New Year, New You (Me)!

I have had a long standing tradition (rule) of not making New Year's resolutions. But in the interest of making a change, of really starting something new and changing my life...this year I have a list of resolutions.

No. 1 Make some New Years Resolutions

I like this list. Seems doable!

I read and think thru information like a sponge. Recently I have been reading some blog info on vulnerability, and I had an "aha moment" to quote Oprah (favorite person to quote)! I am afraid of vulnerability, very afraid. I am a compassionate and loving person, I think anyone would describe me that way. I have great big emotion and love to heap it upon anyone and everyone in my life. I am the person who builds people up, I am the head cheerleader for everyone's life. I can quote perfect scripture, a poem, a song lyric and give perspective or comfort. I can listen, and Lord knows analyze a problem and help you come up with a plan. I can be honest. I can make you laugh. I can make you something to eat and make you feel better.

But I will rarely let you know that I need those things. I am tough, in a rawhide leather sort of way. I know that I am. I am very, fiercely independent. I can be very passive, I don't let you in, not really. I don't cry, rarely ever and mostly only when no one can see. It is my way of not feeling, not needing comfort. I am afraid a lot. I am afraid of letting everyone and myself down. I am afraid that I am not enough. Enough for what? hmmmm, just enough. Self protection mode, keep it all together...That's how I live.

There are the few, who see thru the mask, who know exactly what I am describing and you know who you are. I love you beyond my ability to express it.

So, my addition to the list of resolutions above is to make some real changes to ME, to open up, soften up, let some feelings show, and to accept that I don't have to be an island. I might be enough.

Ghost Writer Needed

It always catches me off guard when someone comments or asks about the "Prissy Hens". How great is for someone to love to hear you talk? And when they haven't, they miss it. That might be one of the greatest compliments of a lifetime, especially since I'm pretty sure talking is my talent! The Hens need to write that book, but really...talking is what we do. We need a ghost writer! Now THAT would be an interesting job!

Maybe when we retire to the beach we can hire that cute cabana boy and he can be our ghost writer...that could be a whole new chapter! We can write while we get too tan! In the meantime, we'll soak up some sun and live a little more to write about.

Long time no post! I need this outlet, I NEED to be this Prissy Hen. So I am back to it. I am thinking, pictures and inspirations, words, songs, thoughts. We don't have the show anymore, so this is the voice. The Prissy Hen journal.

It is cold, like really cold. Too cold for these southern girls. Today I am dreaming of toes in warm sand and waves crashing into shore. Or closer to my heart...the river, D-daddy's boat, great friends, cool refreshments, great music. ahhhhhhhh

What if Oprah wants to check us out!!!!

This new year has brought lot of changes and the thing with change is there are always glitches! Our new show is lots of work and lots of laughs and lots of frustration. So far, we have taped 5 shows. We have an amazing production team with our two Co-Executive Producers and our Advisor to the Hens and then us, the Hens. We are gonna get it right!

We have shot at three different locations and have settled on one that works for now. We are looking forward to live audiences and guests and on-location shoots!

Our website is live www.theprissyhensocialclub.com. You can contact us there and we will link it from the blog and link the blog on the website. The shows are also on the blog!

All the while, I keep emailing Oprah. She needs us for her network...she just doesn't know it yet!

Cheers to a brand new year!

This time of year naturally makes us reflect on the year that is coming to a close and the new year coming. Our years have always involved lots of changes, some great and some not so great, yet we always say, "if we hadn't been there, we might not be here." We always like to think about where we've been, where we are going and where we wanna be.

The Prissy Hen Social Hour has been a blast. Therapy, stress relief, fun, laughter, friends, lots of information. We have truly covered everything from lipstick to world politics, although not too much politics...not on the air anyway! We have made so many appearances, met so many people. We have laughed and cried and laughed some more. We have had shows that just packed full of information and we have had still others that probably had absolutely no actual information involved, but they were all a lot of fun. We have talked about so many important things, Banebow, Joshua, The Help Center, homelessness, Be The Match, Relay for Life, the flood in May and all those who were so affected, Valentine's Day and the All About Love Show, all the "on location" broadcasts, announcing the basketball game at for at the high school homecoming, Dickson County and Creekwood football...soooooo many memories. We are so thankful for all the laughs, the friendships, the fun. We have been so inspired by so many people and we cherish all the experiences we have had over the past year. We are no longer broadcasting the show on WDKN and are experiencing changes there too. We are gearing up for a show on the local cable channel as well as online. Exciting times.

Kids inevitably bring change to your life, they are all about change. Sweet Tiffy is engaged and Chad is a successful pilot. Lane will be 16 early this year (although he gave us quite a scare and we are so thankful to watch him mark another year!) and Annie is in middle school. Cayce will go to high school this year! Drew graduates in May, Carlie is driving, Dylan is in middle school, too and Cameron...is Cameron, a true prissy hen child! The Prissy Hens are good Mamas and we have some amazing children. When we get 'em all grown, we are gonna retire to somewhere tropical and live in a hut with a cute cabana boy to bring us cool beverages on the beach, we are gonna be too tan, too thin and smoke way too many cigarettes...oh, sorry, got caught up in a fantasy!

So, to quote Oprah...
"Cheers to a brand new year and another chance for us to get it right!"

fyi, pictured above is a Pink Halo:

Pink Halo
Grenadine
Sugar
1 ounce Stoli Razberi or other raspberry-infused vodka
5 ounces champagne
Berries to garnish
Directions
Dip the rim of a champagne glass in grenadine and then dip in sugar to coat. Add 1 ounce chilled Stoli Razberi, or other raspberry-infused vodka, and top with 5 ounces chilled champagne. Garnish with berries: red currants, raspberries or gooseberries.

I Buy Local!

"Be Local!" A very important topic for the Prissy Hens! One of the aspects on which our show was created was our desire draw attention to local events and local businesses. We want to make people understand the importance of "keeping your money at home."

The Prissy Hens make this a focus of our lives. Having owned local businesses, we know the importance of a strong local economy, or maybe we don't just know it...we focus on it and recognize how that impacts every area of our lives.

As the holidays approach, we have been busy meeting and talking about ramping up the "Be Local" campaign to entice people to shop local. To make people aware of the great choices and availablity of products we have locally to choose from.

These local businesses are the people who sponsor ball teams and donate to charities, who employee our citizens, who generate sales tax dollars. It seems fun to go somewhere else to go out for dinner, yet, if we fail to patronize our local restaurants, and i mean by local any restaurant located in Dickson (if you are here, you are local), then our restaurants will fail or at best will suffer from poor sales. Resulting in us never being able to attract new businesses, who bring jobs and commerce to our hometown. The same goes for our local retail businesses.

This is maybe not as fun a post as we like to write, but an important one to us. We are fun and silly and shallow but we are also smart business women, it is one of the things that makes us interesting!

Little Big Town Girls

Sometimes it occurs to me how lucky I feel to have grown up in a small town and how lucky i am to live there and raise my children there. There are, of course, times it occurs to me that it might not be such a great thing, but those usually involve being seen doing something I shouldn't or looking really bad doing something that I should. All in all, I count my blessings that I was born and raised in a place that is not so small town anymore, but still not a big town!

I love the fact that my children will walk down the hill and across the same football field to graduate. I hope they love every minute of it as much as I did and I hope they carry as many great memories and lessons through life that I hold so dear in my heart. I love that my kids really can't get away with much, because "Mama knows everybody and they tell her everything!"

I love having a radio show talking about hometown things and people and that people love listening to it. This week we were on the historic square in Charlotte Tennessee for the Charlotte Festival and we had a blast. Next week we are at the Fair to kick off the 86th Dickson County Fair. How fun is that?

There are so many fun, fun memories in my mind that involve the fair. When I was growing up, we got out of school on Friday of Fair Week for Fair Day. You could ride the bus to the fair and the bus driver would wait all day, while all the kids rode rides and ate food and then at 3:00 you loaded the buses and went home, no parents involved and everyone was safe, no one was murdered or raped or kidnapped. The worst thing that happened was that you rode rides till you puked, which I did EVERY year. My mother always joked that she had no worries about finding me at all, she knew I would be slung over a fence at one of the rides throwing my guts up. I seriously believed every year that THIS was the year that I would not get sick...never worked out. I still love the fair, but I pass on the rides. I can't even stand to watch the rides!

Nothing smells better than all the smells of the food at the fair, bar b que, cotton candy (like real cotton candy made on the spot), candied apples, lemonade, frito pie, fresh corn on the cobb, yummmmmmmmm. Oh and the barns, I LOVE the exhibits. I grew up on a farm and I guess the truth is you can take the girl out of the farm but you can never take the farm out of the girl. There is such a sense of home to me about all the cows and other animals and the vegetables and fruits. And, of course, the socializing.

Now I have to say that on some level, attending the fair is a good reminder not to get too uppity in how you view yourself. Many a comedian has made a good routine about the quality of people you can run into at the fair and they are all pretty much dead on in their descriptions. Jeff Foxworthy has a routine that I have heard so many times I could do it on a stage myself and it still brings me to tears to hear him do it, because I relate so well to it! At some point you just have to smile and realize that these are your people...it can be quite humbling!

So I'm smiling as I head into the week looking forward to "goin to the Fair". I can't wait! Maybe I could ride the round-up...