Mama Said Charm and Grace

By Twinkle Briggs Scott and Dianne Hiatt

The information about the book is not available as of this time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664196803

Book preview

A Girl Should Be Two Things,

Classy and Fabulous

Southern Charm and Grace

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Perfect manners have always been at the top of the list as a Southern lady. Teaching our children to say please and thank you is holy in the South. Yes ma’am and yes sir is a must always in conversation. A strong Southern mama makes sure that their daughters smile and show complete eye contact as they introduce everyone in the room at any event. This etiquette spills over as Southern mothers teach their daughters to voice their opinions. Instead of stomping their feet and pitching a hissy fit, our mamas teach us to give grace with the eyes. The eyes can project such grace and strength by, the look. The" bless your heart look can exude strength and wisdom. Even a southern gentleman can pick up and move out of the way with’ the look’. This is as powerful as a loaded shotgun.

Being taught early in life that the spirit of style and fashion is right up there to godliness. Clean rolled and fixed hair is a must everyday as you take off to church, bake sales, charities, visiting the sick, or your careers. Looking your best with your makeup and hair styled shows that you are ready to take on the world. Fashion might include all styles, pearls, and dresses, preppy or not, jeans and a white shirt, cowboy boots and tight leggings, a jacket or just a sweatshirt. Whatever the style you must be clean, squeaky clean and a dab of perfume adds to your charm. Always a lipgloss or a red lipstick tops off your look. Posture is a must. Reflection of your image in a golden mirror shows that you are standing tall, chest out, and ready for your service to the world.

Serving is a must in our world. Being kind to the elderly is top of the list. You are caretakers and trained from the beginning to love children, kiss babies, and take care of the elderly. Calling everyone honey, sugar, and darling brings a smile to all ages. We are taught to love and be gracious. Inviting people to your home and to sit on the porch to drink sweet tea and eat a slice of pecan pie with ice cream shows that you are sharing your hospitality. Baking someone’s favorite cake for them for no reason at all is taught by our mamas. Pound cake baking and cookie baking is a ritual that you have to take part in with aprons and cookie cutters. Cupcakes piled high with icing in every flavor is a winner for all functions. A way to a man’s heart is through their stomachs is taught at an early age. Fried chicken, gravy, cream potatoes, green beans, congealed salad, homemade buttermilk biscuits, sweet tea plus a delectible dessert will always top a Sunday lunch after church.

Setting the table with monogrammed cloth napkins and china is etiquette. We learn how to properly display an exquisite table setting with fresh cut flowers. Using the napkin properly is a refinery, which is a must for all southern ladies and gentlemen.

Debutant or not, all ladies can be a lady of charm and grace. It just take manners.

It Ain’t Easy Being GRITS

It ain’t easy being GRITS. When you see a girl raised in the south, you see dresses, pearls, good manners. What you don’t see is what happens in everyday life.

When the spotlight is not shining off your tiara. We’re not always sweet tea,

sometimes we are whiskey. We are not afraid to hop on a horse, dodge mudpies on a four wheeler, or catfish and frog gig. Some of our best memories are rolling in the mud with the best of them. Even on the worst days, our smile is bright. Here is the lesson for the wise, when the hissy fit comes, you better run because we are more than a southern princess. We might use a few of our strong words like Dang it and ‘Dad blast it. Come Hell and High Water, we will always state there is always a tomorrow! Then we just gracefully start over again.

Pineapple Girls

Pineapple Girls are a younger, modern version of us classy sixty year old southern ladies. They are sass on a stick we all call them. They are hot mamas who drive suvs, volunteer at their children’s schools, schedule playdates and sleepovers with their tribe for their kids, and look like still to manage a professional career. They all dress in designer fashion, have their hair highlighted, and get botox. Their figures look like barbie dolls, their stilettos high, and they are articulate and smart. On the ballfield with their children, they change to the cutest tee shirt wearing tom girls, with tennis shoes who have ponytails and wear ball caps. They turn every man’s head from twenty to eighty. The magical secret to them being so full of energy and zest is when they all have their tribal Pineapple Girl therapy. They all unite to laugh, dance to old school rock, and cheer each other’s accomplishments. This ritual may be at the beach, at their homes, out on the town, or sitting by a pool. Wherever they are they all unite their souls as therapy and have an almost all night celebration of life. What they don’t know is that they have nothing over us sexy sixty mamas.

We were called the Foxy Chics. All of us drove station wagons, or jeeps, taught school, wore mini skirts and Candi high heels. We had Farrah Faucet hair sprayed so high to be closer to Jesus. We laid under sunlamps and soaked ourselves in baby oil to sunbathe. We ran the PTAs and had bake sales galore. We taught Sunday School and coached all sports. We rolled our hair on sponge rollers and used Dippity Do. We invented the girl night pajama parties and dancing to old school rock. We ate congealed salads and casseroles and drank sweet tea. Our rituals included yaya secrets sworn to pinkie promises never to tell. We turned all of the men’s heads from twenty to eighty years. Our figures were hot and our tempers cool. We had zoom meetings without the computers. We zoomed through them and zoomed on to the next. We Foxy Chics had you Pineapple Girls in car seats training you for your generation to take over and wear the tiaras proudly! You all make us proud!

Southern Grit and Glam

Southern Grit and Glam celebrate the journeys of all women who are born and bred to survive all trials and tribulations in life. We all stand together united as beautiful bold women who serve a mighty God. Through our hardships, stresses, disappointments, failures, and battles of life we can still believe in the goodness of God. Remembering our focus through the battles has helped us to become warriors. Keeping our eyes fixed on where we want to go concerning all financial problems, family issues, job turmoil, and even our diets. Focusing on Victory will take our eyes off of the problem and encourage and strengthen us. We always push forward in the midst of pressure. The Holy Spirit will lead us to finish the race victoriously.

We are prayer warriors who take the hand of our sisters and pray, pray, and pray! Praying always that God sends us the right friend for each season of our lives. We walk hand in hand with our sisters and never quit, even in the midst of the most raging battles. Beautiful bold women become more beautiful as they battle. Be Bold!

We have learned to laugh at our mistakes and find humor in our story of life. We all have enjoyed belly laughing with true girlfriends, where we have tears rolling down our cheeks. Laughter and joy are healing and therapy for everyone. As I have entered into the Sexy Sixties years ago I have let go of the seriousness of most problems because of sheer insanity or maybe wisdom. Wisdom comes with growing older and recognizing that most of all the worry we consume ourselves with is not worth the energy. Laugh at it and the problem eases in the mind. Also laughter cuts down on all of the botox treatments that women thrive on. Botox for the soul!

No matter what age a woman is, the best age is the age that you are present in at the moment. Make each day count and love, laugh, and take time to focus on your spiritual self. God will never leave you. Jesus loves you and will cover you with Grace as you persevere. Grace and glitter is pretty Glam!

Girlfriends

Girlfriends share love,

Laughter,

And a special kind of bond.

Playing dress up like princesses with our red hats on

Girlfriends sip blackberry tea

Serve wedding dress cakes

With linens dainty

Girlfriends write about their lost loves,

Sweaty kids

And kissy stuff

Best of all girlfriends

Make laughter just enough.

Modelling Event Historical Carolina Theater

Time had come to fit into the tight almost hourglass gold lemay evening dress. After an hour of applying makeup, I felt glamorous. However, all of us models laughed and were thrilled to have been chosen for the debut. I in fact knew that the gold sequined stiletto heels would be very hard to walk down a runway. The designer chose for me to wear them since I was tall and had such a slit in my evening gown to enhance such a glamorous stiletto. After many days of practicing for this charity event, I was still nervous. The hairdresser rolled my long blonde hair and swooped it to the right side, then pinned it with a jeweled clasp. Looking at the reflection in the mirror, revealed a movie star or a Miss America Pageant candidate unlike the real me. Smiling to myself, I thought of how I could pull this off being a perfect model. Thinking, as I was slipping on my elbow length gloves and a diamond ring, I then checked to see if the gold drop earrings would be appropriate. Listening for my cue from the the MC, we ladies approached the stage. Music from the 70’s began to play in the background as I walked very gracefully onto the stage. The stage’s hot lights reflected the golden sequins upon the stage floor, as I catwalked sophisticatedly across the stage. Smiling a wide, almost fake smile with pink pearl lipstick, and making my debut created butterflies in my stomach. Modelling this glamorous evening gown in such a historical venue felt so thrilling. Exiting the stage I had to walk down the stairs. All of a sudden as I stepped on the first step, the stiletto on my right foot fell off tumbling down the stairs and hitting the Greensboro’s Historical Carolina Theater floor. Without showing any emotion except smiling, I stood as tall as I could to equalize the missing stiletto and gracefully continued walking down the steps across the runway. Picking up the golden sequined stiletto with poise, I gracefully headed to the curtain. When I got behind the stage all the girls in their beautiful evening attire ran to me and gathered round. We laughed so much that our mascara rolled down our faces. The writeup in the newspaper reflecting the Charity Event read as follows: This glamorous evening of fashion modelling raised money for a great cause. Also the audience enjoyed a magical Cinderella moment with a golden stiletto. Mama laughed, sharing, Remember your Charm and Grace everywhere you go pays off!

Mama Said: Give To Others is Charm and Grace

Giving to others was top priority on Mama’s list for us children to learn. She had us pray that the Holy Spirit would put people in our paths that we would help. As a small girl I sat at her feet while she played the organ every Sunday at church. I watched her ballet slipper feet reach the correct organ pedals and I folded my tiny hands and prayed as she played the hymns for the congregation. I also dreamed of being an organist like Mama. She gave her talents and also shared all that we had. We invited everyone in to eat around our country dining room table. She would cook large Southern meals with all of the chicken dressings, cube steak and gravy, mashed potatoes, and always sweet tea and chocolate cakes for dessert. Mama and daddy invited anyone to eat with us anytime that there was an opportunity.

My favorite guest was a neighbor who lived almost primitively, and drove a tractor that we called a doodle bug. I loved this sweet humble soul. He did not have a family, so he always ate with us anytime he could. In return he would pull my cousin and I up the huge Briggs town Road hill on our sleds or bikes with his doodlebug tractor. Not only sharing with our neighbors, but Mama said that you give whatever God blesses you with. She made my clothes and always taught me to give a dress or outfit to my friends at school and cousins.

She crocheted everyone’s scarves and toboggans that we would share with all of the homeless by riding down the street and handing them out. You could always see Mama’s crocheted gifts because hers were the ones with vibrant colors, just like the coat of many colors from the Bible.

Pretty is what pretty does, is a Southern quote that comes to mind as I reflect back listening to mama and the ladies on the side porch sharing about the quilts they were making for the poor. Quilting was a ritual that was teamwork between the young and old. Heritage art of quilting was passed down as women gathered around the quilting frames and tacked the quilts, as we children crawled underneath the quilts. We listened to the conversations between my grandma, mama, and her lady church friends. They shared how the quilts were to be carefully pieced and where each of the colored pieces of fabric came from in their sewing scraps. I was amazed that the little pieces of scraps made such a glorious huge quilt to share with anyone in need for the winter.

Mama would give me scraps and let me sew with needle and thread. I created dresses for my Barbie dolls. Mama said to always share what I made with my friends. I did what she taught. Not only did we share our food, talents, and trade with others, we were to share our