Debbie Delozier :: A Casual Affair

We’re shouting Hallelujah around here this week. We’ve been wanting to get rid of the Leaning Shed of Watova and the old, partially wind-blown away barn for quite a while now and this week our prayers were answered. The old Watova school (across the road from us) was being torn down this last week. J and I (and J’s parents as well) really hated to see that old school torn down as that is where J’s mom spent most of her childhood school days. I really do wish we’d had the time, energy and funds to have restored it but, alas, it belonged to the church group across the street and they wanted it gone.

At any rate, J walked over and visited with the fellas doing the destruction work and asked them to come over and give us a quote on doing the demolish we needed done. They came back with a wonderful quote (much, much better than the $3500 we were quoted before from another guy around here), so yesterday was D (as in demolish) day.

The shed went from the top picture, to this: to this:

The barn went from this: to this:

and finally to this:

HALLELUJAH AND AMEN and you know, J is just dying to get on that tractor in the background and do some dirtwork now. Boys and their toys.

Other things that are going on around here:

Now that school is back in full swing and I have some quiet hours (ahhh!!!) once again I find I also have a bit of time to fill. A few weeks ago I pulled out the trusty old sewing machine (my sisters are doubling over laughing just about now – I’ve never really been the seamstress type, you know) and threw this little number together.

I just love aprons so I’ve decided to start making a few different types. J picked out the material for this one, it is a Japanese motif.

I also worked on these last week: Friend MB is giving the sermon in church this next Sunday and has decided to have a breakfast before hand. She bought all this material and wanted table clothes for the long tables done. She got started on the project and found she had other things needing her attention so I lent a helping hand and finished it up for her since I still had my old trusty sewing machine out on the table in the back room.

Well, that is just about all there is to tell you for now and I do have about 7 menus to come up with for upcoming luncheons and a quote to get out on a special project, so I had best be getting to it.

Blessings

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Yesterday, on our way to Tulsa, J and I passed these 3 men between Watova andTalala. J, knowing my inquisitive nature, immediately turned the car around and went back so that I may meet them and ask a few questions. Here is their story:

This is Keith Wheeler (red shirt) Scott & Tyler. Keith has carried this cross (it has a joint in the center so that it is able to fold up for the airlines, and has a wheel attached to the bottom, making it a bit easier to carry) all around the world. They began this morning’s journey in Tulsa. We visited a while; he asked me if I knew the Lord. I told him I did know My Lord. Keith showed me pictures of himself in Vatican City from when Pope John Paul II invited him there. He showed me pictures in front of a wall portrait of Sadam Hussain. He showed me pictures in Cambodia, South Africa, Tunisa, the Amazon and many, many other places. He is spreading the word of Jesus’ love every where he travels.

After a nice visit, he asked me if he could pray for me. As J, the kiddos and I feel we are living a very blessed life, I told him that he could pray for a few of my loved ones that are having a hard time of it at the moment. So, standing there on the side of Highway 169, Keith, Scott, Tyler and myself held hands and thanked the Lord for His blessings and prayed for the people in my life.

Keith gave me his card, so if you would like to read about Keith’s travels and see some of his pictures visit www.kw.org. I know you will enjoy it.

In other news from the week: This week seems to have been “Chicken Week”. On Monday I thawed, cleaned and pounded 14 chicken breasts for Mexican Chicken Kiev for the Rotary’s lunch and our own dinner later that evening. After pounding flat the 14 breasts, I placed a thick slice of pepper jack cheese inside each one. I then dipped the chicken roll in melted butter and followed it up by dredging it in the spices, bread crumbs and grated parmesan cheese. I poured the remaining melted butter over the chicken and wrapped it up and put it in the refrigerator until Tuesday morning.

I also thawed and poached 6 lbs of chicken for the Cranberry Chicken Salad for Thursday’s bank director’s meeting taking place in the new bank in Tulsa.

Monday evening the teenager’s Show Choir director had a meeting to discuss plans and trips for the year. The group decided to run the concession stands at the football games this year to earn $ for the trips. So after everyone volunteering to help in the stands 2 or 3 times throughout the year we were set and called it a night.

Tuesday (of course) was Rotary lunch. I prepared a large rice pot of Spanish Rice with sauteed onions and green bell pepper and made 2 dozen cookies. At the last moment before lunch I sliced up 5 of the Porter peaches to go with the cookies. I gave the little bit that was left to Debbie F for her and Mike’s dinner that evening.

Wednesday was cookie day. I baked chocolate chip, cherry nut, orange nut and a chocolate walnut cookie. After the baking I stirred (and stirred and stirred) together a huge batch of the Cranberry Chicken Salad and then ordered 4 loaves of Honey-Wheat bread, sliced thick, from Panera Bread in Owasso. I had thought I’d make my own Honey-Wheat bread but I was just plain ol’ tired of baking.

As I was also tired of being in the kitchen it was a lucky thing for me when J called late afternoon and said he had a guy come by and thought we’d all run out and get a bite somewhere in Owasso. I thought that was a great idea, so I ran a hairbrush through my hair, splashed on a bit of Burberry’s London, dusted my face with powder, glossed up my lips and I was ready to go. I can get ready pretty fast when it concerns a free (not cooked by me) meal you know.

Thursday morning, I sliced a couple of nice, ripe cantaloupes, a watermelon (that turned out to be too ripe so I didn’t use it), 6 tomatoes and cleaned 2 bunches of green leaf lettuce. I then packed up my plates, dinnerware, sandwich papers and picks, chips, pickles, chicken salad, tomatoes, melon, lettuce, cheese and the cookies. On the way out I grabbed 5 peaches from the fridge and headed toward Owasso to pick up the pre-ordered bread. By 9:30 I had the bread in hand and was heading to Tulsa to prepare lunch for 20 board members and guests.

I met many nice people at the new bank. Dow told me they had to think twice about having me come to Tulsa as they didn’t want word of their secret caterer getting out. Ha! The hardest part of the whole preparation was trying to keep the people who came into the kitchen for coffee out of the cookie platter until later.

On Friday (late morning) J called and said he was taking off after lunch and wanted to know if I wanted to run to Tulsa. As I’d had plans of looking for water fountains for our Meditation Garden at church I jumped on the chance. I also called my cousin P to see if she and T & M wanted to meet up and have a bite of dinner since it’s been 18 years since we’d seen each other. We synchronized our watches, P made reservations and we were set. J and I had a great afternoon. It has been quite a while since we’ve had time to “be a couple” so it was really nice to reconnect, chat, laugh (alot) and enjoy each other’s company.

We met P & T (M had to work) at PF Chang’s for dinner. We had such a great time and are planning a dinner here at the house and inviting the rest of the family so everyone can catch up. Lesson learned: don’t let time pass with distance between people you love.

After dinner, we ran by the married couple’s house to help them with a chore. Their newly refinished wood floors are Bee-utiful. They are a gorgeous, light, natural wood shine. The guys did a fantastic job and it wasn’t too bad in price either. We made it home about 11, chatted with the teenager a bit (who had her own schedule for the day and evening) before finally putting these old bones into our nice comfortable bed.

Today’s plans include returning grandkitty Nickel to his home in Tulsa and enjoying the day with the teenager and J. Can’t ask for more than that.

Next week I’ll show you something else I’ve been working on.

Cya

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4 egg whites (room temperature)
2 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar
1 cup cocoa powder
2 tblsp all purpose flour
1 tsp instant coffee powder
1 tblsp water
1 cup walnuts, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 baking sheets with waxed paper (or use sil-pat like I did) and then grease the waxed paper (not the sil-pats) well.

With electric mixer, beat egg whites until frothy.

Sift the powdered sugar, cocoa, flour and coffee into the whites. Add water and continue beating on low speed to blend, then on high for a few minutes, until the mixture thickens. With a rubber spatula, fold in the walnuts.

Place generous spoonfuls of the mixture 1” apart on the prepared baking sheets. Spread out just a teeny bit.
Bake 12-15 minutes until firm and cracked on top but soft on the inside.

With a metal spatula, transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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You can hum this to the tune of “A Partridge In A Pear Tree” if you like; however, it isn’t necessary (I will add sidebar notes for explanation)

1 grandkitty visiting (Nickel is visiting us for the week as the married couples having their floors refinished)

2 loaves of wheat bread (do you need an explanation here?)

3 sinks full of dishes (from the chicken salad, bread, casserole for supper, mexican chicken kiev I’ve made today)

4 magnolia blossoms (can’t help it, I just love my magnolia)

5 lbs of chicken (cooked & shredded for chicken salad)

6 morning emails

7 ingredients in the casserole (tonight’s casserole – chicken, noodles, cheese, onion, celery, sour cream & pimentos)

8 yoga stretches (making time for my Wii fit)

9 minutes to get ready (choir meeting at school tonight)

10 servings of Mexican Chicken Kiev (For tomorrow’s Rotary lunch)

The best part of the day: when the teenager and I returned home from our meeting at the high school J had the casserole heated up, the bread sliced and on the table along side a bowl of real butter, sweet carrots, a bowl of red & black seedless grapes and a nice fresh pitcher of iced tea (even though he doesn’t drink tea himself). You just can’t beat that!

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J had business near Porter last week so he stopped an bought a bushel and a peck of fresh, ripe, yummy, sweet peaches. Now we are eating peaches morning, noon and night. J didn’t get nearly as many as we usually do as we just don’t have the time this year to make jam or put some in the freezer. If we don’t get them all eaten I will have to somehow make the time to at least make some jam; we’ll see how many we can eat first though.

It was a special morning in church, sis-in-love Debbie F played her new mandolin while friends Steve and Cathy sang Amazing Grace. Debbie sang a little bit but I think she was concentrating on playing the mandolin more than she was singing. She They did a marvelous job and Debbie’s new instrument is just beautiful. I have always loved the mandolin and listening to her play makes me love it even more. Great job Debbie, Cathy and Steve.

Also, my friend Vicky joined us in church this morning. She had flown up from Houston to visit her dad and had a flight back home this evening. I was so glad she made the time to spend the most special hour of our week with us. We all went and had lunch afterwards in Owasso, J’s mom and dad joined us too. We ate and chatted and had a wonderful time.
It was Cousin Week around here. On Friday I had lunch with Cousin Brenda. I mentioned that I had been thinking of our other cousins Tim and Patti who none of us have seen in many, many years. B said that she had run into T & P’s cousin Brian a while back and he had told her that they were in the area. So I did some internet searching and found T. I called T and we talked a while, he gave me P’s number and I called and talked with her today. It was so good to hear their voices and to hear that they are doing well. Hopefully we can make a lunch date soon.
This evening I made a batch of wheat bread and set it aside to rise all night. I also fed my starter and left it sitting out beside the bread dough. Tomorrow I will finish it up.

Now I’m off to spend a bit of time with my family.

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The recent rains did wonders for the plants and flowers here. I am however, still waiting to see how my transplanted little Japanese Maple tree does; right now it doesn’t look too good, we’ll give it some more time though to see if it’s roots will be able to make themselves at home here. My magnolia tree is a magnificent treat for my senses of sight and smell as it has blooms bursting open all over it. The bees are are buzzing all over trying to drink up all the nectar from the partially open blossom.

School began this morning, which means the teenager begins her Senior year. J talked a bit to her during her lunch hour and she is having a full blown awesome day. I can not wait for her to get home at the end of the day; I know she will be chattering a million miles and hour and barely stopping for air. I smile just thinking of her excitement.

I’m actually enjoying the quiet around here this afternoon. I am enjoying having the whole house to myself at least for a day or 2. Things have been non-stop around here, this morning being the end of it, so I am looking forward to some slow, quiet time around here.

Week’s recap: Monday was spent chopping, browning, etc for Tuesday’s lunch and of course Tuesday was the lunch which means the morning was spent making 2 German chocolate strudels, a large salad, and a casserole (for which I browned and chopped items on Monday). Tuesday afternoon seems to be a blur and I’m guessing there wasn’t anything exciting to report from it.

I was also asked to keep doing the bank’s board meeting lunches even though they are held at the Tulsa location now. They (Sandy and Dow; mostly Sandy I’m guessing) checked around at different catering companies, etc and asked if I would consider continuing to do the lunches for them and they would pay me the extra to make the drive to Tulsa. I’m thinking they just know what they are getting, know what they are paying and know that they can depend on me to take care of the whole thing without any unexpected problems. I’ve agreed to do this first meeting (next week) to see how it goes; I will make my decision to continue or not after that.

Wednesday I baked 2 German chocolate pies during the morning for a church lunch. I was a bit disappointed in them as they did not set up quite right so it was sort of like eating German chocolate pudding with a crust. My church family is so magnificently wonderful though that they didn’t complain a bit, they instead told me how good it was and how much they enjoyed it.

After returning from the church lunch I baked a double batch of brownies and made roast beef salad for Thursday’s bank lunch. Once I finished the mixing, baking, chopping, etc J and I attended 2 meetings at church. J sits on the Audio/Visual team at the church and I sit on the Beautification committee. It sounds like J’s team came up with some ideas and made a decision or 2 and our team made a few decisions and are starting on a job right away and doing a bit of research and planning for some other ideas.

After serving lunch at the bank this morning I ran into my cousin at the grocery store, chatted a bit and made a lunch date for tomorrow. I then had lunch with my too sweet hubby, J. I am now home enjoying the quiet peace of some downtime.

Well, so much for quick notes, huh!

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Rain, and lots of it, in the middle of an Okie August is truly a blessing. The yards, fields and plants were drying up and getting brown; our shade tree off the patio was dropping it’s crisp brown leaves. Yesterday the clouds sent down sprinkles for the largest part of the day. Shortly before bedtime last night the skies opened up and sent down buckets and buckets more throughout the night. It is still raining now as I’m speaking typing to you. I’m not the only one enjoying these showers of blessing either; as you can see my magnolia tree is drinking it all in. The rain also helped out with our new little Japanese tree. It was originally in the married daughter’s yard. The daughter didn’t want it so J dug it up and transplanted it to our yard. As you can see it was thirsty:

Hopefully it will make it now that God has sent his rain blessing down upon it.

The teenager stayed the weekend with her married sister. She is home now and she has been talking non-stop since she arrived. She had a great time, but then she always does when she is with her sister.

While we were in Tulsa at the married couple’s house on Friday, the son-in-law took me for a ride in his new, sporty, little BMW. I think he likes every little single thing about this car and that is as it should be.

On Saturday I was out and about in the sprinkles; this made me a bit wistful for Autumn I think. But by now you know how I get just before the change of every season, and you know I always say that particular season is my very favorite, so I won’t say it; but you do know how I love the Autumn of the year.

I have a fairly busy week: tomorrow I’m baking bread and getting a few things ready for Tuesday’s Rotary lunch, Tuesday is Rotary lunch, Wednesday I’ve promised dessert for the Senior’s mission at church, Thursday is a bank lunch, Thursday is also back to school day for the teenager, the first day of her senior year (oh my).

I’ll leave you with a few words that I took away from our church service this morning: Be real, be deep; Realize the Lord’s spirit within yourself and nourish that spirit.

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I’ve had my shoulder on ice most of the day today. It has been bothering me since Tuesday and last night I noticed it was swollen a bit. Of course, it is my own fault that it gets this way. J keeps telling my I pack my catering bags to heavy and that I’m going to hurt myself by carrying them; and I guess I have.

Also, yesterday I played a few tennis matches, pitched an inning or 2 of baseball, golfed a few holes and bowled a few games and if you’ve ever played on a Wii you know this too takes a lot of energy and moving. At least I guess it does with me, J always says I never do anything halfway.

The teenager went to get her schedule for this year’s classes; she is not happy with it but they won’t do rescheduling until the first day of school. She did, however, bring a stack of papers home for me to fill out. She has also talked to a few of her friends and it doesn’t seem that any of them are happy with their schedules either. All I can say is the office is going to have a horrible first day.

The teenager has spent most of the afternoon at her friend, Sam’s house. He is leaving very soon for a year of schooling in Sweden and they have been spending an enormous amount of time together. The 2 of them and 2 other friends are planning on a quick dinner and seeing a movie this evening. She is also planning on taking off for Tulsa late tomorrow afternoon to spend the weekend with her sister and brother-in-law (mostly with her sister I would think). It seems she is the social butterfly.

It also seems that J and I will have a whole weekend to ourselves. Oh, twiddle dee dee, what shall we do with our time together? I bet we can come up with a few ideas (tee hee).

Catch ya later

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And it’s growing.

I finally got around to making the sourdough starer that I’ve been wanting to make. Because I’ve had to put it off the last few days I made sure I made it today by doing it the very first thing when I got up this morning.

After doing my daily computer/paperwork I watched the teenager’s shadow for a bit while the teenager took Jade in for her monthly allergy injection. We accidentally let her go a little longer (about 4 days) than we should have this time which has resulted in a large bald and raw spot almost totally encircling her neck. When her skin starts itching she just digs and bites at herself and pulls her hair out. Poor thing, I know it just has to be totally miserable, but the vet doesn’t want her having the shots any more than once a month and has told us to try to stretch them out a little more if we can. After seeing her neck he finally agrees, we can’t stretch it out. She is feeling better this afternoon and has quit digging at herself.

I think I had mentioned at an earlier time that J had ordered a Wii system before we went to Houston. It was delivered while we were gone, but fortunately our neighbor, Sid picked it up off the front porch and held onto it until we returned home. We hooked it up the other day and have been having a ball. The teenager and I play tennis against each other, she usually wins. We also bowl and I usually win. J has played some of the other games that came with it too. It also helps to keep the teenager’s shadow busy during the day while the teenager is trying to finish up her summer reading that is due the first day of school which just so happens to be a week from tomorrow. If anyone knows why teenagers leave everything to the very last minute please let me know too.

Tonight’s supper plans are for a large salad topped off with grilled chicken; and because I was in the bread mood I made a batch of Focaccia topped with onions and thyme.

It is a bit cooler here today, we are only reaching of high of 97, so I braced myself against the heat and cleaned off the patio. We haven’t been able to use the patio at all for about the last month because of the unbearable heat, so there are dirt and dead leaves all over. Plus there were a few cucumbers I had set out on the table and forgot about, and they were pretty nasty; they are now gone. I also watered my plants, the potted and the ones in the ground. They were so thirsty looking. I am such a neglectful gardener.

The teenager and her shadow have left for an afternoon with the youth group at church; the shadow’s dad will pick her up there. Now that the house is quiet I think I will go enjoy it.

Love and fresh hot focaccia

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This cake is for the true chocolate lover; and if you love chocolate and peanut butter you’re in for a real treat.

We’ll start by preheating our oven to 350 and greasing and flouring a jelly roll pan.

Then we’re going to add this (water, butter & cocoa) to a saucepan. We’ll heat this on medium heat until it comes to a boil. We’ll boil this for one minute while stirring.

After boiling and stirring for one minute, we’ll set this aside to cool a bit while we measure out our flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, eggs and sour cream.

We’re going to mix all this in a bowl until well blended.

After this is combined we’ll pour in the chocolate mixture:

Our next step is to pour the chocolate mixture into our greased and floured jelly roll pan and bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until a pick comes out clean.

This is where the peanut butter comes in, when the cake comes out of the oven we’re going to slather (yep, just slather it on) the peanut butter on top. (Note: I actually think you could use a bit more peanut butter than the recipe calls for.)

Now that the cake is completely cooled we melt the chocolate chips and shortening and spread it over the peanut butter layer.

until it’s totally covered.

Nothing can beat this cake and a nice tall glass of ice cold milk.

Here are the ingredients and measurements:

Cake:
1 cup water
1 cup butter
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Chocolate Topping:
1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening (not oil, butter or margarine)

ENJOY!!!

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