My sister Katy and her husband Billy live in New Orleans with their two boys, Jack and William. They lost everything they owned in Hurricane Katrina after ten feet of water flooded their first floor apartment. It was a difficult time for them, relocating their family and rebuilding their possessions, but as Katy would always say “They are just material possessions and can always be replaced.” I always admired her for being so wise and strong during that whole situation…

One thing that Katy and Billy lost that could never be replaced was their wedding album. I know I could bounce back from losing furniture and clothes and appliances—but to have the record of your favorite memories, photos, letters, albums–all washed away? Help me rhonda it just kills me inside. And keep in mind they were married way before we had everything saved online!

What I’m about to tell you is a truly cool story, and a great way of showing how to creatively take your talent and give back to someone else!

The Digital Wedding Forum had a photography conference in New Orleans and the conference coordinator, Deborah Molique, had an idea to “pay it forward” by giving three couples the chance to redo their wedding albums after losing them in Hurricane Katrina. What an amazing idea! There were dozens of photographers who signed on to  the project and my sister, Katy, was one of the three brides chosen to participate. Ahh I still get excited when I say it…or type it….or whatever…

Let’s not forget that if you lose your wedding album in a hurricane, you probably lost your wedding dress and shoes and the whole nine yards! The Digital Wedding Forum arranged for all three chosen brides to go borrow a new wedding dress from a local retailer, have their hair and make-up done and have a gazillion photographers follow them around the French Quarter in New Orleans taking photographs of their “staged” wedding day.

I’m crying.

It’s just so nice! And sweet. And amazing!

My beautiful sister in all of her glory.

Amazing to think that seven years after losing her wedding photos she got the chance to recreate one of the best days of her life….

I’m still crying.

And I can’t think of a better place to have wedding portraits taken than in the historic French Quarter!

This picture really captures it all….

Cute. Cute. Cute.

I think this is my favorite photo. Billy is just livin’ it up. You’d think he was really on the way to his reception…

I am now sobbing.

But honestly, we all know how important the wedding is to the bride, and I couldn’t be happier that my big sis got to recreate her special day. Could you imagine how funny it felt to “pretend” like it was your wedding day after being married for twelve years? HA! I love it.

I hope this inspires you to take your talents and give to someone in need!

Ok I’m gonna stop crying now. Goodnight!

I remember the day so clearly. It had rained overnight and the morning brought a load of muddy obstacles to overcome before I got to the office. White pants were out of the question so I wore black jeans and biker boots,  just in case a dog paw found my leg or there were standing pools of water at the stupid cattle gate that ruins my life on a daily basis. I got to work on time, thank God, and started on my long-list-of-things-to-do-before-you-leave-for-Nashville. I had just told my bosses at Delta Magazine, Scott and Melissa, that I had a deep passion for singing and songwriting and that I needed to take some time off to move to Nashville and explore the opportunity of making my dreams a reality.

So there I was, on my second-to-last day of work, scrambling to get things in order for my replacement and tying up thousands of loose ends, when my office phone was buzzed.

On the other end of the phone was Bill Twyman, President of Ride Records, asking me about a photo he saw online that I had taken in Clarksdale. After a few minutes of chatting, I realized that Ride Records was Mississippi Delta native Steve Azar’s record label! Steve Azar has the greatest story. He was raised in the Delta, loved songwriting and grew up listening to Delta bluesman play music behind his family’s liquor store. He moved out to Nashville after college and landed a recording deal with Mercury Records. He hit it huge with a song he wrote called “I don’t have to be me until Monday” on the album “Waiting on Joe.” Please download the entire album. “Damn the Money” is also on that album and will be your new favorite song, hands down!

So there I was at work, talking to Bill Twyman…

I could not believe that he found the “Welcome to the Delta” photo above on Facebook and was trying to track it down so he could use it for Steve Azar’s new album (Delta Soul, Volume 1). I went on and on about how much I loved Steve and Bill said “Hang on one second.”  He clicked over, called Steve on his cell phone, and then clicked back over to me. I sat there and talked to Steve Azar, told him I was moving to Nashville to pursue a career in singing and songwriting and he said “Hey, good luck! When you get back to the Delta, give me a call and let’s start writing some songs together.”

My heart kinda stopped. No..it most definitely stopped. Write music with Steve Azar? He had written hits. Like, real hits. He had those shiny records hanging all over the walls in his office from BMI! He had written songs for Reba McEntire and for the love of pete, Morgan Freeman was in one of his music videos!! But calmly I said, “Sure. That sounds great! I’ll be in touch when I get back! Nice to meet you.”

I hung up the phone. I rannnnn down the hallway and told everyone in my office what happened. They told me to shut up and get back to work.

So I did.

Fast forward……………………………………

It was about three weeks after I moved to Nashville, and I found myself coming to a halt. I had met with all of my available contacts and while the feedback was all positive, no real doors had been opened for me. I was hearing a lot of :

“You are great, but you aren’t ready.”

“Keep writing. Develop your craft.”

“You need time to develop, but you’ve got “it”.

I was frustrated. I scanned my phone and emails looking for a possible contact I may have overlooked, when all of a sudden I remembered Bill Twyman and Steve Azar. I was in the driver’s seat of my car, just sitting in the parking lot outside of my apartment complex, when I picked up the phone and dialed Bill Twyman. I asked him if he would set me up with another interview to play my music for someone in Nashville and he happily called his friend at Sanctuary Management on Music Row.

Two days later, I was sitting in the driver’s seat of my car outside of Sanctuary Management, putting on lip-gloss and nervously flipping my hair back and forth ten minutes before I walked into my interview. Twenty minutes after that, I had already walked into the wrong building, taken the wrong elevator and dropped my cell phone in the waiting area. Splat. Battery pops out of my Blackberry and slides across the floor. Receptionist gives me the “you’re an idiot” look…

I walked into Tom Storms office and played him my demo. He listened to the first two songs and then stopped the CD player.

Long story short (haha..none of my stories are EVER short..) I got an email from Bill Twyman telling me that Tom Storms was “wowed with my talent.” That is what gave me “street credit” with the Steve Azar crew and the rest is pretty much history. I came back to the Delta after a wonderful journey to Nashville, and it’s crazy to think that what I was looking for the whole time was thirty miles up the road in Greenville!

What was I looking for?

Well, I was looking for someone that believed in me, believed in my music and was willing to give me a chance. That is exactly what Ride Records is doing for me. They are giving me a chance to make the music I want to make while I develop a fan-base, and they are using their decades of experience and connections to pave the way for me.

I’m siiiiiiiked.

We just got back from recording in Nashville (more to come on that!) and ummm, while I don’t usually like name-dropping, I am going to have to take a moment to name-drop. I’m sorry, but Emmy Lou Harris’ keyboard player and Taylor Swift’s drummer were playing on my record. Daddy say whaaat?? Okay no more name-dropping, I promise.

We have amazing things on the horizon for 2012 and I plan to keep ya posted along the way. Sorry I’ve been missing in action, but I’ve got a good excuse!

It’s been over a month since the last time I posted, and while I usually ramble on about random things happening in FarmVille (riveting stuff, I know), I’ve been all over the place and couldn’t seem to find a jumping off point to fill you in…

I thought about telling you about my last trip home to Texas and how wonderful it was to see my precious nephews.

Seriously, these kids are my life.

I thought about going into a story about the beautiful mornings I’ve been spending on my porch, wrapped up in a fleece blanket, coffee in hand, watching these white birds walk back and forth over the land bridge.

I even thought about writing about my pup Foxy and her newly acquired habit of pooping downstairs on the concrete slab instead of pooping in the yard like a normal dog…

She’s such a weirdo.

But I’ll spare you the dog-poop story and instead, tell you about this past Sunday and how amazinggggg it was.

Amazing.

Did I say amazing??

It was glorious outside.

Glorious, I tell you!

And somewhere in between “hey do you wanna go hunting?” and ”sure, why the heck not!”….

I shot my first buck.

And it was the best day ever.

And ever and ever and ever and ever.

AMEN.

I love art.

I didn’t develop a love for art until I moved to Mississippi, which is pretty dang sad considering I lived in and around Austin, Texas for so many years. To think about all of the amazing art and artists I overlooked because I was too busy double-fisting breakfast tacos and drowning myself in queso—-it makes me sick!

If life would have taken a different turn and I ended up in the city, my taste in art would probably be a LOT different. But because I live in FarmVille–down the dirt road, over the levee, across the cattle gap and behind the big stupid dumb gate that is ruining my life–I have grown to love paintings of animals. Cows, deer, ducks, turkeys, hogs and all the other wildlife you see living in the woods on the Mighty Mississippi. If anyone knows of someone who paints coyotes, I have recently developed another slight obsession with packs of wild coyotes. They come into my yard at night and do that little high-pitched barking noise and I feel like I’m camping but I get to sleep in my own bed. Best of both worlds. A modern coyote painting would just rock.

I was on Pinterest this morning and found this artist, Robert Joyner, who is a painter from Richmond, Virginia. I love his cow paintings. I see cows more than I see my friends. Sometimes I think the cows are my friends. What???

I love all of his paintings, but the one above is what I have my heart set on.

Go check him out… http://www.robertjoynerartist.com/portfolio/

Look at his horse paintings too!

I can honestly say I never ever ever ever in a million years expected this to happen. This is my therapy, putting it all down in words. Also the picture above has nothing to do with this post. I just fancy it.

Clint had been in town visiting for a few days and was packing up his things to head back to Starkville. I was attempting to help but honestly just ended up walking around the yard and saying “Need any help with anything?” every five or ten minutes. Luke was shooting the target with his new bow he had purchased over the weekend and the dogs were out on the lawn wrestling. It was the most gorgeous Tuesday afternoon you could imagine. The weekend had just ended for us (we always drag them out through Monday) and it was a blur of laughter, singing and playing air guitar in my kitchen. We had worn ourselves out and so on Tuesday, we were just relaxed-to-the-max.

The reason I have to tell everyone that we were very relaxed and nothing wild was going on is because I have this tiny itty bitty reputation for losing things, usually on weekends where I stay up too late. But in this case, I swear to you, I was calm as could be, soaking up the fall afternoon in my own backyard.

The last time I saw my diamond I was in the yard sitting on Luke’s lap and he was sitting on top of the bow target. Clint was standing in front of us and they were talking about ducks or deer or something hunting-related, and I remember glancing down at my left hand and noticing how sparkly the diamond looked in that moment.

Here are the events that happened after, leading up to the moment that I realized the diamond center stone to my ring was in fact missing.

-Clint asked me to help him hook up the trailer so he could bring it back to Starkville.

-Clint and I played with Foxy, the new puppy, for a few minutes and then he left for Starkville.

-Luke and I walked to the storage room to grab a fishing pole.

-Luke and I walked down to the bank and fished for about twenty minutes.

-We walked back up to the house and I chased the dogs around for two minutes.

-I walked up the stairs, into the kitchen and sat down at my computer.

-I glanced down at my hand while I was typing and realized my center stone was gone and there was a huge, empty hole in my setting.

Immediately I looked at Luke and no words were necessary. I held up my left hand and he saw the empty hole and said, “There is no way.” I froze and told him to come stand by my chair and when I stood up to check the floor and listen for anything that might fall out of my lap. I thought that just maybe the diamond might have fallen out when I was inside my house–but there was nothing.

Luke ran downstairs immediately and started scanning the lawn. I was already hopeless. I had been down by the lake, over in the side yard helping Clint with the trailer, in the storage room, chasing the dogs around the entire yard–it could have fallen out anywhere! Even if we were going to scan the yard, it wasn’t like I knew exactly when and where it fell out. We’d have to scan all 2.5 acres and there was just no way.

“Is my ring insured?”, I asked myself. Yes. Yes it was. We had it combined with our homeowners insurance and that gave me some peace of mind. I’m sure it would be a pain in the butt to file the claim, but at least we were covered. Luke was still in the yard scanning but I was sitting at the kitchen counter just staring at the empty round hole in my beautiful antique setting.

The next morning I woke up and the first thing I thought about was my ring. It felt so weird to not have it on my hand and I swallowed the reality that it was gone forever. Luke, however, woke up and started scanning the yard again. I teased myself with thoughts that the sunlight would hit the diamond and Luke would see a sparkle through the overgrown grass. We would rejoice and forever tell the story about the day I lost my diamond and Luke found it laying by the oak tree in the side yard. I went on with my day and by that afternoon, I had accepted that the diamond wasn’t coming back. I picked up the phone to call our insurance agent and begin the claim process.

———————————————————————————-

“Hi Rob! Can you pull up my wedding ring insurance? You’ll never believe but my center stone fell out while I was in the yard yesterday.”

“Sure…one second. Actually I don’t have that account anymore. I was insuring the ring through your old house but when you and Luke moved into your new house,  you must have switched over to a new provider.”

———————————————————————————–

My heart sank. I had a gut feeling. One of those feelings that you despise because you know something just ain’t right. Did we remember to put the ring on our new insurance policy? Oh please please please tell me that we remembered. I called Luke frantic.

———————————————————————————–

“Honey, I just got off the phone with Rob. He said the ring was covered in our home insurance but when we sold the old house we switched providers. Did we remember to add the ring to our new policy?”

———————————————————————————–

Luke was silent. My stomach hurt, my heart sank, my eyes filled with tears. We had just sold the old house three months ago. THREE MONTHS. Luke and I had moved into our new home on Lake Whittington last October, but we still owned the old house until it finally sold at the end of the summer. How could we overlook the ring? And why would the diamond not fall out during the three years that we had been insured? Why would the diamond have to fall out during the three months that we were not insured? Why why why? That was my beautiful engagement ring that meant the world to me and I simply could not live without it. Thousands of dollars, lost somewhere in the yard or by the lake. It is just gone. Gone forever. How would I get over this?

Later on that same day, I got a text from my best friend Kathryn. She had attended a funeral earlier that morning for a young man, around our age, that passed away this past weekend. I know several people who knew him and from what I hear, he was an amazing friend and husband. She told me that the funeral was deeply emotional and we talked about how moments like that really put things in perspective. All I could think about is the wife of the man who died. The thought of losing someone so close to me, like my husband or my mother or my best friend–well honestly I can’t even imagine. And every single day, people lose their loved ones and are forced to find the strength to be at peace and move on.

Talk about putting things in perspective…

I lost a ring. Actually, not even the ring. Just the diamond that goes in the ring.

It is so small and insignificant when you compare it to losing a loved one.

I’m not going to worry about that diamond ring anymore. If someone finds it one day then I will rejoice and know it was meant to be. But in the meantime, I’m just going to be thankful for what I have and wrap my arms around the things that really matter in this short time we have here on this earth.

Actually, wait a minute….

It was Thursday morning last week when I woke up and had 14 missed calls from my sister at 8:30 a.m. For some reason the women in my family don’t understand the whole “I’ll call you back when I see your missed call” concept. Instead, if you don’t answer your phone, they will just call 900 times until you pick up. If I still don’t answer, they start calling Luke. It’s a vicious cycle.

This time, I promptly called my sister back and I’m so glad I did…

_____________________________________________________________________

Hi, Carrie. I haven’t had my coffee yet so beware. What do you want? Is something wrong?

Mike is so busy with work and finishing his MBA and he really needs me to take the kids and get out of town and out of his hair for the weekend. 

Okay well go to Beaumont and stay with Mom and Dad?

Actually I just got off the phone with Mom and we were thinking about leaving in 30 minutes and driving to Mississippi to stay with you!

_____________________________________________________________________

Spontaneity. It is one thing I have always loved about our family. We could be bored stiff just sitting on the couch, playing cards, watching re-runs of Friends and eating popcorn, when all of a sudden my mother would say “Hey! Let’s all drive to Austin for the weekend!” and an hour later the entire family would be packed and going on a 5-hour road trip that was planned in fifteen minutes. It made life so interesting (and completely annoyed the crap out my Dad) and apparently, the spontaneous spirit had not died.  An hour after I spoke to my sister, she had already packed and picked the kids up from school and was headed east on Interstate 10 to pick up my mother in Beaumont.

Seven hours later, they arrived in Mississippi.

This picture sums up our weekend perfectly.

At my house, there is a drop-off when you are walking to the lake and it creates a steep slope. We sent Uncle Buck outside to entertain the kids for awhile, and those creative little punks decided to pour buckets of water down the slope to create a mud-slide.

Things escalated quickly….

And within a couple of hours, the entire family was outside playing in the Mississippi mud.

I had completely forgotten what it was like to play like a kid….

Not just fishing or hunting or going out on the lake, but using your imagination to create fun…

Climbing trees, wrestling, creating mud-slides; out of breath, sore and tired from playing so hard for so long.

Only a child could create this kind of fun…

Only a child could have four grown adults, all plagued with chronic arthritis and bad knees, climbing up and sliding down a slippery man-made-mud-hill over and over and over again until their butts were numb.

And I love these children more than words can say.

Have a kick a$$ week!

Okay let’s look at some cell phone photography and pick a winner!

Shall we? We shall!

 I love the colors in this sunset! Gorgeous! by Jane Marie Dawkins

This one is amazing. I just wish it were larger! Davilla, Texas by Drew Donnell

Beautiful! Grand Isle, LA by Camp Murphy

Love the clouds in this one! Taken by my sister Carrie in Austin, TX!

Duck blind! Great shot by Drew Donnell

Spooky sky in Indianola by Jim Whitfield…

Sunset in Hawaii by Mike Whitsitt.

Wish I was on that boat with a cold margarita right about now….

Majestic! The only black and white submission! by Camp Murphy…

Thanks to everyone for submitting photos! I had so much fun looking through all of them and it was hard to choose a winner buttttttt…..

Congrats to Jane Marie! I love this sunset photo so much. The colors are so vivid and the trees framing the bottom and sides adds so much to the photo. Great shot!

Email kallie@hellodelta.net to order the 11X14 print of your choice!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have eight days of online shopping and YouTubing to catch up on. Peace out!

I started to think about the days I spent with my mom and sisters back in Texas. What I wouldn’t give to wake up in the morning and meet my mom for lunch. And the thought of calling my sisters, raving about the Deena Harness over-the-knee Frye boots that I had just spotted online and begging them to go to Nordstrom with me to try them on, makes me miss them even more. We’d decide that spending $500 on one pair of boots is absurd and tell ourselves that we could find the exact same shoe cheaper if we kept looking. That of course would never happen, and I would forever blame them for talking me out of buying them.

If my mom were there with us, we’d all walk over to the cosmetics department and buy our favorite lip-gloss by Mac called “Orgasm”. Not sure why Mac felt the need to name their lip-gloss something so racy, but it was the best lip-gloss of all!  It was the only lip-gloss we had ever found that looked great on every girl in our family. Then all the sisters would cry laughing as we overheard our mother telling the sales woman that she would like two orgasms, please! That one would never get old.

An hour later we would still be laughing about my mother’s request for two orgasms as we split fajitas at Pappasito’s. The waiter would ask what we would like to drink and I would say “A coooooooooold margarita, please!”. My mother would immediately interject with some comment about how she wished I would not drink. The entire family was raised in the Baptist church and my mother and I would never agree on the matter of drinking. And then after a solid twenty minutes of me arguing the point that there is nothing wrong with having a cold margarita with your fajitas, she would lean over and ask me for a sip of my drink and I would rejoice that I beat her, yet again, in one of our silly arguments.

Having three older sisters and a mother is like having a readymade group of friends. I miss the days when my oldest sister Casey would tell me something about my other sister Katy and make me swear that I would not tell my other sister Carrie. I would tell my other sister Carrie during a weak moment but make her swear that she would not tell Casey that I told her. A few weeks would pass, Carrie would let the secret slip and we would all get in an enormous fight and cause a huge scene. My mother would play referee and ask to hear all four sides to the story and I would apologize for spilling the beans and beg them to please stop telling me secrets.

Even the fights are something to miss.

Having a hard time keeping up with all of our names? Me too.

my mom

My mother is the worst. She never called us the right name when we were growing up. I was a combination of Carrie and Kallie. Carrie-Allie. She’d remember my name half way through saying Carrie’s. She had five children so she could barely remember her own name in the morning, much less all of ours. But I do have to ask, what was she thinking naming her first four children Casey, Katy, Carrie and Kallie? Too many K’s and C’s.  She set herself up for that one….

Casey, Katy, Carrie, Kallie and Buck.

This is the only photo I could find of all the siblings together. It’s not the best quality but at least we are all dressed normal with our hair fixed. Just about every photo my sisters and I have together, we have no makeup on and we are all sweaty from a tennis match. And even better, in this particular photo we are in order of birth! From the left, oldest to youngest.

I’ll always miss Texas and I’ll always long for my family. Butttt if I was going to have to move far away from home and be stuck in a cypress lodge on the Mighty Mississippi with a deer feeder in the front yard and fishing lures hanging from the curtains, I’m glad the man I’d have to share it all with had an ass like this in a new pair of Dickies…

Just saying…

The End.

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