Debbie Delozier :: A Casual Affair

Oh, yeah, it has been an eventful morning already.

This is the teenager leaving for school this morning. I made her leave a bit earlier than she normally leaves as the weather forecasters were calling for the rain to get harder again by 8:00 and for the hail to start in again. I wanted her in town and at school by the time the heavy rain started up again. Just to make sure she was okay, Daddy left just a minute or 2 after her so that he could be behind her ‘just in case’. She called to let me know she had made it to school safely.

I woke early (as in dark 30) to thunder in the distance. Not able to return to sleep, I stayed up about an hour and a half before heading back to bed just prior to 6. I was able to fall back into a nice slumber fairly quickly but was again roused by louder and closer rolling thunder, lightning streaked skies and what sounded like someone throwing handfuls of gravel against our windows. It was on the early side of 7 so J and I got up and turned on the television for the weather forecast. Sure enough, we were smack dab in the center of a storm.

The storm passed but the television showed another one just on it’s heels.

As I took this snapshot of the television screen, Frank on Channel 8, said the sirens were going off in Talala (I talked to my dad later, he lives in Talala, and he said the sirens never went off because they aren’t working).

As I took this snapshot Frank was telling me the storm was 6 miles north of Talala. As you can tell by the snapshot (and if you’ve ever driven Highway 169 you know) Watova is 6 miles north of Talala. And, the little community of Watova (blink driving by and you miss it) is where I am.

The storms are over for now. They are predicting a day of them however. I guess the old wife’s tale, farmer’s predictions, proverb or whatever you want to call it, is true: If March comes in like a lamb it will go out like a lion. If memory serves, March 1 was fairly pleasant. With tomorrow ushering in April I guess we should be ready for the foretold showers.

I’ll bet this little fella who was singing in our trees yesterday is no where around today.

I have sugar cookies to make, onions to chop for a meatloaf and ribs to prepare for the oven and visiting with you (no matter how pleasant) isn’t getting my tasks done.

Love and wishing your life’s storms are rolling on by.

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I was actually planning a Saturday at home catching up on the laundry and doing a few other things around the house that I hadn’t had time (or inclination) to do lately. Just as I was finishing up my computer postings for Brenntag the phone rang. My sis Teresia, from Parsons, KS called and was thinking about heading this way. It has been a few weeks since she has had any Courtney time and I guess she was in need of a baby fix. Plus she was wanting to do a bit of Hobby Lobby shopping etc. She wanted to know if I had time to tag along with her, so I spent a second or 2 thinking; laundry or or doing anything but laundry. Which do you think I picked? Yep, you’re right; anything but laundry.

I jumped in the shower, found something clean to wear and by the time I’d finished Teresia was here. The teenager had decided to go with us, I guess she really (really didn’t want to work on her essay). Our first stop was baby niece Courtney’s house. It was actually time for her nap, but when she heard her favorite aunt was coming, she decided she could stay up a little longer and visit with me.

After a short visit of come to Aunt Debbie, no it’s Aunt Teresia’s turn, now Aunt Debbie and now Aunt Teresia’s turn to hold me and then one little chance for the teenager to hold me, Courtney decided it was definitely nap time and she didn’t want to play Pass The Baby any longer.

We left her to her nap and headed out ourselves. First stop was lunch. As we were at Panera I had the Harvest Salad and tomato soup with asiago bread crumbs; Yum. Next stop was Hobby Lobby. Teresia is into jewelry making right now and she was wanting to look at beads, etc. While she was looking at that I made a stop in the cake decorating aisle then moseyed on over to the stained glass aisle. I would really like to get back into doing glass but J and I are discussing glass shop options at the moment. Sooner or later, if and when, these ideas pan-out and I ever get to do glass again I’ll let you in on all the details. The teenager bought a few things at Hobby Lobby but nothing really caught my attention so I left empty handed.

As Teresia has never seen the not-so newly married couple’s house and wanted to, I gave married daughter a call and asked if we could drop by since we were close enough. She said sure, so we drove the 15-20 minutes into Tulsa and stopped for a tour of the house. The married daughter showed us the flowers and plants she had ordered and was wanting to get planted soon.

After a short visit with the married couple and the grand-animals we made a few more stops on Cherry Street to do some window shopping (I actually bought a few items from an art store, remind me and I’ll show them to you later in the week). The teenager wanted to go to the bookstore and Teresia wanted another hobby store so we did that before heading back north to home.

We actually made another stop at Courtney’s house. She was wide awake and hungry this time, so I fed her a jar of pears and a bottle.

You can see, she thoroughly enjoyed these. I am thinking that since I only have 1 catering lunch this week I might go and get her for a day and she can just stay with me. It would give Grandma a break and give me the baby fix I find that I need sometimes as my babies are grown.

After Miss Courtney had been fed and cleaned up we decided we were hungry too. Courtney’s mommy daddy hadn’t eaten either so we called my mom and dad and J and told them we were wanting to go eat. Everyone met up and we made another trip to Owasso and enjoyed dinner together. Of course Courtney saw a sock bunny she needed while we were in town and Aunt Debbie had to get it for her. I can tell already, I’m going to be a sucker when it comes to her wanting something.

That wrapped up our Saturday. Of course Sunday began with Sunday School and church service. Then after a bite of lunch we shared a lazy family afternoon.

Now, as I have plans for a special April Fool’s lunch for the Rotary Club (I’ll let you in on this after Tuesday’s lunch) I need to hit the supermarket.

Peace be with you!

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Tired, weary, exhausted, worn-out, drained, done-in, bushed, beat, spent, dog-tired. No matter how you say it, it’s what I am.

First thing this morning (and that is even before coffee) I mixed up a bowl of red wine, terriyaki sauce and garlic. Yum, yum. Just the scent you want hitting the nostrils first thing in the morning. I poured the marinade over a nice 5 lb beef tenderloin (another sight you want to see first thing in the morning, a nice piece of blood-red meat).

Here I stopped for a nice freshly brewed cup of hot coffee (that is the aroma that I like first thing in the morning) giving myself a moment to get my head on straight. As I drank my coffee I went over the lists pictured. One is a list of all the stuff I need to load, the next list is my time-line for the morning (which helped immensely)and the last paper is the invoice to the bank. Sitting there drinking my coffee wasn’t getting any of it done, so I slowly (regretfully) made it out of my chair and began the gathering. I gathered pots, one of my roasters, a roasting pan, bowls, whisks, tongs, knives, cutting board, foil and dessert bowls.

These are the dessert bowls I bought. I had 6 bowls sort of like these but today I would need 12 and in the past if I’d had more they would have come in handy. So, when I saw these the other day I bought 20 of them. My J is so tolerant of my dish mania. Actually they weren’t that expensive and like I say they will come in handy alot. Imagine these filled with a cinnamon-raisin bread pudding doused with a warm, freshly made caramel sauce.

But I digress. After I gathered up all my equipment I began to gather the food items. I packed the marinating tenderloin, the twice baked potatoes I had prepared yesterday, the hot rolls I made yesterday, the vegetables, and the bread pudding and caramel ingredients. Once I had everything packed up I loaded the car.

I made it to the bank by 9:45, unloaded the car and carried everything to the upstairs kitchen in which I would be working. Although once I saw the oven I knew that even with my roaster I would still have to use the downstairs oven for the twice baked mashed potatoes.

Once everything was unloaded and put in a place away until I needed it I preheated the oven and once again set myself to work.

I retrieved the very long, fancy, blue tablecloths for the table. It took 2 to cover the board table. Once I finished setting the table with candles, silver, etc I made my way back down the hall to the kitchen to start the food preparations, only to find that I’d forgotten the salad ingredients. I made a call to J (my knight in shining armor) and he rode his faithful steed all the way to Watova to gather my needed supplies and bring them all the way to town to me. Okay, fine. He didn’t ride his faithful steed, he just jumped in his vehicle and drove the 6 miles there and back. But he really did save the day for me. Thanks, Sweetiepie!

Long story short (I know, you’re thinking it is way too late for that now); the menu was a greek-style green salad, roasted beef tenderloin topped with a bleu cheese cream sauce, mixed vegetables including 2 different types of squash, carrots and asparagus in a peppered butter sauce, the twice baked potatoes (having now been properly baked twice) and a dinner roll. Dessert was the bread pudding with caramel sauce. The 3 helpers I had (they served and cleared the dishes while I was busy cooking and plating) were so (so very) happy there was some of the bread pudding left, they ate it right out of the pan in the kitchen once I was finished with it.

Once the dinner was over and I had the majority of the dishes cleaned up (Angela did the last bit) I packed away my equipment and headed home. Once I was home and had my things cleaned up and put away I sat down with a nice ice-cold glass of tea and rested my tired achy feet.

Now it is time for the teenager to be home so I’m off so I can visit with her when she arrives.

Later!

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Today there are signs of Spring everywhere. Our pear tree has blossoms now and is beautiful. The teenager’s friend Nicci calls them ‘popcorn trees’. To be honest it looks like popcorn too. I’m so happy the pear made it through all the damage from the winter’s ice storms. We totally lost an apple tree, I know this because it is laying on its side. And I’m still worrying about some of the other trees, my magnolia for instance.

Another sign of Spring has been my allergies. I take a Claritin along with my morning vitamins now. I usually will go ahead and take a decongestant also just to get my head cleared.

Also, the song birds fill the trees and I can hear them singing throughout the day. The back lot trees are full of blackbirds at the moment though.

They aren’t near as pretty as songbirds and their songs lack . . . well, alot to be honest. There were 2 crows out there this afternoon also. They were huge and talk about ugly! They made me think of the crows, Heckel and Jeckyl from that old cartoon. You know the ones, they would set on a post and mock all the simpleminded humans who were trying to keep them out of their vegetable gardens.

It has been quiet and almost a bit lonely (I am a social butterfly you know) today. J left yesterday (after our lunch) for Wichita and the teenager is at Youth Group this evening. Things will be back to normal (lively and loud) by Friday though. J returns sometime Thursday night and I’m not aware of any plans the teenager has of yet. I’ll take lively and loud to quiet and lonely any old day though.

It looks as if I’m starting to ramble now so I think I will let you go and move on to a few other tasks.

Hope you have a pleasing evening, just the way you like it.

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Literally!! It seems I may have a build up of static electricity or something.

This morning I was picking up items around the house and replacing them in their proper places. As soon as I sat the cordless phone into it’s receiver a shock went into my fingertips, traveling up my arm, causing me to jump back and squeal in surprise. It happened again later when I was replacing a handtowel on the bar in the bathroom. As soon as I touched that metal towel ring I was jolted again. It happened throughout the house most of the morning.

Actually it seems a bit odd now that I stop to think about it. The other day J had driven the pickup into town and when he went to drive back home the battery in the pickup was dead. Odd because we’ve never had a problem before and not since. As he was getting cables to jump the battery he looked at his watch to see what the time was and his watch had stopped (battery powered). Again, no trouble before or since. Maybe I am somehow sucking all J’s power! Makes you think, does it not. Okay, maybe not.

Pictured is the teenager’s choir ensemble. The group came to sing for the Rotary Club today. Our teenager is on the far left end. No, that is the choir director, Mr Jones. I’m talking about the standing group. Grandpa D took pictures as I was in the kitchen making pico de gallo, quacamole, salad and quesadillas for the 11 Rotary members and the 14 people in the picture. I sent a 2 large trays of food back to school with the choir group and left the rest of the lunch in the kitchen for the Rotary members while J and I went for our customary Tuesday lunch date.

After returning to the community room Debbie and Dad D just about had the kitchen all cleaned up. I finished up for them before running out to the meat market to pick up a tenderloin I had on order for Friday’s lunch. I then returned home to clean up my kitchen as I didn’t really have time before leaving the house this morning. This is because I spent most of the morning having currents of electricity shoot through my body or chopping vegetables for the pico de gallo.

It started with more onions – tomatoes –

and more tomatoes - and jalapenos

and cilantro and more cilantro

then squeezed in some lime juice –

and ta-da: a big tub full of pico de gallo

Now I need to go make some quacamole for dinner.

Love and fresh tasting goodies.

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Dinner this evening is chicken enchiladas. The teenager has been wanting them for the longest time. Today I finally got around to making them for her.

After 2 hours of my morning cylinder postings, a quick shower and starting in on that old archenemy, the never-ending, ever-growing laundry pile I went in to the kitchen and stayed there most of the day.

Tomorrow the the teenager’s show choir ensemble will be singing for the Rotary. As most of the teenager’s friends know I cook for the Rotary they are all excited about getting lunch. It would be hard for the Rotary to have 13 teen guests plus their choir director, so I told them I would make them a lunch that they could take back to the school with them. That means chicken quesadillas, pico de gallo, quacamole, large (very large) green salad and banana pudding dessert for 24. No problem; I can do it blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back. Actually, having one arm tied behind me would make chopping all the veggies for the quesadillas a little difficult.

Anyway, I poached and chopped 5 lbs of chicken breast:

and I chopped onion: and black olives:

mushrooms: and green bell pepper:

Tomorrow morning I will mix all these and add grated cheese and prepared salsa and then make the quesadillas.

After all the chopping I started on the banana pudding dessert.

Step 1 – Nilla wafer crust:

Step 2: Cream Cheese layer:

Step 3: Banana layer:

Step 4: Pudding layer:

Final step: whipped cream and grated chocolate layer:

Then I made a second one; remember I’m feeding 13 teenagers, a choir director and the members of the Rotary club.

After putting everything in the refrigerator out in the garage I cleaned up the kitchen and started on the chicken enchiladas for the teenager’s dinner.

So; how did your day go?

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Our Easter lily tree. The youth sold Easter lilies as a fund raiser and my friend Joyce drug out the tree form and set everything up. They are gorgeous. Thanks again Steve for making our tree form.

After service with 107 in the congregation and the dedication of baby Chloe (who was all dressed up and pretty in pink) J, the teenager and I headed to Tulsa. We had a lunch date with the young married couple. Their dining room furniture had been delivered and we were anxious to see it all set up. Of course the teenager and both parts of the young married couple were anxious to get their Easter baskets.

Their new table (with only 3 chairs, 5 are backordered, & I should have moved the Easter baskets) and their new buffet in the background

We also were able to see the grandpuppies and grandkitty while we were there. Layla and Reggie had both been to the groomers and received their summer haircuts.

They will both be more comfortable with the shorter hair, but they sure do look funny. Cass calls them bobble-head puppies.

After a short visit and a bite of lunch we headed to the grocery store (2 big (big) lunches on the schedule this week) so I needed to pick up a few last minute items.

I think now I’ll go spend some family time with J and the teenager; she gets back into the school groove after having Spring Break last week and J will be leaving on Tuesday to spend most of the week in Wichita.

Love and Easter blessings

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Once, when the teenager was just a wee, little one, the Easter Bunny stopped and visited a bit. As you can see the teenager (then wee, little one) wasn’t too sure she even liked the Easter Bunny. Earlier that morning I had made little bunny foot prints throughout the house with baby powder, so the teenager a.k.a. wee, little one may have thought the Easter Bunny was going to leave another big mess.

If memory serves: the next year I was saying something about when Aunt Teresia had dressed up as the Easter Bunny the previous year and the teenager/wee, little one argued with me. THAT WAS THE REAL EASTER BUNNY tee hee

EASTER BUNNY WISDOM

1. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
2. There is no such thing as too much candy
3. Some body parts should be floppy (I didn’t believe this then, but I sure do now)
4. An Easter bonnet can tame even the wildest hare
5. The grass is always greener in someone else’s basket
6. Let happy thoughts multiply like rabbits.

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This is the campground just down the road from the cabin; no camping this Easter weekend I would imagine. The water from the rivers just keeps coming, they can’t let it through the dam fast enough to keep the lake level from rising. And talk about dirty and nasty looking…

I was watching and listening to the wild-life around here yesterday. There are so many different types of birds (some singing, some not) around here. I noticed a family of cardinals living in the hedges behind the carport yesterday. Here is the man of the nest:

and his lady fair

Here is another guy (girl? hard to tell from my seat on the deck, although at one point he (she) did fly directly over my head and if I’d looked maybe I could have been able to tell?).

Last evening we decided to take a drive and drove over by Spavinaw (the teenager, her friend and I have never (ever) been to Spavinaw. I guess we just never had the urge or saw the need to go there.

As you can see, our teenager is a real live wire; her friend N is a bit more laid back and quieter.

Spavinaw dam:

As you can see, the moon joined us while we were out playing. It started getting chilly so we decided to load up and come back to the cabin where we spent the rest of the evening watching a movie.

Now I’m off to play.

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I must confess and get this off my chest: at this very moment I am stealing internet. Normally, here at the lake cabin, we do not have access to the world wide web. Sometimes, when we can’t deal with the internet withdrawals any longer, we drive up the hill to a local place down a dirt road, sit (lurk) outside in the dark (like the thieves we are) and steal wireless connection from a family member who has locked up for the evening.

Last evening I drug out my computer to work on a time-line for a formal lunch I’m doing next week and the little icon on my computer said it found a wireless network. Being the nosey inquisitive soul I am, I connected to it and lo, and behold, I had a connection to the outside world. Now, here I am, a wireless internet connection bandit. And I don’t feel one bit better by confessing this to you.

Additionally, I’m not the only thief around here. It seems our paddle boat which was chained up on the dock was stolen; lock, chain and all. I guess that is what happens if we don’t put things away (out of sight) and lock them up.

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