There are so many things in my life that I just know, as they happen, I’ll never forget them. I especially love those pinch myself moments where I think “Wow, how did *I* end up here?”. Last night was one of those for me. Now, keep in mind that I still haven’t digested that I have a book. That I got to tell my stories and share some of the recipes from my family and a publisher put it all together and actually put it up for sale. A part of me is still surprised every morning when I wake up and find comments waiting on me on Southern Plate or the Facebook page. Whenever I get a friend request I’m still wondering “Wow, they really want to friend me? How cool is that.”

With all of this in mind, you cannot imagine how incredibly amazing what I got to do last night was for me.

So what did I do?

A few months back, I received an email from one of our Southern Plate Family Members (Thank you Celeste!) saying that her book club had chosen the Southern Plate book as their book of the month! They were all planning to get together, each make a dish from the book, and enjoy a potluck as they went over what they had read.

I was tickled to death and when I found out that their book club was actually near me (pretty close to my Papa Reed’s farm) so I emailed Celeste back and asked if I could show up and surprise everyone.

She was so gracious in allowing me to do this and I had been looking forward to this for so long. So we waited until most everyone had arrived and then I showed up, toting my own dish to add to their potluck, and got to spend a wonderful evening with the most delightful group of women.

We laughed, we ate, we petted dogs and talked about kids.

It was fabulous and I will never forget having the opportunity to do that.

This is the group. It is amazing whenever Southern Plate Family members get together how much we all have in common. It really is like family. They were so gracious and I have never felt so welcome! (Oh and I realized this morning that I forgot to apologize for crashing their party!)

Everyone made a dish from the cookbook and they all knew the stories that went along with the different dishes, too! There was crunchy beef casserole, deviled eggs, cheesy hash brown casserole, hoe cake, chicken stew, blackberry cobbler, cranberry banana bread, Miss Millie’s cole slaw, and I made fire and ice salad. I gotta tell ya, my recipes have never tasted so good!

I love Jennifer’s kitchen and oh her dishes were just beautiful! I fantasize about being as clean, organized, and decorated as she is!

This is the first book I got to sign. It was so nice of them to let me do this!

We ended up talking and visiting til pretty late.

I’m usually in bed by nine and I think it was getting close to eleven before we all cleared out (poor Jennifer!).

This is Judy and I just before she got ready to go.

This is Miss Linda. I ran into her a few weeks ago at the grocery store and she was sweet enough to say hi to me.

She told me about her book club and I had to pretend I didn’t already know about it!

Note: If you ever see me out, please say hi to me! I dearly love getting to meet you.

Okay, this is Kristi and she said the funniest thing! We were joking about how horrendous my handwriting is (it truly is) and how I should have been a doctor. I’d write in a person’s book and then tell them what it says because I don’t know if it is humanly possible to read my writing anyway.

So I was writing in Kristi’s book and she was watching me and I said “I bet you’re wondering what I’m writing here…” She said “Oh no, I can read it perfectly. Of course, I’m a nurse”. LOL

This is Celeste. She is the one who contacted me and told me about the book club.

She also surprised me with the most amazing card I have ever seen. Check this out:

This is the front. It’s me holding the book!!! How stinking CUTE is that???

I can only imagine how much time went into making that! I’m going to put it up in my kitchen but I have to decide how to display it. I’m open for ideas if anyone has any! I’m thinking maybe some type of glass box so you can see all of it? If you have a suggestion please holler at me in the comments section 🙂

This is Jennifer. The book club met in her beautiful home and I am having a bit of corelle envy over these beautiful dessert plates she had.

(it was actually a pattern I had not seen before)

This is the dog whose name I missed because I just kept calling it “The Elvis Dog”. I love this dog. I want this dog. If I had of taken a bigger purse I might have tried to smuggle it out with me. As it is, I forgot my dish at Jennifer’s house so I may use that as my cover to go back and bring the little Elvis dog home with me 🙂

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You know, in my entire life I’d never been to a book club before and now I don’t know why EVERYONE doesn’t have a book club, that was fun! This reminds me of another first in my life.

Until my book came out, I’d never been to a booksigning before either. I remember walking up to the doors of Books A Million in Huntsville, Alabama for my very first book signing and saying to my friend Jyl “Have you ever been to a book signing before?”

Jyl said “Naw, have you?”

I replied “No, reckon how they work?”

Jyl replied as she opened the door “I reckon we’re fixin’ to find out.”

Thank you so much to everyone who allowed me to be a part of your meeting last night. I hope you’ll forgive my enthusiasm, I’m afraid we ended up visiting instead of talking over the book! I will never forget the special memories of getting to be a part of such a great evening and what an honor it is that you all took time out of your wonderfully busy lives to read my book.

Gratefully,

Christy

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