What is Southern Charm to you?

by Amy on August 31, 2010

in Fashion and Beauty

A Woman Inspired’s first ever Beauty and Wellness Bootcamp is coming up in September. Woo Hoo! (by the way the early bird price ends soon and we only have 100 spots available)

Well, lil’ ol’ me got picked to serenade you lovelies with a workshop on southern charm. That is easier said than done.

I’m southern so it is bred into me what to do and when but to teach it to someone else is, well difficult. I don’t know how much of my “charm” is specifically from being Southern. I do know that from the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper I was taught to give sweet eyes and flip my hair because then daddy and grandpa couldn’t say no to me but I think southern charm is much more deeply rooted than that. I think it has to do with making a person feel good when they are around you. It is about serving others and doing the right thing.

Sure, I absolutely will stand in front of a door until one of my little men opens it for me and I do pass my husband the cash or credit card when no one is looking just so he can pay for things but is that what one would consider southern charm? Perhaps it is the way we always show up with a small gift and shower others with hospitality. Or, on an even grander scale, maybe it is the way we live life to the fullest.

True southern charm is beautiful because it is the reflection of inner beauty. I just need to know what particular things I should include in this session. What I want to know from you is what do you consider to be southern charm? What do you want to know about it?

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Welcome to the August 31, 2010 edition of carnival of homeschooling.

Nadene presents Maths Mini Office for Middle & Senior Students, saying, “Senior and middle school maths information for your minioffice.”

Katherine presents Ego Enhancement, saying, “How bad is the average kid when strangers see a group of well behaved children, they automatically ask, “Do you homeschool?”"

Nak presents Lives Like Loaded Guns, saying, ” ‘Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.’ -Emily Dickinson”.

Kris presents Top Ten Ways to Handle a Bad Homeschool Day, saying, “I’m getting ready to make a shocking statement. Are you ready? Are you sitting down?  Okay, here goes:  Every homeschooling day is not a bed of roses.”

Michelle Padrelanan presents Question and Answer Time, saying, “I answered a letter of another mom, who I call Missionary Mom, on another blog post and realized that there is an unasked question there that begs to be asked. This post is the answer with a list of a few things that others say my homeschooled children will miss because they don’t go to regular school.”

NerdMom presents Responsibility and Education for a Dollar, saying, “I needed an easy way to set out lesson plans for them and let them know what they are expected to do and I found it.”

Elena LaVictoire presents Tips for Ohio Homeschoolers, saying, “Ohio Homeschoolers are trying to get their notifications in before the start of the public school year. I wrote about this a little bit here and also here and I’m adding a bit more information.”

Henry presents Looking for advice on scholarships and grants, saying, “We are looking for help on how to find scholarships and grants for our oldest daughter.”

Lynn presents Lapbooks for Autumn, saying, “Check out these fun and educational lapbooks for autumn”.

Education

Robin Phillips presents Nature Study: Trees, Creativity, and Kids, saying, “I have always loved trees.  I also love creativity and of course, I love my kids.  Combining all three loves is what makes home education so much fun.”

ThinkQuestion presents Creating a homeschool high school student transcript for college and university admissions, saying, “The “Official High School Transcript” is the singular element of the college application that distinguishes the homeschooled student from the traditionally-schooled student applicant.”

Jessica Snajder presents What is Learning?, “I have come to realize that Grace does not consider anything to be learning unless it has a letter grade attached to it. Apparently five years in the public school system has done this to her.”

e-Mom presents Art & Architecture: The Tabernacle of Moses (VIDEO), saying, “Spiritual Object Lessons in the Wilderness–relevant to the Israelites, and modern worshippers like you and me. Three 3-D computer-generated videos allow us to take a privileged walk through the Tabernacle of Moses.”

Carol J. Alexander presents Personalized Journals, saying, “I am so pleased to introduce you to my daughter, M. After creating a beautiful journal for a gift for her girlfriend, she asked me if she could write the directions down as a guest post for this blog.”

Christine presents Reading in My Family of Origin and Our Homeschooling Decision, saying, “Christine of The Thinking Mother writes about readers and non-readers, issues with school and reading and about how that influenced her decision to homeschool.”

Laura presents Lesson Pathways: Free Online Curriculum, saying, “If you’re looking for a free online curriculum for your K-5 child, look no further than Lesson Pathways. The people who set up this site did an excellent job to not only provide quality information, but the site looks great!”

Kim presents Our Summer of Learning Part Two, saying, “In Part One of this series, I talked about all that we experienced and learned on our vacation to the ocean. This post will focus on the camps and activities the children had the opportunity to participate in over the summer.”

Andrea Hermitt presents This is our homeschool shelf, saying, “This is in response to Dewey’s treehouse who discusses: Another year of boxes, bins, notebooks: trying not to duplicate where she shared her homeschool organization boxes, bins and binders.”

Linda Dobson presents Resources, Resources & a New Children’s Book By Rebecca Rupp!, saying, “from Grandma Linda (Dobson) – Maybe if enough people leave comments here, we can talk Becky into offering up a copy of Octavia Boone’s Big Questions About Life, the Universe, and Everything for a giveaway for Parent at the Helm readers! Congratulations, Becky, and good luck with the book!”

Denise presents Challenge Yourself to Blog, saying, “The September 2010 Student Blogging Challenge encourages students to blog by exposing them to a world-wide audience, not just their teacher and classmates.”

Denise presents How to Start an Argument: The Monty Hall Problem, saying, “Imagine you are on a TV game show, and the host lets you choose between three closed doors…”

Pamela Jorrick presents Bricks and Brains, saying, “Last year, when we first learned about an artist named Nathan Sawaya who created life sized masterpieces entirely out of Lego bricks, we were immediately interested.”

Family

Two Kid Schoolhouse presents First Day, Play Day, saying, “The new books are ready; the daily routine/schedule typed up:  it must be time to “start school.”  I dislike that term intensely“.

Mrs. White presents Making Chores Fair for Children, saying, “‘ve mentioned in a previous post (A Cheerful and Willing Housekeeper) about not expecting too much from our children in regards to housework. As Mothers, it seems like we have plenty of chores and we are often asking for help. Sometimes, we even ask for help all day long for those of us who homeschool!”

Barbara Frank presents Public School Foolishness, saying, “Brief summary of the post: The ridiculous way schools treat bright kids makes a person glad they homeschool their own children.”

Laura Grace Weldon presents If Jane Goodall Were An Alien, saying, “Imagine someone with Jane Goodall’s observational powers coming from outer space to observe us for a few days. Let’s narrow this alien’s study down to something relatively simple. American childhood.”

DeputyHeadmistress presents The Common Room: Teaching Your Children How to Do Their Chores, saying, “When you first want to teach a child a chore, you spend time doing the chore with him. Model it, talk about what you are doing, include him, explain what you do and why. Do this a few times (at least).”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of homeschooling using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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I actually get this question often. People want to know what makes a person Cajun? They also want to know what the difference is between Cajun and Creole food but that is a post for another day. First, in order to understand the food differences, you must understand the differences between the people.

Let’s start with Creoles.

The original definition of a Creole was “one that was born in Louisiana.” Simply put, if you were born here then you were a Creole baby. That is how they distinguished the natural born citizens of Louisiana way back when.

Today, the term has been adapted to mean that you are a descendant from a mixture of  cultures. For example, if a person has Spanish and African ancestry or French and Native American ancestry then they would be considered Creole. That pretty much means almost everyone in Louisiana is a Creole but it all started because there was once a law that stated that there could be no intermarrying of races. People didn’t listen and didn’t care about that law so to work around it they began having masquerade balls. Everyone would show up in fancy outfits and masks and begin to mingle. This is where some of the traditions of Mardi Gras originated. Men and women of differing races would fall in love and agree to live a lifestyle devoted to each other. The man would care for the woman and their offspring financially and she would take care of the man when he was able to visit. Their children were called Creoles.

My people (or the biggest contributors to my DNA at least), the Cajuns, are descendants of Acadians (les Cadiens). Hence the “femme cadien” on my header. It means “Cajun woman”.

The Acadians were French peasants who found a home in what is now New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada. The Acadians made a prosperous and full life in the place that they called Acadie and thrived there for many, many years. Then, because of their ever raging battle with France, Great Britain wanted the Acadians to pledge allegiance to them and fight with them against the French. The Acadians refused. They wanted peace. They did not want to fight against their French brothers and sisters or the Native Americans that they had become friendly with. This went on for many years until Great Britain finally arranged for a massive cleansing of the area.

The men and boys were called into churches and all of them were arrested on the spot and sent to boats that were ready to take them to one of many places. The women and children would go later and often to different locations. They lost everything they had. Villages were burned down. People were killed on the spot. Families were divided forever. Nearly 10,000 Acadians lost their lives during the Le Grand Derangement.

It became a common practice for families to take in children that were not their own. In later years, out of respect for the man that raised them, they would take on that person’s last name without giving up their birth father’s name. It would be preceded with the term “dit”. For example, if a boys’ last name was Landry but he was raised by Richards then to honor both men who took part in the man he was becoming, he would be called, Landry dit Richard.

There is so much more amazing history there but I’ll just let you look at this quick video here to get an idea of who the Cajuns are. This was from the History Channel’s new show, “Swamp People”. And yes, this show all true. It is not fabricated one bit. This really is how some of the people around here live. It is totally a way of life. Believe me, if Gevan, Jacob, and Brennan had their way then they would be in the bayou, swamp, and river every day. It is in their blood.

Some of these folks live just minutes away from where I grew up. In fact, they mention my hometown, Plaquemine, in the “Big Head Bites It” episode. And I have so many Landrys in my family tree that it would not surprise me one bit if I had common ancestors with the Landrys from the show. Not to mention they each look just like someone else in my family. Crazy!

Check this out… and check out the show too! Or have you seen it already?

The Cajun Experience from Jacob Gavin on Vimeo.

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Some things just don’t require words…

August 27, 2010

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Should you use your name as the domain?

August 26, 2010

Okay so I thought I was done with this series but Ashley from AP Free Writing 101 posed a very good question in the comments. She asked: I’m wanting to “brand” my blog and ministry, but I’m struggling with whether or not I should brand it with a “ministry name” or my name. I am [...]

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Final post on my niche and branding therapy…

August 25, 2010

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Do I even have a niche?

August 24, 2010

Let me start by saying that I have no issues with business bloggers or niche bloggers. I read and enjoy lots of them. They are needed. I simply have a problem with being told that I have to be one to be successful. So yesterday we left off with me telling you that online ministry [...]

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Opportunity is knocking… for you and me!

August 23, 2010

A few years ago when I was just a newbie blogger I wrote a post and entered a writing contest. I was scared but I got over it and just decided I would do it The contest was at CWO which was then run by its founder: Darlene Schacht. I won that contest. I still [...]

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I’m so over the “tight niche” blogging thing

August 23, 2010

Can I just be real and to the point with you? Yes, I will even without your permission but I am southern and it is just polite to ask. mmm, hmm. A Woman Inspired gets many proposals from speakers, specifically for the Homemade Blogger’s and Ministry Online conference. I’m also still doing lots of research [...]

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Winners announced!

August 23, 2010

If you are listed among the winners then please send me an email, inquiry (at) amybayliss.com, and be sure to include your mailing address. Sheila Walsh – When a Woman Trusts God #11 Stacey Marsengill #31 Lynnet Hardwick #35 Kimberly Crowe #41 Melissa Mashburn #49 Crystal Roberts Friendships for Grownups – Lisa Whelchel # 2 [...]

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