Deep Fried Kudzu

Shug just had his one-month birthday! We had a little party with our family to celebrate.

He's decided that he really enjoys his Boppy lounger:


Sometimes when I look at him I think I can almost tell what he's going to look like when he grows up...


(sneaking a peek at mommy!):

Mozell Benson, a 2001 NEA National Heritage Fellow, is a quilter from Waverly, Alabama. The Architecture School (I think that since this particular project is separate from the Rural Studio program) at Auburn has a website dedicated to the studio they built for her, to live in and to function as a workshop so she can teach children to quilt.

There's a movie about the construction of the studio here, and an article in the current Metropolitan magazine about it here (just look at the interior!). Beautiful.

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BTW, there's an article in Sunday's New York Times about the ongoing Arnett/Gee's Bend litigation (thanks for letting me know, Elizabeth!) that can be found here...it seems to be more gentle on the Arnetts than most of the articles that have come out lately.

Conor O'Brien, a landscape artist from north Alabama, emailed me this week to show me a couple of really interesting photographs he had taken - one is of a home he calls "tiny house" on North Rampart in New Orleans - and the other is taken in Madison, Alabama - this you really have to see...

The July/August issue of Delta Magazine has an article about baptisms on Moon Lake, where "for over 100 years baptisms have taken place...every Sunday in August and on the first Sunday in September".

What is just fascinating about the piece are the photographs included.

Some of them are by Bill Steber (here). He's got a picture of a bottle tree in Sarepta here, and some other *really-really* wonderful pics here and here (although...getting in a mess of kudzu like that and you are just asking for a snake bite!). Everything in his gallery is just great.

This one by Jack Spencer, though...wow...and if you have a minute, go to his website and click on the gallery called "native soil" - it's a series of photographs taken largely in Mississippi. Amazing.

Shug (he's doing great!! He's such a happy baby!) got a couple of onesies from Harrilu - they're silk screened by hand on American Apparel onesies, and they make the neatest designs!

One of the ones he got is little peanut and the other is chocolate bunny (shown below):


Besides the retail shops where Harrilu is available, they're also sold online at Etsy, here (I'm thinking about opening my own Etsy shop to sell some of the things I make!).

Etsy showcases a few of the things that people are selling here...some of it is just amazing.

I've made designs to go on tote bags for a couple of volunteer groups here locally using CafePress, and I've been *so* happy with the way those have turned out especially. I'm thinking about coming up with some new designs and uploading those to CP to make into onesies and other things...hmmm...

I got a press release emailed to me from Tinwood's PR agency (they sent these pics below, too) that the quilts that Lucinda Pettway Franklin had filed suit over have now been returned.



The Arnetts had the quilts appraised and it was found that they were probably not made prior to the 1950s, which means that Lucinda's grandmother (who died in 1943) couldn't have done them.

The complete press release can be found here (a Mobile Press-Register article about their return is here) and another press release about a motion that was filed by the Arnetts to dismiss the lawsuit can be found here. The Montgomery Advertiser has a story about a federal judge later ordering that the quilts' value be determined by July 20th to see if the case can be heard in federal court (since the value must equal at least $75,000).

I wonder how that is going to turn out...

Larry King did an interview last week with the host of the Discovery Channel's 'Dirty Jobs' and some of the more interesting people that have been on that show - it was really interesting.

I looked up some of the upcoming episodes (I have a little bit of a squeamish tummy so most of it doesn't appeal to me, but...) and one of them was about making face jugs with David Meaders!

I Tivoed that episode - it's the one entitled "Leather Tanner" - and it was great. David was really-really funny, and it was just excellent. That episode comes on again July 21st and 27th, and an episode guide with air times is here.

Someone on eBay is selling one of David's face jugs right now, and there's a nice article about Georgia folk pottery that mentions the Meaders family here at the New Georgia Encyclopedia. The "folk potters trail" PDF from the Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia is *really* wonderful and I'd love to go to all the places they have listed!

Well, Shug is taking a nap right now (that may last a couple of minutes or a couple of hours!) so I wanted to post a few more pics...

Our son had his bris last week - this is a pic of me holding him right before the ceremony. Leslie got him this *gorgeous* gown to wear that I am going to have framed in a shadowbox. He's wrapped in a blue blanket that Tobie knit, and although they don't show in this pic, he is wearing the blue booties that Camille knit, too!

He did really-really great. I on the other hand, cried through the whole thing!


Here he is after his first bath at home. Gosh, babies smell so good and have the sweetest breath!


Here's daddy holding him...


...and here he is, right now, taking his nap.

We are just soooo in love!

I'll be calling the baby "Shug" from now on in my blog. I know lots of people use their children's initials or a nickname for privacy reasons on their blogs, and I'm going to be the protective mommy too, and do the same. My PawPaw called me "Shugie" growing up ("Shug" is pronounced like the first syllable of "sugar") and so the entire time Av and I were pregnant with the baby, we called him "Shug" since we didn't find out if it was a girl or a boy - and it was easier than always saying "he" or "she"!

Av wrote this in the sand when we took our beach trip last December:

Our baby's here! The name will be announced at the bris later this week, but our happy and healthy son was born weighing 7lbs, 15oz and 21-1/2" long!

We are at home now and can not get enough of our new baby - I just wanted to take two minutes to post these pics - these were taken of him just a couple of hours after labor!