First Impressions of Mississippi

I suppose that now that we’ve lived here in Mississippi for over a month, I owe everyone an update. Our first impressions of NAS Meridian have been very pleasant. We find the people here friendly and relaxed. After living in the hotel at NAS Meridian for a month, we are thankful to be in a house now. It is about a twenty minute drive from base, and located on a beautiful lake called Dalewood.

Messy kitchen

Clean kitchen

Our house hunting was aided by AHRN, a website specifically for military buyers, renters, and owners. It was really helpful, and we looked at several houses listed there. This house was listed but didn’t have very much info and no pictures (“No pictures? How can you read it without any pictures?” – Loose quote from Gaston). When the landlord showed us the house we were really surprised – it’s so beautiful and it’s in our price range! With some help from our new church folks we moved in two weeks ago.

The view from our front doorstep (attempted panoramic)

Our “landlord” is southern to the core. Her name is Virginia, and she is the first person that I ever heard use the phrase “I suwannee” in real conversation. I’ve read it in books before, but this is real life and I was very impressed. Last week Virginia brought us a bag of food – “stuff you can grow here”- since I told her I was going to start a garden. She gave us frozen corn, squash, tomato and okra, and black eyed peas. I put all of it in a soup this week, and I am really looking forward to having home grown vegetables this summer!

The weather here has been beautiful, and Tim took me to Lowe’s last week to get some plants and seeds. My lettuce and my spinach have already sprouted outside, and I just saw some beans poking up today! Inside I have started cosmos, zinnias and snapdragons, and some herbs, too. Virginia brought me a bunch of flowers that I’ve potted on our steps.

Iris blooming by our driveway

In New York my family had to contend with deer, raccoons, and groundhogs in the garden. Here I have already begun a love/hate relationship with Fatso the Squirrel. I love to watch furry critters (that’s what southern people call animals). Last weekend Tim and I were admiring the view from our living room window and noticed a very chubby squirrel waddling across our yard. Whereas most of the squirrels in our yard seem to be kamikaze acrobats, this one looked like he was about to go find a nice place to die. A day or two later I realized why he was waddling across our yard. He had just finished off about a pound of sunflower seeds that he’d snitched out of our carport. He left the shells all over the floor.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the next day he started digging in my flower pots. I re-potted my flowers, and decided to spray them with pepper spray. Unfortunately, I also breathed some of it in and spent the next hour blowing my nose. But Fatso has not disturbed my potted flowers for 48 hours now. I just wonder how long the stuff will work.

By the way, this is the fifth state that we’ve lived in since we’ve been married (we’ve lived in Pennsylvania, Virginia, California, Florida, and now Mississippi). Our military stations include Quantico MCB, Camp Pendleton, NAS Pensacola and NAS Whiting Field, and currently NAS Meridian. MCB stands for Marine Corps Base and NAS stands for Naval Air Station. Although Tim has been stationed at Navy bases, he is still a Marine.

Well, the post man just came by with a bunch of packages with my name on them, and one says DRESS FORM on it. I turned a quarter of a century yesterday and have been celebrating throughout the week with our new Mississippi friends. Tim is scheduled to arrive home sometime this evening, so I look forward to celebrating with him later.