Although I can't imagine anyone who doesn't already know all of this having any interest whatsoever in this blog, which promises to be extremely mundane, here are the basic facts about me for anyone else. I am:
Haley
28 years old
Married to Dan
Native of Mississippi, transplanted to New Mexico
Former full-time newspaper reporter turned freelance writer and stay-at-home mom.
Graduate of Belhaven College, Jackson, Mississippi, English major.

About the blog title: I was born and raised in the great state of Mississippi, and I love it dearly. But you can't stay always in one place, or at least I couldn't, and in 2002 I moved to New Mexico to pursue a career in newspaper reporting. I should say that's all I thought I was doing. As it turned out, I also met the man I married, Dan, and ended up becoming a bona fide New Mexico resident when Dan took a job in Albuquerque. To my great surprise, I really do love it here and I am so thankful for God's provision in my life, which has certainly been more exciting and creative than I imagined when I left home. (Isn't it always?) But living 1500 miles away from family and friends leaves me with plenty of opportunities to miss home and the ability to have those quick, spontaneous conversations that make friendships so enjoyable.
In the last five years, I have become a champion long-distance customer and expect that Sprint and AT&T will be calling me about a corporate sponsorship any minute now. But until then, it occurred to me that a blog might be a nice way to keep people at home and friends elsewhere up to speed on what's going on with me. Not that this is the stuff of action movies, but in reality it's missing out on the little things that makes it so hard to move away. Thus, the title. It's not meant to express any great dissatisfaction with my life as a "Dixie exile" but rather as a way to make me feel a little closer to home, and, hopefully, to make those at home feel a little closer to me; sort of a window into my world.

Warning: The entire first half of this story will feel like one long digression. Stay with me.
After a particularly awful Friday that came at the end of a week when the world seemed to be looking for more and more ways to beat me up, I came home today knowing that at some point in the evening, I was going to cry. Sometimes you have days when it's not so much a matter of if you're going to cry as when you're going to cry. In my job, I sometimes have to write about things that are just unbelievably sad. When I was at my first job, I would frequently break down crying at work over these stories, prompting my editor, a very kind man who, like many men, is totally freaked out by crying women, to say to me "Rice, there is no crying in JOURNALISM!" in imitation of Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own saying "Are you crying? Are you CRYING? There's no crying in baseball!" These days, I am able to keep myself from crying over sad stories most of the time while I am physically in my office. I'm not sure if I'm growing as a professional or if I'm just that hardened after three years of sad stories. But the thing that keeps me from despairing over my jaded soul is that I do still cry. I think if I ever reach the point when I am incapable of feeling pain for someone in pain I will know I have been doing this too long.
So on the Friday evening in question, I came home knowing that a crying jag was going to be a part of the evening. I told Dan that his options were to stay home and watch me cry or go out and do something less depressing. To be truthful, I was not in a frame of mind to be good company. Dan, knowing me like he does and understanding that sometimes the best thing he can do for me is just give me some space and some time, left the house. So it was that I spent a Friday evening with Steel Magnolias, a movie I never watch unless I am in the mood to bawl like a baby. And let me tell you, that is what I did. I am not ashamed to say that by the time Julia Roberts was lying in a coma with Sally Fields by her side, I was on my couch, with one hand in a bag of chocolate and another hand clutching wads of Kleenex, wearing a T-shirt that was drenched from the collar to half-way down the chest with tears. And these were not "Oh, isn't that sad," tears. These were huge, sobbing,snot-dripping-from-your-nose kinds of tears. I am not an attractive movie closeup kind of cryer. When I really get going, my face swells up and gets red and I look just exactly like a tomato for a good twelve hours. But I just didn't care. By the time Julia Roberts was dead and Sally Fields was standing by her grave screaming at her friends, I was just pouring tears. But then, that great Steel Magnolias moment happened, when Sally Fields screams "I just want to hit something! I want to hit someone until they feel as bad as I do!"
And Olympia Dukakis grabs Shirley McLaine and shoves her in front and says "Here! Hit Ouiser! Take a swing, M'lynn! Half the town would give their eye teeth to take a swing at Ouiser!" And everyone laughs, except Shirley McLaine, who looks at Olympia Dukakis and says "You are a pig from hell." And then I laughed and laughed and laughed. And I felt so much better.
So tonight, I thank the Lord for Steel Magnolias. Because sometimes, you just need to cry. But sometimes you need to laugh, too.
What movie can you always count on to make you cry or laugh?

This whole weekend has had a very dramatic feeling to it, perhaps caused by the fact that EVERY WAKING MINUTE of it has been set to the pounding strains of the Star Wars theme music. This is thanks to the release of the trilogy DVD, an event which has thrilled my geek husband to his very soul. He went to Walmart on Friday, supposedly to purchase something like batteries, and came back with the box set. He tried to pass it off like the DVD purchase was an afterthought, something he just picked up, like you do with milk, but I know better. However, he should get credit for the creative explanation he gave for the purchase: "One day, when we have kids, this is one of those movies we can watch with them! It's really clean and it's a great story. They'll love it!" So, really, he didn't buy it for himself, he bought it as a gift for our non-existent children. Uh-huh.
I used to be much cooler than I am now, and I do like Star Wars, really, I do. I saw it for the first time when I was 15 and then I became such a fanatic that at one point in my life, I actually owned a life-sized cardboard Yoda. I think it's still somewhere at my parents' home. I don't think I could ever bring myself to actually throw it away, since my brothers gave it to me, but at a certain age, a three-foot Yoda cutout just no longer goes with the decor. I think for me, that age is 24. For my husband, that age appears to be somewhere between You Can Take My Star Wars Movies When You Pry Them From My Cold Dead Fingers and Never Ever Ever.
At least he'll be a cool dad. If I let him live through Return of the Jedi. Because the MUSIC IS JUST MAKING ME CRAZY!

Start rant:
Maybe I will pull a George Costanza and get a little sleeping nook built under my desk, with an alarm clock and everything. Because between this 45 minute one way commute lifestyle and the news I heard on NPR this morning, that apparently gasoline costs are going to go up again, it is going to cost me more money that I actually make to get to work every day. In fact, I will need the income of a small country to fill up my car, Molly the Malibu. (Yes, my car has a name, doesn't yours?) The only answer I can think of is that I will just start sleeping at the office during the week. That won�t cause any problems at all for the good old marriage, right?
End rant.

I think I probably live in one of the only major cities in the country where on any given day, it�s not that unusual to see a few hot air balloons floating around in the sky early in the morning while you drive to work. But although I see balloons all the time, I�m still slack-jawed at the sight of the sky filled with tens and hundreds of hot air balloons. It�s a very surreal feeling, and even though I know it�s just the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta that Albuquerque hosts every fall, for a minute or two it feels like maybe it�s some kind of very colorful invasion. This year, Dan�s parents are coming out to visit while it�s going on. Dan�s dad is an ex-fighter pilot, so it�s hard to impress him when it comes to flying equipment, but I think anyone would be impressed with the sight of that many balloons. They start launching them every day at sunrise (yes, I will be getting my lazy self out of bed at 4:30 to get on a bus and ride to attend this glorious event.) and there are lots of special shapes and cartoon character balloons, so it�s a lot of fun. Also, you can get every kind of deep-fried food known to man there, including the infamous Fried Snickers and Fried Twinkie. As a disclaimer, I have never actually eaten either one, because I am afraid my arteries would instantly slam shut in response to that much grease, but people eat them by the truckload at the fiesta. We are all about our health food out here. So in the next couple of weeks, if I manage not to drive off the road looking at all the pretty balloons, I�ll try to take some good balloon pictures and post them here. In the meantime, here�s a picture taken of Dan and I at last year�s fiesta. The shapes in the background are the balloons getting blown up before they launch.