I found out that I’m pretty smart after all. I knew it all along, but Facebook officially confirmed it. (hee hee)

I scored 150 on one of those fb IQ quizzes. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. You can’t argue with that kind of logic.

How could it not be true? It was on the internet. It was on facebook, right there with all the other interesting facts and figures.

I also look just like Shania Twain – got that revelation from Facebook too. I’m gorgeous, with a tall order of IQ. Hoop de doo!

You, too, can find out which country singer you look like (no need to send in $19.95). Just put your favorite selfie into a magic box and, voila, your pic is morphed with a famous person’s highly glossed and airbrushed portrait, revealing that you look just like them.

One friend refused to play along, for fear she’d end up as Willie Nelson.

A few minutes spent playing in Facebookland and you could completely transform yourself. No need for plastic surgery and botox!  It’s all right at your fingertips.

There are all kinds of little quizzes that tell you how Southern you are, what state you should live in, or what your favorite color says about you. I like red, so that makes me  adventurous and sophisticated, yet demure. I think that’s what it said, anyway. Don’t forget, I’m smart — very smart.

So we’re all somehow prettier, smarter and easier to access with the internet at our disposal. I’m just wondering how our ancestors made it through.

It’s funny, the weird topics you discuss with friends sometimes. Just the other day some friends at work and I were talking about why we wouldn’t ever want to do anything that would send us to jail. I don’t even remember now how we started down that road…

The thing that made the top of our list was having to look at the same four walls (or three walls and a barred door) every day. Second – and this really should be in the top spot — no bathroom privacy… That alone should be enough to cause all the jails to have to close down for lack of interest.

Don’t people think about things like that before they commit crimes? It’s not worth it. Well, that and the fact that crime hurts other people. Is stealing that car really worth having to share a tiny cell with Jocko, your new prison pal?? I guess the thrill of the steal is exhilarating enough to blind people from thinking about it — at least for a little while. They could get the same feeling riding a roller coaster at Dollywood – and get to go home at the end of the day.

That’s not the only reason to avoid the slammer.

Two words — jail food. I’ve never experienced jail food, but I imagine it’s not the greatest. You can forget trying out all those wonderful Pinterest recipes for bon bons and cheesy bread at your next party. There won’t be any parties. There again, another reason to reconsider doing something that would make you go to jail. Jail is no fun – no matter what you’ve heard, They take away your shoe laces, too.

So, our consensus was to steer clear of jail and live happy, healthy lives. Hopefully more people will decide to join us and we’ll start a big “stay out of jail” movement. Communities will be better, the country will benefit as a whole and we’ll all get to keep out shoelaces.

Anyone born past 1997 probably doesn’t remember the tv show Hee Haw. It was sort of like touch screen phones – a blessing and a curse all at the same time.

The show was a slap-stick, corn pone take on life in the country (or life in the South) — but some thought it made us look like backward yahoos with no education and no shoes. Well, yeah. We loved it anyway. The jokes were so dumb, they were funny and we could always count on seeing a country music star perform on the show. One of my favorite segments was The Culhanes.

If f I researched hillbilly I’m sure I would find a picture of the Hee Haw gang. My picture might be included too, because I just remembered something. We lived a house without indoor plumbing once upon a time, when I was little….. I was a baby, so in no way was I responsible for that. I don’t think my parents lived there long.

Hee Haw was one of my favorites and from what I read, people everywhere — even in New York City – really liked it. The show held on for a long tv run before the residents of Kornfield Kounty had to pack it in and go back to the farm.

Last week I went to see Lu Lu Roman, one of the Hee Haw favorites, at a music venue  called the Crooked Road General Store. I got to talk to her and have my picture made with her. It was better than seeing the biggest movie star in Hollywood.  I was in Hee Haw heaven.

An informercial for Hee Haw videos got me thinking about the show and I wanted to see it again. It wouldn’t be considered hip now and certainly not socially acceptable. Maybe we need a little Hee Haw in our world again. People just need to sit back, relax and watch some corn pone — and laugh a little more.

Ah, the good old yard sale. Stick a sign up in your front yard and people will beat your door down to get your junk before you can even get out of bed. (note to self: put yard sale signs up the morning the sale is actually happening, after I’m awake and have coffee in hand)

I need to get rid of a lot of stuff myself — it’s mostly things I’ve collected from other people’s yard sales. The frenzy hits me when I go  — one good sale leads to another one. You never know what kind of bargain you’re gonna find. It’s like eating potato chips. You can’t stop at one or two. Same way with a yard sale. I get a Kate Spade purse for two dollars and I can’t stand it. I have to go to the next sale to find a dress to go with it. It doesn’t even matter if the dress is too big for me. That’s what the belt I found at the last sale is for.

So it is with me and yard sales. A fifty-cent shirt here and a dollar pair of sandals there, and I’m hooked for the day. The last time I went yard sale-ing I got two metal sunflowers for a dollar each. These were the big nice ones that don’t bend with the first wind that comes along. A DOLLAR! Never mind that I had to buy three dollar’s worth of yellow paint to refurbish them. They’re now nicely displayed in my yard to greet visitors. So there; I’m actually using them.

The yard sale to end all yard sales is the big one we have here called the “Tree Street Sale”. You can find basically anything your heart desires along the lines of dishes, collectible figurines, pots, pans and old coffee pots that may or may not work. There’s usually a note somewhere near the small appliances that says, “we cannot guarantee this works.” My yard sale buddy, Greg, won’t let me forget about the door I bought one year. I still haven’t done anything with it.

Hungry? At the Tree Street extravaganza, there’s always an assortment of  bake sale items alongside the slightly used tupperware.  You’ll also find coolers of cold drinks with the pricing guide on the lid and Mexican food at lunch time. Everybody gets in on the action.

Getting out early enough is always key in finding the best bargains at any yard sale.  That’s always my holdup — I don’t like to get up early on Saturday. Though, if you’ve recently moved and  you can get going at the break of day,  you can outfit your house or apartment with furniture, curtains and an assortment of artwork cheap.

I really do need to have my own yard sale to get rid of the some things that have piled up. I don’t like having yard sales, but it’s  good way to get rid of things and make back a fraction of the money spent buying the stuff in the first place.

Maybe I’ll start my own version of a mega yard sale — an evening yard sale would suit me. Be sure to follow the signs and come on out.  You just might get a good deal on a door…

I’m a day late and a dollar short.

The blog is a little late and I spent the last dollar I had with me today to buy a Pal’s tea (if you don’t know what Pal’s is, be sure to visit one when you’re in the area).  But that’s not what my subject is about this time. Today I’m thinking about the July 4th picnics we had when I was growing up.

It was always a time of celebration – somebody would go early to get picnic tables at Warrior’s Park before they were all taken. I don’t think we could reserve tables, so somebody had to be the lookout. It had to be on a fairly level spot so there was plenty of room for all the metal folding chairs.

Our family was pretty big. Most of us lived in town and a few drove in from across the line in Virginia. When we all got together, you could aways count on a lot of eating and talking. And more eating – grazing on the leftovers was the best part. My cousins and I looked forward to playing together and somebody was always begging to go spend the night with somebody else at the end of the day, so they could keep playing.

Our moms cooked the food and loaded down the tables with everything imaginable. All the 4th favorites were there. There was always mac and cheese (you can’t have a family get-together, or any gathering, without it!), homemade slaw, potato salad, green beans, canned pickles, you name it. The men usually took care of the grilling. I don’t remember any big fires getting out of hand — just nice, burnt hot dogs.

It seems that I always end up working food into my posts — I think that means I like to eat. I get it honest. I come from a family of hearty eaters. It seemed like my dad could eat more than anyone — his thin frame never looked any bigger though. He always said the food went to his legs.

I’ve spent half my life (or more) celebrating something with food – or just going out after church to eat. I guess holidays and after church times were created for eating. Sharing meals seems to make us happy. I know it makes me happy.

So, with that I will say: Happy 4th of July, everyone! I hope you get to spend time eating all your favorites with family and friends. Burn a hot dog for me.

Have you ever been traveling down the road and see a shoe laying over in the median by itself? One shoe. You have to wonder how that happened…

Was the person who lost the shoe going down the road with their foot hanging out the window? Why didn’t they go back for it? You’d think they might need that shoe when they get where they’re going.

I’ve seen other articles of clothing laying beside the road and wondered if somebody suddenly decided to  stop and have a yard sale right there on the side of the road. I mean, please pick up after yourself! Tennessee trash. Maybe it was somebody taking clothes to the Salvation Army in a convertible…

And how does underwear end up by the roadside?? My neighbor, John, posed that question and I don’t think I want to know the answer. We’ll just assume it was somebody on a motorcycle who had to change clothes in a hurry, and leave it at that.

Ok, I can see how you might lose a shirt or something small out of the car and not notice it, but what about a mattress? I actually saw a mattress driving down the road one day. (the mattress wasn’t driving, it was laying beside the road) Can you really lose a mattress and not know it fell off the truck? I guess stranger things have happened.

You can’t not make up a story to go with that  – here’s my version: It was being hauled in a pickup truck — probably an old, brown truck with holes rusted out on the sides. The guy driving was helping his brother move and decided not to tie down the mattress since it was just down the road. He gets to the new house, pulls in, walks around to unload the truck and wonders who stole the mattress. I’m telling  you, this really could happen around here. Living in this part of the country lends itself to many a colorful story.

I’ve let my imagination run away more than once when I see something by the road. A box or an old brown rug in the distance can look just like a furry critter from several feet back. Here I am, enjoying the sights when I spot something large and brownish looking up ahead. I start sighing, “poor thing — what is that?” My mind starts to imagine what it could be. “Oh, it’s a big dog or a deer…”  My eyes are welling up – I’m expecting the worst. Then we get up to it. It ends up being a big brown rug or a clump of hay.

Who knows what I’ll see beside the road the next time I go out. We do live near a flea market that meets every weekend. Somebody could have dropped some of their flea stuff off an old truck when they were heading out. Maybe it will be something I can actually use.

Well, I’m on the late train again and it’s getting later. I’m so late, the train might actually be going backward.

This shouldn’t surprise me, though. I can’t seem to get Christmas and Thank You cards in the mail on time (if I send them at all), can’t get to church on time…

I went to the Blue Ridge Christian Writer’s Conference a few weeks ago, came home and I’m just now writing about it. I think I’m just a little dazed …. it could be from all that coffee I drank while I was there. Everybody else got busy blogging, tweeting and Facebook posting about the wonderful conference, what they learned and the pristine situations that led them to meet just the right people at just the right time. Oh the joy to be fresh from a writer’s paradise writing up a storm, writing up a monsoon – writing something! All of them are going to be discovered by great publishing houses, get contracts worth millions and leave me in the dust. Gee, thanks guys.

The Blue Ridge Conference is a great place to let the creativity flow and come up with the  perfect storyline, plot and ending for the next great novel. It’s a place where people meet, collaborate and then stay up way past their bedtime, eating chocolate and laughing. We’re going to see some award winning works come out of this year’s group. I should have gotten some autographs while I was there. Max Lucado — look out!

I, on the other hand, used the time as more of a learning retreat (emphasis on the retreat part). While everybody else was running from class to class I strolled along and tiptoed through the tulips.   I learned some and retreated some. Clouds coffeehouse on the Ridgecrest campus is possibly the most wonderful place on the face of the earth. If you follow me on Facebook, you saw a pic of Clouds , and  my muffin and coffee. Don’t you hate it when people post pics of their food all the time?!

While I was going to classes, not going to classes and relaxing at Clouds, I had time to ponder suggestions from my writerly friends on taking my writing to the next level — specifically with this, my blog.  Should I publish it more often? Do I have time to publish it more than once a month? What do I do? Stay tuned — this and other questions answered ahead.

O.k., I can’t stand delays, so here’s the answer. I decided to go for it.  Wisdom from the Doublewide is going weekly! Whoo hoo. I’m full speed ahead.  I’m zooming into the future, doling out wisdom on most every topic that comes to my mind, except maybe politics. But then again, I usually see things from a peculiar angle. So politics may enter this arena, but only for a laugh. (I won’t tolerate any arguing or cussing on my page).

If you want to get in on all the action (as they say in Nascar), sign up to follow me on WordPress and we will navigate the questions of life together. Appliances left sitting on the side of the road. How does that even happen?