Savannah and South magazine mourn the loss of a dear friend

Jay Hiers today. Our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family.

It’s the perfect time of year to get outside, and the Bamboo Farm & Coastal Gardens couldn’t be a better place to be. Stan Gray’s iris collection is on display, the U-Pick Strawberry Field is open and a Sunday Supper in the Strawberry Patch is just around the corner.

Spring is upon us, the weather is beautiful, and it is time to get out doors and take advantage of it.  Why not ditch the gym for the next few months and use your City for some stellar workouts?  You have no idea what kind of fun things you can do around town that will not only challenge you physically, but change up the old routine (or maybe even get you into a routine, period) and re-motivate you to firm up for the skimpy days of summer just around the corner. 

Last March, Beth Scoggin was officially crowned the 2011 Miss Savannah Harley-Davidson. She went up against twenty-four other ladies in swimwear and “harley-wear” for a variety of prizes, including a spot in the Harley-Davidson St. Patty’s Day float. All proceeds from this event benefited the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

The word Sartorial by definition means “of or pertaining to clothing or style or manner of dress.” Scott Schuman, the photographer who has named himself the Sartorialist, took this idea and created what is now a world-renowned street style blog that is highly influential and has set the bar for fashion photography. South sat down with Scott Schuman and spoke about his inspirations, his appearance at the upcoming SCAD Style, and what ideas he wants to project to the upcoming fashion industry:

What started as a grassroots movement has grown into an international day of celebration and awareness, especially here in the Hostess City. This Saturday, Savannah celebrates Earth Day in Forsyth Park with the 14th annual Earth Day Festival. The 2011 theme of “Save, Recycle, Grow” is meant to encourage the community to reuse and reduce waste. With more than 100 exhibitors, the day will be filled with activities and information to help address the environmental needs of Savannah.

It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t really get the hang of this mother business until the day I gave birth to my fifth (yes, fifth) child.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, crammed in a dark place like a parcel I didn’t want but couldn’t get rid of, was the thought that something bigger and better was going to happen to me one day. I could not say this out loud even to myself because I knew a good mother would never, ever feel this sense of “The best is yet to come.” Good mothers count their blessings while they stir the macaroni and cheese. Good mothers say things like, “I looked into my infant’s eyes and just knew this is what I’d been born to do.”

My confession may surprise many people—even those closest to me—because I’ve always done a darn good job of feeding, clothing, and encouraging my kids. From the first positive pregnancy test, I have loved them desperately and sacrificed a lot for them. I just didn’t do all of that with ease or the confidence that motherhood was my calling. Deep down I thought I was biding time until my other, real-er calling came along.

Then January 20, 2005, happened to me.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I thought as I awoke abruptly a little after 5 a.m. I knew immediately that labor had started but I was unwilling to accept it being six days early. “Maybe if I lie very still and go back to sleep it will stop,” I told myself. But I wasn’t very convincing. The big problem wasn’t having the baby early. The big problem was that my husband, an Army major, was still sitting in Iraq. His due date to return was in two days. Why couldn’t he be the one arriving early?!

Only he wasn’t and the contractions were not stopping. So I got out of bed in the January darkness and took a shower. “Might as well shave my legs,” I muttered. It wasn’t easy given my size and the recurring contractions, but at least I could have control over something. Nothing else was cooperating with my plan, that was for sure.

Thankfully my mom had arrived to help a few days before. The older children (none of whom, by the way, were born before the due date) were still sleeping when she came downstairs and found me sitting dressed at the table writing a list of phone numbers and instructions. I was so certain this baby would not arrive before his daddy’s homecoming that I had not bothered to prepare much at all. I tried to convince my mom that I could easily drive the 10 miles to the hospital and just have this baby while she stayed home and made breakfast for the big kids. She rolled her eyes and went to get dressed while I called a friend to come over and baby-sit.

I woke the oldest child, age 12, and told her I’d be busy all day at the hospital giving birth to her youngest brother. “I thought Daddy was coming home first,” she said while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “I know, me too,” I said. “Just roll with it.”

After an unsuccessful attempt to get my mom to let me drive, we pulled out into the dark and stormy morning. As further proof of my yawning approach to preparing for this thing, we had not made a dry run to the unfamiliar hospital. At that hour all the streets looked the same. After a couple of wrong turns, and an increasingly frantic grandmother, we made it to the hospital.

In a freak of military nature, we were stationed in the same small Bavarian town where we’d lived 12 years before. Odder still was that my doctor happened to be the same one who delivered our first baby all those years ago. He was even more surprised to see me than I was to see him. But before I got to see him on that particular morning, I had to get past the German nurses. None of whom spoke great English. And my patchy German was limited more to “How much does this cost?” and “I’d like some more schnitzel, please,” rather than, “Could we talk about pain meds?”

Fortunately childbirth is an international language and the medical personnel soon had me hooked up to various machines and getting ready to head to the labor and delivery room. That’s about the time I looked at my mother and thought, for the second time that day, “You have got to be kidding.”

I adore my mom. We are so close that we talk almost daily and she is the first person I call for advice on pretty much everything. But I really, really did not want to give birth in front of her. (Frankly, I’d rather give birth with no one at all in the room except the father. But since he is a lawyer instead of an ob/gyn I had accepted the need for one doctor and perhaps a nurse to be present. But I still didn’t like it.) And now my mother—my mother!—was in the room. I reminded myself that many women I know seem to think the more people crowded into the delivery room, the more fun it is for everyone.

About this time the head nurse brought me a cordless phone. On the other end, far away in the desert, was an increasingly frantic daddy. There wasn’t much to say except, “Can you believe this? Me either!” Once he was reassured that I was okay, my husband’s primary concern was that we had yet to decide upon a name. “Okay,” I breathed through a contraction. “Let’s narrow it down to Benjamin or Samuel since we both like those names.” I may or may not have actually said, “You decide,” before we were disconnected. But by the time he got through again at the end of the day, the rest of us had determined the new kid was clearly a Samuel. I tried not to giggle when the first thing his father said was, “I’ve made up my mind…he should definitely be Benjamin.” I may or may not have actually said, “Had you been on the same continent, your vote would have counted.”

And then finally the day was over, the drama shared around the world, and it was just me and the new little one in a cozy hospital room. I don’t know why my epiphany occurred just at that moment. But as I stared at that sleeping baby bundled with fists to cheeks in his bassinet, I was somehow allowed the briefest moment to flip ahead in my personal story and get a look at what is to come. I saw clearly that there is a corner which I will turn after these stressful, busy days of motherhood to the small. There will come calmer days than those I have now as a Soldier’s wife. At some point I will have a regular bedtime and even a career to call my own. And these things will be wonderful. They will be very, very different from what I am doing now. But here is the revelation—in no way will they be bigger or better or real-er.

Biggest and best is the calling to create this family where laughter meets sadness head on. Where we feel the strength of our bond even if it is stretched across miles and oceans that separate us. Where these five little people will grow up realizing that they are enough. Enough for me to slip comfortably into this place where I still don’t like macaroni and cheese, yet I thoroughly enjoy the pleasure of counting my blessings. That’s what all of us good mothers do.

If you’re like me, the act of cooking falls somewhere between a science and an art. While partly based on intuition and instinct, it also requires a certain proficiency and practice. Chef Roberto Leoci, of Leoci’s Trattoria, is a master at balancing both sides of cooking and knows how to turn a meal into an culinary experience. On Sunday, April 17th, he opened a side of his restaurant that you’ve never seen before. The chef hosted a Pizza Camp to demonstrate how to make one of his signature creations.

Here in the South, we take our shrimp seriously, and I personally think shrimp are the delicacies of the sea. Incredibly versatile, you can cook and eat them in a myriad of ways, from ceviche and casseroles to sushi and tacos. My family sometimes just boils them with water and salt, and we have a contest to see who can peel and eat them the fastest.

E-junk piling up around your office? Used cds popping out of drawers? Where do you take all that crud? The good news is there are many resources locally available to help you get rid of random cables, old dvds, and burned out compact fluorescent light bulbs.