Confessions of an Okie

Remembering....

2011-09-11T20:37:00.000-05:00

Ten years ago, I actually got to sit down with a cup of coffee, turn on the tv and watch a little 'Good Morning America'. Usually, the tv was being used during the early morning to watch Dora, the Explorer or some other PBS or Disney show. My kids were 5 and 3 and they liked their morning programs...but for some strange reason, that morning, they had quickly eaten their breakfasts and run off to play.

I was actually excited to sit for a few minutes...until I turned on the tv. It seems a plane had hit a building in New York and there was chaos on the television. No one seemed to have any information...and I and the entire world then looked on in shock as a second plane hit the other tower. We all knew then that it wasn't some terrible accident, we knew that it had been orchestrated but we didn't know by who. In that moment of horror, my thoughts went to my husband, he was at work. If we were being attached, he needed to know. I called his place of work and quickly told them to turn on a television.

In the hours that followed, I tried to maintain a normalcy for my kids. I took my son to his violin lessons that morning, stopping to get gasoline. The line was so long, I guess everyone needed to do something so filling up their tanks seemed like something rather than nothing. I was also told that the local blood bank had a line as well.

We, in the fly-over states, felt so helpless to help those who were hurting. We didn't know what to do or say so giving blood seemed like something. Our lives changed forever that morning. Oklahomans knew that feeling. After the Oklahoma City bombings, we had our innocence taken in a way that only terrorism can. We realized that no one is safe, that in an instant, our lives can take a turn that we can't control.

But we also realized that we can survive and thrive. I see that now. We are Americans, we have always risen from adversity and we will continue to do so. I am proud to be an American. I am proud of the sacrifices that others have made for me and my family.

Try, try again....garden!

2011-08-20T12:26:00.000-05:00

Well, we got some rain last week. First time in over a month and now they are finally going to take us off the burn ban! We also, for the first time in a long time, went for a few days without going over 100 degrees! I was so happy to see clouds!

I've had nothing much in the garden this summer....it was too hot to set tomato fruit or anything else so I had just a few piddly tomatoes, a few cucumbers, no peppers and not much else. We certainly would be hungry if the family was relying on my garden! I have had enough okra and eggplant to do a batch about once a week....nothing to write home about this year!

Fall is going to be better...I keep telling myself that. Ok, I'm an Oklahoma State fan, we're used to looking forward to a better 'next' season! I went out today and replanted cucumbers and swiss chard...still too hot to plant spinach, lettuce or turnips. I also planted some little gourds, maybe I'll have some for Halloween and Thanksgiving...

That's the thing about gardens, if you fail one season, there is always another season right around the corner!

School Starts Tomorrow!

2011-08-17T19:51:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow this time, I'll be the mom of a ninth grader and eighth grader. don't know if I'm ready to tell you the truth. As a high school teacher myself and a ninth grade teacher for more years than I want to say....it scares the soup out of. He's now playing for all the marbles. Mistakes cost a lot! Mistakes can sidetrack your entire life....I don't know if he's ready...

I'm sure he'll be fine, I just worry...

Tomorrow is supposed to be almost 100 degrees again. We broke last week after over a month of over 100 degree weather. My garden is toasted but there are signs of life now that we got about 5 inches of rain last week and even a day that didn't hit 90! I honestly was getting worried about large shrubs, we were so dry! I am just thankful that we don't have to live this winter of off what I've grown this summer....very few blackberries, very few tomatoes, peppers, anything else!

Hopefully, my fall garden will be better than this summer garden. I pulled most of it a few weeks ago and put it out of it misery.

Now back to worrying about tomorrow! First day of school...SCARY!!!!!

Getting Ready...

2011-08-10T09:04:00.000-05:00

School's starting around here in the next few weeks. I'm ready. It's too hot to do anything else, I'm tired of having so much fun....I'm tired! We need to get back into a routine at my house. The month of July, I usually stop making meal plans and we just fly by the seat of my pants. The kids are running all over, I never know who will be here for dinner or lunch for that matter. I could be cooking for two or twelve. The pool is overflowing with teenagers and that's ok with me!

But about the first of August, I begin to yearn for normal. I printed out four months of meal planner calendars yesterday and today, I'm filling August completely up using my stockpile in the freezer and pantry. I've started penciling in kid cooking nights. This year, each child will be cooking at least once a week, using pantry items. This keeps them from coming up at the last minute with strange items that I have to buy last minute at full price.

My daughter cooked penne pasta with tomato sauce and fruit salad on Monday, my son will be making Hamburger Helper. He is not happy about participating in this exercise. I don't care, I want him to learn basic cooking....he says he already knows...we'll see!

Gardens dead...so is everything else..

2011-08-05T08:57:00.000-05:00

I am so very thankful that we will not have to rely on what I'm growing this year for our winter's bounty. Claremore hit 115 yesterday and the last rain, even a few drops, came at least a month ago. I have been carefully watering young trees, shrubs, perennials and my fruit plants. Today, many communities have started water rationing and threatening rolling blackouts on electricity if we all don't cut back. I desperately don't want a ban on outside watering!

We have an in-ground pool....it's over 90 degrees in the pool...so it's not really refreshing. I've told my husband and kids if we go on water rationing, the pool will be drained to save the trees and plants. It's really getting bad, as bad as I've ever seen it. I keep praying and praying for rain and fall....and football season!

In Oklahoma, football season is an exciting time. Mostly because it's the beginning of fall, and the end of hot, hot, dry, dry weather! The entire state is waiting on football! and a hurricane, which is what the weather people say is the only thing that will break our drought...so while those on the coast pray for no hurricanes, we, in Oklahoma know it's the only thing that will save crops and animals.

I guess what they say is true, one man's misfortune is another man's misfortune.......

Checking in...

2011-07-23T12:37:00.000-05:00

Wow! It's been almost a month since I've last posted! I've been so busy going, going, and going that I have forgotten to type anything. We spent almost two weeks in the great state of Washington...see the pic above. It was glorious! I took that pic while standing on the northwesternmost tip of the continental US.

I often wonder why people are so in a hurry to leave our continent to explore. I am 44 years old and still haven't been and seen everything here yet! I'm pretty sure once I do see it all, I'll need to turn around and do it over again as I will have forgotten half of it!

Summer is here in Oklahoma for the duration. I'm trying hard to keep a few things alive around my yard. I will be yanking most of my garden up in a week, once I get back from summer church camp, because we are so dry and hot that nothing is producing. I'm so very glad that my family does not rely one hundred percent on my produce for it's winter sustenance or we would be very hungry this winter! I have nothing producing except eggplant, lots and lots of eggplant! We've had it fried, sauteed, in pasta dishes and grilled. I'm thinking that once summer is over, no one will want an eggplant for a while!

I'm truly hoping that after church camp, I'll start getting better about posting. It will be the first of August, time to get started settling down for school. I'll try to get everyone back into some routine because we certainly have not been on one this summer. I'll also be starting meal planning and big batch cooking again. I've taken the month off since we have been gone so much!

I'm kind of looking forward to August to tell you the truth. I like order and summer is definitely order around here! Everyday is different, everyday ends differently. I never know who will be here and when. Yep, I'm looking forward to August!

My Thoughts on Freedom

2011-07-04T07:30:00.000-05:00

As we celebrate the Fourth of July this year, I look back at my past year and reflect. I hope I have gathered a greater understanding of freedom this year with a few of the activities I have been involved in and really want to remember those lessons into the next year.

As we all here in the good old USA start our grills and drag out our fireworks and red, white and blue t-shirts, I want to remember that the freedoms we enjoy as citizens have never been 'free'! The rights we enjoy as citizens were fought and paid for by our forefathers and mothers sacrifices. Sacrifices that, I'm sure, were giving freely but not without pain. Sacrifices that required giving to others, others they surely did not know or hope to know.

Looking across the nation today, I'm not struck by sacrifice and service but instead by selfishness and wanting to be served by a government who has allowed itself to grow to big to really be 'of service' to anyone. A government who only lives to grow larger on the backs of it's citizens. It is egged on by a public who wants it all, thinks they deserve it all, and wants to take it away from someone else.

Over the last year, I have had the privilege to help and serve numerous people. No, I didn't serve in the military, no I didn't go fight a war...the last time I checked middle-aged women were not allowed in either! He! he! I may not have done big things to ensure our freedom but I hope to think my little acts of service and sacrifice helped shape our future generations to look outside of themselves and past tomorrow.

I think our country is at a crossroads this summer of 2011. Do we continue to allow our leaders to herd us down a direction that is counter to what most of us Americans know is right or do we exercise our 'rights' as citizens and change the course of our destiny by not being afraid of standing up and saying 'enough!' I pray that we stand up and say 'enough' to our leaders.

Moving forward will require sacrifice and selfishness. It will require us to do things that are hard and are not necessarily 'fun'. It will require saying 'no' sometimes to those with their hands out and some of those hands will be our own! We are used to 'having it all and having it now'. It's time to be grown-ups. It's time to do the hard work and stop blaming everyone else for our problems. We are the grown-ups.....It's time we act responsibly and do the right thing for ourselves, our children and our world.....

We need to be the USA! We've never wanted to be anyone else....why stop now?

Red, HOT and Blue!

2011-07-02T08:30:00.000-05:00

Remind me again why July fourth has to be so stinking hot each year? I remember when I was a kid, I didn't do too many firecrackers because it was just too hot to stand out in the sun...I mean really, you can only blow up so many ant holes and then you start suffering from delirium from the heat!

We are planning to attend a friend's cookout again this year and luckily, they also have a pool. That will at least keep the kids happy...you know when it's too hot to swim, it's hot!

I've been charged with bringing chips and salsa again this year. Apparently, it was such a hit last year that I'm a repeat! I always laugh when someone asks me to bring the same thing over and over again. I have friends that I do the same thing to because I enjoy something they make. I guess I should only be worried when someone asks me NOT to bring what I brought last time! We used to laugh at school and say we were going to have a carry in dinner and tell everyone what they had to bring...we would take votes of everyone's favorite dish that each person made. It would have made an interesting dinner!

I'm usually the salad lady. I love salads and so my salads are pretty creative...oftentimes, people think of a salad as an afterthought but I love making and trying new and creative salads. Plus, for me, they are usually a quick and easy way to make a one dish meal and at this stage of my life, that's important!

As you celebrate our country's birth this weekend, think of all those who have given up to gain our freedom. There are thousands serving our country even now, giving up their 'weekend off' serving in far-away lands. I'm hoping that 2011 will be the year we begin to bring our troops home! Personally, I'm getting tired of paying with American lives...well I won't go into that now!

I support our troops and love the United States!

Simple Seafood suppers

2011-07-01T09:31:00.000-05:00

It's only going to be 104 degrees farenheit today in Oklahoma so cooking has kind of stopped being a priority. I'm looking for easy, quick and cool to prepare foods for a family who's appetite is somewhat reduced due to the heat. I have turned to seafood and salads.

So far this week, we've had a cold tortellini salmon salad and a hot pasta with shrimp and mussels. Both were hits with the family, both took less than 30 minutes to put together and neither needed a recipe book! All amounts are for my family of four...no one is a small eater!

Cold torellini salmon salad
3 small salmon fillets - I cooked these in the microwave with lemon pepper and then placed in the fridge to cool them
1bag of frozen tortellini - cook according to directions
1 cup mixed veggies - I used frozen, place in the colander that you are going to drain the pasta in, the hot water from the pasta will cook and steam the veggies until just tender, exactly what you need for a cold pasta dish!
Italian dressing to taste
I cooked the salmon, tortellini and veggies, tossed it all together and added the dressing and then put in the fridge for an hour. I served this with bread and brushetta! Easy dinner

Mussels, Shrimp and Pasta
I found a box in my seafood area of my local grocery store called Steamers in 5 mediterranean mussels in sundried tomatoes. You just poke a hole in the plastic cover and microwave for 5 minutes. Perfectly steamed mussels in a very good light sauce!
I put about 1/4 cup butter in a skillet and added some already cooked shrimp and then the mussels and sauce and then added cooked pasta. I served this with a green salad.
I have to say the presentation on this dish was amazing! It looked very similar to a dish I had seen in San Fransisco and the entire meal cost less for my family than the one dish was in San Fran!

Both of these dishes were hits at my house! It's challenging to come up with light simple meals when the weather turns this hot.....we sometimes just eat a fresh veggie meal when sweet corn is in season but this year, my daughter is in braces so I have to cut the corn off the cob for her...that makes it more difficult! Oh well, she'll be out next year so we'll be eating sweet corn off the cob again!

Too hot to cook!

2011-06-28T16:54:00.000-05:00

Well, we've had a hot spell in Oklahoma and it looks like we're in for a long, hot spell! I'm glad I've got my watering systems running so I don't have to constantly drag hoses all over....now I just have to water the potted plants every night! I set my zones on timers to come on early morning and water so I don't have too. It saves me so much time and my plants and garden thanks me!

Looks like it is going to be a lean tomato year this year because of the heat. When the nights are over 85 degrees, tomatoes don't set fruit well. I have about 15 tomatoes on 20 plants! Not good odds but nothing I can do. My okra is going great though and my eggplant likes hot weather also!

When the days get over 100 degrees, I really have a hard time getting motivated to cook. I hosted families from England and Australia last weekend and cooked for 13. I had work ladies and kids over Monday and made lunch for 12. I'm kind of burned out now. It's too hot to cook so I look for easy no-cook or low cook meals. Salads and sandwiches fit the bill. I absolutely refuse to turn on the oven...not so with my son. He's on the bad list right now because I came home and he had cooked a frozen pizza in the oven so the air conditioner is running! We have a convection oven! USE IT!!!!!

He also is on the bad list because all his and his buddies dirty dishes are all over.....that will be remedied soon.
I don't clean up after him, he's almost 15, he knows where the dishwasher is!

Back to dinner, tonight, we are having a chilled pasta salad. I've got some leftover crab salad from the luncheon so I'm going to toss it with cooked rotini pasta and add a light ranch dressing. I've got cucumbers from the garden and I'm calling it dinner!

Tomorrow night, we're having grilled chicken taco salad. I grilled extra chicken on Saturday so I have plenty in the freezer for at least three or four meals. It really does get too hot to grill in Oklahoma! I usually grill early in the day from now until about mid-September....I get tired of my face melting off standing over that hot grill!

Almost back to normal...

2011-06-23T19:54:00.000-05:00

Well, the house is quiet again. One child is home from camp, the other comes home tomorrow. We've had a steady stream of company since June 10th! It's been wild around here!

I got to visit with my best friend, she came down for a few days while my kids were at camp. My husband would have gone out of town for the duration but I think he promised the other husband and that he would stay and 'supervise'! We're kind of like Lucy and Ethel....you just never know what we'll do! We did lay out in the sun by the pool and burned our bods...one would think that two middle aged women, with college educations and kids would have better sense than to lay out all day! Oh no! We burned ourselves to crisps! But it was a fun, fun day...no kids to bother us, no snacks or lunches to make, no laundry....just us laying out. On second thought, it might have been better had we gotten up a few times!

My daughter came home from working at camp this week. She was a server and she's oh so tired tonight. I was proud of her because even though the teens 'in charge' of the group turned out to be really bad at being in charge, she took it like a Christian lady....her mother would probably not have taken it with as much grace. She can teach me a lot sometimes.

My son comes home tomorrow from a leadership camp. I've been praying that he learns and grows a lot. I am anxious to hear about his time....I've only spoken to him once the entire week and that's because I called yesterday to make sure he was still alive! I guess it's a good thing, no news is good news at camp! My daughter called several times to have someone to gripe too....she didn't want anyone at camp to know what a rotten time she was having. She finally did start having a better time when she stopped worrying about trying to be perfect and just do her best.

This weekend will be wild and then hopefully, all will settle down! I'm hosting families from three different continents this weekend, malaysia, austrailia, and england! I'm cooking good-old American fare, that's what was requested. My menu will be a fusion of several types of dishes....appetizer is chips and homemade salsa, main dish, grilled chicken with pasta with vodka cream sauce, brushetta and bread, green beans, sliced cucumbers and a green salad. I'm making hummingbird cake and tiramisu for desserts. I'll be sharing some of the recipes this next week!

Busy, busy, busy!

2011-06-15T21:47:00.000-05:00

Sorry I'm not posting this week! We've had company since last friday night and I'm so busy entertaining that I can't get anything posted! I'll catch up next week, I promise!

It's amazing when you look at your town as a tourist, there are so many fun and interesting things to do around my town! Try looking around your own town through a tourists eyes! You may decide that 'staycation' isn't going to be so bad. Something I'm trying to do is not do my normal cleaning chores this week. If I was staying at a rental house, I wouldn't feel like I needed to wash the windows or sweep the floor constantly....so I'm not feeling bad this week if a little dust builds up or the bathroom mirror has a little toothpaste spit on it....so what, I can clean next week when the guests are gone!

I'm not going to Martha this up! I'm going to be Mary a little! I'll catch you all next week!

Deal on Bananas....

2011-06-11T08:30:00.002-05:00

Got a big bag of bananas today at the grocery store for $1.49. I love when I can get that bargain! This means banana bread! I recently made a couple of loaves and they were gone almost before they came out of the oven...my daughter and husband almost came to a wrestling match! This time, I baked a couple of loaves for the company we're having this next week. I'm going to wrap it and store it in the downstairs fridge so no one will eat it!

I had a bunch of leftover bananas even after baking two loaves. I peeled them, cut them into thirds, put the over ripe ones in a freezer bag for future bread and smoothies and then dipped the rest in chocolate that I bought after easter! They are in the freezer for tonight after the pool!

Here's my recipe for banana bread. I've used this recipe for 20 years. Got the recipe from the Thomas family recipe book my mom gave me in 1988 for Christmas. Must have been a fund-raiser book, I enjoy it and use it a lot!

Banana Bread
Sift Together:
1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix together:
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs (one at a time)
1/3 cup shortening/butter
1/2 cup chopped nuts - I use pecans
2-3 cups (1 cup) mashed bananas

Add dry ingredients and pour in 1 greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 55 minutes. I double and make 2 loaf pans at one time. Let cool 10 minutes then turn out onto a cooling board.

This bread freezes well. let cool completely before wrapping and freezing

Grilled Veggies...

2011-06-10T07:30:00.002-05:00

This is my favorite new seasoning! Well, it's not new, I've already been through 3 bottles....I guess it's my favorite summer seasoning!

I usually use this on my green salad but I've started using it on my grilled veggies and it is sooooo good!

Grilled veggies

Yellow squash, zuchinni, potatoes- white or sweet, carrots, green beans, eggplant, onion whatever is growing in the garden that needs to be eaten; cut into 2 inch squares or 1/2 inch slices.

Chop the veggies and place on heavy duty aluminum foil that has been sprayed with no-stick cooking spray or drizzled with olive oil. Sprinkle with Cavender's greek seasoning(salt-free) and chopped garlic. You can add extra fresh basil or parsley. Seal up with another aluminum foil sheet. Place on hot grill for 10 minutes, flip and cook another 5 minutes. Remove from grill and carefully open packet to check for doneness. I will sometimes, put the foil packet back on the grill if it needs a few minutes to cook or open it up and cook it while my meat is cooking so the veggies get more oven baked instead of steamed.

Serve with more of the seasoning....oh it is so good. make sure you cook extra, a fritata using this veggie combination makes for an easy weeknight meal!

Homemade Salsa

2011-06-09T14:18:00.000-05:00

My local grocery store had good looking tomatoes for a dollar a pound this week....I'm thinking homemade salsa! We love it and it's so healthy made at home! My kids will definitely get their five servings of veggies when homemade salsa is around.

I use about 5 pounds of tomatoes when I whip up a batch because usually, I end up sharing with others. This is one of those recipes that you add as much as you like to your taste recipes. I'll just give you the basics.

Chopped tomatoes. I use about 5 pounds but you can use as many or as little as you can use. I usually hand chop but you can use a food processor if you promise not to pulverize them!

One can- diced tomatoes - put the contents (not the can! I'm being silly today!) in a blender, not a food processor. don't ask me why but a food processor just doesn't seem to work as well. you'll have to ask a food engineer to explain the difference, school is out for me! Blend until chunky.

Chop 1-2 onions, I use a sweet white onion this time of year. I also will chop a few green onions so it is pretty. Add to the tomatoes to taste.

Chop red/yellow/orange peppers - add to taste, for my 5 pounds, that's one pepper each.

Chop cilantro, garlic and add to taste. For my 5 pounds, about 1/2 cup cilantro, 1/4 cup garlic.

at least one jalapeno pepper/serano/your pepper of choice - I will add a little and wait a couple of hours before adding more. Each pepper will be uniquely hot so don't assume what you added last time will be the same this go around.....experience speaking!

cumin, for 5 pounds of tomatoes, about 1-2 tablespoons
Lemon juice, 1/2 cup for 5 pounds of tomatoes
add salt to taste or diet preference.

Mix all together and let sit for a couple of hours before adding extra pepper, spices. This tends to get better as time goes on!

I have frozen this before in freezer containers and just added a green onion once it's thawed. It's not fresh salsa but it's pretty close in December! I usually can't keep it around that long though.....

One Crust Blueberry Pie

2011-06-07T08:30:00.000-05:00

I love this recipe! I took it from a pick your own website. I adapted it a bit for me but I usually do! I also use the basic recipe with blackberries but add a bit more sugar! I like that it only has a bottom crust, I'm not a fan of crust, I like a brown sugar topping instead.

One Crust Blueberry Pie

one pie crust, you'll need a deep dish pie pan; many recipes for pie crust out there....I use pillsbury already pie crust...I hate making pie crust!
5-6 cups frozen blueberries; put blueberries in a colander, run warm water over them to thaw and let sit to drain
mix together; 2/3 cups granulated sugar and 7 Tablespoons plus 2 T tapioca (omit if you use fresh blueberries); 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Add to the dry mixture:
2 Tablespoons lemon juice and 3 Tablespoons grape juice or other dark juice - cherry, pomegranete, etc.
Place drained berries into prepared pie shell and pour mixture over.
Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour (can be whole wheat)
1/4 cup butter, slightly softened
Mix these three ingredients by cutting butter into the sugar and flour until it resembles coarse crumbs. I use my kitchen shears to cut the butter!

Sprinkle the topping on top of the pie.
Bake at 375 degrees for about an hour until the crust is golden.
Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and you're family will love you for at least a day!

PS- there will be no leftovers, if there are by chance, cover loosely and store in your fridge....you're husband will eat the last piece the next morning for breakfast with yogurt and call it fruit and yogurt!

Summer cooking...

2011-06-06T08:08:00.000-05:00

It's always a party at my house in the summer...I'm either cleaning up from a party or preparing for a party! Summertime means living easy....at least that's what someone said...it must have been a man because I never seem to be living easy! I love to entertain, I feel that it's serving someone else to entertain and I love when my kids or my husband invites someone to share our home. I am just feeling a little overwhelmed after this week!

We have hosted someone or a bunch of someones the last three weekends. This weekend, I cooked big meals on both friday and saturday nights. Sunday, I declared a day of rest and leftovers....so after church, we headed to my favorite mexican restaurant and then had leftovers for dinner; remember to always cook more than you'll eat on the grill! I did make a blueberry pie for my father-in-laws birthday.....I guess I just can't stop myself!

Grilling played a big part in the meals and my husband is not the grill king. His family never grilled...I mean never. My family, on the other hand, would grill everything they could! So---when grilling season hits, and that's pretty much year round in Oklahoma, I hit the grill! Since it's been over ninety-five degrees this week, I grill while I'm hot and sweaty and then put the meat in the crockpot until I'm ready to serve it. That way, I can shower and change before the company arrives! I marinated chicken for one night and port tenderloin the next. I used the same Okie marinade I've posted on here...it works for chicken , pork or steak. I then put the cooked meat in the crockpot with a liner(no clean-up at midnight), and pour a little pineapple juice and soy sauce over the meat and lay fresh pineapple slices on top. Keeping the crockpot set on warm ensures that the meat stays hot but doesn't overcook.

This allows me to time everything a bit easier...I hate to be waiting on the meat or forget the meat and have charcoal.. Kate loves it, me...not so much!

Speaking of Miss Kate, she's the best dog in the world! I went out to start and clean the grill and carried out my tenderloins. I started, cleaned and started back in the house to get my grill tongs. As an afterthought, I called back, 'do not get that meat!'. My husband was coming into the kitchen and stood off watching this scene. He said, 'you realize you just told a dog not to eat something?' 'Yes, I replied, she won't eat it, she knows that she'll get a bite after it's cooked. He laughed and laughed and said he'd run into town later to get me more meat.....she didn't eat it! He couldn't believe it! I told you she's the best dog in the world....she likes the scraps mixed into her nightly food...she's a food snob, what can I say?

I'll post my recipe for blueberry pie tomorrow!

Remembering....

2011-05-30T09:03:00.001-05:00

Today is Memorial Day so like many in the United States, we all have the day off! Many in Oklahoma still call it Decoration Day, most of us also decorate graves. I didn't go this year but both sides of the family decorated graves of all the grandparents. My grandparents are buried within a mile in the same town, one set in the National Cemetery, my grandfather was in the navy, and one set in the town cemetery. My husbands grandparents are buried in the same cemetery, out in the middle of nowhere. Many people in Oklahoma decorate graves and have family reunions this weekend.

We decided, well I decided at least, that last night, we'd take a picnic and go to the lake in town. Our little Claremore Lake is quite a jewel for our town. It is so pretty and well taken care of. The town has built a walking path around it and is is clean and nice to walk in the evening. It is usually very busy with families, both old and young, taking advantage of the pretty view and level paths. We stopped and bought some chicken to round out the meal of baked beans and oriental slaw that I made.

The kids took their bikes and after eating, they took off on their bikes while hubby and I walked around the lake taking in the scenery. After my son and daughter had a falling out over a bike chain, she started walking with us. I had splurged on some store bought cookies for our picnic and we were talking about the kind I bought. They are iced oatmeal, my husbands favorite store bought cookies. My daughter started talking about them.....

'We always had those cookies at night before bed. You would put three on each plate and we had a glass of milk. Dad would bring the plates and set them on our tv trays and we could watch cartoons for thirty minutes. Oh yeah, you'd sing some song about milk and cookies! After we finished watching our cartoons, it was time for bed. You'd either read to me or dad would read to me and the other one would read to bubby.'

It amazed me that she would remember something so normal. This was not a big, fancy vacation or a monumental moment in her life....this was just normal life. She gave me a great look into what she would remember about her childhood, what she would take on with her when she became a mother. Milk and cookies, cartoons and books before bed.....it seemed like such a simple thing back then....I didn't realize it would make into big time memories!

Party Weekend...

2011-05-28T19:43:00.000-05:00

Well school is now out for everyone in the family! I'm so happy! No longer are we tied to a rigid schedule of getting up at 6:30am! Now, if I so chose, I can sleep in to 7:30am and sit for a bit with my coffee and newspaper before starting work!

Yes, I'm working during the summer but it's not normal school stuff. We're meeting and getting policies in place for fall. Not dealing with the grind of grading and calling and grading and calling. It will be refreshing to be doing something different! Plus, letting me sleep in until 7:30 each day feels like vacation time to me!

This memorial day weekend, my thoughts go to all my former students around the world that are working hard to keep me safe. I literally have students scattered across almost every continent in the military. I am thankful for their sacrifice and the sacrifice of every man and woman now and in the past that have served my country so faithfully. It takes a very special person and a very special family to be a military family.

We, in my family, have two birthdays this weekend. Mine is the 30th and my niece's in the 31st. She was born when I was forty. I decided that I wouldn't celebrate mine anymore in deference to her birthday....didn't want to steal her thunder! He! he! She sure gets more excited than I do for another birthday to roll around that's for sure.

We've partied with her today. Tomorrow is church and then Monday is my birthday. I've asked for a clothesline...yes, a clothesline. With a pool, summer is one long towel washing after another. They bought me a folding clothesline several years ago...it's still in the barn because we couldn't decide on a place to put it, well, I had a place, hubby wasn't so sure. So it sat in the barn as the towels piled up and up.

So this year, on a big yellow piece of construction paper, stuck on the fridge with yellowstone magnets, I placed my birthday wish list.....#1 Put up my clothesline...#2 a pool lounger...in that order! We'll see what I actually get....something tells me that I'll be lounging at the pool and the towels will keep piling up! Well, I have a post hole digger and now I have a son big enough to use it! Next week, he'll be digging me a hole!

Big batch cooking day!

2011-05-25T14:15:00.000-05:00

I'm big batch cooking a bit today....we've got a lot coming up and I've just about depleted my store of food in the freezer ready to heat up! Today, I'm cooking about 10 pounds of seasoned ground beef. About half of it will go into one pound freezer bags and one-third will become sloppy joes. The last one-third will be seasoned with taco seasoning because my son his having his big end-of-school year, beginning of summer party friday night!

He's hosting a swim party for the gang of boys at church. Out of about twelve boys, they attend about five-six schools, including three that are home schooled! They are a really great group! I'm having a nacho bar for them. That seems to be a favorite with the boys. I've made the ground beef, bought a couple of BIG bags of chips and am ready to make the nacho dip! I'll also have kidney beans, lettuce, tomato, onion, sour cream and salsa out too and I usually put out a bowl of rice in case someone wants a rice bowl instead of nachos. This is an easy, easy way to throw a party on the cheap because I can buy most of the stuff with coupons on sale and store until the next party.

I'm planning to big batch grilled chicken tomorrow because I used all my frozen grilled chicken last week in salads. When I big batch cook for summer, it usually is just the meat since we eat few casseroles as I do not like to heat up the kitchen with my oven. I'll just grill a bunch of meat and have salads as a quick and easy meal.

Another tip I do for easy, quick summer meals is to wash, dry and tear up my lettuce all at once. It will store quite well in the crisper for at least five days. This way, when you need a quick meal, just thaw out a type of meat, grab the lettuce and you're five-ten minutes from dinner!

We have managed to dodge the major storms that have been hitting Oklahoma and Missouri this week. Last night, I was ready to go. We had the storm closet cleaned out and ready but luckily it was just a drill....I'd like it to stay that way!

Thoughts and prayers go to those we know and those we don't who have lost family and everything they own to this latest round of storms! It's amazing, when we start thinking we're big stuff, a storm comes along and we have to hide in the ground to keep from getting killed....

A Little Glimpse of Heaven...

2011-05-23T13:29:00.000-05:00

My family talked a lot about heaven this weekend. As the end of the world approached Saturday night, I made the family go furniture shopping with the promise of dinner out hanging over their heads. My son only went because he really didn't want to scavage around and find something for himself! My daughter went because she knew I had a coupon to TGIFridays, boy, was that a disappointment! We won't be doing that again!

Anyway, we talked about how if the rapture really did happen right then, would we ever laugh at the fact that the last thing we did on earth was shop for furniture for our earthly home! As I get older, I honestly would like for God to call me home while I'm still walking around here. I also would like it to be sooner rather than later because my own children are still young enough not to have made dangerous and grave choices that I worry about. If God called us home, I would not worry about them anymore! I'm not so sure that's a real good reason to want the rapture to take place but I'm a human mother....what can I say?

My daughter did not want the rapture to take place friday night! She has a long list of things to do before God calls her home! Some of those include: going to Falls Creek, going to high school, going on vacation this summer, etc! I had to laugh because I remember being thirteen and thinking the same exact thing! Oh, how time changes your perspective.

Earlier that saturday morning, I caught a little glimpse of what heaven may be like. It was a beautiful sunny Saturday morning. I was wearing shorts and flip flops and working in my gardens. I always listen to Christian radio because music sticks with me and I tend to sing out loud most of the day so I to imbend in the brain only stuff I won't be embarrassed to sing out loud in front of my kids. I was pruning roses and I caught myself singing a praise song,...don't remember it now...but it was about singing and worshiping God.

I came to the realization that I just might already be in heaven because, here I was, doing something I loved to do even though it was work and I was praising God while I was doing it! As a kid, I sometimes got the idea that heaven would be church all the time. You know, sitting still in the pews and singing hymns - not the most fun by kid standards. As I got older, I began to think that in heaven, we will have jobs but it will be an honor to do them and we'd be singing and praising all day long.....just like I was doing out in my roses!

I do know that I have no idea what heaven will be like.....I do know that if it is even close to last Saturday morning, I'm ready to go today!

It's the End of the world!!!!

2011-05-21T07:07:00.000-05:00

So chicken little is at it again! This time, it's an eighty-something year old man who says the rapture is tonight! Oh, has he mentioned that he miscalculated last time? Yes, there was a last time!

Got me to thinking....what if today really is the last day I have on earth? What would I do differently? Would I still sleep in, work out in the yard, yell at the kids to clean their rooms, etc....or would I get up at the crack of dawn to see the sun rise one last time, make a killer breakfast for my family and spend the day having the time of my life?

I would hope to think I would do the latter. But here's the deal, we don't know if the world will end today. We don't know if we have another breath so we trudge through our days getting things 'done'. We can't live each day like it's our last because for most of us tomorrow will come and things we didn't do today will still need to be done. We have to work to buy food, clothes, shelter....those things to help extend our lives!

I try each day to spend just a few minutes thinking about what 'if', what if I don't wake up tomorrow, what if Jesus comes, what if that car pulls out in front of me? I try to take that moment to think about how my day is going. We all need to savor living a little more in the United States and not worry about getting as much. Being content is something that we need to decide is a way of life. Being content with having a job that pays the bills. Being content in the home we live in and the car we drive. Being first is sometimes not the best. Being content and savoring each day like it is our last......I think that will satisfy us much, much more!

Loving the rain!

2011-05-20T19:16:00.000-05:00

We had rain last night, lovely soaking rain! We need it badly but not as badly as the poor people out in western Oklahoma. It's basically a desert in southwestern Oklahoma, it's been over a hundred days (maybe more) since they've had moisture. In a farming state, that's bad...real bad!

But this morning, they finally had a good soaking rain! Maybe, just maybe, the farmers and ranchers can pull out a growing season. We sometimes forget that we are ultimately still closely tied to nature. We live in air conditioned and heated homes, we travel in a climate controlled vehicles....everywhere we go, we try to control the climate. don't get me wrong! As a perimenopausal woman myself, I am so very thankful for air conditioning! I'm not sure I would be able to make it in this climate without some relief! I am thinking that this summer, I'm just going to wear my swimsuit instead of underwear so when that hot flash hits me, I really can strip off my clothes and jump into the pool!

All that controlling the climate makes us forget that we really can't control anything! We think we have control and then lack of rain reduces the wheat belt of the nation into a desert. We have too much rain in one place causing floods of epic proportions and no rain in other places. We have tornadoes reducing leafy green towns into open fields littered with a lifetime of possessions. We really have such little control as human beings and yet, we think, we do. How very little we really do!

I'm glad for the rain here. It means my gardens will grow lush and green, it means that my veggies will grow and grow and my harvest will be plenty. I'm glad for the rain for my fellow Oklahomans. They needed it worse than me but I'm glad that we both got blessed!

Grilled chicken caesar salad

2011-05-20T19:06:00.000-05:00

So I needed something really quick and fast for dinner. I had a bunch of lettuce, radishes and green onions from the garden so I decided a grilled chicken salad would fit the bill. My son requested that instead of the regular greek salad I do, that I make a caesar salad. I had grilled chicken breasts in the freezer. I always keep them handy for quick meals.

Now I have a lot of salad dressing recipes, from green goddess to the junior league and almost everything in between...didn't have a caesar salad recipe and I was not planning to drive into town for a bottle of salad dressing! I scoured the recipe books...nothing! Not even in the old, old ones!

Here's the website; http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1615,142189-245199,00.html

I doctored it a bit but it was a hit!

CAESAR SALAD DRESSING
Read more about it at www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1615,142189-245199,00.html Content Copyright © 2011 Cooks.com - All rights reserved. 1 cup mayonnaise 1 tbsp lemon juice 1 tsp Worcestershire 1 clove of garlic (minced) 1/4 tsp salt 1/8 tsp pepper 1/2 c Parmesean cheese 1 tbsp of milk or half and half Mix all ingredients together and shake or whisk until well blended. thanks to Shannon for sharing!

I added a little less mayo and a little more lemon juice. I also used fresh parmesean. I was going to use a little anchovie paste but I had used it up a few weeks ago in a puttanesca sauce. Ok, did I just say or type that? I sound like an uppity-food snob! he! he! Anyway, I think it could use a touch of the paste but even without it, it was a quick and easy great tasting dressing.

I'm thinking it would be a great base dressing to add fresh dill or basil or just about any herb for a creamy dressing.
I'll definitely be making and keeping this dressing in my fridge all summer long!

Strawberry Pie! My-Oh-My!

2011-05-18T08:00:00.001-05:00

Here's my recipe for strawberry pie! It's my mom's pie recipe. It's good, it's fresh, it's so, so good! Strawberry pie should not originate in a bag from the produce department! That bag that is gooey, bright red and gross! I have to say that it turns my stomach thinking about those bags laying there!

Try this and you'll never go back to those gooey bags! Make extra because it is so super delicious on waffles and pancakes and over ice cream. I do not put this pie together when it's just the four of us. I make the crust and then when it's time to serve, I cut the crust and place the strawberry mixture into the shell.

Mom's Strawberry Pie

Mix together 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 3 cups sliced strawberries. Let stand one hour.

Mix 1 cup crushed strawberries, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 1/2 T cornstarch and a few drops of red food coloring, optional. Stir and boil until the liquid is clear. Boil a few minutes until it is thickened.
Let cool and mix strawberries into the mixture. Don't put into a cooked pie shell until just before serving.

Okie Dinner

2011-05-17T08:37:00.001-05:00

Sunday started cold around here. In the span of a week, we went from almost ninety highs to around forty lows! Sunday after church, I put on a pot of brown beans for dinner. I figured that it might be the last weekend to eat a big pot of brown beans. I don't like to eat hot food like soups in the summer.

All afternoon, those beans cooked in my crockpot. I had soaked them in boiling water during church so they didn't need to cook too long. I seasoned them with a polska keilbasa, garlic, salt and pepper. I put the sausage on top in the crockpot so they could cook last. After about three hours, I stirred it all up and let it cook another two hours.

I served the family a traditional Okie dinner. The kind of dinner my grandma would have loved. She served brown beans with every meal. I love brown beans! My sister not so much. She told my grandma one time that she was allergic to beans.....it went over until grandma mentioned my sisters allergies to my mom!

Well, I served brown beans, fried potatoes and onions, cornbread, wilted lettuce and strawberry pie! We ate until we were ready to pop! The meal started talk about our relatives that lived during the depression. Both my husband and I had relatives that traveled to California to find work. One of my grandmothers always said they didn't know what a depression was....they were dirt poor before the depression and they were poor after the depression!

It started me to thinking about hunger in America. I'm pretty sure my grandparents knew about hunger. I'm sure they experienced it during the depression and probably before. But my grandparents knew how to find and grow food and make simple meals that were tasty and inexpensive. A bag of beans is not expensive. Growing the lettuce, green onions and radishes are cheap. Flour and cornmeal is not expensive. The entire meal cost less than five dollars not counting the strawberry pie, but I grew the strawberries so mine cost me a pie crust and some sugar!

My husband pointed out that the problem isn't necessarily hunger but the lack of ability in America. When you don't know how to cook a bag of beans, peel and fry a bag of potatoes, or stir up some cornbread then you have to purchase pre-cooked meals. Expensive pre-cooked meals. Pre-cooked meals that are not healthy!

My grandparents ate squirrel and rabbit. They picked poke and made poke salad. They hoed a row and planted. They survived. When America finally get hungry enough, maybe we will relearn those tasks.....

Honeysuckle...

2011-05-11T07:49:00.000-05:00

Well, the honeysuckle is blooming again. That's a smell that I always associate with summer and May and school getting out! A very, very pleasant smell. I love to sit outside on my backporch or swing in my hammock and simple breath that honeysuckle in...down deep into my lungs. Always makes me think I inhale summer into every cell of my body by taking that honeysuckle way down deep.

I'm so ready for school to be over. We all have finished state testing and now the kids are officially done...stick a fork in them done! Done, I say! Very difficult to motivate done...especially my son and all my students. I'm trying very hard to keep a happy face and a happy voice when I speak to them, because quite frankly, the teachers are done too! I think that's why I enjoy the honeysuckle so much. When I'm out there breathing, I'm not thinking about finals and grading and trying to get my son to do one more thing....I'm simply enjoying the warm evening, playing with the dog and breathing that sweet scent.

I truly believe that a warm summer evening is what contentment is...you know the feeling, the breeze is just cool enough to keep you from being hot, the leaves on the trees are so fresh and green that they almost seem unreal, the flowers are blooming, the air is scented just enough you can almost taste it, you're walking hand and hand with your love talking about the day. Not the bad stuff, just the good stuff..oh, and you have a glass of iced tea! Can't forget that! I never want in that moment. I never want anything more than to live for that moment, I'm not cataloging my coupons for the next shopping trip, I'm not worrying if my house is clean enough, I'm not thinking about anything except being there, in that moment. If that moment is the last one I have on this earth, it would be enough....that's contentment.

If you've never had that type of contentment,....move to Oklahoma and experience the month of May! I guarantee you, it will change you!

It Happened

2011-05-06T21:33:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting home by myself on a friday night...husband and son are in Arizona hiking and my daughter and many of her closest friends are experiencing their first junior high dance....Mother's day is coming and somehow, my kids have grown up!

I don't know when it happened....I still remember how special those first few Mother's Days were to me. Growing our family through adoption made Mother's Day really, really special and a bit bittersweet. I was happy, I was finally a mom but I knew that each of my children's birth mothers had a hole in their hearts that day. I have treasured each mother's day but somewhere along the way....my kids went from being babies to being young adults....

It had to happen..you know, when they are driving you crazy running in the grocery store or even worse, laying in the floor throwing that fit they somehow learned, a little older lady smiles sweetly and says, 'treasure these days, for soon, very soon, they will be over!' Yeah right! When you're in the thick of those wonderful (terrible) days, you just want them to end and you to get a good night's sleep! Well, I'm there, they are almost gone! And it hurts and I'm sad...but I'm also proud of them both. My chest bursts with pride when someone outside the family comments on how polite they are or how hard they worked or how giving they both are! My husband and I seem to be raising two pretty wonderful kids...I'm not sure how we got so lucky!

It had to happen.....I'm up once again late..but this time, I'm rocking alone in my chair...waiting to be the pick-up mom....

Strawberries!!!!!

2011-05-06T07:39:00.002-05:00

I'm doing a snoopy dance about now! My strawberries are getting pink! That means that in a few days I'll be eating home grown strawberries from my garden! Yipee!

Oh yeah, my daughter wanted to plant them last year so I really should let her have the first one. I will, I promise! I was worried about the winter being so cold but I don't think we lost a single plant! And they are sooo big!

Now, I'm ready to fight the squirrels, who have been eyeing them for the past few days. I went to Atwood's yesterday and bought me a net that you use to keep birds off of fruit. I have created a tent over the berries so no one but me or anyone with opposable thumbs can get under!

When I first tried a garden the first year we lived here, the deer, rabbits, squirrels, foxes, armadillos, you name it they came and ate my garden. So the next spring, my wonderful husband made me a fortress garden! It has twelve feet tall chicken wire around it....I call it my giraffe pen. He doesn't do anything half way and he does good work, after over ten years and it's still standing! I've only had to restaple the chicken wire a few times and it keeps out just about everything, except squirrels...and one pesky turtle. I find him every year and take him back to the creek....then he returns and I take him back to the creek. We do this on and off all summer long. One day, I think I'll drive him up to Lake Oologah and see if he returns! It's about twelve miles....

We used to do that with our ducks when I was growing up. They'd sit and poop on the front porch so mom and dad would load them up in the truck and drive them to the pond...not twelve miles but a pretty good walk from our house....we'd get home and pretty soon...here they would come, marching in a line right in the path! So funny!

I'm patiently waiting for the strawberries...or at least I'm waiting, maybe not patiently. I can't wait! My mind is just spinning with all the goodies I'll be making in the next few weeks!

Update on our psychotic cardinal..

2011-05-05T08:32:00.001-05:00

So I'm about ready to turn the boy loose with the beebee gun to take the poor female cardinal out of her misery. I know, it's mean. I know, it's not right. But GOOD GRIEF! She is driving us all crazy!

A few weeks ago, when she was trying to beat up the other cardinal in the window, I could wax poetic and make references to how we are like that...trying to get what we want and not turning and looking at the big picture.... Now, I just want her gone.

We have stickers in the windows, we have foil taped to windows, my daughter has placed books and posters in her windows...did I mention that it's not just the front picture window anymore? Oh no! She now moves from window to window trying to scare off or attach or do whatever it is that her little psychotic mind is doing! When we go to the window to scare her off, she just moves to another one!

This starts about 5:30am, first daylight here in Oklahoma and goes until mid-afternoon. Like I said, it's driving us all crazy. And yeah, the male has left. I guess he figured it was no use trying to woo a crazy female....if only some human men felt that way! he! he!

The beebee gun is looking better and better but I know if I turned the boy loose, I'd feel bad...and he'd probably just shoot out the window so the bird could move in....

Salad Days are here Again!

2011-05-03T07:45:00.001-05:00

Oh yeah! I'm picking veggies from the garden! WooHoo!

I picked my first head of romaine lettuce yesterday. I pulled my first few green onions also. Guess what we're having for dinner tonight! Grilled chicken, grilled potato packets and a green salad! For some reason, fresh picked veggies just taste better....

We finally began to get rain last week. I was so very thankful because I really didn't want to start watering this early but to get those veggies fresh from the garden I would have dutifully set up the water timer and started dragging hoses around.

I'm just a garden junky. I love searching each day for a new treasure to eat at dinner! It won't be but a few weeks and we'll be eating fresh strawberries and I'm so excited for that! Fresh strawberries on my cheerios and waffles, fresh strawberries on our salads, fresh strawberry pie! My daughter is wanting to make strawberry jam also. That way, we'll have strawberries during the winter from our garden.

Oh, how I've missed you garden and spring! Welcome back!

Giving...

2011-05-02T08:01:00.000-05:00

Over the last year, I've written a lot about giving. Giving of your time, your talents and your money. This week, I have been given the chance to put all of the above to the test. I'm facebook friends with many of my former students. I am proud to say that I have students living all over the world that check in with me and let me know how and what they are doing. Most of the time, I'm proud of what they are becoming....sometimes I have to chastise or give a gentle nudge to do the right thing.... I found out this week that two former students, who have married and have a young son, needed help. What started out as me pledging money has ended up being me trying to raise the bar on my giving and now I'm coordinating raising the entire amount!

You see, the husband is in the military and is now in training across the country and will be sent to Afghanistan for at least a year. He has been given leave in June for four days and the wife and child would like to bring him home to visit them and his family before he's gone....they are young, they are a military family and the military doesn't pay for leave travel, they don't have the money. She posted on facebook for ideas from friends so she could work and raise money to bring him home.....

I look at my former students as 'my kids'. I care about them. And one thing I've learned over the last few years is that I'm good at organizing....both my home, my time and my friends! I'm going to start listing on my resume community organizer. Hey! If it worked for the President of the United States, I'm going to use it too!

Anyway, a post on facebook to my list of friends has brought me almost to my goal of raising $400. It's no surprise really, just yesterday in the paper, Oklahoma was listed as the most charitable state. Oklahomans give over $1500 a year per person to charities. That's per person! In a state that has a pretty low per capita income....I think it's because that's the way we were raised. We help each other. Just like in the pioneer days. You may not have much but when a neighbor is in need, you help.

Once again, I'm proud to be able to use my talents and money to help someone in need. I'm proud to have friends that also have a heart for giving. I'm proud to live in a state that leads the country if giving.....

Love my cuppa!

2011-04-27T12:53:00.001-05:00

Ok, I know, I'm not British. But it sure seems like everyone on this side of the pond is really polarized about the upcoming British nuptials.. Me? I don't care a whit, everyone is trying to play this that she's a commoner and all.....PLEASE! I'm a commoner, she is not a commoner. She may not hold a title but she's got lots of money in the family. Enough to get her into a very prestigious university so she could hang out with the Prince!

I don't dislike the British. I happen to know a couple that are simply charming and very polite. I have hosted a couple at my home. I just don't care about the wedding. What I do like is tea!

That's right, I love a cuppa! I have a hot tea almost every afternoon with a couple of my new favorite cookies. Now normally, I make my own, but I do have a couple of favorite store bought ones that I squirrel away from the family. I love those little butter cookies, I love Pepperidge Farms dark chocolate milano cookies and my my new favorite cookie is from Nabisco. They are the new Newton Fruit Thins..the cranberry citrus goes so well with a cup of Earl Grey or Constant Comment tea. They have a chocolate version but I haven't tried them yet!

I love to take a few minutes in the afternoon and sit and enjoy a cup of hot tea and a cookie. I don't eat the entire bag, just one. It just takes about ten minutes to turn a hard afternoon into a little more enjoyable one with a cup of tea and a cookie. I can see why the British love their afternoon tea........not so much their royal weddings!

Black Swallowtails...they're here!

2011-04-26T07:45:00.001-05:00

I've been noticing many more butterflies lately. I've counted many more black and zebra swallowtails and monarchs this year than in the past few years. I have a plant called rue growing in my border garden. I bought it several years ago at the end of the season for very little. I usually buy things at the end of the year when stores are trying to give away the few haggard plants they have left.

The rue plant is a very pretty plant. It grows about three feet tall in Oklahoma and has a pretty lacy light green leaf and a yellow flower in late May. I will prune it back occasionally so it stays bushy. I was worried that this years cold would kill it but it came back just like always. Rue is an insect repellant plant but I didn't know that when I bought it. The label in the plant said citronella but that happens sometimes in those end of season sales. You don't always get what you thought. Sometimes is good, sometimes it's bad. This time, it was good!

What I have found is that black and zebra swallowtails love to lay their eggs on the plant. I think the caterpillars eat the rue and make themselves very yucky tasting to birds and other predators. I was looking last week to see if I had any eggs and saw little caterpillars all over the plants! I was so happy! I love helping the butterflies!

I've planted my dill and have transplanted my parsley, other favorites of the swallowtails. I have finally successfully started milkweed and my mother-in-law sent me more seed to start this week. I look forward to seeing even more butterflies in my garden in the upcoming years!

Easter!

2011-04-25T06:33:00.001-05:00

Well, we've had another Easter and it was good. This year, we went to my mom and dad's and had Easter with them, my sis and her husband and daughter. We even got to see my brother, his wife and their girls. It's good to live close enough to see family often. It's not as often as it used to be since I have to work around my kid's social schedule now. I guess I should be happy they have friends and they get invited places!

I was gone all last week and finally made it home on friday afternoon. Everyone was happy to see me, including Kate, my big black german shepherd! She jumped up into my lap and immediately started crying and whining...my husband said it was quite sad how much she missed me! I missed them also alot....I'm glad I only have to do testing once a year! I normally work from home so one week a year is not too much to give so I can work the rest of the year out of my house.

Although the family did their best to keep the house in order.....they just basically maintained the chaos! There were no dishes in the sink or piles of dirty clothes but one can tell that I was not here to do the things I do each and every week. Things like changing the sheets and towels, vacuuming and dusting and grocery shopping. I'll be busy, busy this week trying to rein in the dirt that is encroaching upon this household!

They are also very happy to see my culinary skills back. Yes, we did eat good, very good in fact, at nanna's this weekend. Pulled pork sandwiches with a wonderful relish that is too die for Saturday night and and ham and scalloped potatoes for Easter lunch. As we drove home with some more pulled pork for our dinner on Sunday night, we discussed what we would be having for dinner this week.

This will be a very normal week finally! Neither my husband or myself will be missing from action this week. First time in three weeks! And the kids are so very happy with all this normalcy. Family dinnertime is something that we all miss when we don't have it. We miss that bonding time as a family. Just like a couple that spends time apart, families are off when they don't have that family dinnertime.

Sunday night, we ate pulled pork sandwiches and pickles and fruit salad around my second hand dining table laughing and joking until we were crying! I could actually feel the tension of the past few weeks cracking and falling off me. As we cleaned up the table, my husband and son wrestling in the kitchen made me smile. My daughter and I were making jokes about 'men', my son was joking about 'chuck norris' and my husband was wiping tears of laughter off his face at our antics, he said, 'I just want to tell you all how much I miss you all when I'm gone!' The kids shrugged it off but we shared a knowing smile....I felt the same way!

It's good to be home, it's good to celebrate another Easter with family and it's good to get back to normal!

Out of Town...Mom is Missing!

2011-04-20T07:28:00.001-05:00

So this week, my job has required me to be out of town all week due to state testing. I had to travel to southern Oklahoma to test the kids that live in this area. My husband was great about working from home this week, he's been gone so much lately, he felt he needed to get caught up on work and the best way to do that was to stay home and work in the home office since I'm out of it!

I honestly think it's good for the family for me to be missing in action every now and then. They seem to really understand just what I do when I've been gone a bit. My husband also says everyone realizes what I bring to the family besides the one who does a bunch of work! He says that mom's (me especially) bring a certain feeling at the end of the day that he can't do!

I understood that today as I was sitting at a restaurant eating. My cell phone rang and it was my daughter. I had called her before dance class but I had to cut it short because she was straightening her hair for dance pictures. She called me back to discuss a decision that she felt was wrong that a friend made. Her dad just wasn't the one she wanted to talk to about it. For one thing, he wouldn't understand......he's a guy afterall! We talked about it for a bit until she felt better about it and then we talked about shopping for dresses for the big school dance coming up. We both agreed that Dillard's after Easter and prom would be the best place to shop so next week, we're hitting Dilliards!

I've been gone for three nights now and hopefully, tonight will be my last night. I'm hoping to go home Thursday night if I can get everyone to show up the next two days. I really miss my family!
I guess I'm just a homebody...I like to cook, I like to meet my kids afterschool and talk about their days, I like to be home with dinner when my husband comes home from work....I like all that everyday stuff that a normal, everyday mom and wife does....that boring stuff that the world says is not important.

I know three people who don't think that any of that stuff is not important. I know three people who are ready for their mom and wife to be home......make that four of us! I'm glad state testing is only once a year!

Tornado Season!

2011-04-15T08:24:00.003-05:00

Spent some considerable time in the old storm closet last night. The weather people started telling us a couple days ago to expect large storms so I was glad that last weekend my husband got my son's new closet put together and we moved all his stuff out of the closet. I then spent last Sunday night refolding and putting away properly all the stuff I'd been blindly stuffing behind his clothes! Just in time!

My daughter had a track meet yesterday and I worried all day long that they would be caught up in the storms but she called me about 5 o'clock to tell me they were pulling into Claremore. I ran into town totally unprepared for her to eat with my son and I. My husband was out of town so it was just going to be he and I and I was planning to just find something in the fridge.....now I had three mouths to feed. And a storm was coming!

I ran in as the wind began to blow and grabbed the old stand-by...tomato soup and cheese quesadillas. Quick, easy, cheap and the kids love them! I buy the tomato soup when walgreen's has them on sale and I use coupons to make them about fifty-cents a can. I use two for three of us. I buy the tortillas for a buck for twelve when Reasor's has them on sale and I buy the cheese on sale and stockpile the freezer. The entire meal costs me less than five dollars. I rounded out the meal with some strawberries and cookies while we listened to the tornado sirens sitting in the storm closet!

Shortly after we cleaned up, I ran and put Kate in the garage because the sky was beginning to get green. I was taught that when the wind died down and the sky got a greenish tinge, it was time to hit the hole! All of us but Grandpa, he'd stand outside and watch the storm. Not me. God gave me enough sense to know to get and stay low! We dragged out the boxes of junk out of the storm closet and all of us...me, the kids, and two cats got inside. Well, almost two cats. One doesn't like the closet so she hangs around just outside. I think if we ever did hear the 'sounded like a freight train' sound, she'd quickly jump in before we shut the door. All of us, plus two ipods, three cell phones, a laptop, two radios; one that uses batteries, one I can wind up or use solar power; a lantern, a flashlight, enough blankets and pillows to sleep an army and we waited.....and listened to the hail, rain and tornado sirens. It was actually pretty good quality time with the kids. I had them trapped so we had to visit and talk....

Thankfully, we had no damage and we had good rain. We've all been so dry for so long that most of us Oklahomans were excited for rain, even if it meant the chance of a tornado. Just another day in Oklahoma in the spring. We keep our eyes on the sky waiting for the next one to come along......the storm closet it cleaned and ready to go! Maybe I'll call a family meeting in the storm closet when I'm feeling lonely!

A Cardinal Moment!

2011-04-13T16:40:00.000-05:00

All day long, the young female cardinal has pecked on my picture window in the living room. She started early in the morning, so early that it woke me up. I have a very large window in my front room with two little windows on each side. I love being able to look at my beautiful surroundings without blinds, shades or curtains. I feel that, even if I'm vacuuming, I am outside! Well, so do birds and insects. I have to buy those pretty vinyl clings that match the season and put them up to keep birds from hitting the windows and knocking themselves silly....it does help but usually a few times a month, I hear a crash, run outside and scoop up a dazed bird to put him or her in a little cage to keep them safe from the visiting cats until they've gained their senses again. A few times, they've released themselves in the house. Oh, that's usually when my husband calls and one of the kids say, 'mom can't talk, (uncontrolled giggles), she's chasing a bird with the butterfly net....yeah, in the house!' My poor, poor husband.

Anyway, today this young female cardinal has had two courters bringing her food. They have worked and worked to win her heart. All she wants to do is peck at the reflection in the window. It's become really annoying. By lunchtime, my son asked, 'why is she still doing that? Doesn't she realize that it's a reflection?' 'I guess not', I reply, 'she's young and this is her first mating season. I'm not sure if she is trying to get in the house to build a nest or if she's upset at her reflection, maybe it will get the guy.' My son, in frustration, said finally in the middle of the afternoon...'Good grief! Why would she sit there all day long banging her head over and over when obviously we aren't going to let her in!'

I began to think about myself....'we do the same thing, you know.' I told my son. We want something and even when God tells us 'no' and closes the window, we still run forward and try to crash through over and over until we hurt ourselves. 'Do you think that God ever looks at us and explains to the angels that we're young and immature and can't see the big picture just like we're talking about this little bird?' Do you ever think that God thinks, 'When are they ever going to learn? I have something so much better if they'd just turn around and look at what's behind them?' when I said that, my son smiled....'Never thought about it that way' he said.

I began to pity the little bird after that, I began to feel sorry for her. She was missing so much behind her because she was focused on that bird in window that she drove away her suitors and she was alone. If she'd just turn around and focus on what she could have...but instead, she's still flying into the window over and over again.

Reminds me of someone I know.......

Hummingbirds have Hit!

2011-04-11T08:03:00.005-05:00

Saw my first hummingbirds today! I was so excited. I put out the feeders on Thursday so it didn't take them long to find the feeders! I only put out a little food in them because I didn't know how long it would take them to get here.

I also put out my oriole feeder. I usually wait too long to get it out. I look outside and see an oriole trying to eat out of a hummingbird feeder and then I run and get my feeder and by that time, the poor oriole has given up. Well, this year, I have it ready. I'm hoping that one stops by.

I love watching little hummingbirds eat all summer but usually by mid-summer, they stop eating at my feeders as much as they did in the spring. By mid-summer, I have flowers blooming all over that they prefer. I'm sure the nectar tastes better than plain old white sugar! I would like it too!

I noticed zebra swallowtail, black swallowtail and monarch butterflies this weekend also. Even though I don't have a lot of blooming flowers right now, I do have a place for them to lay eggs. I have dill, parsley and some shrub-like thing I bought years ago that the swallowtails like laying eggs on. I thought it was a citronella plant but it may have been mismarked. It doesn't look or smell like citronella. Well the butterflies really like it and it does well in this hot Oklahoma summer so it's staying!

The butterflies like the nectar on the cherry trees and are keeping the tree colorful. It's fun to see so many colorful butterflies landing on the tree!

I'm so glad spring is here! We've started having salads for dinner and I know it's so much better for the kids than some of the heavy winter meals we eat. This week, we're having a grilled chicken greek salad, tuesday is crab salad sandwich night with fruit salad, wednesday night is church dinner, thursday night will be homemade pizza, and friday night will be tomato soup and quesadillas. The next few weeks will need to be simple meals because I'm helping with state testing. I will be BUSY!

Girls Retreat

2011-04-08T07:15:00.001-05:00

You all pray for me today when you get a minute. I'm leaving this afternoon with my daughter and a passle of other mostly junior high girls on a church sponsored girls retreat. I'm actually looking forward to it but it can be stressful being 'in charge' of a group of girls. Mostly, because you never know what types of backgrounds many of the girls will bring, what type of lives they come from and I worry that I won't be prepared with the 'right' answer when I need it.

I know, I know, I don't need to be perfect but I always worry that I'll say something to a young girl that will cause her to carry something into adulthood that I didn't mean to give her. At the junior high level, many girls and boys are so self-conscious that almost anything you say can be taken the 'wrong' way. When I taught that age, I often felt that I was walking on eggshells!

Please just say a little prayer that I'll have the right words to say when I need them, that everyone will be kind too one another, that the group of girls will form a tight bond that will outlast the two day retreat and that the sponsors get a few hours of sleep! I'm looking forward to spending girl time with the sponsors and the girls from my church. We, so often, don't get to just really gab and visit. Did I say I'm riding the bus? After surviving all the camps from last summer, I can do anything!

The weather is supposed to be nice, the company will be great so just say a little prayer today that everything goes as planned!

Thanks!

Kate, the snake hunter,.....NOT!

2011-04-07T08:15:00.001-05:00

Ok, so you know that I don't like snakes. I've posted numerous times about how I don't like snakes, hate snakes and generally freak out when I see one. I'm actually better than I used to be! I now try to chop off their heads instead of running away screaming. I guess I'm just getting old and mean!

Most people have dogs that will stand between them and a snake. Not me. Oh no! I have a very large, very fierce looking, very scary bark sounding, black german shephard who is more scared of snakes than me! Of course, if you are a Merlin-type looking man (grey beard wearing a wand), she's going to tear you to pieces. Think the bug man, the cable man...any man that is carrying something that looks like a stick! Someone in her, before us, life must have been mean to her and that someone must have been an older man with a beard. Anyway, she'll protect me from any human, squirrel, mole or deer(if I tell her too, if not, she'll stand on the porch and watch them) but she draws the line at snakes.

The other day, I found a teeny tiny black snake taking a nap in my garden. I have gotten better because as long as the black snake is not fifty-eleven feet long, I'll take it on an airplane trip into the woods using my rake. I just wrap it around the rake and 'fling' straight into the woods where it can live happily ever after eating all sorts of other mean snakes. Well, I found this little thing and called Kate, who was guarding the entrance to the garden so an armadillo couldn't sneak up on me, to see the snake. She came running over, tail up and wagging. When I pointed out the snake and said 'get it', she dropped her tail, whined and took off running out of the garden and onto the back porch. I couldn't get her to come off that porch!

I think my dog is more afraid of snakes than me.....oh yeah!

Spring in Oklahoma

2011-04-06T07:30:00.001-05:00

If you've never been to Oklahoma, I promise the best time to visit is April. Springtime starts in full bloom in Oklahoma in April. It's so nice to go outside in a pair of shorts and lay in the sunshine in the hammock! It might not be a pretty sight to the pair of nesting bluebirds to see me and my pasty white legs stretched out in the hammock but I can guarantee that I'm a happy lady!

The redbuds are blooming, the lilacs are in full bloom and the late daffodils and tulips are still giving it their best shot! I have creeping plox blooming up a storm even though I was sure it was dead in February after being buried under snow for so long. Nice surprises are springing up all over the place!

My spinach and lettuce and beets are making their appearances and in a few weeks, I'll be harvesting my first little leaves for my salads. I do plan tomorrow to go out and cut some redbud flowers and violets for my spring flower salad. It's so yummy with a few strawberries, toasted pecans and feta cheese on a bed of greens. As I was digging dandelions last weekend, the thought occurred to me to save a few leaves for part of that salad but I decided that we had so many dandelions that I could just go out and get them on the day I made the salad.

I always love spring in Oklahoma. I can still pick my way to the creek behind my house and not worry about snakes lurking around every tree. Most people don't worry but you know my snake phobia. If I had been in that garden, Adam wouldn't have had to worry! Any place a serpent is,...is not where I will be willingly! I went down yesterday and looked for frog eggs. Didn't see any yet but I'm sure I will soon. As soon as the nights get a little warmer, the boy and girl frogs will be out in full force!

I haven't seen the poke yet, I do expect to see it start poking..no pun intended,he! he!...it's leaves up out of the ground in a few weeks. I'm ready for a good old batch of poke salad with hot pepper vinegar. I don't make it often but it is always a tradition that I look forward to. I think about what spring meant to the homesteaders back a hundred years ago. Spring meant poke salad, fresh greens, green onions....spring meant the hens started laying better....the cows gave the best green milk of the year...all new, all fresh. Spring meant they had lived through another winter.

I always feel a fresh sense of renewal too. I feel like I've been in hibernation and now I can go outside in just a shirt and shorts and let the sun warm my skin. I can dig and plant and work muscles that I haven't used all winter. You definitely use different muscles shoveling snow and hauling wood than you do digging, hoeing and planting. I love to walk with my husband around our place every night and look at what new thing is coming up or building a nest or is now in bloom. It's a peaceful time that we have, our evening walks. I just love spring!

Breakfast for dinner...

2011-04-05T08:30:00.001-05:00

We're having breakfast for dinner tonight. I always look forward to that night because I never get up and make that kind of breakfast in the morning! Even when I do cook something special, usually the only person that's impressed and happy is my husband, the kids like cold cereal better than most anything else.

Plus, I'm an morning oatmeal person. I eat it at least three times a week. I have always liked Quaker and cooking for me in the morning is when I put a real pot on the stove and cook homemade oatmeal, the kind you stand and stir and stir! And believe it or not, I can usually get the kids to eat it with me instead of the sugar crunch junk they normally like.

I take my homemade oatmeal with frozen blueberries. You almost don't need to add any brown sugar when you add a cup of frozen blueberries. I started doing that when my kids were little. My son would not eat anything that was warmer than room temperature. So when you microwave oatmeal, it takes forever to cool off enough to eat! So I started adding a few frozen blueberries in it to cool it down enough that he'd eat it that morning so we could resume the day. Now, I add them and cook them a bit so the oatmeal isn't room temperature....I do not like it that way and neither does he anymore.

I also make my oatmeal with milk. I like it creamy and using milk gives me my calcium for the day and it tastes creamy and good, even the instant stuff. I had a coupon awhile back for the Better Than Nature brand of oatmeals. I had never tried them before but the coupon was a buy one get one free so I figured I'd try it at that price! I bought several varieties and they are really good! My favorite is the dark chocolate. I can even get my daughter to eat it because when you put a little dollop of butter on the hot oatmeal, it tastes like a warm chocolate chip cookie! She was a bit skeptical at first but it didn't take her long to start believing me. Especially when I said, 'no, you're right, you probably wouldn't like it.' To a kid that screams, 'this is so unbelievably good I don't want you to have any..!' Which was what I was really saying.

Tonight, we're not having oatmeal, I had that for breakfast. I was supposed to be fasting for a doctor's appointment but I forgot. I didn't have to give blood anyway so all is well. Anyway, I'm frying ham, scrambling eggs and hashbrowns, making bisquits and having a winter fruit salad(a can of mandarin oranges, a can of tropical fruit salad and and a handful of frozen blueberries and blackberries. Everything but the bisquits and frozen fruit were purchased with coupons and didn't cost a bunch. I'm guessing the entire meal will cost under eight to ten dollars and for my big eaters, that's a bargain!

The End is Near!

2011-04-04T07:52:00.001-05:00

I'll bet you thought I was talking about the end of the world...he! he! The end of our massive remodeling project is very close! We are having carpet laid today and grouting of the tile tomorrow. Then all we need is the plumber to hook up the shower, toilet and sink. WooHoo!

I'm more than weary of the project. It's definitely the biggest project we've tackled. About five years ago, we gutted the kitchen and re-did it but it only took about a month. This has been going on since October. When we are all done, we will have the kids rooms remodeled with bigger closets, we will have a great big family room, teen cave, man hole, what-ever you want to call it! We also have a new three and a half car garage, with a new circular drive and new landscaping and sidewalks. I'm ready to start landscaping, that's my favorite part of any project!

I'm also so ready to get the kids back into real bedrooms. I'm just about ready to move off and leave them four of the seven days of the week. It's been really stressful for us all but my son has taken the biggest hit, he's been sleeping on his bed in the middle of the living room for a month and a half.....he needs his own room!

I feel really blessed that we have been able to do this project. We almost started it a few times but then something would come up and we'd feel that it wasn't the right time. My husband's company almost sold, I quit my full-time job, those types of things make you put the brakes on big-time remodeling. What surprised me was no one asked us why we just didn't move! We did look at it but we love where we live, we love the neighbors, we love the location. We just needed a place for our teenagers to hang out away from us!

I have realized through this process that I could never build a house. I just don't have the patience or desire. I honestly don't care what the drawer pulls in the bathroom look like, I just want them to work. My husband has been pretty good to let me choose colors, tile, etc. He's learned over the years that it really means more to me in the long run than it does to him.

It's almost over! This time next week, everyone will be back where they are supposed to be! Yipee!

Momma cries.....

2011-03-31T07:47:00.001-05:00

Ok, I admit it. I'm a music person. I listen to music, I sing music, I hum music....all day long. It's slowly driving my son crazy! He's always pointing out when I'm singing when I don't even know it. My dad hummed when I was a kid working with him. I sing. I sing loud.

One day, at the grocery store around Christmas, I was shopping along and an older man began to look at me. I smiled at him...I'm a pretty happy person. I smile at total strangers and will talk to a post... Anyway, he began to follow me. After a few aisles, he said, 'you have a nice singing voice'......I asked him if I had been singing out loud....he said 'yes'....I was singing Christmas songs along with the overhead speakers! I started laughing and he said, 'you just looked so happy singing out loud, I thought I'd compliment you!' I try to be a little more discreet now with my singing.

Well, the other day, my son and I were driving to Lowe's to get my husband a ladder for his birthday. It is one of those cool ones that fold into four sections. We were driving along, listening to my favorite Christian radio station, and a song by one of my favorite groups started playing. I should also tell you that I like just about all kinds of music. Really the only genre I don't like is rap. I don't see the originality in rap music.

The station I listen to is a Christian edge station. I started listening to it when I first moved here because, like I said, I sing out loud and some of the lyrics I wasn't too keen on my kids listening to me sing out loud.I figured that the kids wouldn't like Christian music since I listened to it but they both still really like it. Christian music is not like it was when I was a teen. Back in the eighties, it was pretty bad....

One of my favorite groups is Skillet. They are hard rock with a great rock singer. My husband doesn't like to get in the minivan because you never know what song is going to be rocking out Suzy-Q!

As we were driving to Lowe's, 'Lucy' by Skillet came on. If you haven't ever listened to the song, I suggest you do. Some say it's about abortion, I don't know but I know that by the time I got to Lowe's, I was a balling, ball-bag. My son never said a word, he's used to mom sobbing as she drives while listening to a song. After the song was over, I looked over at him and he just said, 'are you done now?' and smiled at me! We both cracked up laughing......

I'm sure he doesn't share with his friends that his mom is one of those people who starts bawling at the drop of a hat....or note....

Reading...Oklahoma style!

2011-03-30T07:33:00.000-05:00

I've just discovered an Oklahoma author that I love! Her name is Billie Letts. We went to the library over spring break and I just grabbed a few books to read. I don't normally have a plan, I just wander around and pull out books. I grabbed a couple of hers and then a book in the new fiction section. It was a mystery and I started it as soon as I got home.

I often wonder what type of woman reads those novels with the 'F' word every other line. This book was supposed to be a light mystery read about a realtor that finds a dead body in a house she listed. Well, I slogged through about three chapters until I couldn't read anymore. It was just embarrassing! I put it away to take back and picked up one of the Billie Letts books.

It was so refreshing to read a book with no bad words and actually had a redeeming story line! 'The Honk and Holler Opening Soon' was an easy read and I enjoyed it very much. So much, that I finished it and the other book over spring break! After the second book, I looked at the jacket to see where the author lived and was blown away to find that she was an Okie! No wonder I liked her so much! Both books were set in Oklahoma but that doesn't necessarily mean that the author lives in Oklahoma.

I went back this week to pick up a few more books for my daughter and also picked up two more of her books. This time, I picked one up that said 'Oprah's book club' on the cover....have I been living under a rock? We have an Oklahoma author that was a Oprah's book club author? I kind of missed out on Oprah's book club reading because I was simply too busy raising kids and driving them all over the country or county.

Well, I'm sitting down tonight and starting my third Billie Letts book. I've been putting it off because I know that once I start, not much will go on around here until I finish the book....

Well, Billie Letts, you have a new fan....I know, it took me a while. Thanks for writing true fiction without trying to be gross, stupid or using curse words every other line. You're making Oklahoma look really, really good!

Menu Monday..

2011-03-29T07:30:00.000-05:00

This is that transitional time in Oklahoma where one day it's eighty degrees, the lilacs are blooming and the next day the high is forty! I make my menu seasonal but it's really hard during this time because I don't know if we should be having soup in the house or grilling on the patio. To make it easy on myself, I put a few cold weather meals in the menu and also a few warmer weather meals, then I just pick the temperature that fits the day.

This week has started cold so I used the honey mustard chicken and rice meal with green beans and green salad last night, tonight, we're having grilled fish and mac-n-cheese and mixed veggies. I have an outing at work and need something fast and easy!

Wednesday night is eat-at-church night - my favorite night of the week! I'll tell you, I don't feel the need to eat out during the week when I can count on a night out every Wednesday for under fifteen dollars!

Thursday is going to be crab salad sandwiches with a veggie tray, Friday night, I'm grilling burgers and having baked beans and coleslaw(it's supposed to be almost eighty!). Saturday, we'll probably grill chicken and potato packets and have a greek salad. I'm thinking we'll be eating on the porch again by saturday night!

Here's my super easy potato packet recipe. I change it up as the summer goes on to include my garden produce.

Super Easy Potato Packet

Spray a large sheet(about the size of a 9x13 cake pan) with no stick spray or use the no stick foil
Dice in about 1/2 inch cubes one potato per person (1/2 for kids)
Dice about 2 tablespoons onion per person
You can also add: carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, red bell pepper, etc....
Add teaspoon diced garlic per person
salt/pepper to taste
If you have fresh basil or a favorite herb, put it in also. If you only have dried, use 1/2 teaspoon per person or leave it out.
1 tablespoon grated parmesan or other hard cheese per person
Drizzle of olive oil

Place all the ingredients on the foil, layering potatoes and other hard veggies first. Place another sheet, a little larger than the first, on top of the ingredients. Starting with the bottom foil sheet, fold up at least three times all around so moisture will not escape while cooking.

Place directly above fire on medium for about 10 minutes and then move to an area of the grill that is not going to cook directly or on low. cook another 10 minutes. Carefully, remove the foil packet and place on a cookie sheet. Unroll one end of the foil and check for the potatoes to be soft. If they are almost there, just leave them in the foil until the meat gets finished grilling, the steam will usually finish cooking them.

You can just open the top of the foil to serve or put in a serving bowl. For family, I just serve out of the foil.....no clean-up!

Being Needed....

2011-03-28T06:34:00.000-05:00

I have a friend who's a first time mom. I remember that feeling...you thought you knew what it was going to be like but in reality, you really didn't have a clue. My parents had a surprise when I was thirteen, my brother was born....now, you want a sure-fire way to ensure your teen won't have sex before they get married? Bring home a newborn the same year your teen becomes a teen. There was no earthly way, I was having a baby!

But even with that knowledge of how much work they really are and how much crying they really do, I still didn't know what it really would be like to have one of my own. One that I'm responsible for. And boy, are you responsible for them! They depend fully on you to eat, clean them, doctor them, pretty much make every decision for them.

I had two of my nieces overnight this weekend. One is six and the other almost four. We had a ball but by the time it was time for bed, I was pooped! I had already forgotten how much work it was to fix a meal, cut all the meat, pour all the drinks, read all the books, oversee a bath, help with dressing, and on and on and on! My own kids are so self-sufficient that I've become a little relaxed and just have to remind them to bath and such, and they can feed themselves from dishes I set on the table! If they need to cut their meat, they know where we keep the knives!

My kids are self-sufficient in many ways but are still infant-like in many others. While I don't have to do all those physical things that I had to do when they were still babies, they still need their dad and I everyday. When they were little, they required me to bath, dress, feed them but they weren't watching to see how I did those things. Now, as teens, they are watching our every moves. How we treat strangers and friends, what we say in traffic, how we treat that waitress at our favorite restaurant, how we shop, who we become friends with, who we invite to dinner, what we say when no one but family is around......and the list goes on and on.

They don't need me to preach to them about what's right and what's wrong, but they need to see with their own eyes how to love others and do what's right even though it might not be popular or easy. They need to see those struggles that my husband and I have because they will soon have those struggles as young adults. If they never saw an older person struggle, then they won't have a frame of reference on which to overcome the adversities that they will most certainly face in life.

They need me. Not to necessarily fill their physical needs, although I truly think my son would starve if I wasn't around sometimes, but to teach them how to be adults. This is a harder task than just making sure they take a bath and read three books every night. I'm sure I'm like a lot of parents, I sometimes think that I'm ruining them as adults. Am I too hard, was I too soft, should I have said this, maybe I said too much.....what a task! It could be overwhelming if I didn't truly believe that God put them into our home for the purpose of us teaching and instructing them. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect and neither is my husband. I've been known to say that bad word more than every now and then, that gets pointed out each time I say it! That and about a million other things that I do on a daily basis that I would never want videoed and shown on Oprah!

I don't think God thinks my husband and I are any better than anyone else, I think that He thought these two kids needed to be in this home to learn certain things that we could teach them....maybe it was that moms and dads aren't perfect but you should cut them some slack for trying so hard! he! he!

I do know this, although my kids aren't babies anymore, they still need me everyday! I'm honored and humbled by this knowledge and I pray everyday that I can be up to the task!

Love of Reading...

2011-03-25T08:49:00.001-05:00

I have always loved to read. When I was a kid the highlight of the weeks during summer break was when we got to go to the little library in my hometown. It wasn't big but I loved it. I read almost every book in the middle school library and read a lot in the high school library. I didn't leisure read much in college....too busy. But once I graduated, I make a twice monthly trip to the library and checked out as many books as I could read.

When my kids were born, I began to read to them almost from birth. It was a way to get my son to sit still for a little bit during the day. As long as my husband or I read to him, he'd sit still. It became a tradition for my husband to read every night to my son, Goodnight Moon and many others when he was little and chapter books like The Hobbit and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when he got older. As soon as he was able, he began to read and hasn't stopped since.

My daughter, was a different story. She liked me to read to her but would tire after only a few books. I did read to her at night but she didn't seem to have a love of reading like my son did and I worried endlessly that she would miss out on the wonderful world of reading. She had a reading program in elementary school and many nights leading up to the end, when she needed a certain amount of points, I would read to her in bed so she could test on the book to get her points. It was stressful for both her and I. I bought all sorts of books trying to 'turn her on' to reading....nothing seemed to work.

It wasn't that she couldn't read, she read well. She just didn't enjoy it. She would rather play dolls or look at the pictures in a magazine. Then, my son and I began to read the Twilight series. She wanted to read it so badly because all the 'cool' older kids were reading it. I wouldn't let her read it because it had vampires in it and she'd always had this 'thing' about vampires. She watched a 'Doug' cartoon on Halloween where he turned into a vampire or something like that and suddenly everyone, including me, were vampires! She'd wake up in the night from a vampire dream....the whole little girl nine yards! There was no way I was going to let her read a book about vampires!

About a year ago, I finally gave in and let her read the first book in the series. Well, she read it in two weeks! Then, in about a month, she finished the rest of the series! Twilight had turned her on to reading! Yes, I said the Twilight series....hey, whatever works!

Now, there is no stopping her, she reads constantly. I had to go to the library today to pick up another group of books for her today while she was in school. She started the series over spring break and needs to finish it quickly!

The love of reading has been passed on.....I'm so happy!

Happy Birthday Hubby!

2011-03-24T08:04:00.001-05:00

Today is going to be quick. I've got a ton of cooking to do! Making dinner for my husband tonight for his birthday. I'm crockpot cooking pork tenderloins in teriaki sauce, wild rice pilaf in my rice cooker, steamed veggies and tomato-feta salad. I'm baking a strawberry jello cake and serving it with fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream.

The kids and I bought him a new ladder. It's one of those that make different shapes. He's almost worn out our old ladder, I'm afraid one of us will fall off it. Especially after the remodel, it's got a lot of use!

He's forty-seven! I can't hardly believe that either of us are that old! How can that possibly be!

Pancake night!

2011-03-23T08:50:00.001-05:00

I love pancake night! last night, I fired up the old griddle, took some ham slices and frozen blueberries out of the freezer and served up a great pancake night! I had to make a double batch of pancakes and there were only a few left. I'm hoping that I can eat the leftovers tomorrow for lunch if my husband doesn't find them for breakfast first!

Pancake night is a quick, economical dinner that my kids love. I use coupons on the ham and eggs that make the pancakes. I use an old recipe from a Better Homes cookbook that I bought when I first got married. The fruit I serve is cheap or free because I pick blackberries in the summer and have a blueberry patch that I buy a bunch from in the summer and put up to freeze. So for me, pancake night is an easy, inexpensive way for me to be a hit!

I'm not cooking tonight because our church has a dinner on Wednesday's and we eat there. I love Wednesday's! It costs me twelve dollars and I don't have to cook it. I'm already planning Thursday's meal because my husband is turning forty-seven! Wow! He's getting old....I'm making grilled pork tenderloin, wild rice and a tomato salad. I'm also making his favorite jello strawberry cake. He and my daughter fought about which one would get the cake since she's having the slumber party on friday. She finally gave in since it's really not her birthday and she'll get to eat the cake too. Dad however, has decided that he and my son are finding somewhere else to be on friday night. don't know why! Seven thirteen year old girls, my two nieces I've volunteered to babysit, and me, a perimenopausel woman! Oh joy! It's so exciting I can hardly wait!

It's going to be a great week!

Cherry Limeades!

2011-03-22T07:38:00.000-05:00

I love spring and it has really sprung in Oklahoma! My daffodils are in full bloom. I have a couple of bouquets in the house. I always put them in my cobalt blue vases. I think the blue really sets off the different yellows in the daffodils.

Some of the daffodils on the Ponderosa I've planted, but a lot came with the property. I dug them up because they were overcrowded and planted too deeply because they had been there so long. They are old fashioned double daffodils that smell heavenly. Not like the large, pink or some other color daffodil that you can buy now. Don't get me wrong, I like those too and have several varieties. But I really do like the smell of those old fashioned flowers.

Spring also brings out my craving for Sonic's cherry limeades. I love that tangy taste! I also love taking my daughter to Sonic after school. We roll our windows down and just talk about her day. It's nice to hear all about her day.

Sonic cherry limeades and my daughter.....just a pretty great duo!

So Tired!

2011-03-21T08:26:00.000-05:00

Ohhhh! I am sooo tired! It's the first day back from spring break....and I'm dragging. I'm so glad that it's pick up pizza night tonight on the menu. Sometimes, I really do a good job planning! sometimes, not so much! This week, I have a few tried and true menus planned so it's easy since I'm so busy!

Tonight, we're having pizza from Mazzio's, they have a pick-up special so I'm picking up. Tomorrow, it's pancake and ham night with frozen blackberries from the garden. I bought the ham and eggs for the pancakes with coupons on sale and will make from scratch pancakes. So dinner is only a few bucks! Wednesday is eat at church night! I love Wednesdays, I get to see my friends and chat, and I don't have to cook. Bonus! Thursday is my husbands birthday night so I'm crockpot cooking pork tenderloin, wild rice pilaf and salad with strawberry jello cake. That's his favorite.

Friday, well friday is my daughter's slumber party! The boys are taking off to grandma's! She hasn't decided on pizza or hamburgers...but we're having veggies, dip, apples, grapes and marble cupcakes! I don't thing anybody cares what the entree will be, they are having cupcakes with pink and black zebra cupcake liners.

Anyway, we've got the menu planned, the invites are being delivered today, the new family room will be ready for the girls, we may not have it completely done but the tv, the wii and the foosball table will be hooked up. They are all ready and really excited.....I am going to bed with ear plugs in that night.....I'm tired already!

Wall-o-waters!

2011-03-18T13:33:00.000-05:00

I'm in the process of getting the garden ready and planted this week. I've been to Stillwater Milling to pick up some different types of compost and peat moss. I like going to Stillwater Milling for all my garden needs. It's not one of those fancy little garden centers, you can buy worming stuff for your cattle, electric fencing for the horses and get yourself some fancy boots and clothes along with pet food! It's also one of those places that old retired guys who like to talk hang out and no one gets onto them!
I'm a bit of a talker myself, so this is the place for me. Last year, an older man told me that the best tomato for around here was Jet Star. I bought a couple and, sure enough, that little plant did better than most. So this year, while I was picking up the compost, I went out to the greenhouse and picked myself up a couple of those, plus some broccoli for spring planting.

If you remember last year, I went to a raised bed system for most of my garden and added a drip irrigation system. I was pretty proud of myself because it sure made watering easier! In the background, you can those tall, green tubes sticking out of the ground. Those are wall-o-waters for tomatoes. I used them last year for the first time in a long time. I had my tomatoes out at the end of March when most people aren't planting tomatoes around here until mid-April. I had tomatoes about mid-June because one of the ones I put in the wall-o-waters was a cherry.
I'm working on getting my wall-o-waters out today. I am adding compost to my soil and will fill the wall-o-waters with water(thus the name!) and let that water sit out in the sun for about a week to warm up. Science teacher time: water is a great insulator because it takes a lot of energy to heat up and a lot of energy loss to cool down. That's why around large bodies of water, there is not as great of a temperature change. Anyway, once those chambers get heated up, I'll plant my tomato starts in the ground.
I love gardening, it is great exercise and I think it's good for my soul. I can think to myself, sing and pray in my garden. Kate, my big black dog, comes and guards the garden so no forest monsters get me.....she hates squirrels and thinks they are her enemies so she guards me! My husband is always trying to get me to stop carrying the big bags of compost but I just tell him that it's a weight bearing exercise...good for blue-eyed women who are prone to osteoporosis!
Plus, with the cost of fresh veggies right now, anything I can grow for very little helps the bottom line!

Birthday and St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-17T07:43:00.000-05:00

Thirteen years ago today, my life changed.....for the better. Thirteen years ago about noon, my daughter entered this world! She is such a precious gift and my husband and I love her to death! Our precious daughter and son are adopted so we realize everyday how much we've been blessed because they are obvious gifts from not only God, but from two very loving, selfless birthmothers.

Our birthmothers and their families have always been dear to my heart. I look at them as extended family members who love my kids too. I feel really blessed to be part of their families too. We were put together under circumstances that were both happy and sad but blended us forever, sharing the love of one little person. My kids have always known that there were adopted. It's just always been part of their story, our story, of how we became a family.

Today, as I prepare the cake and wrap the presents, I think of my daughter's precious birth family. That special family that gave my husband and I the special task to raise her to become an adult. It's an awesome task, being a parent, no matter how the child came to you. It's scary as they begin to grow up and away because forces beyond your four walls begin to influence your child more and more. I hope and pray the foundation we have laid are going to stand strong during this turbulent time in our children's lives.

Thirteen is an exciting year for my daughter, she's finally a teenager! She's having a family dinner tonight and a big slumber party next friday night with her gang or gaggle, depending on who you ask! The boys are leaving that night for grandma's...something about too much estrogen.... Tonight, we're just keeping her for us........

Spring Break Week!

2011-03-16T07:46:00.000-05:00

Gotta love teaching....during spring break! This week is spring break in Oklahoma. I'm so glad. It worked out wonderfully that this was also spring forward week, I don't do so well losing an hour of sleep. It seems to take me two weeks to recover! I never have this problem with the fall back part of the cycle. My body happily accepts gaining an hour but I really have a hard time springing forward.

Of course, the first part of spring break has been cold and rainy. Oh well, I needed a chance to recover from my garden overload over the weekend! My daughter and I cleaned out all the flower beds, remulched and raked leaves. Most of my plants seemed to have made it through the long, cold, cold, snowy winter we had. I don't know about blooms yet but I'll give up those if they will just live!

Gardening with someone else makes it much more fun and easier. You can work as a team, I raked, she blowed with the leaf blower. I picked up leaves, sticks, etc, she wheeled the wheel-barrow down to the compost pile. We laughed and took drink breaks, something I never do when I'm working alone. I am still a little sore but nothing like when I work by myself. I also hope I'm giving her my love of gardening and some basic knowledge of plants. She isn't so excited about it now.....maybe when she buys her first place, some of that knowledge will come in handy.

Vegetable gardening is starting for me in earnest this week also. By the end of the week, it's supposed to be back in the seventy's so I'm starting my lettuce, spinach and potatoes. I'm planning to put up my wall-o-waters so maybe I'll get my tomatoes in next week.

Since it's still Oklahoma, I'm waiting patiently for that last snowfall we always seem to get sometime in late March or early April. I can stand it, spring is really starting to take hold so winter has to be on it's way out! It's time to put away the snow shovel and get out the garden tools!

So I won't be spending my spring break out on a beach somewhere, I'll just spend it on my little Ponderosa readying it for spring. We're so close to finishing the new building project that I'm getting antsy anyway and next friday night is the big '13' slumber party, we've still got to get everything ready to go. I just don't have time to lay on a beach!

Facebook fatigue.....

2011-03-15T07:25:00.000-05:00

I'm tired of the facebook drama....I'm serious! I started using facebook about a year ago to keep up with people I went to school with. It didn't take long for former students to start friending me and I found it was a great way to keep up with church friends and activities for my teenagers through the youth group site.

I also seemed to be a magnet for people I never knew! I got a bunch of those requests at the beginning...not so much anymore. I guess the decided I was a grumpy, middle-aged woman who didn't need friends she didn't know.

Speaking of friends I don't know, I'm pretty picky about who I friend and I don't mind de-friending people that I find weird or just weary. I have de-friended former students because I found their posts weird....I don't care who they slept with or what their new sexual orientation is today....that's just too much information for an old lady! I also don't like those 'I'm drunk facebook rants' or feel sorry for me, I've made some really bad choices rants....get over it and grow up already!

I also cull out the 'I'm a gay liberal so don't say anything that reveals your feelings about those topics' rants. Alright, if you know me in anyway, you know that I'm a conservative, middle-aged woman, who leans green on environmental issues. I'm also married to a man! surprise! I will occasionally say things on facebook (and here) that reveal my feelings on issues.....I don't need you to chastise me or lash out at me because I dare to post my feelings! Remember, you friended me! I love a good debate, but taking me to task and tongue lashing me because my particular take on something doesn't mesh with your beliefs will find you one less friend. I won't rake you over the coals for your weird beliefs, you leave me alone for mine!

I don't know why some people feel they can be rude, condescending or just plain annoying in the printed word. Most of the people who act like jerks on facebook don't have the guts to speak those words to someone face to face!

I deleted a few people over the weekend again. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings. I just don't want to know you anymore and just like in real life, if you become non-friendly, I will begin to distance myself from you until we break off contact, I am making a facebook break from you in facebook world.....it's not you, it's me.....no, it's you, I don't want to be your facebook friend or any friend anymore...you're just not friend material.

Don't bother trying to re-friend me, it's like I used to tell old boyfriends. You get one shot with me, you mess up, you're gone..... Life's too short to try to go backwards.....I'm moving on....I does amaze me that people know exactly how many friends they have so when someone de-friends them, they hunt down the person and begin badgering them to become friends again! Really, really, do you think I defriended you by accident? Really?

I'm beginning to not enjoy facebook....too much high school drama...and I'm too old for high school.

Green Onions

2011-03-14T08:30:00.000-05:00

We've been eating fresh green onions from the garden! It's so exciting to make that little walk down to the garden and cut a fresh onion for my salad. I also have chives up and have been cutting them as well. I don't buy green onions during the winter because they are usually so expensive that I can't justify spending money on something I know we'll have ten months of the year.

I grow something called 'walking' onions. I've seen it in garden catalogs as egyptian walking onions. I don't know if they came from egypt but around here, we call them walking onions. My mom gave me a start several years ago and she was given a start from someone at church. That's sometimes the best plant, a pass-along plant. When she passed these along, the directions were like this....'plant them like a regular onion but don't ever pull the entire onion. Just cut them down to the ground and they will resprout over and over.' Just like that, they do! Mid-summer, they send up a very thick flower stalk and bloom like a chive. Once the bloom is over, the little flower becomes many little onions that will drop off and replant themselves.

They were so proficient at my house that last year I dug up a bucket full and sent them with my husband to work. They were eager to try them. I really like them because once you put in a place, they stay and you never have to replant! The perfect recycling plant! Each spring, very early I might add, you can go out and start cutting. It seems those onions like to be cut, the more cutting the faster they seem to grow. I throw out a little vegetable food every spring just to help them out a bit, but they pretty much are plants that don't require anything.

I love those kind of plants! I take my grandma's mantra concerning plants. I asked her one time how all her plants always looked so good,.....she said, 'I only grow the ones that will grow!' Pretty profound really, she didn't believe in wasting time here in Oklahoma trying to coax plants that didn't do well to grow. She knew what grew well and she grew a lot of each. That's why her garden did so well! My mom and both my grandma's had green thumbs and they all pretty much do that...grow what grows well. Plus, they take a bit of a hand's off approach. They didn't hover over....it either lived or died.

I like that garden mantra, I have too many other things to worry about than green onions. I need them to grow well on their own. I like my 'walking' onions!

Getting away....

2011-03-07T08:30:00.001-06:00

My husband and I took off a little early last weekend and flew to San Francisco. He was speaking at a conference so he flew out early and I took a couple days off work and flew out to vacation. We are blessed to have grandparents that live in town so we can do that every now and then. Every now and then has been exactly three or four times in the eleven years we've lived here! We get so busy and we both hate leaving the kids, but as they've gotten older, it's gotten easier to sneak off for a few days.

It's odd when we travel without the kids. We both miss them, we really do but it takes me back to a time before kids(I call it bk) when we did things together all the time, just us. See, we're one of those couples that were a couple for a long time before we became a quartet. We really enjoyed each others company then and we still do now. I'm Lucy to his Ricky. No, really, I am Lucy. I tend to get over-excited and bite off much more than I can chew. He's more laid back and is the worker. I'm the dreamer, he's the finisher.

They say couples get more alike the longer they stay together, I don't see that. I think we have become more polar opposite, so we balance each other out. I think of marriage as a teeter-totter. Since I'm so off-center, he's had to adapt to more off-center in the other direction; more organized, more stable, less fly by the seat of his pants. I find I get more absent minded professor each day.

I think a lot of it is the everyday stress of having two very busy active teenagers. One a given day, my cell phone may have three to five alarms set so I can just know where I am supposed to be! It was nice to be free for a few days from that, although my mother-in-law may hate me when I get back! She gets to do the running for a few days! I love that woman!

It's nice to be free from the hustle-bustle for a few days, but by the time we headed to the airport yesterday, we were ready to be parents of our kids again. Got the souvenirs for the kids. Promised them that next time, they could come with us. We'll probably bring them to the Pacific Northwest this summer. There's a redwood forest calling my name, and a temperate rain forest, and some awesome waterfalls and hiking trails. I couldn't imagine having those experiences without them in tow.....San Francisco, nay, that's just for my man and me!

Got to get out of this rut!

2011-03-04T07:59:00.000-06:00

I'm in a food rut, I can tell it's time to switch seasons! I'm growing so tired of the food I was so excited to be eating last November. I'm tired of soups, stews, casseroles and all those winter meals I've been making over the past few months. I'm ready for grilling, fresh veggies and fruits, salads and sandwiches.

My family is also, I can tell by their responses to nightly meals. We're all ready to clean off this back patio and set it up for those leisure meals outside as the sun sets. Don't get me wrong, we almost always eat our evening meal together. When we don't, the kids usually comment on it. It's just out of sorts when someone is missing. The dynamics are different when one of us is not around to give our two cents!

Yesterday was so wonderful, it was about sixty degrees and I really wanted to go out and fly a kite. Didn't have time, too busy dropping off and picking up people...I remember when my kids were so excited for that first day we could go out and fly kites! My how time flies....but when I mentioned it, both kids were eager to do it sometime next week when we had time! Even though they are so busy doing their own things, they still find it special to stand out in our front yard and fly kites together.

I'm beginning to plan this months menu. This month is a transitional month, from winter meals to spring meals. I'm ready, I've already asked everyone what they want one last time until next fall. Chicken and dumplings, chicken enchiladas, and Mc deli soup were things mentioned. I'll be making them the first two weeks of March...after that, we're going to spring foods...grilled chicken, salads, and sandwiches will start filling the days.

I'm so ready!

Seeing Green!

2011-03-03T07:45:00.000-06:00

I was wondering around out in my yard yesterday seeing what I could see and seeing all the garden work that needed to be done. I spent most of the day Sunday crawling around in the new rooms taping down paper so the workmen wouldn't make such a mess on the new floor. When they did our garage, we had to powerwash the floor and scrape the windows with a razor blade to get all the gunk off. I tell you, if those men pee like they spray walls, their mama's should be taken out back and horse-whipped!

Long story short, I can't hardly move now because I squatted for hours and my legs are so sore I can't hardly wear pants! It's too cold for shorts but I'm really glad that I sit a lot for work! As I was wondering around, I began to see more and more green poking up. The wild garlic and onion is about four inches tall. The daffodils and crocus are up and some are even beginning to bloom! The buds are beginning to show color on my lilacs.

It was a great reminder of all the work that still needs to be done. I need to clear out all the old dead stuff that didn't get taken away last fall. I need to rake the leaves that have now covered the front flowerbeds. I need to get the last of last years veggie garden taken to the compost pile.

I've got my little tomato plants growing happily in pots. They actually got to visit the outside today and sit in the sun! I find that they do better with real sunshine and wind than fake sunshine and my hand swiping over them to make them strong. I"ll probably be putting them outside in my wall-o-waters in a few weeks.

I looked in on my little spinach plants, they are doing pretty well under my old windows in the garden. Another week or so and I'll harvest my first little batch. I haven't decided on a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing or sauteed spinach with garlic, onion and a little soy sauce. Either way, it will be good to have garden greens again!

Spring is coming, it's so close!

Somewhere I Don't Want To Be......

2011-03-01T07:35:00.000-06:00

I had to go yesterday to the sheriff's department to get fingerprinted. I had to be fingerprinted because even though I'm a high school teacher, in the state of Oklahoma, I am not able to give state tests because I work for K12 corporation instead of a school district. They finally did give us clearance, a week before testing, but all the teachers must be fingerprinted. So....down to the Roger's county sheriff's department I went.

I've only been in the sheriff's department one time before, when I was getting fingerprinted for the last teaching job I had.....did I mention that the state department of education requires new fingerprinting each for each school you work for? If I was a substitute for four different school systems, I'd have to pay(or the school would have to pay) fifty-eight dollars for each fingerprint check. Seems to be a bit of a deal for the state!

Anyway, as I walked into the office, I noticed several other people in the lobby. Some looked like they didn't want to be there and some looked like they knew what they were doing and were totally at-home in the sheriff's department. I told the lady at the counter that I was there for fingerprinting, she pointed to the man sitting in the waiting room and said 'he'll go in first and then you're next'. I quickly took a seat opposite him. He looked up and smiled at me as if we knew that we didn't belong in the sheriff's office!

I began to people watch as I immersed myself in a game of mobile phone uno. First, there were the two women and little girl. They approached the counter and gave the woman money behind the plexiglass for phone cards for some inmate. They seemed to know what was going on....then they went to a box and poked a bunch of buttons....don't know what that was. The second person was an older man. He brought some phone cards and also offered a couple of books to the lady behind the counter....books the inmates grandmother sent him to read. The last lady was carrying a small little boy, she also knew the ropes for phone cards....she bought one hundred forty dollars worth. Apparently, she buys that many every few weeks!

It struck me as sad that these people, who haven't broken the law, are so tied to that lobby. They are because someone they love did break the law and are now waiting for judgement or serving time for the bad choices. These were wives, girlfriends, children, parents and grandparents. It would easy to say that the boys (most of the inmates there today were boys under twenty-five), had bad parents. It would be easy to blame family or society....but as I get older, I realize that families don't put you in jail.

Bad choices get you put in jail. Many of those people probably did have less-than-perfect homes growing up...but so did many people who shop at the grocery store I shop at, or go to the church I worship at, or live across the street. You can't blame your raising on why you're in jail. It basically boils down to making some bad choices, mostly lazy choices. It's easier to sit around and do drugs than to go out and get a job and go to work everyday. It's easier to rob someone's home than to work hard everyday to earn the money you need to buy stuff.

I'm not blaming the families of those young men sitting in jail, I'm blaming the young men who were too lazy to learn in school, that were too lazy to learn a trade, that were too lazy to so no to friends that introduced them to drugs, that were too lazy to do what they needed to do to stay out of jail. Sure, some have mental problems, learning disabilities, poor families, and things I haven't even thought of....

As I followed the young sheriff back to get fingerprinted, I began to think how sad I would be in my own son made a bad choice and ended up in that place. How would I feel each week coming into the counter and buying phone cards so I could talk to him.....as we walked back through the maze, I began to pray to myself. I prayed for the boys behind bars, I prayed for the families that were effected, I prayed for the people working there. I did run into a former student...she works there, thank goodness! I prayed for my own kids, that they would never make the kind of choices that put them in a place like that!

As I drove away to go pick my daughter from track practice, my son called to check up on me...it seems I had been gone from home too long and he was getting worried! I said a prayer of thanks!

Little Woman...

2011-02-28T07:45:00.000-06:00

I never gave being small very much thought until just a few years ago. I saw a picture of myself with some students at prom and one of the very tall boys said, 'Wow, I just realized just how short you are!', as if he was seeing me for the first time in that photograph. He actually had seen me almost everyday of his high school life! It struck me that, I never had realized how short I was either until he pointed it out....You see, I'm five foot three if I stand really tall and stick my boobs out and my shoulders back. I'm also fairly thin. Not extremely thin but thin enough that people say things like, 'go ahead and eat (you fill in the blank), you can afford the calories. Yeah, right, I wouldn't be thin if I ate like that!

My husband and I had one of those rare Sundays when both kids are doing something after church so we went out to eat! We try to get in a little alone time when we can...doesn't happen often but it's fun when we do. As we were leaving, a young woman came hobbling up on a pair of spiky black boots. My husband poked me and said, 'That's what you need.' To which my comeback was, 'I already have a pair of black boots." He then proceeded to point out that mine were not spikey like the one the girl was wearing. He knows I don't like high heels so he thought he'd be funny! 'Nah;, I said,' I don't like wearing high heels because if you have to cut into a run to catch and woop-up on someone, they are a bit restricting...' He stopped in the parking lot and said, 'only you would say something like that!' He was laughing and laughing as I simply got into the minivan and waited for him to start the car.

He's right, I'm like a little toy poodle who doesn't know just how little it really is. It's never come up because when I'm mad, I apparently blow myself up like a puffer fish because kids, like big football player boys, tuck their tails between their legs and start acting better immediately. I guess you could say I just have one of those personalities that seems bigger than the person it inhabits.......

Maybe it's the southern woman in me, you know, like steel magnolias. Sweet and hospitable but don't get her mad, she turns into a water moccasin! And my kids say the madder I get the more southern the accent comes out. They know just how far to push before my Scarlet O'Hare comes shooting to the surface......

Being little has never bothered me, I've never given it much thought......I've never been anything else. I has it's rewards sometimes. You get to stand in the front for a parade for instance. You also never get asked to reach up and get something. You also don't have to worry about the dust up high,....I don't see it, it doesn't bother me, so if it bothers you, here's the dust rag!

Garden catalogs!

2011-02-23T07:30:00.000-06:00

My gardening catalogs keep rolling in as a constant reminder that spring is fast on the way! I know, I know, here in Oklahoma, we'll probably have at least one more ice/snow event but it will be a fast mover...they don't hang out long once we get out of February! So come on March!

Everyday when I go to the mailbox, I usually get another seed or garden catalog. I love looking through the pages at all the bright happy plants. About this time of the year, I get the spring fever so I'm glad that I can get outside and dig around in the dirt cleaning out flower beds or sowing early seeds inside for my spring garden. I've already started my tomatoes and am patiently waiting......maybe not so patiently! I want to get them planted outside today! It's hard to wait for spring..

This year, however, I'm a bit hesitant for spring. Since we broke record lows this winter, I'm wondering if I will lose some plants. I worried about my new blackberries that I planted last spring. I am supposed to harvest a crop this year but blackberries sometimes die back to the ground in really cold weather. I'm worried about my strawberries. It's a waiting game for some of the flowers too. Will my azaleas come back, what about my crepe myrtles?

To put a positive spin on things, my grandma used to say that the hard killing cold killed it's share of snakes, ticks and chiggers too! I'm going to be really mad if my blackberries, strawberries and crepe myrtles bit the dust but the snakes made it......

One Year Ago....my how things have changed!

2011-02-22T07:10:00.000-06:00

So I was bored and looked back to see what my theme was a year ago on my blog....I was in a cleaning frenzy! I was cleaning walls, floors, ceilings, closets and anything else I could get my hands on. All I can say is 'my how things have changed!'

Since we've started the building/remodeling project, very little cleaning is going on, at least deep cleaning. I'm cleaning alright, trying to keep the dust down, the drywall plaster in the remodel area and basically trying to keep control of the panic attack growing inside me with all this mess! My daughter has lost her room, she's now in the guest bedroom with closet space in three different closets! My son, will be sleeping in the living room this week and probably next, lost his closet about a month ago. They have things strung out from the upstairs down to the garage!

My office is piled up with things from the guest bedroom and my bedroom has what wouldn't fit in the office. Dusting is almost impossible because any open area has something stacked on top! I keep going into the new family room, that now has walls and lights and drywall plaster on it, and envisioning all the extra space we will have in a another month or so.....it can't happen fast enough!

I'm actually pretty proud of myself, I haven't had a melt-down about the mess. I do find that I feel really scattered and it's hard for me to focus on one thing for long. I know it's because I don't like clutter, it makes me feel cluttered and disorganized.

Hopefully, that will change soon and we'll be moving the kids into new rooms and have a great teen cave to start hosting again. I'm resting now so after it's all done I can get my clean groove back on!

Happy President's Day!

2011-02-21T15:55:00.000-06:00

Unless you're a government or bank employee, you may not have realized that this is President's Day! When I was a kid, we celebrated George Washington's birthday and Abe Lincoln's birthday seperately but sometime in that forty years, someone decided to merge the two together. As school kids, we didn't get the days off so it really didn't matter to me! What did matter was that my mom always made a cherry dessert on old George's birthday.

I know the story about George chopping down the cherry tree is folklore, but it sure is nice to know that on that day, when you came home from school, it didn't matter what we were having for dinner because that night there would be dessert! We usually didn't eat dessert after a normal weekday dinner, probably why none of us really struggle with our weight. My sister says she does but she really doesn't, she's tall, thin and very nice looking! Men used to ask her if she knew she looked like Julia Roberts! Anyway, that's a bit off topic.....I'm talking about pie!

Today, I had to run into town to pick up some printer ink so my usual Reasor's grocery store stop was going to be a Walmart run. I really have to gear myself up for Walmart. It is my least favorite place to shop in the entire town, possibly state, maybe the entire country or world. I just don't like it. They are always moving things around so I can't find things, there are unkempt people shuffling around like they live there, and it takes so long to check out!

Today, I was just going to pop in, grab my printer ink, some frozen cherries for my pie and get out of that place! Ha! Did I mention I don't shop there because they are like the Lowe's of the grocery world.....a little of this and that but don't ask for anything really specific because they don't carry it! Yep, you guessed it. No frozen cherries! None! I found frozen strawberries, frozen raspberries, frozen blueberries, a frozen mix of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries but not one cherry! Frozen cantelope and melon mix but still no frozen cherry! I thought maybe I was mistaken, so I asked a person dressed up to resemble an employee. They looked and looked, basically where I looked and then declared that they must not carry them.

"Bummer, that means that President's Day is cancelled!" I declared. Who ever heard of a store that doesn't carry frozen cherries! Well, I did manage. I bought a can of pitted cherries and had a bag of frozen cherries in my freezer(from good old Reasor's)! The pie is in the oven baking as we speak. The vanilla ice cream is waiting patiently in the freezer....oh yeah, we are really having dinner, cornbread topped chili casserole. It's good but no one will remember it. All they will remember is that we had pie....on a weeknight!

God bless our president's and president's day!!!!

Beef jerky....the perfect gift!

2011-02-18T07:06:00.002-06:00

So we exchanged small gifts on Valentine's Day. I always get the kids some little something. My mom did it for me and my sister, I do it for my own kids. We used to get heart earrings or red pj's or panties or something cute.

My daughter got a little pink pair of running shorts. They are hot pink and really cute. She'll look so cute out running in them. Don't tell her I said that or she'll never wear them! The point is, it's easy to buy something cute for her for Valentine's Day.....not so much with my son!

Teenage boys get tricky when it comes to buying gifts. Heaven knows he needs more cologne or body wash or spray. When he actually uses it, I can barely breath. I think this bronchitis I have may have more to do with Axe body spray and less to do with a virus! My poor lungs! But that's when he actually uses it....most days, I have to threaten to bath him myself before I can get him into the shower. A mother of an older boy has promised me that he will eventually get the hang of personal hygiene but I'm not sure at this time....maybe in a few years when a girl is in the picture..I can only dream. He keeps reminding me that he's living here until he's thirty and I keep reminding him that he's not!

I finally struck upon the perfect Valentine's gift. An assortment of beef jerky! Perfect! He almost cried with joy when he opened the package. Four different flavors so he could mix and match! He was in heaven.....for three days. That's how long it took him to eat all four packages.....Easter basket shopping will be easy this year. I've just got to figure out how to roll up the jerky to fit into the eggs!

Daffodils......

2011-02-17T07:51:00.003-06:00

I love the sunshine! I really missed it during the snow days we had the last few weeks! I missed taking my daily walk in my mud boots with Miss Kate by my side. Not much to see in the winter but I'm always checking the status of my daffodils and Miss Kate loves anything I do with her. Dogs are like that...doesn't matter if I'm just digging in the garden, she likes having me with her. I have fallen hard for this silly dog.....didn't see that one coming!

I've been out stalking the daffodils and guess what? Some of them have made an appearance! Yep, one week after we hit record lows, I have sweet little daffodils peeking up through the ground! Sunshine and my first peek of daffodils in the same day....this is a good day!

Daffodils are pretty hardy little flowers. They are sunny, bright yellow little flowers that store it's energy from last summer and lay underground all during all the hottest part of the summer. They put on quite a show but it's short-lived and many times, in Oklahoma, is cut way too short by an ice or snow storm or a powerful thunderstorm. That doesn't bother those resilient flowers, they store more energy and try it again next spring. I think as I've gotten older, I've become a little more daffodil than I used to be. When I get knocked down, I get back up again and try over. Age seems to bring a resiliency that I didn't have when I was young.

I've lived long enough to know it won't always be easy, that things are going to turn bad eventually and how I respond will matter more than what happens. That things will turn good eventually. That success sometimes means walking away from the thing you thought you wanted more than anything. That some people are the sum of what you see, there is nothing else to them. That real friends can not talk for months, even years, and then take right back up where they left off. That being a daffodil is better than being a rose.......

Flourless Chocolate Cake- Not!

2011-02-15T07:47:00.000-06:00

So Valentine's Day 2011 is over, we had a great time! Unfortunately, my daughter had a numb mouth because both of the kids had dental appointments this afternoon for cleanings. My daughter is getting braces next week so I wanted the braces put on clean teeth! I moved up the cleanings and ended up with Valentine's Day, couldn't be helped. Anyway, she had a partial numb mouth but I think she still was able to eat all the food and enjoyed it quite a bit.

I said earlier that I had a new dessert to try, flourless chocolate cake. I made it yesterday and it was quite memorable. My son and I had quite a laugh as we were making it. He described it as an epic fail that turned out ok!

To start with, the author of the recipe said to use a nine-inch cake pan. Well, the pan was about a half too small so part of the cake ended up on the bottom of my clean oven...well I had put aluminum foil on the bottom so I just scraped it off and ate it! I also took off the pieces that fell on the oven grates, ate that too.

The recipe said to cook for forty minutes. It ended up taking about sixty minutes. When I finally was satisfied that it was done, I let it cool for thirty minutes like the recipe said. Then I was supposed to turn it over and dump it out. Well, I had to eat some more of the cake that was hanging over the pan. That's when my son got in on the eating frenzy. We ate all the stuff hanging over the side and I picked up the cake to turn it over.....and that's when it got interesting! I picked up the entire top came off! In a perfect heart, I lifted up the top of cake! My son started laughing and laughing! I gently laid down the top of the cake and proceeded to turn over the cake and it came out perfectly onto my cake pedestal. I then picked up the top and placed it over the cake! Looked pretty good actually, that's when my son decided that the epic fail turned into an ok!

I made a raspberry sauce to serve with the cake. After our dinner of shrimp cocktail, tomato-feta salad, grilled steak and baked potato and homemade bread; we served the the flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce and chamomile tea. I started calling it the earthquake cake because the minute that I started cutting it, it broke into a million pieces! My daughter accused me of thinking that one up early in the day and waiting to use it all day! I really didn't, it just came to me, I promise.....

It wasn't too bad, it tasted like eating chocolate meringue. My husband suggested that next time we just have regular chocolate cake. It isn't something I think I will make again.....

But we had a great valentine's day!

Valentines Day 2011

2011-02-14T07:49:00.001-06:00

I almost missed it! With all the snow and fluff outside, Valentine's Day came up fast upon me. The family had talked about it last week when we had so much together time but I had simply forgotten that it was this week! So today, I'm cooking for the big family valentine dinner....yup, it's almost the same as last year and the year before that and the year before that....

And that's ok, my kids chose the menu and they like it! I was chuckling a couple of days ago to myself wondering when they are grown-ups will they have tomato-feta salad, grilled steaks and baked potato, bread and a chocolate dessert for their own kids....I hope they do! I hope they feel that having fancy family dinners are important.

It's fun planning and scheming and plotting and hiding those little gifts that we buy from one another. It's fun setting the table with all the fancy linens and dishes. It's fun watching my two kids grow-up and learn good manners that I hope (I hope, I hope, I hope) that they use those manners when they are out in the world without me. I hope so, because my son does not always use them at home!

It's a way for me to show my love to my family, preparing a fancy meal. It'd be much easier just to put something quick and easy on the table, like I do most nights! But I want them to know that I value them and I enjoy doing things for them. We don't have to have a fancy meal to sit and enjoy each other's company each night but it is fun to do it every now and then. Every night would probably kill me!

We haven't always been able to have our dinner on Valentine's day, some years, one of their activities get in the way. But, we always have our dinner! I like it better when it's actually on Valentine's Day. It makes it much more special to me....

My hubby and I went out over the weekend for a 'just the two of us' dinner. It was nice to just be able to concentrate on speaking to each other, to get into 'in-depth' grown-up conversation. And one day to soon probably, we will be having many more of those dinners.....Right now, every now and then is fun, I like that good old fancy family dinner!

We've made a pact not to buy anything big for each other. With this remodel overtaking our lives and our wallet, we think the best thing we could give each other is a little time just to ourselves. Nothing fancy, just time.

I'm making a flourless chocolate cake for dessert. That's the only part of meal that can change, so I try something new each year. I'll keep you posted on how it went!

The secret to the sauce!

2011-02-11T07:45:00.000-06:00

Ok, I promised yesterday I'd tell you the long story of how I got the best bar-be-que sauce in the world! Well, it started with my grandpa....you've got to know, he was a bit of a character. When he was 17, he lied to join the navy during world war II. He saw a lot of action, got wounded a couple of times and nearly died. He survived but wouldn't talk much about what happened until later in life. He saw terrible things for a kid.....

When he returned, he became a plumber, pipefitter and welder. He could fix just about anything. He traveled around the country working on stuff like power plants. When my mom was in the fifth grade or so, they settled down in my hometown and my grandpa traveled by himself. By the time I came around, he was working around our town and doing well for himself.

Being a navy man, my grandpa could talk the talk. He could also gamble and smoke. So I've got to get back to the story......word is my grandpa did some work for the owner of the bar-be-que restaurant and when he asked how much he wanted for the job and grandpa told him he wanted the sauce recipe. He was sworn to silence and he pretty much kept his silence on the recipe for years and years. He would whip up a big batch sauce and pass it out to family and friends. He only gave me the recipe when I got married and moved away. I had to swear to keep the secret and I did. As the years went by, he did loosen up and give it to a couple of other family members.

We were sitting around at a family gathering after grandpa passed away and we began to talk about the sauce and grandpa. I mentioned the story he told me about how he got it and my brother starting laughing at me! 'That's not what he told me!', he said. My grandpa had told him that he won it in a poker game.....that sounds more like the real story to me.

Did I tell you that this was the same grandpa who used to shoot off a homemade cannon for fourth of july and noodle at the river......he was fun!

Another snow day......

2011-02-10T07:42:00.000-06:00

So thankful that I am a work from home employee! I honestly think I would be driving closely to the madness cliff if I didn't have something to do during all this winter! We woke up yesterday to another eight to twelve inches of snow....can't tell because we couldn't find a place that didn't already have snow to measure except the front and back porches. We had eight inches on one side of the house and twelve inches on the other side. I think I'll just say ten inches.

My daughter is close to losing her mind! She's missing her friends and wants to get back to all her activities! Being stuck at home with mom and dad and big brother is no fun at all...there are only so many places to hide in our house so she's pretty much stuck in her room. Luckily, her brother still has school so he's been busy at least a few hours each day.

My husband has been able to commute to work for exactly two days since last tuesday. His normal commute is an hour so when you can't even get out out of the driveway, it's kind of dumb to drive to work. He can also work from home just as easily so the easy chair has been his office lately. Makes cleaning the living room a bit difficult but I know that someday, I'll have that room back!

To say that we're all tired of winter is an understatement of the year! We are ready to book a flight to anywhere closer to the equator! So last night, I made comfort food deluxe! Homemade pancakes, fried ham, scrambled eggs and blackberries and blueberries with syrup. You put that on the table and everyone forgets their troubles of the day! We had very little left after we pushed away from the table. Of course, I had made enough to feed Kate some extra dinner tonight! She's tucked into her heated dog house but I still feel sorry for her out there! She's the only one who seems to enjoy the weather. She actually goes out and rolls in the snow! She'll chase the ball through the snow even though the snow rubs her belly. She sure enjoyed the eggs and ham too.

Oklahoma is supposed to be getting warmer and warmer this weekend, the weather men are saying it's going to be close to sixty by next tuesday! WooHoo! We'll be bringing out the flip-flops.....I need a pedicure!

Tomorrow is snow day number ten for my daughter this year.....she'll probably be going to school until mid-June, while I'm sitting by the pool. I haven't told her that yet......it would probably push over the edge.........

Eating from the Stockpile

2011-02-09T07:14:00.000-06:00

Ok, this is week two of the EPIC BLIZZARD of 2011 or as some are calling it SNOWMAGEDDEN 2011! I'm ever so thankful that I stockpile shop! I had to actually make up something last weekend so my husband had an excuse to leave the ponderosa and check out the roads.

I still don't need to grocery shop but my stockpile will be a bit depleted after this is all over. We have been eating like kings though. I've been able to keep to my menu as I typically have a two week delay between eating and buying. Plus, I always have a few meals that I always keep handy for those just in case nights that are quick and easy. Things like soup and spaghetti and a few frozen casseroles.

It's been nice to know I don't have to venture out and fight the crowds at the grocery store. I can just follow my menu and feed my family. Plus, I purchased most of the food with coupons on sale so I'm saving money too! That deserves a little happy dance!

I actually had time to make the world famous bar-be-que sauce that I've been meaning to make. I've been buying the items when I could get them on sale and finally had them all together. I put up twelve pints so that should keep us for this year. I can it so I don't have to store so much in the fridge. I just put it into the canned food pantry along with the summer produce and fruit. Here in Oklahoma, it's also a great quick gift for someone. Everybody loves bar-be-que and everyone is always looking for the best sauce. My son thinks I should sell it.

I'll tell you the bar-be-que story tomorrow. It's full of intrigue and is steeped in family history! Oh great, another family story.....

The Plague!

2011-02-08T07:21:00.000-06:00

Well, the plague has hit me! I ended up in the emergency room on Sunday with, what my husband thought was a heart attack, but was really a pretty bad bronchitis attack. When I went into the cold, I couldn't breath and then ended up hyperventilating. Pretty scary really.

If you want to get into a room fast at an emergency room, I'll tell you how to do it. Sit down in the chair, and say you are short of breath, you feel numb and your heart is beating out of your chest! Then almost pass out and immediately, they are wheeling you into a room and several people are working on you at once....maybe not the best way to get into a room.

It scared my husband and daughter more than it scared me, apparently, I wasn't looking too good! My son, since he was listening to his ipod and playing a video game while we were driving to the hospital, didn't know what was going on....oh, teenage boys! They live in their own world!

I'm ok now, got some meds and have been told to rest and stay out of the cold. It's going around but I honestly didn't feel that bad. Of course, I was moving slowly but I figured it was due to being cooped all this last week with the blizzard. My kids are helping out a lot and checking on me when I go lay down. My daughter keeps reminding me to drink orange juice and liquids. She'll be a pretty good nurse when she grows up.

As of now, we are scheduled for another winter storm tonight. My daughter hasn't been in school since last Monday. She's missing her friends and school! I honestly don't mind being home. I'm able to work since I work for a virtual school. May 28th will be my last day of school for my kids and my son regardless of what the weather brings!

For now, I'm just going to take it easy for a few more days. I've got the humidifier going and the Vick's vaporub on my chest. Being sick is no fun but it is a bit better when I can't go anywhere....staying home for the next few days is the best medicine!

Seeing the Big Picture....

2011-02-07T07:45:00.002-06:00

I saw a cartoon the other about southerners and snow, of course, the first day it was all 'yeah, snow! It's so pretty, I'm eating snow ice cream, school's out!' By the fourth day however, it was a totally different story! The poor little stick figure was laying there, almost dead because of boredom and beginning to go insane.....so very true in Oklahoma!

We don't get much snow so it's fun, fun, fun at first. That first or second snowday is like a little gift. You get to sleep in and finish projects that you don't normally get to work on. But the difference between us and the northern states is that we expect that snow to melt away in a matter of days, not weeks! We want to see blue skys and sunshine as soon before the end of the week. We don't have the equipment to clear the roads so we're stuck in our homes with our families!

We got out over the weekend to see how the roads were and take my son over to a friends for a few hours. As we were driving out in the country, I looked at the snow covered hills. It was so peaceful looking, like everything was covered in a powdered sugar blanket. I began to think about all the plants and animals that were tucked safely under all that snow.

You see, snow is a great insulator and we've had record low temperatures this last week. We've also been under a severe drought. I've been praying for moisture each week. So suddenly we have a lot of moisture and record low temperatures, God has a way of taking care of his creatures. I wondered how many animals and plants would have died if we just had been hit with record low temperatures without the protective covering of the snow blanket.

I began to be thankful for this snow.....the precious moisture will be appreciated as it slowly melts into the ground. The animals are thankful as they are able to burrow under the snow and stay warmer. My little brain sometimes just gets so carried away with wanting what I want, when I want it and I forget to stop and look at the wonder of nature. I need to just stop, look, listen and be thankful; for whatever comes my way. I need to trust that God is faithful and He will provide for me. If He cares enough to water the plants in Oklahoma, I'm sure He cares for me!

Super Bowl Party Cancelled.....

2011-02-06T15:30:00.001-06:00

Our church cancelled our super bowl parties for tonight. I honestly wasn't too sad, I was beginning to wonder where people would park and I certainly didn't want them spending the night! We were hosting the seventh and grade youth kids. Like I said, it would have been fun but the weather has made it not the best idea.....

I enjoy playing hostess for others. I enjoy having people over and cooking for them. It's just in my nature. After being cooped up all week, I was really looking forward to having kids around. So instead of cleaning and getting ready for the party, we moved my daughter upstairs. I'm hoping for some progress on the new family room and bedroom remodel this week. Everything came to a screeching halt this last week because of the blizzard.

My husband did a few things in the evening after working but no one with any real skill came over! We quite possibly will be slow this week also because the wonderful weather men have started screaming that this week may be another last week! Someone told me this week they felt like they were living in the 'Groundhog Day' movie! I was thinking this week that this must be what it's like to be retired! Even though I was working, I actually began to lose track of what day it was!

Normally, my week is marked by driving my kids here and there, everyday is different. Not this week! The calendar suddenly became empty so the sameness made me lose track....not actually bad, just different.

Well, it's almost time for the superbowl. I really don't care who wins, professional football is really not my sport. I like college, it seems to me when people begin to play for millions of dollars instead of simple bragging rights, something is lost.....

Eating Local

2011-02-05T06:51:00.003-06:00

So we woke up this morning, day number five of being stuck in the house. My husband actually thought he was going to work yesterday. He commutes sixty miles one way normally. Before getting twenty-three inches of snow! Did I say we got another three or so of snow yesterday? I did the teenage eye-roll when he told me that he was going to work! I also said, 'make sure and pack some clothes, because you'll be there all weekend.'

He decided not to go when the weather service put us under a winter storm watch that was later upgraded to a warning. The mood was tense at our house so after lunch, I suggested that we go into town and let me do my weekly Walgreen's coupon run. There was a few really good deals I had coupons on so it gave the man an excuse to drive off the Ponderosa! Boy, he was excited!

Roads were bad, but the people were friendly. Something about being cooped up for many days with only family makes total strangers fast friends! Heck, we're just glad to see someone else!

As we were going into Walgreens, we met someone we know coming out. They let us know there was no milk. Why would I buy milk at Walgreens, I thought? We have a dairy in town....Both my husband and I said at the same time, 'go to Swan's!' You see we have a little old-fashioned dairy in Claremore. Swan Dairy has been around for a couple of generations and they sell good, old-fashioned non-pasteurized milk! It tastes just delicious!

Some people get all freaked out about their milk being non-pasteurized but most of us drank non-pasteurized milk as kids or had parents that did. A lot of times, we got milk from the neighbors in a cleaned out pickle jar! I don't ever remember being sick.....in fact, back then, it seemed most of us were healthier than kids are now. Maybe it's because we're just so clean now, kind of makes me want to keep the house a little dirtier so everybody will stay healthy! He! he!

Well, back to Mr. Swan. His first name is Harley, although I call him Mr. Swan. Used to sit by him and his wife in church until we had to move closer to the youth group, ask my son about that! Anyway, I like knowing when I drive up to Swan's, I can see the cows through the window getting milked, if I go at milking time. And I get a friendly wave from Mr. Swan and the other employees working there. It's primarily a family affair so they are always there, no new employees working every week. They also make great cheese, especially cheese curds. Sometimes, I eat half of them before I get home.

So you see, it never occurred to me to buy milk at Walgreens or the grocery store. When all the milk is gone in Claremore, I know where to find more. The cows make it everyday no matter what the weather! Buying local has it's rewards!

If you ever get the chance to drive through Oklahoma, stop by the Swan Dairy in Claremore. Stop and watch the cows getting milked and say hello to Mr. Swan and the family! Just don't buy all the cheese curds....I need some to put in my Italian salad!

Family Stories

2011-02-04T08:00:00.000-06:00

When I was a kid, everytime we traveled through Honor Heights park in Muskogee, Oklahoma, my dad would tell us kids about the time he found a dead man leaning against a tree! Well, he wasn't the only one that found him. You see, he was in a boy scout troop and they were camping.

I could just imagine, as a kid, my dad, of course he was a lot younger and smaller, running like a banshee, a male banshee, through the woods at Honor Heights park with a bunch of other boys! Running and playing and screaming and yelling and then Bam! a dead man! How cool for a bunch of little boys! The poor man was actually a patient at the veteran's hospital on the hill and he had wandered off and sat down and died. I often wonder to myself who he was and what kind of life he had lived...and if he would have laughed at having scared and scarred a bunch of boy scouts!

That was apparently, a pretty good trip because one boy also cut off another boys finger with a hatchet! At this time in the story, I would always gasp in amazement and my dad would say, well he dared him to cut it off so he did! Nowadays, if even one of those things happened at a boy scout camping trip the parents would completely freak out! I know I would. That was the fifties and they let boys be boys. They didn't tell them to sit still and sing songs and feel good about themselves and others. They just let them be wild and free and run and play with sticks. Those that were strong, lived and those that were dumb and dared others to cut off their fingers, grew up fingerless. Oh, those were the days! At least it seemed that way when I was a kid and my dad was telling it!

It's funny how some stories live on and on in families. That story stuck with me because it seemed so fun and scary at once. It also stuck with me because we lived close to Muskogee and went to Honor Heights park often and everytime we went, my dad would tell the story. After awhile, my sister and I would begin to tell it before him. We thought it funny to beat him....

Well, now I don't live so close but I still go a couple of times a year. Each time I go, I tell my kids that pappa found a dead man in Honor Heights park. My daughter is horrified and my son wishes he had been there to see that kid chop off the other kids finger! One day, my own children will probably tell the story......I wonder how the story will morph by the time their kids are telling it? I also wonder how many of the old stories about my grandparents are not as factual as they were. How many have changed just a little? or maybe a lot?

Stir Crazy!

2011-02-03T05:13:00.001-06:00

So my hubbie is officially stir-crazy! Being stuck inside a house with two moody teenagers and cabin feverish husband is not my idea of a good time.....I don't know how many more days I'll be able to cope without hiking to town to see other people!

There is hope! One of the nearby neighbors has a tractor with large wheels that can move in the snow so tomorrow, he'll hopefully be able to plow our drive. He is using it today to clear their very long driveway and some of the older neighbors. By tomorrow afternoon, my husband may be able to get in his truck and drive in the one lane that is cleared to town and mingle with all the other stir-crazy men in this town!

I, on the other hand, like being stuck at home. I'm a bit of a hermit anyway, so this just gives me a reason not to go out! I have plenty of food and staples to last for at least two weeks so I'm in no hurry to visit civilization. It must be a man thing as my daughter is happy at home and my son is crawling the walls!

The official snowfall for yesterday in Claremore was twenty inches. On our property, some places have four foot snowdrifts so walking anywhere is tricky. I walked up to the road and it took me about forty-five minutes just to walk up and back. I was winded and tired, sweaty and cold and ready to go back inside!

They've already called off school for my daughter today and my guess is that she won't be back until Monday, that's if we don't get anymore! Oklahoma is just not prepared for winter weather like this! We don't have the equipment to clear the roads like northern states do. It just doesn't make sense to purchase it since it only happens occasionally!

We broke the record for snowfall yesterday, we had more snow in a twenty-four hour period than since they started keeping records in 1900. I told the kids to really look at the snow because chances are, they won't ever see this much snow in Oklahoma the rest of their lives. I'm taking plenty of pictures too. I'm hoping to post some tomorrow once I evict my husband out of the office so I can get to the computer I download pics on. Maybe he'll get to go to town and I can get something done tomorrow!

Snow Day Beef Stew

2011-02-02T06:37:00.001-06:00

Since we're snowed in and probably will be the rest of the week, I've just turned my house into a clothes pit. It is hard not to be grinch-like on snow days. My kids get all dressed up, go outside for five minutes, roll around in the snow and then come back in before I even sit down! Then they proceed to strip off all the wet, snowy mess in the sunroom and parade it all before the wood stove to dry. So my sunroom looks like a dirty show store and my living room looks like my dryer has quit!

Oh well, we don't get much snow and I know for a fact no one will be visiting us unexpectedly! Unless you have a snowplow, you won't be coming down this drive-way. So I'm just going with the flow, let the snow day come, I'm putting on stew and heading outside to take pictures of our massive snow!

Snow Day Beef Stew
2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into cubes
1 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onions

Add oil to a large dutch oven or large pan with a lid. Brown the meat, season with the salt and add onions. Cook until the onions are tender.

Add the rest of the ingredients:
1 cup chopped celery
2 teaspoons Herbes de Provence
3 cups beef broth or beef boullion
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper
2-3 large potatoes, cut into 3/4 inch pieces
1 sweet potato, cut into 3/4 inch pieces (I add if I have...)
1 cup chopped carrots (I use baby carrots and do not cut)
Cover and simmer until potato and carrots are tender.
Add 30 minutes before serving:
3/4 cup frozen peas

This is not a tomato based stew that is so good! Add cornbread and you've got a great snow day meal!

Crazy weather - snow ice cream!

2011-02-01T07:05:00.001-06:00

I was planting tulips on saturday in 75 degree weather and now I'm preparing for the BLIZZARD of epic proportions! No really, they are saying that this could be the biggest snowfall that Oklahoma has ever seen...well this year at least!

People here are crazy when it comes to snow. I'll wager that all the bread, milk and toilet paper is gone in Claremore, Oklahoma before midnight! It is amazing to think that many people, who can afford it, do not have enough food in their pantry to go a few days without running to the grocery store. I've been baking and making stew so if we need to warm up things on the woodstove. I've cooked before on it and it's actually kind of fun, for a few days.

I'm preparing for the worst and hoping for the best! I've gathered the batteries, radio, flashlights, lanterns, and charged all the cameras, video cameras, video players, etc, in case we are without power for a few days.

I did my normal weekly grocery shopping today to pick up the sales and had to make sure I had enough ingredients to make a few snow ice creams over the next few days. If you haven't had it, I'll post my two favorite recipes today. If I don't post in the next few days, you'll know that we had a little extra family time!

Don Woods Snow Ice Cream
1 can evaporated milk
1 egg - I use 1/4 cup egg substitute, don't want to give everybody salmonella!
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
dash of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 gallon clean snow
Beat everything but snow, then fold in snow.

I was given a snow ice cream recipe years ago that's just as good but easier to make.
Here it is:
8 cups snow
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 t vanilla extract
Mix together. This one is fantastic and really easy!

We'll probably be able to have them both in the next few days!

Other Peoples Trash....

2011-01-31T08:22:00.005-06:00

Saturday, it was 75 degrees in Oklahoma! Seventy-five degrees! Every now and then, we, oklahomans, really score a special day in deep winter and we had two on friday and saturday. It was so nice that I decided I was going to walk up to the road and pick up the trash that losers throw out their car windows into my yard and the yards around me.

Well, I took a big, black trash bag and filled up the entire thing. I almost couldn't carry it back down the driveway. I looked like a skinny santa claus in a bright orange osu t-shirt and torn out jeans. I was sweaty, hot and more than a little peeved once I got into the garage. Sweaty and hot because it was seventy-five degrees outside and more than a little peeved because I get tired of picking up after losers....

Years ago, when I was teaching at a school in Indiana, I had the opportunity to attend the coolest outdoor educational experience a kid could have. We bused these kids about an hour north of Fort Wayne to a little camp and for three days they stayed in little cabins with parents at night and during the day, we, teachers taught them special classes. The english teacher had them read nature poetry and then try their hand at writing their own poetry. The math teacher had them figure the height of trees using some formula I don't know...and I, as the science teacher, had them do lots and lots of things! I had so many ideas that I had to get parents to help! I had a parent teach tracking and they casted their own animal tracks, they made cells out of food and then ate the results, they identified plants and trees. I felt that we needed to do something that taught kids how important it was to not litter so I had five families, different kinds of families, to save one weeks worth of their trash. They only saved the items that wouldn't smell bad and they washed out the cups, bottles, things like that, after a week, I collected the trash in a special labeled trash bag.

At outdoor ed, I split the kids into five groups and gave them a trash bag and a tablet of paper. Their job? To examine the trash and make a profile of the family by what they could deduce from the trash. Most of the groups sat and stared at me in disgust! They didn't understand? What are we supposed to do? I explained again that our trash tells a lot about us. So after quite a bit of urging, the kids donned the gloves and sat out to work. They opened the trashbags and began to take a look at what they had. One sack was filled with baby food jars, diaper wipe boxes, and pizza boxes. They deduced a young family owned that trash. One sack was filled with bottles of geritol, coffee cans, church bulletins and kleenex boxes. They deduced an older woman owned the trash. One by one, the kids began to realize that even with the 'cleaned up' trash, they could still get a pretty clear picture of the person it belonged to.

Well, today, I got a pretty clear picture of the people that litter. They are fairly young, teenagers probably, that drink mountain dew and dr pepper. They smoke marlboros and dip skoal. They drink a lot of soft drinks from Sonic, McDonalds and Subway. And most of all! They sure do drink a lot of Budwieser! Not just Bud, Coors, Pabst, and even occasionally a Heineken! I'm going out on a limb and say very few of these disgusting litterers are anything like me. A middle-class, middle-aged woman.

White trash were the two words that kept going over and over in my mind. When I was a kid, the worst thing someone would call you was 'white trash'. That was the lowest of lows. White trash, it must be different than red trash or black trash. Why in the world do I care what color of trash throws their trash out the window into my yard? I realized how racist that really sounded....white trash. Like I'm making levels of trash.... I got ashamed of myself for thinking that thought..... I decided that calling anyone trash was a terrible way to think. These people, probably just stupid kids, are not trash. They're just misguided or maybe they don't want to get into trouble for having beer when they get home, or cigarettes, or skoal. Maybe it flew out of the back of their truck, maybe I should just stop being so superior and get back to work......

So I just sorted out the trash into the recycling bin and got my diet coke and sat out in the sun........

Playing Hookie! Don't tell!

2011-01-28T07:25:00.000-06:00

Today, my son and I are going to play hookie in the afternoon! I'm planning to pack a picnic lunch and take him to the nature preserve at our local university to hike and look at nature. I can't help it, the weather man just said it will be almost seventy degrees by four o'clock!

On a day like today when I was back in college in the eighties, my friends and I would do the morning classes and then sneak out after lunch to don our bikinis and lay out on the roof of one of the dorms. I had a friend who's window looked out over a vast expanse of black tar roof! Now, in the summer, one did not dare set foot out that window for fear of literally frying, but in january and february it was the best place to lay out under the sun! He! He!

We would slather ourselves with a combination of baby oil and iodine, a secret recipe from one of the girls grandmothers, that would dye our skin so even if we didn't really get tan, we thought we did. Then, with beach towels, drinks and snacks, sunglasses and of course, a boom box, four or five of us would bare our winter bods to the sun! What a glorious day it was! That rare winter treat in Oklahoma of a seventy degree day! Of course, that was before any of us worried about wrinkles or skin cancer. It was such a carefree time!

One more reason to love living in the middle of the united states! So you see why I can't stay inside, I just can't! I have to get out and make some vitamin D! I have to get my happy vitamin to last me until March because that mean, old weatherman also said by Monday or Tuesday of next week, we'll probably have another winter storm with highs around twenty-five to thirty degrees.

Where I grew up, we had a saying, 'make hay while the sun shines.' That means 'get while the gettin's good.' Get out in the sunshine and great weather because, in Oklahoma, it may be gone! Well, I'm planning on getting it today! So if you call or come by my house this afternoon, you'll just have to sit on the back porch and talk to Kate until I get home!

Love of Reading

2011-01-27T07:46:00.001-06:00

Got my son a kindle for Christmas. I saved up my swagbucks so I got a good deal. I used to tell the kids that Santa didn't bring electronics because the elves couldn't make them but now that they are teens, that story doesn't fly anymore! They do still get Santa gifts, as long as they still believe! My daughter had trouble with this until my son said, " You'll get one less gift unless you tell mom you still believe in Santa!" She decided letting me play Santa was a small price to pay for one extra gift!

I didn't know what to think about the Kindle at first. I thought I would never want one and would resist not having a book in my hand. Until I got his and began to play with it! Man, could I really use that! And there are so many classics that are free to download that I could read and re-read. I'll never give up my old fashioned books but I can see how this new technology is going to quickly overtake the market. I usually don't go anywhere without a book in my purse. With a Kindle, I could take a library with me!

I also realized this semester that my k12 kids can download my class book on their e-reader device! Textbook companies beware! Soon you won't get away with charging over one hundred dollars for a book that will be out of date tomorrow, it will be available to download for twenty-five! I really believe this is going to revolutionize the textbook industry. When I was a Chemistry major in college, I remember lugging around a backpack full of books. Organic chemistry class had three different textbooks along with various notebooks and that was just one class! If I had a Kindle back in the eighties, that would have been sweet and my back probably wouldn't be out-of-wack today!

I don't always jump on the bandwagon for new products. Just because it's new technology doesn't mean it's better than what's out there. I don't own every new kitchen gadget because, quite honestly, sometimes those new gadgets are actually harder to work and clean than doing it by hand. I teach in physical science that a machine is supposed to make your work easier, but many of the new gadgets do the opposite. Not so with these new reading devices. I've been really surprised. I look at his Kindle with envy. I want one!

I'm pretty sure the next Amazon swagbucks are going to buy me a Kindle! I love reading and so do my kids so anything that gets them and me to read more I'm all for!

Gonna wash that gray right out of my hair!

2011-01-26T08:25:00.001-06:00

I am about three weeks from going back to my hairdresser for a cut and color and BOY do I need it! Now I've said earlier, I'm not a high maintenance woman but it is becoming very obvious that I need to see Cassandra a bit more than maybe the every couple of months that I go.

I'm really tempted to just go and buy some temporary hair color and just color it today. But I know that if I do, something will go wrong and then I'll have some 'splaining' to do as Ricky used to say to Lucy! I've spent many, many appointments apologizing for doing something stupid to my hair. I've given myself highlights that ended up looking like Marilyn Monroe cast-offs. I cut my bangs more times than I can count. The list goes on and on. I'm sure Cassandra breaths a sigh of relief when she sees me coming without a hat on for my cut and color!

I'm beginning to see a lot more gray than I had a few years ago. I am absolutely sure that sunlight must cause gray hairs. If I part my hair on the other side of my head, there is not nearly as many gray hairs but, alas, I can't part it on the other side because I have a stupid cow lick that won't allow it!

I guess I should find the silver lining (no pun intended....well, maybe just a little pun!) in having more gray hair. My gray hair is thicker and it has more body. My young person hair is fine. So now, I have very fine hair that doesn't have any body to it mixed in with this new older person hair that is wanting to stand on end! It's just an interesting combination to say the least!

Oh well, I'm just going to keep it shoulder length so I can pull it back into a ponytail or bun and let the hair go wild! At least I have hair my husband says, as he has lost a large portion of his!

Saying no...

2011-01-25T08:11:00.001-06:00

I think one of the most dreaded words in the English language is no. It may be the most dreaded word in the world as many, many languages use some form of no. It's a hard word to say, it's a hard word to receive. It is a cold, someties cruel two letter word that can break a heart, break apart dreams and generally cause bad feelings wherever it goes. It is sometimes welcomed, sometimes wished for and often the hardest word to say.

As I get older, it seems saying no gets easier. I have stopped trying to please others as much as I did when I was younger. Now don't start thinking I have ever been a push-over. Never have I been one to run with the crowd. I overheard my mama say about me one time, 'I always know if she gets into trouble, it's her own idea. No one can make her do anything she doesn't want to do!' That actually kind of made me proud! I guess I always have marched to my drummer, one everyone can't see!

When my kids were little, I didn't have much of a problem saying no to them. 'No, you can't eat candy all day long.' 'No you can't jump off the house wearing your superman cape.' 'No you can't knock down that wall so the birds can build a nest in your closet!' Yes, I actually have been asked those questions!

I never had a problem saying no to my students questions either. But now that my kids are getting to be teenagers, it seems I have more of a problem saying no. I feel bad when I say my daughter can't go spend the night at a friends house. I feel bad when I've taken the son's ipod, kindle, phone, etc because he back talked. I feel bad but I know that I must say no to them sometimes or I will raise two very ill-equipped adults. They must learn that the world will say no to them a lot more than I ever will.

I would honestly love to indulge my children in everything. I love them more than my life. And that is why I must say no. I love them so much that I must say no to them. To teach them that they won't be getting everything they want in life and they won't be getting it right when they want it. I say no to keep them safe. I say no simply because it isn't convenient for me to drop everything and do, get, drive them wherever they want right when they want it.

Saying no to the person on the phone who wants me to do something that I really don't want to do is easy compared to saying no to my child. But I will continue to say no and stand my ground. I only hope one day they thank me.......maybe when they have children of their own!

January Doldrums...

2011-01-24T07:43:00.000-06:00

I'm tired of January! I'm in the dumps and everyone else around me is too. We're grumpy because we're cold and it seems that the fun of Christmas left us about six months ago.... The weather is not helping the mood at my house! Even Kate the big, black dog has taken to laying in her heated doghouse instead of chasing the birds and squirrels.

We need February! I need hearts and chocolate and cherry pie! It seems that February around my house is the month to eat. While January is my month to do some of the things that I hate to do, like dust the top of the china cabinet, oil the woodwork in the hallways. Yuck! I need to come up with something fun and exciting to do in january! While February has valentines day, mardi gras and President's day (think cherry pie, people), January has Martin Luther King jr day and the super bowl. Big woop! Those are not good days....MLK day is a day off from school but mostly it's just parades and oftentimes it snows. The super bowl is on Sunday night! What good party have you ever had on a Sunday night? I'm not in college anymore, I do have to get up on Monday morning, get everybody out the door and get to work!

Of course, January is fudge month for me so that's a highlight! Maybe I'm just on a chocolate downer right now....but it just seems that the month of January is a big let down! I'll be thinking to come up with a great reason to have a holiday or party in January.....because right now, I'm just ready for February!

Fish Tacos

2011-01-21T07:09:00.002-06:00

I've had several requests for this recipe and I can't seem to find it in the blog so now I'm just going to repost if I have already posted! This is one of my kids favorite dinners and it is sure a lot cheaper than eating fish tacos out! I don't like many fried, breaded things so I developed this recipe without frying the fish. I think the secret is the dressing on the salad!

Fish tacos

1-2 pieces of frozen tilipia per person
1/4 cup lime juice
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon taco seasoning
1 chopped jalapeno or serrano pepper (I use the frozen chopped ones I have from summer)

Place all the above into a ziploc bag and let thaw while marinating. Once the fish have thawed and marinated for about an hour, place all ingredients into a skillet and cook on low heat until the fish falls apart. Stir it all together and cook off the water for about 5-7 minutes.

while I am marinating the fish, I make a package of Zatarain's spanish rice. I make it with a can of chopped tomatoes with chilis (Rotel). Keep covered and warm as you stir up the salad.

Salad topping:
4-6 cups chopped romaine lettuce
1-2 tomatoes, chopped small
1-3 tablespoons chopped onions (depending on how much you like onion) can be green onions
1/4 cup chopped red pepper

Mix together in a bowl and toss with dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1-2 tablespoons lime juice, to taste
1-tablespoon taco seasoning
Stir until smooth and thin like salad dressing.
toss with salad

I place a bit of fish on a warmed tortilla, then rice and grated cheese and top with the salad mixture. I usually make guacamole (or get it from the freezer) and serve with salsa.

My kids brag about this dish to their friends and people they don't even know! I know I've hit on a keeper recipe when that happens!

Year of the Pie!!!

2011-01-20T08:22:00.001-06:00

I like pie, cakes, muffins and brownies, not so much cupcakes. Now I know some of you are gasping and hyperventilating right now because those little over-icinged delights are your favorites. I'm not sorry, I don't like them! To quote my daughter, 'by the time you get to the cake, you realize there is nothing there!' Too much icing, too little cake. Not enough substance for me. Kind of like some people I know. By the time you get to what they are really like, you realize that there really isn't anything there but some pretty stuff on the outside.

I also don't like the insane colors they put on cupcakes. Really? Who needs a red, blue, green mouth anyway. You go to a party, you get handed a cupcake without a plate and then you get to struggle with the paper wrapper all the while knowing if you drop that little thing, it's going to ruin your entire wardrobe as it rolls off your lap. Once you finally get the paper peeled off, where do you stick the paper? It has icing all over it and crumbs all in it. Too messy for me. Give me a piece of square cake and a fork.

I read last week that it has been declared the year of the pie. Yeah pie!! I love pies, any pie really. Except mincemeat. That just kind of grosses me out. Oh, and fake apple pie. I think if you can't afford apples, just don't make pie. I couldn't tell you my favorite pie, I pretty much love a lot of them. They are messy so you can't eat them without a plate. I love that. No messy wrapper to dispose of and if the pie is extremely good, you can just lick the plate clean. My son does that, he learned it from my husband. I was not pleased....

Kids learn a lot of things from their dads that don't necessarily please the mom. Moms try to teach manners, dads teach kids to eat over the sink and drink out of the container. Kids need both or we'd wind up with sissy boys who lifted their pinkies when they drank or sat at the table in their underwear licking their plates. It's a good thing to have both! Especially when mom makes pie!!!!!

Getting colder....I'm tired of winter!

2011-01-19T06:45:00.000-06:00

This week is supposed to be our first real snowfall in Oklahoma. We had a little last week but not enough to even cause a rush to buy toilet paper and milk. In Oklahoma, when the weather gets bad, everyone gets freaked out and makes a mad rush to buy toilet paper and milk. I worked at a grocery in college and it would just crack me up! We would sell a week's worth of milk in one night if snow was in the forecast!

Now, I've said before, Oklahoma is not someplace you want to be in a snowstorm because we are worse than woefully prepared. Our idea of a sand and salt truck is two guys pitching it out the back of a pickup truck! We just don't get enough to justify buying all that snow removal equipment that northern states have. Another reason is that, even though it might snow twelve inches on one day, the next day may be sunny and sixty degrees! Remember, I'm from the birthplace of Will Rogers who said, 'if you don't like the weather, wait a minute." Some attribute that to other famous people, but in Claremore, Oklahoma we say they copied it from Mr. Will Rogers.

When I was a kid, I came to the Will Rogers Memorial Museum with my grandparents and I guess my parents. I don't really remember them being with us. I was probably twelve years old and in that 'I just wish my parents didn't exist' phase so I've blocked them out of the memory. Anyway, I remember looking up at Will Rogers genealogical tree and my grandma pointed out a name. Grandma said, that's your great-great grandmother, maybe she said great grandmother or great-great-great grandmother, I can't really remember. All I can remember is that somehow, we were related to Will Rogers! That sure made the museum more exciting!

What I found out later, was that Will's family actually blocked my family from getting indian land because of a family dispute and it ended up going all the way to the supreme court! Of course, my side of the family lost so we aren't claimed by the Oklahoma cherokee tribe. So when people ask me if I'm indian, I say 'we are with the South Carolina cherokees! Since the Oklahoma cherokees didn't want us, I'll just rejoin the South Carolina cherokees!

It's funny how history so long ago still hurts today. To not be accepted into the tribe because of a family dispute! My grandmother was angry about that for many, many years and I guess I'm still smarting about it now!

Oh well, snows supposedly coming tonight. To quote my famous cousin.....I think I'll just wait a few minutes.......

2011-01-17T09:30:00.000-06:00

Years ago, I worked for a small, private school. I loved the other teachers and kids, we were kind of like a big family. I taught fifth through eighth grade science and math. After a few years, it got really hard to see kids graduate from eighth grade because I had been their teacher for three years! They didn't want to go and we, teachers, didn't want them to go.

I realized that the only way I could be a successful teacher was to see those kids go off to high school. How could I hold them back from achieving their potential? As my kids grow older and older, I can see how becoming a parent is very much like being a teacher. If I don't let them grow and go, I will never be a successful parent. They have to be able to stretch and grow, learning new things, experiencing new experiences and I have to be able to let them.

It's really hard, especially as they are getting old enough to be doing a lot of things without me. I keep reminding myself that these two kids, who were gifts to begin with, do not belong to me. They belong to my creator and I've just been incredibly blessed to be a part of their lives. I can't hold them back because of my fear for them. I have to let them soar!

So I bite my tongue when they want to try something that I wouldn't do. I bite my tongue when they like things that I don't really like. I need to let them become their own persons, not a miniature me. I am sure that they will be successful adults. I am proud of them, so very proud. I just hope I can guide and not control my children.

High Maintenance - Not!

2011-01-14T08:22:00.001-06:00

I have never been high maintenance. I think I'm just too lazy. Plus, it really doesn't matter how much I work, it always seems that I look the same. My hair is fine and it and I decided a long time ago that we just couldn't get along. Even the two sides of my head can't seem to get it together, lets just say, feathered hair never quite looked feathered.

I finally decided this week why I'll never be high maintenance. It just boils down to I am too lazy and have better things to do! Like play with my kids, go outside and play with the dog, scrub the toilet! I was having a conversation about the best kind of makeup. This person was explaining all the steps they take to apply makeup each morning. As they continued to explain, my mind began to wander. How many steps did she take just to apply the foundation? What in the world is a primer? Is that like Kilz? I buy that at walmart to paint on stains before I paint the walls! Apparently, there is a primer you are supposed to apply to your face between the lotion and the foundation! Well, that's why I don't look so good each morning. I just slap on some Olay lotion and some Olay tinted moisturizer and go fix my kids breakfast!

I'm sure if I was as rich as Oprah, I would be more high maintenance. I'd have my hairdresser, Cassandra, come over each day and fix my hair. I'd have her put some primer on my face too. Doesn't really look like I'm ever going to be as rich as Oprah anytime soon. I'd honestly rather do anything than stand in front of the mirror and primp myself up. I don't like disappointment and if I stood more than ten minutes fixing myself, I'd surely be disappointed. I'd still look like me and I wasted all that time!

I'd rather plaster a smile on my face with maybe a little lipstick and call it a day!

Taking stock of the pantry!

2011-01-13T07:39:00.005-06:00

January means that I try to maintain a very frugal budget. I believe starting off the new year this way sets the tone for the rest of the year. One way I do this is to try and use out of my stockpile in my pantry. It's time to clean out the pantry and wipe down all the cabinets. I use as much out of the pantry as possible during this time and begin to purchase new items for the stockpile.

I have quite a few recipes that use out of the pantry stockpile I've created. Taco soup, potato soup, chicken tortilla soup, just to name a few. I also try to use up pasta and boxed meals so they don't get old. Canned goods can live indefinitely in your pantry but I like to keep a rotation going so I'm not always leaving old things in the pantry. When I purchase something, I place it in the back of the pantry behind what is already there.

I do the same thing in the freezer. I am planning to use up the cheese in the freezer this month. I've noticed that my local grocery has cheese on sale this week and I have coupons for the brand that's on sale. I'll be going in this week and stocking up. I'll plan cheese quesadillas and creamy tomato soup next week for dinner. I'll also be making a few casseroles for the freezer that includes cheese.

I just recently cleaned out the freezer when we moved it into the new garage so at least I don't have to defrost and clean it! That is one of those jobs that I absolutely hate to do! As my stockpile of frozen berries gets smaller and smaller, I have more room in the freezer for storing quick meals for our family. I cooked two beef roasts over the weekend; one with carrots and potatoes for dinner and one to freezer for later, I'm thinking barbeque sandwiches. I have leftovers that will make a great hash later in the week. I took the strained leftover beef broth and froze it in one and half cups for making rice later. I don't usually purchase rice mixes because I can use this leftover broth to make long grain rice and it tastes just as good but is a lot cheaper and has less sodium than the mixes.

January is always a month of getting things in order for me. I'm starting this year in my kitchen!

Update on love languages!

2011-01-12T07:40:00.000-06:00

Thought I'd update you on the love languages that my husband and I have been working on with the kids. Now, I know it won't be smooth everyday but it really seems to be making everything around here work a little smoother! Each night we play the 'I appreciate that!' game that was described in the book.

It works like this, we go around the table and tell something that we did that day to help or show love to someone at the table. It might be me cooking the meal or doing laundry or driving someone somewhere. It might be my daughter cleaning up her room or the bathroom without constant reminders. It might be my son getting up without a big fight or bringing up wood without prompting. It might be my husband who took out the trash or walked up the drive in the morning to bring me a newspaper. It might also just be a kind word of encouragement or thanks. The person who was affected by the act of service, touch, kind words or time says, 'And I appreciate that!' It seems that simple little game gets everyone working hard to have something to say at the dinnertable.

It's a fun, easy way to remind each of us that our words and actions not only affect us but those around us.

Like I said before, I'm sure it won't always be easy. After all, I have two very hormonal teenagers.....but during dinnertime, it has given us direction and has lead to much laughter as we yell 'and I appreciate that!'

Eating from the Stockpile

2011-01-11T07:22:00.002-06:00

I am a stockpile shopper. I hate above all else to start making something and realize that I am out of one ingredient on the list! I purchase things on sale and store them until we need them. Now, I'm not one of those hoarders that you see on tv! I don't have 100 shampoo bottles or enough cereal to feed us for ten years in my pantry. I usually only keep a few extras because I have done this enough to know the sales cycles. Retailers put items on sale in about a six to eight week cycle or a seasonal cycle. For instance, facial tissue usually goes on special during the late fall/early winter, so I will buy ten to twelve boxes to get us through until they go on special again. Cereal is about on a six week cycle so I only need enough to get us through six weeks until the coupons and specials are on again.

During the month of January, I usually go on a 'don't buy anything unless I really need it or can get it almost free' diet. I like to try to save as much as possible since we just finished the Christmas season. Our property taxes are also due in December so after I've traveled to Bethlehem to pay the taxes, paid for all the Christmas gifts, and all the other expenses that December brings, I feel that I need to be extra frugal. Plus, in Oklahoma, I never know how the weather will be so staying home is a good thing!

I made my menu plan this month using things I already have in the pantry and freezer. I download and print my menu plans from this website. http://moneysavingmom.com/downloads/meal-menu-planners
It has a monthly planner that I like. It's blank so I just fill in the month and what I'm planning to have each night for dinner.

This week looks like this: Sunday lunch - pot roast, potatoes, carrots, green beans; dinner - homemade pizzas; Monday - shrimp lingune and salad; Tuesday - potato soup, homemade bread; Wednesday - roast beef hash(leftover pot roast), apple salad; Thursday - fish tacos, spanish rice, lettuce/tomato salad; Friday - cornbread topped chili casserole; Saturday - baked chicken and stuffing, broccoli.

The only thing I have to buy for this week is some lettuce and tomatoes for the salad. I made two weeks worth of menus using just what we had in the pantry and I still have a few meals left for the third week.

January is looking like a good frugal start for 2011!

Apple Salad

2011-01-10T05:58:00.000-06:00

During the summer, I don't have a problem getting my kids to eat at least five fruits and veggies a day. We have ripe strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, peaches and the list goes on and on. We have tomatoes, squash, peppers, green beans and the list goes on and on! Much of it comes from our own little four acres of heaven. But when winter comes, sometimes I struggle getting them to each the winter fruit. I make smoothies out of the blackberries, strawberries and blueberries I have in the freezer and I can get them to eat the fruit over pancakes, but when store bought fruits and vegetables don't taste the best, it is sometimes hard to get that all important five a day.

I keep a large assortment of canned citrus fruits in the pantry to add to green salads when the tomatoes at the store are $4 a pound and are as hard as tennis balls. I buy apples, bananas, kiwi and little clementine oranges and the occasional pineapple. I even resort to buying more juice in the winter to get at least a fruit serving at breakfast. But it gets to be a challenge because the kids get tired of the same old flavors.

My mom recently gave me a huge bag of gala apples. Now, normally, when someone at our house eats an apple, it means that mom has cut it up. The kids like it when I cut it up, take out the seeds and slice it thinly into a bowl. At this house, it will get eaten if it's easy to find and eat. It will not get eaten if it requires much work. I keep peeled clementine oranges in a bag in the fruit crisper of the fridge. If it's easy to see and reach and doesn't require much work, it will get eaten.

I've been using the apples in my famous apple salad. When I told my daughter this week that we were having stew and apple salad, I got the 'gross' look. That's a look I see often when she isn't going to like dinner much. She doesn't complain and she usually ends up eating it but I could tell that she thought the apple salad would not be her favorite part of the meal.

It's really quite easy and stores well.
Apple Salad
4-5 diced apples, cut up into bite sized pieces. I don't peel them and I often use an assortment of colors and varieties
1/4-1/2 cup craisins or raisins or any dried fruit you like
1/4 cup chopped toasted pecans, or walnuts or any nut you like
6 oz. yogurt, this can be vanilla or another flavor. I like vanilla.

Mix and serve.

This was my daughter's favorite dish of the week. We've had it twice this week and I took the leftovers one day as her afterschool pick-up snack. She said this is her favorite afterschool snack of all time! This beat out cookies!

I'm planning to use up all those apples and work on getting my kids their five a day!

Love Languages and Teenagers

2011-01-07T07:59:00.001-06:00

My husband and I over the years have taken various classes and workshops to help our reationship, teach us how to be better parents, yada yada yada.... We've learned that I am a lion/beaver and my husband is a lion/golden retriever. That wasn't very helpful in the long run! But we had a good laugh! We've learned so much, I can't remember it all! Sometimes I wonder how much I've forgotten!

One course that we studied that I really thought was eye-opening was the Five Love Languages of Couples by Gary Chapman. Once we identified our different love languages, of course, they were not the same, we learned to give each other the types of love that each person needed. In a nutshell, you really need to read the book, Gary Chapman identifies five different love languages; physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts and quality time. Each person has a variation of these five languages of love. A person whose love language is acts of service would feel loved if someone baked them a pie or cleaned up their room. Those things wouldn't necessarily make a person feel love if their primary love language was words of affirmation.

When the kids were little, I read the five love languages of children. I felt that we had pretty much figured out what the kids primary love language. For my son, it was physical touch. For my daughter, it was gifts. Now that they were teenagers, I began to wonder if I was missing something. I found out that Gary Chapman had written the five love languages of teenagers. I have been reading it this past Christmas break.

I had the kids take the test that identified their love languages. Boy, that was fun! My son kept calling me Angie from the George Lopez show. He has been teasing me all week as we play the 'I appreciate that!' game during dinner. They laughed and laughed while taking it, made funny little remarks about mom and dad, and kept saying, 'I know I'm loved, why do I have to do this?' Anyway, they finally got the test taken.

It was kind of eye-opening. They each had different love languages that I had thought! The ones we thought they were, were actually close seconds but each of them had a different love language. My sons primary language is now a three way tie with gifts, acts of service and quality time. My daughters was quality time and words of affirmation. It was an eye-opener to me. My husband and I are now going to try to give them more of those languages.

I'm pretty sure my kids know that we love them but sometimes I think they need to see my husband and I try hard to figure them out. I'm not sure it that is an act of service or quality time. Oh well, I'm sure that they appreciate us trying!

Days are Getting Longer!

2011-01-06T13:25:00.001-06:00

I swear the days are already getting longer! The sky stays pinker and pinker each night. As my seed catalogs start arriving, I begin to hallucinate about spring. It's a gardeners mind-game we play. We can already see the daffodils and green onions sprouting and it's the first week of january!

I know that we'll probably have several days of snow and ice here in Oklahoma yet. We've not seen any so far this year and only an okie fool would think that we won't be seeing any! But as I look out my front window at the bright sunshine and the many variations of brown on the landscape, I just know that spring is out there. I see a bright blue male bluebird checking out the house my husband has put up for him. He's thinking spring. He's thinking girl. Maybe we'll have little bluebird eggs in that house in a couple of months.

About the time the daffodils begin peeking up......

Simple meals

2011-01-04T07:45:00.001-06:00

Well, we're back into January. Christmas and New Year's is past. It's time for simple meals again. Soups, stews, pancake night and simple one pan meals. Simple, low calorie, low fat and low cost meals to once again get us back on track after all that rich, fattiness of December.

One of my favorite meals during this time is chicken and noodles. I also like chicken noodle soup and chicken and dumplings. All of these require chicken broth. That can add to the cost of the meal if you purchase canned chicken broth. I simply make my own. I either use a crockpot chicken or if I've purchased a rotisserie chicken, I use it after I've deboned it. Whichever type of chicken you use, it's really easy to make homemade chicken broth using your crockpot. Just dump in the chicken bones, skin, and everything that isn't meat! Cover with about eight cups of water and turn on your crockpot to low for six-eight hours or overnight. I usually don't add any seasonings because I season my chicken during cooking and the rotisserie chicken usually comes heavily seasoned on the skin.

After cooking for six-eight hours, I let the crockpot cool and place it in the fridge to congeal the fat. I then skim off the fat and strain the broth. Now, I pick out the bones and let Kate, the big, black dog, have all the chicken parts except the bones. She loves me extra special on that night! After straining, I place the broth in freezer bags for noodles, soups and in containers to cook rice in. If I have leftover chicken, with a fourteen year old boy in the house, that doesn't happen often anymore, but if I happen to have some, I'll go ahead and dump it into the labeled bag so all I have to do is thaw, season and add noodles or dumplings and veggies.

Making my own soup broth allows in me to control the fat and sodium content in our foods. I am really trying hard this new year to reduce those two things in our diets. Not using prepared foods is a great way to start!

Looking back....

2011-01-03T09:30:00.000-06:00

About a year ago, I started this blog for something creative to do and get some much requested recipes to friends. I was a stay-home, home-schooling mom and felt I needed desperately to put feelings to words on a page or go insane! I'm still a home-schooling mom, who now works part-time from home as a virtual school teacher. I've not been as diligent at posting since I started working, in part because it seems once I spend four hours a day on the computer, I just don't have the need to stare at the screen anymore! I want to be face-to-face with a person, or Kate the big, black dog!

I've learned a little about myself this past year. I like to work from home. I'm planning to do this gig as long as they let me! I can be a workaholic if I'm not watched closely. Because of this type A personality I have, I have never moved into the type of career that could easily invade my family life. Working from home very well could so I just set a timer in the kitchen and walk away after a certain time. I like simply being a wife and mother too! I learned this year that if I don't have an 'outside' job, I still have a very important job. I care for my family, I schedule my families time, I do maintenance for the family, I clean for the family and I am great at all those things! I had fallen into the trap of believing that if I didn't 'do' something, I was unimportant to everyone. What I found out this past year is that I am invaluable to three people in this world, my husband and my kids. Everyone else can replace me, they could never replace me!

When I came to this conclusion after several months of soul-searching, I gained a peace that I hadn't had in a very long time. I no longer looked at housework as drudgery. I no longer hated laundry day. I looked at serving my family as my ministry and my attitude and those around me were blessed!

It seemed once I came to that conclusion, I got offered this part-time job. It was as if God wanted me to understand that what I do isn't as important as who I serve. I realized that my family needs to always come first, even if that means no vacation for the year. At the end of my life, I will not embrace my job accolades, I will embrace my family.

I was told this summer at one of the numerous camps that I sponsored that I was an encourager. This person pointed it out as I encouraged young people to try new things or follow their dreams. I had never thought of myself as an encourager before! It opened my eyes a bit about myself. I have always been a teacher, even when I didn't plan to be. Teaching just always seems to draw me back. Good teachers are encouragers. Good teachers get you to stretch yourself to try things you didn't ever think you could try. Great teachers show kids that you can get knocked down, get the breath knocked out of you and still stand back up and try something new! Great teachers show kids that it's ok to fail if you gave it your best.

I don't think I'm a great teacher yet. I'm still a work in progress but I hope that I'm becoming a great teacher to my kids. I want them to be able to reach their goals, get knocked down and get back up again. This past year has been an interesting journey. I can't wait to see where this year will take me!