So Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding
We 50-something-year-old women are supposed to eat a good healthy breakfast for the sake of our bones, hearts, arteries, brains, waistlines and whatever else needs help. But when a friend (thank you, Susan!) shares with you some fresh homemade fig preserves, deliciousness trumps nutrition and there’s nothing to do but dig in and enjoy and be grateful for talented and generous friends. And really, is there anything much better than the sweet taste of summer lathered over a slice of toasted sourdough bread? No, there is not. And that sounds pretty healthy to me.
The Once and Future Dress
You know the rule that if you wore a trend the first time around, you should excuse yourself when it reappears? Well, rules are made for breaking, right? Because I know for a fact I had a dress exactly like this in eighth or ninth grade — we’re talking late 1960s/early 1970s – but I could not resist a redo when I saw this at Reed’s Department Store in downtown Tupelo, Miss., today. This funky KLD dress is hand-wash polyster but feels just like soft brushed cotton. Cannot wait to wear it with black tights and boots or flats and channel my inner Stevie Nicks. And speaking of Reed’s, http://www.reeds.ms/, it’s one of the few local and family-owned department stores left. The downtown flagship location anchors a vital and growing Tupelo and includes a gift shop, bridal registry and Reed’s Gum Tree Bookstore that specializes in Southern writers and writing. There’s a smaller store in Tupelo’s The Mall at Barnes Crossing and ones in Starkville and Jackson. A signature of Reed’s, besides its local community focus, is its friendly and helpful staff. Take my dress, for example. The downtown store didn’t have the size I wanted, so the woman helping me called the mall store and found my size. So, of course I had to bring it home with me after that, right? It wouldn’t have been polite not to, after all that effort. That’s my story, anyway, and I’m sticking to it.
We Don’t See Eye to Eye, But …
About
Cathy Wood is a freelance writer and columnist based in Muscle Shoals, Ala. For more than 10 years she was a features writer and columnist for the TimesDaily, in Florence, Ala.,
Me and my messy bulletin board.
after first starting work there in 1997 as an advertorial writer and then as a clerk. Her writing has appeared in many newspapers across the country through the New York Times Regional Newspapers Group. Her areas of specialty include fashion, books, food, decorating, shopping, entertaining, local personalities and arts. Her weekly column, which appears on Fridays in the TimesDaily at www.timesdaily.com, is a humorous look at her life –- and the lives of her two 20-something daughters, four cats, one dazzlingly cute grandchild and her husband of four years, a sports editor who is kind and well-meaning but often befuddled about such things as women’s shoes and which day to take out the garbage. She also writes for Shoals Woman and other TimesDaily and regional magazines and has recently dipped her (monthly pedicured) toes into the blogging world. She’s a 1979 graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tenn., where she was editor of the school newspaper, Sidelines. She also has worked at the Manchester Times, in Manchester, Tenn., and the Daily-Post Athenian, in Athens, Tenn. E-mail cathylwood@gmail.com
– John Lewis Pitts
