Easter!

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!

Tornado Season!

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!

Valentines Day 2011

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!

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!

Family Stories

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?

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

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.......

Small Town America!

This past weekend my family and I attended a harvest festival in the town my parents and sisters family live.   It coincides with the homecoming celebrations at the local high school.  Everyone in the town either takes part or watches the big parade down mainstreet.  The churches sell food and snacks, the local crafters sell handmade cuties that I usually buy.  You see old friends or meet new people that may become friends. 

People who don't live in small towns just don't understand the small town festivals and parades.  People who live in small towns can't imagine living in a town that doesn't have festivals and parades.  I love them.  I knew I loved my town when I attended three parades in three months the first three months we lived here.  It's so much fun to watch the kids run out and grab a piece of candy that a clown or the local queen or football player tossed out.  I also love watching my own kids as they march in the line or ride on the float.  They are becoming part of this town.  They are putting down real deep roots in a small town where everybody knows your name and your parents. 

It's a good life. It's good when people know who you are and where you go to church and are watching your every move.  Too many people have lost the 'otherness' of a society.  Too many people don't care what the neighbors think.  I want my neighbors to like my family and know that we live by certain principles and morals.  I want people to watch me and hold me to a high standard.  I want my friends and neighbors to call me when they see my kids step out of line.  Living in a small town is a good, good life.

Sunday Pot Roast

Yesterday, I cooked the traditional sunday dinner for the family.  Pot roast with potatoes and carrots.  I usually buy my roasts when they are on sale and then cook at least two when I cook. I put my potatoes and carrots on the bottom and then place the roasts on top.  I sprinkle onion soup and some beef boullion over.  Then I pour about two to three cups of hot water over.  I cover the potatoes and carrots.  I only cook enough potatoes and carrots for one meal or a little extra for a quick beef soup later in the week.  Since veggies don't freeze well, I just freeze the extra roast and gravy. 

Now, since I'm pretty frugal, I usually buy the cheap cut of roast that has to be cooked for an extremely long time.  My husband teases me but while we're eating like pigs he never complains!  I freeze that extra roast and gravy to add noodles later for beef and noodles.  This makes a very easy Sunday meal for later in the month. 

When we're all sitting down on Sunday after church talking and eating all the extra planning I do for those meals is well worth it!

Too old for valentines day!

I have seen it all now. My daughter texted me yesterday to tell me she no longer believed in Santa Claus! To make it worse, she was sitting beside me as I was driving Susie Q down the road. Susie Q is my Nissan Quest minivan. I guess I need to start at the beginning, because I'm kind of jumping all around.

I get attached to things. I'm probably one of only three women in the United States who hates to shop. I don't like to clothes shop, furniture shop, grocery shop and I really hate beyond all else to car shop. To be honest, the only shopping I don't really mind is shoe shopping. If I was as rich as Oprah, I would change my shoes about ten times a day. I'd also have an entire barn filled with dishes, I like those too. I don't like to shop for dishes, they are too expensive and I don't have the room to store them! Anyway, I hate, hate, hate to car shop. I also am pretty cheap so the idea of spending all that money on something that is going to end up being worth nothing is not to appealing to me.

A few years ago, my green minivan, Bessie was pushing ten years old. Now this was fine with me. She was still pretty on the inside and outside. She still got me from point A to point B. And she got pretty good gas mileage. My husband started getting the new car bug and decided to take it out on Bessie. Bessie didn't help matters because one day when the kids and I were leaving school, she decided to stop working. Something about a starter giving out. That made my husband decide that I needed to get rid of Bessie and get something sporty and cool looking. Bessie had a sun-roof! I didn't need anything more sporty. After all, I was a science teacher, soccer mom.

He wanted me to get an SUV so I'd look like all the other moms around. I'm not a showy person and my basic personality is, 'if everybody else has one, leave me out'! I finally succumbed to a new vehicle as long as it had sliding doors and was a Nissan Quest. I figured Bessie did me right for 10 plus years why go reinventing the wheel? After much wrangling, silver Susie Q came to live with us. We sold Bessie, much to the sadness of my daughter, she wanted to bury Bessie in the backyard! Well, she was a part of the family. My husband shuddered thinking the whole he would have to dig! Susie Q is short for Susie Quest and we have developed a pretty nice relationship!

To get back to the Santa thing! I couldn't believe that she no longer believed! She's only almost twelve for goodness sake! When she point blank asked me, I had to give it to her straight. I said, 'it's ok if you don't want to believe but I still believe and it will break my heart if Santa doesn't come on Christmas Eve so if it's alright with you can we just pretend?' She started laughing hysterically at me because I was almost crying!

I love Santa Claus! I love hiding the presents and seeing them all out of Christmas morning. She decided it would be ok to just keep pretending. She also wanted to know how I managed to always use the same Christmas paper from Santa for her whole life. I didn't tell her that when she was two and my son was four, I bought an entire case of Santa paper so they'd each have their own paper and I wouldn't have to right their names on the gifts. I still have several rolls! I just told her that was something she'd have to ask Santa in her letter next year!

I hope she's not to old for Valentine's Day! Cupid will really be upset!

Valentines Day Traditions

I was blessed to grow up around all of my grandparents. We all lived in the same small town. One set lived across the cow pasture, the other lived in 'town'. That meant that they lived on a paved road! Because of living so close, I got to spend a lot of time with them. As a kid, I took it for granted. I thought everybody could walk across the field and eat a second dinner or find sympathy when I was mad at my parents! Now I realize how truly lucky I was.

I wasn't raised with a lot of extra money laying around. My dad was an educator and my mom was a stay-home mom and then an aide at the school. I never really realized that we didn't have as much money as everybody else until I began to be a teenager. It didn't bother me much because I had what a lot of others didn't have. I had two parents who spent time with me and my siblings and that counted much more than what we 'had'. I also thought everybody else's parents were off the entire summer too! We spent days working in the garden and swimming and going camping and generally having fun but working hard.

One thing my family did better than anybody else I knew was celebrations. We celebrated everything. Birthdays, holidays, presidents day, you name it and we had a special meal for it! One of my grandpa's actually made a cannon to shoot off for Fourth of July! It was his favorite holiday and we had and still have a big family get-together. We no longer shoot bottle rockets at each other, that stopped when I was still a kid. I never could figure out why the grown-ups thought that was fun. Now, we play crazy party games and usually someone gets hurt and has to go to the doctor because they pulled something!

I carry on this tradition of celebration at my house by making special meals for just about any occasion. I read somewhere that families need traditions to stay together. Well, if that's true, my family will always be close! One of the most important days of our family's celebrations is Valentines Day and guess what? It's almost here!

I have not eaten out on Valentines Day since my son was born thirteen years ago. Finding a sitter was impossible, we didn't live close to family and the restaurants were expensive and busy! I just started cooking a special dinner. After my daughter was born, it began to take on a life of it's own. Now, we plan weeks in advance the menu and eat off the crystal and china. My son says he'll bring his dates here instead of eating out! He doesn't want to miss our special dinner!

This years dinner will be very similar to the last few years. The kids get to plan it and they have pretty much settled on this menu:
appetizer: shrimp cocktail
salad: tomato salad with olives, feta cheese and balsamic vinegrette
main course: grilled steak and baked potato (one year I cooked lobster tails but my son was so full by then he couldn't eat it!)
dessert: probably cherry cheesecake - this is still being negotiated! I'm voting for chocolate molten cake!
I buy fizzy grape juice to drink out of the fancy glasses and we eat by candlelight.

I fix everything in advance and have it served on fancy plates like in a restaurant so I can relax too! I put the grilled steak in the bottom of a crockpot on low and place the baked potatoes on top. The salads are pre-made and refridgerated so I just take them out.

I don't miss eating at a busy loud restaurant because at this restaurant quiet music is playing in the background and we can linger as long as we like. It's a memory I hope my kids remember all their lives!

I challenge you to start a tradition at your home, it doesn't have to be Valentines Day. Did you know in January there was a pie day? Well, guess who had pie? You may not have time to make a special dinner but you do have time to have a little something special. It may just be a cherry pie for Presidents day. But I warn you, once you start a tradition, you own it. You will be expected to continue! After all, that's what brings a family together!

Kicking out January!

Well, it's time for a new month! It is amazing to me that we are already one month into the year 2010. My grandpa used to say that time went faster as you got older. Well, now I see what he was talking about. When I was a little kid, a summer school break seemed to go on and on without end. Now a summer break is but a blink, marked with too many to-do's and not enough laying in the hammack contemplating the leaves on the old pecan tree and hacking off the bluejay who's nest is directly above me.

My favorite family vacations are visiting national parks. I thank the people who had the forethought to set aside those lands across our country for people like me to visit and explore. My most favorite was a visit several years ago to Maine's Acadia National Park. I wrote a teachers grant and was able to go for 10 days and study. My family traveled with me. When I say 'my family', I mean MY FAMILY. As in my mom and dad, my sister and daughter, and my husband and kids. I was the only one who had the dream to visit Maine but my excitement caused the rest of the family to want to come along.

We had a time getting to Maine from Oklahoma, including getting dumped out in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the middle of the night by an airlines who will remain to be used by me today, renting a panel van and driving across lower Michigan to get to Detroit before sunrise taking with us two stranded naval officers who were going to be awol if they didn't get where they were going! We did finally make it one day late to Maine. The trouble we had to overcome getting there only made me more resolved to experience Maine's coast to the fullest. We spent two days driving along the coastline from New Hampshire to Acadia, stopping and gawking at the raw power of the Northern Atlantic Ocean like little kids.

As we hiked up Cadillac Mountain and strolled along carriage trails, I began to realize how much more creative I would probably be if I allowed myself to just be still and wait. To open myself up to just experiencing God's gift of nature. Waiting is not something I do well and being still is even harder for me. Besides learning about the varied ecosystems of Acadia National Park, I think the most valuable lesson I learned was that when you are still, you can see things that typically get lost in the day-to-day. The beautiful sunrise or sunset, the loon gliding on the lake or the fog rolling in or the wonder in someone's face at the awesome power of the oceans waves.

Traveling with three generations to a place that was completely foreign to all of us was an awesome experience. My parents were as filled with wonder as my children at some of the sights we saw. We have collective memories that we can share with each other for all the rest of our years.

And we all learned that a vacation doesn't have to include a theme park or a large city. Sometimes, we need to let God's theme park leave us in awe!