It’s been a long time since last Fall, I know. And a lot of things have happened – busy, busy, busy. Lots of changes and lots of work but the time away from the blog has been good for me. I’ve really focused on getting my ankle and feet back as normal as possible, with therapy, exercises and swimming. Yep, swimming. I am a regular Esther Williams now – well – minus the pink, sparkly swimsuit, fountains, lighted swings, rings of fire and synchronized swimmers. My swimsuit is more like something from the 1920s, including the skirt and the colors, white and black. I haven’t included the striped tights or the big hair bow, but I’m close. I’m taking a water aerobics class at the local college and doing free swims on top of that. The summer Olympics are the next step. I just haven’t been able to find a coach who believes my hair is platinum blonde and not gray.


But most exciting of all – we have a wedding coming up in just a few months – Sir Flying Ace is getting married! And the coolest thing is that he’s bringing into the family our own Ms Amelia Air-Heart – a lady pilot and aviation mechanic who is beautiful, smart and who has her own wrench with which to handle Sir Flying Ace when he gets out of line. Wish I’d thought of that. We are very excited.

Basically, however, things have been pretty normal and I have continued down the same path of lunacy which has always been my life. An incident a few days ago illustrates this fact. First, I’ll set up the background. Mr. Fix-It and I are diligently trying to lose weight. I am diligent. He’s a man. That means that I struggle daily to count my calories, do my exercises, record every drop of water that goes into my mouth and faithfully weigh every Monday to note that I’ve gained another pound. Mr. Fix-It, on the other hand, has cut out Sonic Chocolate or Strawberry shakes and has lost 10 lbs in the same amount of time. I’m just wondering why, if we women came from a man’s rib, we didn’t get that male characteristic to go with it – the one that allows men to eat a foot-long sandwich and a Krispy Kreme donut and lose 2 pounds in one afternoon.


Anyway, we’ve been on this long, calorie restricted journey and so the other night a special salad sounded really yummy. We had some leftover, grilled, New York Strip steak, so I decided to create a salad of mixed greens, iceberg lettuce, cucumbers and crumbled blue cheese and low-calorie raspberry-pecan dressing topped with sugared pecans and sliced New York Strip steak.


I needed to sugar the pecans and so added a tbsp. of butter to a stainless skillet, melted the butter and tossed whole pecans in the butter until coated. Then I sprinkled a mere 1 tsp of sugar over the pecans and continually stirred and turned until a caramelized coating formed. Ever the taste tester, I decided that I needed to know if I had used enough sugar and put a little of the caramel onto a spoon. I vigorously blew on the liquid but as I did so, it being slippery with butter, slid off the spoon right onto my lower lip – on the inside AND the outside. I dropped the spoon and let out an, “Oh! Oh!” and tried to remove the caramelized sugar with my tongue. The sugar had hardened and adhered to my lip, still burning through soft layers of skin to the point that I was terribly afraid I would have what looked like a lip piercing gone horribly wrong. I stuck my face under the kitchen faucet and poured cold water over my mouth. The burning was excruciating.


It was then that I remembered ice. Ice! My mother always used ice on a burn. So I grabbed a piece of ice out of the icemaker and shoved it between my lips, making sure that it was right on the burn….where it stuck…frozen to my skin and adding burn onto burn while adhering to my top lip too. I couldn’t open my mouth. Both lips were stuck to the ice, frozen like Flick’s tongue to the flagpole in ‘A Christmas Story’. Now I was really in pain and, though I was by myself in the kitchen, I moaned and squealed as I raced back to the sink and back under the solid stream of water coming out of the faucet. The ice came off, but the inside and outside of my bottom lip were severely burned and now swelling. When you look like you took a left punch to the jaw, how do you tell people that in reality you got your lips stuck together with ice??


So as you can see, nothing has really changed. Except that I AM back and ready to roll up my sleeves to see what more damage I can do. It’s a gorgeous Spring at the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ digs and the lilacs are in full bloom. The garden is in, asparagus is up and we’re just waiting on okra planting weather. Hope you are having as beautiful a Spring as we Okies are!

I just have to show you what we’re doing here in our shop. Weddings seem to be teeming ’round here and brides are thinking “hostess” and “thank you” gifts. We are putting together some pretty cute ones with our Prairie Blessings Soaps and our new body cream, totally custom made to the brides’ specifications. This particular bride requested everything be Lavender and we gladly obliged. We pretty much pull off any fragrance desired and even play around to create something new if requested. Keep us in mind for your next really, really special occasion or gift needs. For custom orders, just give a shout to 405-275-5639 or email me at oklahomapastrycloth@oklahomapastrycloth.com.

Happy April!!