Archive for the ‘A Day In the Life Of An Okie’ Category





Shake, Rattle And Roll…And Freak

Monday, November 7th, 2011





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This Ain’t California

Ya Know!!


Now I KNOW my Oklahoma history. I read that Steinbeck book and saw the movie with Henry Fonda about the 1930’s when a boatload of Okies travelled in old, rickety trucks to California to pick angry grapes because the grapes here were too dusty. I know that half the people in Oklahoma have relatives in California (also known as Californee) who decided that the beautiful land of plenty there beat our dust and home canned vittles – never mind those grapes of wrath. My sister is one of them, however she just went there because she liked it in the 80’s. And so, in spite of a few really weird states separating us (just kidding!), California and Oklahoma have a special bond.


But we don’t like California THAT much. It’s a great thing for that long, skinny state to send us strawberries, avacados and Tom Selleck, but we draw the line at the earthquakes. Oklahoma doesn’t have earthquakes. Oklahoma doesn’t WANT earthquakes. Oklahoma has tornadoes and Oklahomans know how to hide from tornadoes in a shelter. But trust me…there is NO place to hide in an earthquake. Short of having a helicopter in your front yard, revved and ready at a moment’s notice to whisk you off of terra-not-so-firma, you are relegated to scrambling under a desk that you remember has the two million ton computer sitting on top of it – and therefore on top of you.


So I guess you’ve seen the headlines. Saturday night, Armageddon struck the Sparks/Oklahoma City/Shawnee/Prague/Chandler area with a 5.6 tremor that sent newscasters across the country into fits of pretend frenzy. It was almost as bad as when the University of Oklahoma Sooners gave up their undefeated title to Texas Tech.


Now, there HAS been damage. And to every individual or family who lost crystal, china, bricks, mortar and a sense of stability, just know that Californians are rolling their eyes right now and comparing this disaster to their size 8 rockers with disdain. However, a loss is a loss and there are a bunch of Oklahomans feeling that great loss today. A beautiful building in Shawnee, 100 years old, had major damage to it’s spires and it is a sad thing to behold. Homes have huge cracks, downed chimneys and scattered piles of bricks. Most people don’t have earthquake insurance. Who thought it was needed?!


Mr. Fix-It and I are very fortunate. We have experienced no damage and are only left with a very strong sense of vulnerability from this experience. We have never been through anything like that before and really don’t want to do that again. I was slammed into Mr. Fix-It and he was slammed into the television armoir and I will not lie – I screamed like a little girl!! Yes I did. Somehow we made it under a table to experience the rolling and shaking on our knees like the total cowards we are!!


And then of course, afterward, I had to call or text every individual I know in the state to say, “Did you feel THAT?!!” And they responded, “YES!! Did you?” And after determining that we had both felt “it”, then we compared notes about where we were, what we did, how we felt, what we thought, what we should have done and what we will do if there is ever a next time which we all agreed we hope there isn’t. I also called my “Californee” sister to find out what one is supposed to do in an earthquake situation besides run around screaming like a scared rabbit. Human action after a perceived crisis is a curious thing indeed and something I would suggest some Freudian expert study sometime. It might mean a government grant.


So thank goodness for our awesome God, our protector, and a sturdy house. It is now possible for us to help someone else pick up their pieces. But just a word to you Californians…please keep your earthquakes and we’ll keep our tornadoes!!


And to my sister (and all Californians), this is all in fun and I hope you will speak to me at the next wedding!!


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Photo from KWTV News 9 Benedictine Hall at St. Gregory’s University lost a turret and had another (on the left) damaged and leaning


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Photo from KWTV News 9 This home had major damage. The chimney also fell in and took the roof with it. Fortunately, these blessed souls had earthquake insurance.


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Photo from KWTV News 9 Bricks shaken from a home are scattered in the yard.


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Photo from KOCO Channel 5 Hwy 62 buckled and split



Happy Stable Ground!



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Life Can Certainly Get in the Way!

Saturday, October 15th, 2011





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October Showers


OK. I know. I’ve been a bad blogger…bad blogger. I try to write two to three posts a week and they are usually plenty long with lots of pictures. No off-the-wall posts of “Hey! Meet Harry, my garbage man” or “Three ways to hide peas in Junior’s chocolate chip cookies”, although I guess I have to admit that I did show how to hide black beans in chocolate cupcakes…ok, so scratch that one. But I do try to make my posts interesting, useful and … full of as many words as I think I can get away with before my readers throw up their hands and just start looking at the pictures.


I don’t think that I am arrogant enough to suppose that anyone is hanging onto a single one of those many words to the point of having to go into rehab if I haven’t posted something new within a two day time period. However, I do have a schedule I like to keep – a promise to myself you might say – so that if I do miss a few posts, I am the one who seriously considers rehab.


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So, I’d just like to say that I’ve had a reasonably good excuse – at least in my book – for my absence since Monday. Would you like to hear my reason? I’m gonna be a grandmother for the first time and I had to get ready for the very first baby shower. All week long I have been doing a drawing plus matting and framing it and putting together a basket of goodies that Martha Stewart would consider “a good thing.” I even included M & M’s for the dear daddy-to-be to eat for a snack, in the labor room, in front of his laboring wife while she munches on ice chips. I’m that kind of thoughtful individual.


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So I attended the shower, today, and it was absolutely beautiful. I managed not to cry a single tear. And all of us mothers eagerly encouraged the expectant mother with our own horror stories of pain and trauma in childbirth so that she happily ended the day convinced that it would be much better just having her leg cut off with a chainsaw. The best story was from one of the older guests who told of going into labor back in the 80’s, having only heard of Lamaze and watching it practiced on sitcoms. In the midst of the worst of labor, she decided to mimic what she had seen on television, promptly hyperventilating. The nurse, in a panic, asked what in the world she was doing with her quick breathing and this woman matter-of-factly told the nurse that she was simply doing what she’d seen them do for Lamaze on television. The nurse yelled at her, “Stop it, now!!!” So much for Hollywood led birthing classes.


So just to let you know that this is my story and that I am sticking to it, I am providing a few pictures so you can identify. I think we are back to normal now for a few weeks. Another bread recipe is in the works already. I promise.


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Drawing flowers to match each letter and then matting with pink ribbons and framing in a bright white frame took up most of the week. There are Coneflowers, Lillies, an Anemone, Indian Paintbrush, Rosepink and Euryops. Bright colors for a nursery!


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This is the bassinet that I found as a surprise from Mr. Fix-It and me. I have been looking all over the place for one like this. I found it online and it is Badger brand. It is wood, rocks and makes a toybox when no longer needed as a bassinet!


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The hostess created a beautiful table, don’t you agree? It was just a lovely day. But back to work!



Happy Baby Days!



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Spring Ravioli in the Fall

Monday, October 10th, 2011





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Red Gold® Tomatoes!


The internet has been down for two days. Hence a late post. So sorry – but that’s technology for you!!


Fall has finally made its way into Oklahoma and we are all breathing a sigh of relief. The triple digit temps are gone and it’s just hard to remember how it felt. We got 2 – 4 inches of rain in our area over the past couple of days and it’s even hard to remember the drought. But the fact of the matter remains that we have been in a drought and we have had triple digit temperatures and we did lose our garden and a couple of fruit trees. And worst of all, for the first time ever, we had no tomatoes.


Now that’s just plain sad not to have tomatoes. Tomatoes go with everything and in everything so I have always canned boatloads of tomatoes for the winter. None this year. But have no fear!! Red Gold® tomatoes came to the rescue.


First, I have to tell you about my new “love affair” with the Red Gold® Tomato company. I have most often used that brand of tomato ever since I first discovered it. I can not tell a lie though, if Surefine goes on sale, I snatch those up too!! But the Red Gold® tomatoes are by far the best canned tomatoes on the market – as close to fresh as you can get. So trust me, I had been using them long before I ever had any contact with them. However, about two weeks ago I got the nicest email from a Cristy with the marketing firm that handles the Red Gold® Tomato Company. She said that she had come across the blog and that she thought we would be a perfect fit for one
of their Red Gold® Tomato Giveaway packages. The only request? Try some of the recipes in their new cookbook that would be included. I willingly agreed and also offered to post what recipes I will try every now and again. Then I promptly forgot about it.


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Last Wednesday, this awesome cardboard box arrived that had a big tomato with the Red Gold seal on the outside. I opened it to find another box even cooler. It looked like a crate of gorgeous red tomatoes.

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I finally got that box opened to find all kinds of neat items….a variety of canned tomatoes, refrigerator magnet, clip magnet, cookbook, key ring, a thumb drive with a tomato on the end (that is now the official Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ thumb drive) and a lovely red canvas Red Gold® Tomato shopping bag coincidentally in the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ red. And evidently, they had gotten word that Mr. Fix-It loves cars, including model ones, because included was a to scale, heavy-duty special edition model of a 2004 Chevrolet SS Convertible – yellow with a Red Gold® emblem. Now what man couldn’t love that?!


And to beat everything, Red Gold® has put their canned tomatoes on sale for “Buy 10 and get $5 off At The Register.” The sale goes off here in Okieland after Tuesday, October 11th. But you can continue to make use of their coupon that you can print off at the Red Gold® website for $1 off of three cans. Think of that. If you use that at Homeland, where coupons are doubled, you get 10 cans of tomatoes for $2.50 minus $2 off from the coupon, which leaves you with 10 cans of tomatoes for 50¢!!! You had better believe that I took advantage of that sale and rounded up cans of their different kinds of tomatoes to be carried out in my own, matching Red Gold Tomatoes Grocery bag. I was just too, too shopping coordinated!


As far as a recipe, I decided to try this particular one in the cookbook. It calls for fresh, spring veggies, but you can use frozen if fresh is not available. I did and it was delicious. And it calls for fresh ravioli like you buy in the cooler case at any store. However, since I am the “make it yourself if you don’t have it since you live way out in the country kinda gal” I did just that. So here you go and I won’t be doing a printable recipe this time since it is from their book that can be purchased online:


Spring Ravioli



2 tsps olive oil
1 cup fresh green beans, cut into 1 ½” pieces
1 small yellow bell pepper (green is fine too)
1 (14.5 oz) can Red Gold® Diced Tomatoes Italian with Basil, Oregano and Garlic
½ tsp salt
1 pound package fresh cheese ravioli
½ cup sour cream
3 tablespoons basil pesto
2 tsp grated lemon zest
Substitutions: 4 oz fresh asparagus cut into 1” pieces and 4 ozs snap pea
pods instead of green beans.

For ravioli, use Noodle Dough recipe here at the blog.


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Once noodle dough is mixed, put it onto a floured surface – preferably an Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ – and gently flour to form a ball. Cut the ball in half to form two balls.


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Roll each ball out into about a 6″ x 12″ rectangle


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Place 1″ squares of Asiago cheese onto one rectangle, three across and four down


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Place other rectangle of dough over the rectangle with cheese and allow to sit in the open air until the dough is slightly dry. This makes it easier to cut.


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With a ravioli cutter or a knife, cut between rows of cheese squares to form ravioli. If using a knife, crimp edges with a fork.


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Drop raviolis one-by-one into a two quart pot of salted boiling water with a tblsp of olive oil added to the water. Cook for 10 – 15 minutes until done and slightly chewy.


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Heat two teaspoons of olive oil in a skillet and add green beans and yellow pepper ( I had to use a green pepper) Sauté for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until crisp-tender.


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Stir in undrained can of Red Gold® tomatoes and salt. Stir and cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.


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In a bowl, combine sour cream, pesto and lemon zest and mix well.


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Add sour cream mixture to the tomato and green bean mixture and stir until incorporated


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Gently add cooked ravioli and stir


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Serve garnished with shredded parmesan or asiago cheese and accompanied by garlic toast and a raspberry vinaigrette salad with fresh raspberries! Oh yeah!! Tasty, tasty!! And the leftovers are good too!!



Happy Mama Mia!



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Beauty and A Beastly Bolt

Monday, October 3rd, 2011





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Butterflies and

Windshields


The Monarch butterflies are making their pilgrimage to Mexico for the winter and they are coming right across the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ digs. They are so regal and so beautiful, they just take your breath away. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the tree covered in butterflies, but I didn’t have my camera. However, a number of the splendid creatures stopped on my Lantana and got a drink.


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And there was this weird little creature that looked like a hummingbird with a butterfly face. It moved so fast, it was hard to catch, but it was feeding right there with the Monarchs. Anybody know what it is?? I’d sure like to know. Note: Thanks to reader, Dorothy for informing us that this creature is a Hummingbird Moth. Who’d a guessed THAT? 🙂


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And as I was taking pictures of such pretty things, Mr. Fix-It arrived with his rental car marred by a beastly windshield disaster that had happened not an hour earlier. A bolt from a truck and trailer in front of him, bounced on the turnpike asphalt and shot into Mr. Fix-It’s windshield right in Mr. Fix-It’s face. Praise God that it did not go through because it would have been like a bullet. The bad thing is that he is driving the rental car because the regular one is in the shop being beaten back into shape from the incredible hail damage done to it in the hail storm I wrote about recently, including the video. Sooooo, now Mr. Fix-It is picking up a second rental car.


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But I choose to think about the butterflies. They have made up the pretty part of the day! (You thought I was going to talk about squashed butterflies on the windshield, now didn’t you??!)


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Happy Butterfly Watching!



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Overheard

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011





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Overheard



I just had to comment on something I overheard this afternoon at Walmart. You know when people are behind you and they are talking loud enough for you to hear and you really don’t want to listen, but you can’t help it because they are talking loud enough for you to hear? Well, that’s what happened to me.


I was heading across the parking lot and was just walking along, minding my own business, when these two people mosied up behind me, carrying on a conversation. It was obviously a lady and a man, by their voices. “Yeah. She’s really gonna marry him.” “Really? How OLD is he anyway?” “He’s like 56 or 57!!” “Oh my gosh. Are you kidding? He’s THAT old? That’s like a 20 year difference!!” “Yep. I know. I can’t believe she’s with somebody THAT old.”


Now then….aside from the fact that they were justifiably taken aback by the difference in age between these two people whom they obviously knew, if YOU were behind a woman with platinum white hair, who is wearing stretchy old-lady pants and tenny pumps, would YOU be referring to 57 as old? Do you think you’d be swooning that your friend is marrying someone with one foot in the grave? I’m thinking you’d wait until you were far enough away from that decrepit 57 year old to comment on that less than acceptable age! All I can say, is what my grandmother used to say, “The nerve of some people’s grandchildren!!” I’ll go take out my teeth now and gum some oatmeal.
🙂


Happy Eavesdropping!



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Facing Change

Monday, September 19th, 2011





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Change Is Hard


I just got back yesterday evening from my quick trip to Walland, TN. It was gruelling – four days on the road with no down time. Mr. Fix-It and I left on Thursday, got there Friday at 4 pm, helped my parents and loaded the little truck that they gave Mr. Fix-It. Then we left on Saturday morning and drove until 4:30 Sunday afternoon, with a hotel in between. My body is too old for this.


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The purpose of the trip made it even tougher. My parents have sold their house, are giving away practically everything and are moving into a retirement community. It is a smart move on their part because the house and the property is just too big and too labor intensive for two people. But knowing the wisdom of this move does not make it any easier on all of us kids.


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Tennessee was our stomping ground as children. It was where we all attended Girl Scouts, high school and college and took many “field trips” or camping trips to the Smokey Mountains. It was where some of us had our children. It was where those children spent their early years. It is where we have visited our parents, after we all moved out-of-state, at their lovely home with a view of the mountains right outside a bedroom window. It has been trout streams, cool mornings and evenings, wild turkeys, deer and other assorted wildlife, quiet and private communing with nature, long walks and a big house where lots of us could congregate in laughter and love.


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Change is tough. We all hold onto our memories like gold and we expect things to stay the same forever and ever. But nothing ever does. We all grow older, we lose jobs, we get illnesses, we get married, we have children, we move, we lose love ones. And in all the changes that we experience through life, there is only one constant – God. It is so wonderful to know that in all of the upheaval that we know as “life” that there is One who is never-changing, in control and full of love and compassion. He sees our tears and lets us cry and then encourages in the most amazing ways. And believe me, I have cried some tears. But already I see the blessings of the changes that are coming.


So, I am just taking this moment to encourage you if there are changes in your life right now. We don’t like change. It makes us uncomfortable. But in everything that comes our way, there is always a lesson and a blessing if we are open to allowing God to do His thing. It’s in the looking back, that we see how change always makes us stronger, more compassionate and more faithful.


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So congratulations, Mom and Dad, for being willing to face change with eagerness, faith and joy. You are a blessing to all of us and witness to many.



Happy Changes!



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The Mississippi River Bridge

Thursday, September 15th, 2011





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Bridging The Gap




I’m traveling. The artist in me has been screaming to get out all day. No, I haven’t been wanting to throw paint at passing cars…I’ve just been marveling at the landscape whizzing by and the architecture of the towns. It’s Americana begging to be painted.


There was one moment, however, that sent me hurtling into the past with a giggle. You know how music or sounds bring moments to mind that occurred simultaneously with the music or sounds? Well, sights do that for me too and today, I was transported back to Mr. Gibson’s 3-D design class at Middle Tennessee State University.


I wasn’t the most engineering design oriented art student in the world. To me, design was just about what looked good. Who cared if it could hold a couple of Sumo wrestlers? That attitude was not appreciated by Mr. Gibson, my professor, and I quickly learned that he was very serious about his students’ work being able to hold a couple of Sumo wrestlers. We students were each given a very large bag of popsicle sticks and told to purchase tubes of Duco Cement. Do you know how out in space you can get using Duco Cement?? But that was back before the FDA cared whether college students lived or died and it was the mid ’70’s when I am almost certain that college students were using hallucinogens equally disastrous. Anyway, we were instructed to build a tower that was structurally sound enough to hold 10 pounds of weight. (OK, so I exaggerated a little. Not quite Sumo wrestler poundage.) Structural soundness would be the main grade. Appearance would be secondary and minimal in determining our grade.


Now, I freely admit that I wasn’t the most motivated student either and things like football games, concerts by Chicago, Elton John, Elvis and The Pointer Sisters and watching one of the male fraternities streak across campus seemed much more important than tackling a project that sounded like a summer of Vacation Bible School crafts. After all, who couldn’t put a bunch of popsicle sticks together and come out with a tower? It was the day before the project was due that I finally decided I needed to get busy. At 4 o’clock the next morning, I finished my monstrosity that measured 3 feet tall and had not one similar angle throughout the entire piece. In fact, about three quarters of the way up, the tower was relatively straight, but then an imperceptible angling began and the top fourth leaned ever so slightly – just enough to drive you crazy wanting to reach over and straighten it. The popsicle sticks were glued to each other in all kinds of wierd directions to create a sort of tall cylinder around empty air. I was so tired, I didn’t even go to bed because I had to be up and in class with my project by 8 that morning.


Mr. Gibson was not a stupid man and he had a way of figuring out when one of us had waited until the last minute to do our work. He had a mean smirk on his face as he looked at my ‘leaning tower of haphazard’ and saved it for last so that the humiliation of watching it explode into a shower of popsicle sticks, when he placed the weight on it, would send me running to Shakey’s pizza parlor for solice in extra cheese.


One by one, my classmates paraded their engineering marvels (did I mention that I was the only girl in the class?) before our artistic genius professor and one by one most collapsed under the weight of Mr. Gibson’s metal ingots. A few survived and the creators smugly returned to their seats ready to design a new Empire State Building.


And then it was my turn. I feel pretty sure that I was sweating and that I didn’t appear all that self-assured, but I managed to drag my very heavy wooden tower to the front of the room for demonstration. Mr. Gibson placed one ingot onto the top of my “statue”. It didn’t move. He placed another and another and still it stood firm. I held my breath. Obviously frustrated, my professor placed another weight and, I am sure wished my tower to disintegrate to teach me a lesson, but it didn’t even creak. Ten pounds of metal perched atop my mess of popsicle sticks. I jumped up and down and clapped my hands. Not to be outdone, my professor continued to pile metal on top of my tower. At 15 pounds, he stopped. I passed with flying colors. But I gained a new appreciation for those who design and build the bridges, tunnels and architecture that we all take for granted.


So today, when I crossed the Mississippi River and beheld the magnificent span of the bridge that has gotten millions and millions of cars from Arkansas to Memphis and back, I had to take pictures. The criss-cross of metal made me think of my popsicle stick project and I just had to say a quiet ‘thank you’ to the very smart people who not only made the bridge stand up under incredible weight, but made it pretty to boot. And I bet they didn’t wait until the night before it was due to build it!!


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The mighty Mississippi lumbers by the banks of the town of Memphis



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The bridge looms ahead



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That’s one big Erector Set!



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Isn’t that amazing?



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And it spans two states! Halfway across and in the middle of the river, travelers are welcomed. What an amazing engineering feat!



Happy Travels!



MB
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Winner of the Name the Blog Contest

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011





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We Have A Winner!


We have been hosting a contest to name this blog. I decided that OPC Blog was just dullsville and so many of you smart people sent in some really cute ideas for a new name. We chose our Top 10 of the 40 entries that we had and you all have been voting for the past two weeks on which one you like the best. The voting has closed and the results are in and Emily Robnett of Edmond, Oklahoma is our winner. As you can see at the top, the new photo with her name creation will head each post.


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Emily has won a $25 gift certificate to the shopping page and a gift basket of
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company goodies. Congratulations, Emily, and thank you for the catchy name!


Happy Reading!

and

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A Wood Stove For Winter!

Friday, September 9th, 2011





Home Projects




I am soooo sorry that I have been absent this week, but I have such a good excuse. I’ve been laying tile. Do you know how certain one is convincted of one’s age when one lays tile? There is absolutely no doubt of waning years because the activity serves to destroy backs, knees, elbows, fingers, hands and occassionally, minds.


I love to lay ceramic tile because it is such a precise art. The only problem with it is that is just kills every part of your body. But it doesn’t matter. The finished product is what counts and it is always a good feeling when you see the neat surface of a newly completed tile floor. I had to get this floor laid by today because we had the friendly crew of Stoves, Mantels and More of Midwest City come to install our Dutchwest wood stove by Vermont Castings in the new sun room. It is our preparation for no electricity and, therefore, heat in the winter. We have gone one too many winter nights without heat from a blizzard or ice storm and we have finally solved that problem. Anyway, I wanted to share with you the hard work that these men did for us today. That stove weighed a ton, as did the pad that I made last night. (Laying tile will come in the next post!) Didn’t they do a nice job? If you need your chimneys cleaned, wood stoves or inserts installed, chimneys repaired or anything having to do with fire, and you live in the OKC area, these are your guys!!


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The Stoves, Mantels and More truck drove up.


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Using a lift, Mr. Fix-it had managed to get the stove loaded onto a furniture dolly and moved into the room to help the men out. They had to lift the stove from the dolly to place it on the pad that I had made for it to stand on. Just two men lifted it! Of course, I saw veins popping and teeth clenching, but there were no grunts! What He Men!!


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It’s a daunting thing to watch as somebody cuts a round hole through the roof so that you see daylight and little birdies flying overhead!


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There’s the hole in the roof and it is a big one!! No turning back now.


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And that’s what goes in the hole in the roof. Isn’t it pretty and shiny?!


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Ready for a fire to heat. S’mores anybody?


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I feel like a Victorian woman! Thanks Stove, Mantels and More!!




Happy Heating!



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Be Prepared

Saturday, August 27th, 2011





Emergency Preparedness



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I’m going to kinda rant here. I heard something that just made me cringe. It had to do with Irene, the hurricane that has everyone plastered to their television sets, radios and Twitter accounts. I’ve seen news hounds doing really good impressions of Chicken Little with an umbrella, warning viewers that the sky is falling in torrents. I’ve heard weathermen and women trying to offer reassurance, advice and pictures of what could happen if the storm tightens like storms did in the ’50’s, even though they had different names and were on the other side of the world from New York City. And then of course, there are the crazy surfers sticking their tongues out at the New Jersey governor who is using the “H” word to order them off the beach. In short, pandemonium, chaos and a general sense of mental instability is racing up and down the eastern seaboard, while those of us in the rest of the country observe with a puzzled frown.


But what really got me today was the preparedness plans of two New York women and a picture of the grocery stores. If you haven’t seen it on the news, the grocery stores are empty. People have swiped the shelves clean. Anyone who was late to the party is flat out of luck. No water. No food and definitely no toilet paper. And what are two women, who were interviewed today, doing to prepare for the end of the world in New York City? One is ordering seven salads from the local deli, instead of her usual one salad. The other woman is making sure that she has plenty of yogurt for her daughter. Seven salads and yogurt? Do you think that they have any clue what “no electricty” involves?


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I have my 1963 plated, first edition Junior Scout book in which I scribbled third grade nonsense, rendering it absolutely worthless! Except that it is a hoot to read.



As I’ve said before, I was raised in the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scout Motto is “Be Prepared”. Back in the ’60’s and ’70’s that meant to learn to “Be Prepared”!! For any scenario. Of course, back then, we were dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis (remember walking home as fast as you could?), Nikita Khrushchev and the invasion of the Beatles, but we have issues equally serious today. (Justin Bieber comes to mind.) “Be Prepared” is a motto that is timeless and fits all geographies. It requires a moment of reflection on the fact that, at any moment, circumstances can change and your local convenient store may not be open or, as in the case near me, may have disappeared altogether in a flash of twirling wind and rain. It means remembering that banks can close, electricity can cease, water can be shut off and food can spoil in a powerless frig. “Be Prepared” is a call to think about what you would need in an emergency. And I don’t mean yogurt and some bowls of wilty lettuce.


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As a Girl Scout, I trained to be a Fallout Shelter Manager at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Do kids even know what a Fallout Shelter is these days? And would they know that yellow sign if it was waved in front of them??

I learned that “Be Prepared” involves putting one’s self on a budget (GS Law # 9: A Girl Scout is Thrifty). The best way to do that is to gather a list of all of your expenses for a month, including all the little stuff like every pack of chewing gum you buy or your daily Starbucks Macchiato Grande Mocha Vanilla Chocolate Cupcake Latte Frappuccino with whipped cream and sprinkles. Divide your expenses into categories (include a category for savings) and add up how much goes into each category for a month. Multiply each category total by 12 months and then divide by 52 weeks. That total is how much you should be spending out of a weekly paycheck into your categories in order to be able to pay the bills and miscellaneous expenses on time. Begin with one month ahead and then start adding in for the next month. That way you are always prepared a month in advance. You’ll even start saving money! It’s actually pretty simple.


Preparing for emergencies is no different from budgeting. Keep a record of what you use for one month down to the last matchstick, toothbrush, bar of soap. little liver pills and Pepto Bismal. At the end of the month, you will have a list of what you need for a month to keep your house running. Use two bars of soap a week? You’ll need to keep 8 – 9 bars on hand for the month. Drink a pot of coffee a day? Then figure on enough coffee for 31 pots of coffee. I know a family who planned ahead for a year and when the husband lost his job, they were able to go for the many months that it took him to find a new one without spending precious money on daily living. It was like their savings account in household necessities!


In your planning, also think ahead of items you can eat and drink that require no cooking and no refrigeration. Canning and dehydrating your own items really comes in handy for this project, however, store-bought canned and dried foods are fine too. The idea is to think ahead and consider, for example, if and how you would cook, what you would cook and if you would have enough water. If your electricity goes out or you get snowed in, etc, having that worked out ahead of time makes life so much easier. Living in Oklahoma with ice storms, tornadoes and heat waves that put a strain on the grid, we must be prepared at all times. You can look in the Index of Posts to the right to find alternative ways of cooking with a reflector oven and a solar oven.


The key to being prepared is that you hope you will never have to use these things, while facing the reality that you very well could. The neat thing is, that when you are prepared you are able to practice Girl Scout Law #3: To Be Useful and To Help Others! In other words, you can help someone in need. Just remember, when the hurricanes hit, the tornadoes destroy, the ice storms debilitate or the snow is 8 feet deep, being prepared can make a tough situation a whole lot more fun. A few board games and a kerosene lamp don’t hurt either! Who needs ol’ wilty lettuce, anyway?


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Happy Preparedness!



MB
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