A month for our things to go from point A to point B, an 11 hour drive.  The moving company told us, that they would be willing to send our essentials in the first shipment. Ok, I guess that's fine. What did they send??? Our Christmas tree, it was June. The top of our dining room table. 5 pieces of our Rubbermaid shed. A headboard and footboard to a bed, no rails. Absolutely NOTHING from the kitchen.  You know, the essentials.  By the end of June we had everything. Well, just about. I think there were 5 or 6 boxes missing.  The parent company of the local moving company, was actually very accommodating. Of course, if you are the VP of said company, and you are in fear of losing your government contract, then you too, would bend over backwards to try and make your customer happy. They reimbursed us, for all of our expenses we incurred during the month. I still would like compensation for pain and suffering.  

This is what I call foreshadowing........

 

Here we go!

With a lot of encouragement from my friends and family, I have decided to start a blog. Eeek! This blog will contain observations that I have made and continue to make living in this state called Mississippi. I have lived here for 6 months now, and have come across things that unless you see them for yourself, are hard to believe. Everything, you thought you knew about Mississippi, is probably true.
I am a wife and mother of 3. I have been an Army spouse for the past 16.5 year and a mother for 15 years. Both make me extremely proud!  For those that know me, they know that I have a very honest sense of humor, I am quick witted, and don't buy into bullshit. I am also loyal to a fault and have a big heart that can get easily broken. But, enough of that sappy crap. On to why this blog is necessary.......
My husband and I are both "Yankees". Born and bred north of the Mason-Dixon line. We both however, chose to move to the South(aka Florida) for college, it was awesome. Since then, we have lived all over the world and US, not really loving or hating anywhere we have landed. But, always enjoyed the time and learned a lot from the places we called home. Then Uncle Sam thought it would be a good idea to send us here. The Deep South, a whole other part of the South. Yes, it is completely different from all the other states south of the Mason-Dixon line.  I know what you are thinking, sure, how can it be that much different, from let's say South Carolina, where they still fly the Rebel flag, or Louisiana, where Swap People and Duck Dynasty are filmed. Combine those two things, and you are now close to Mississippi.
Hope you enjoy reading about all the things, that I notice. Like this wall in our town, that was just out in the open for all to see.