Debbie Delozier :: A Casual Affair

The weather in Nowata has been a bit windy but lovely, nonetheless.  If the yard would dry up I would be out planting some dahlia bulbs I have sitting out in the garage.  That is if I were home in Nowata anyway.  At the moment I am on another short road/business trip with J.  We are up in Wichita at a conference and as soon as I finish this up I am out and about to take a few pictures.

With the lovely weather we’ve been experiencing at home I’ve had the doors and windows wide open enjoying the fresh Spring air;  I have the cough and watery eyes to prove it too.  All the freshness outdoors made me want to bring some of it indoors so I spruced up the main living quarters;  I will do the back of the house another time.  I promise (maybe).

My Spring cleaning became contagious and spread to J and he began to clean out the garage of all the old shelving, broken stained glass projects, tools, boxes of the girls’ school memories, etc., etc.  Once he was done with that part of the project we put up new (used) shelving that he purchased when Old Time Pottery went out of business in Broken Arrow.  He put 4 in the garage which leaves me us 4 to use down at the store for the stained glass tools (if he’ll let me have a couple of them anyway).

With all this new shelf space in the garage I began to organize all my dishes.

Here is the shelf for for stock pots, crock pots, etc. beside the extra refrigerator: 

Here is the shelf with my electric skillets, chafing dishes, ice cream freezers, etc. :

Bakeware, trays, picnic ware:    Serving:    more serving:

It was a full, and I do mean full, day of bending over, stretching, climbing the step ladder, picking up and toting.  But it sure feels good to walk out into a clean garage and find the dish or appliance I need at a glance.

Now I’m off to take pictures of Wichita sites.

Blessings

Comments(0)

We spent time on the road this week.  Kati was on Spring Break so we decided to take a couple of days and drive over to Hot Springs, Arkansas.  I think it was the early 80′s the last time J and I were there and Kati has never been so we thought it would be fun to run on over; and we were right.

It was a curvy, swervy, up and down and all around road all the way from Springdale to Hot Springs.   It was a beautiful drive though with mountains, forests and lakes on every side.

Once there, Kati loved Hot Springs. The city seems as if it is built right into the mountains because you can see the forests just over the tops of the buildings on the main street.   It is a very artsy town which is right up my and Kati’s alley.  One of the locals told me that the 1st Fridays of every month start huge artists weekends that draw artists from the neighboring areas.  We stopped in at The Poet’s Loft for a look around.  They were getting ready to have a poet’s slam which they do every Wednesday evening.  The owner of the Loft mentioned some of the big names they have had on the floor which happened to include  Dr. Maya Angelou many years ago.   We went in many shops and also took a tour of the bathhouse museum.  The picture was taken in the men’s lounge of the bathhouse museum.

J spent a couple of hours wandering the streets taking pictures, while Kati and I spent the time at the Quapaw Spa. We each had full body Swedish massages (Kati chose the hot stones, I chose the foot scrub) and facials.  Kati also spent about a half hour in the thermal bath while J and I were off doing a few other things.

The Quapaw is one of the 4 or 5 bathhouses on bathhouse row and actually one of the originals from the 1920′s.  It closed back in the early 80′s (all the bathhouses did) and didn’t reopen until just a few years ago after extensive renovation.

Before heading back to Oklahoma we stopped in Fort Smith to have dinner with a couple we know.  The next morning before getting back on the road we stopped for a visit at Ms. Laura’s in Van Buren.  Ms. Laura, as the story goes, was a madam.  She had borrowed $5,000 from a local business man so that she would be able open a bordello.  Business was so good she had paid the loan back in 15 months.  I’d have to say this was almost one of my most favorite things that we did, I absolutely love these little pieces of history.

We were visiting with the tour guide and her husband while we were there.  They asked where we were from and when we told them they began to ask after a couple of people from Nowata.  Jim and I both have known these people for many years.  We find that no matter where we go, no matter how small Nowata is, people have always heard of it or knew someone from here.  It is a small and marvelous world isn’t it.

I am posting some pictures in the gallery so take a look at Arkansas Vacation 2010 before heading out.  PICTURE EXPLANATIONS:   You’ll notice a case with “cigarettes” in it;  we were told that when the ladies smoked these their eyes glazed over.  Also in the pictures you’ll notice the bathtub;  when Ms. Laura’s books showed a good month she would fill the tub with ice and bottles of champagne and invite all her regulars in.  The certificates in one of the pictures are certificates of good health, the “girls” had to have a physical once a month and bring back a document from the doctor.   The tokens:  the gentleman guests would give Ms. Laura their money and she would give them tokens, these are what they paid the girls with.

FYI:  The whole time we were gone the weather was beautiful and in the high 60′s, even reaching the low 70′s yesterday.  Today, it has been snow all day and it is biting cold out there.  That’s an Oklahoma Spring for you.

Comments(2)

Thought I’d just post a quick note before I head out the door (again).  Kati and I have planned a day of driving county dirt roads to take photographs for an assignment she has pending.

I say, out the door (again) because I’ve already been out once this morning to make a quick trip to the doctor’s office.  I’ve been dealing with head and chest congestion since Friday and want to be sure it is cleared up for our trip;  we’re leaving tomorrow after Rotary lunch.  Yea!!!  I can’t wait.  I’ll tell ya all about it when we get back at the end of the week.  Heck, I might even drop a little posting here and there depending on what we’re doing.

Before I leave though I do want to ask everyone reading to please say extra prayers for the Oologah community.   As reported, they have lost 2 children to meningitis  this last week.  There are still 4 young ones (we’re talking 2nd and 3rd graders) in the hospital in Tulsa.  One of the little boys, Jeremiah Mitchell, belongs to good friends of my brothers and could even be related way back (my maiden name was Mitchell).  Jeremiah is doing a bit better every day but is still in very critical condition.  I don’t know about the other 3 children but I do get frequent updates on Jeremiah.  When we are dealing with these types of matters it just makes everything else in our lives seem so trivial, doesn’t it.

Please keep these families in your prayers as I will.  I’ll be keeping all of you in my prayers also.  Blessings!

Comments(0)

It’s been a busy, on-the-go week around here and I’ll try to keep it brief while wrapping it up for you.

Monday was filled with chopping vegetables and chicken for Tuesday’s Rotary lunch which was stir-fry and individual blackberry wine cakes for dessert.  I posted the Black Pepper Chicken recipe in the Family Table section.  The Rotary members really liked it.  I’m going to make it for our own dinner tonight.

After serving and cleaning up the Rotary lunch on Tuesday I spent the afternoon finishing my reading assignment for Wednesday’s “The Last Week” class.

On Wednesday I attended our Lenten noon service and soup lunch, then rushed home to finish up a few things before heading back for the afternoon youth group and evening class.

On Thursday I decided to take some time for myself and spent the morning doing a bit of long over-due lingerie shopping, so now I have some pretty and new “unmentionables”.   I also picked up some cute little trinkets at “Gaudy Girls” before heading home.

After a full morning and partial afternoon of shopping I hurried home to get ready to take my handsome husband to dinner for his birthday.  He had received a coupon in the mail for a free filet mignon from Molly’s Landing as a birthday present.  Now, if any of you have ever been around J for very long, you know he loves a good deal and if he can get something free, well, that just makes his day perfect.

This little gator greeted us at the door when we arrived and this fella said good bye to us as we left:  He is built into the rock.  They have the most interesting art around the place so I took a few snapshots.

For J to get his birthday dinner free it required us to order either an appetizer or a dessert, another entree’ and 2 beverages.   We ordered the beer battered mushrooms and I ordered an iced tea;  J ordered a diet coke and a glass of water, J drank the water and left the diet coke sit there, sticking with his Lent decision (no diet carbonated drinks) so that his entree’ would be free.  Ha, he loves getting something free, but then don’t we all.

Friday was J’s actual birthday.  I went with him for the day and had a nice lunch with couple J knows (J has known the guy for a while (business) but I just met both of them; but we hit it off right away).

By the time evening had swung around, our Kati had returned home from OSU (Spring Break is this next week and boy do we have plans) and I’d made a trip to the market to buy a few last minute things I needed for her welcome home and J’s birthday dinner of chicken pot pie.  Because I hadn’t had much time at home during the day and because we really don’t need a big dessert, I picked up an very large “individual” Devil’s Dog at the market for J’s birthday:  which we shared, giving him the larger “third”.  After our big dinner it was plenty enough for us to share.

Now Saturday is here, J has made a fast trip to the cabin to finish up the water project so that the cabin is ready for the whole family to begin our lake part of the year.  Believe me we’re itching to get the boat out, especially since J is having a new radio (ipod ready) put in the boat for his birthday.   Kati has taken up her spot on the sofa now that she is home and I’m planning on doing a bit of reading because it is just to dang cold to do anything outside.

I hope you enjoy your weekend, rather it’s indoors or outdoors.

Blessings!

Comments(0)

An easy, yummy Asian style dish.  I made this dish for the Rotary Club lunch today along with rice, broccoli and mushrooms (this was only so-so, I won’t be posting the recipe here until/unless I do some tweaking to it) and egg rolls.  I followed the meal up with Blackberry wine cake for dessert, you’ll find this recipe in the Family Table section.

I originally thought the recipe would provide 2 servings (with rice) as it was 1 bell pepper, 1 onion & 1 breast of chicken so I prepared 5 recipes of this for lunch along with everything else.  Either my calculations were off or the club members just really liked it.  There was just enough left for J and I to warm up and have a taste with our dinner.  I think I might add a bit more black pepper the next time I make it (which I plan to do very soon) because, to me, for a dish named black pepper chicken it just didn’t have enough black pepper.

Here is the recipe in case you’d like to give it a try too.

You will need:

1 boneless/skinless chicken breast, cut into thin strips
1 onion, sliced
1 green bell pepper, cut into thin strips
2 tlbsp (low-sodium) soy sauce (divided)
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp Splenda or sugar
¼ tsp Maggi Seasoning
2 tblsp canola oil

In case you’ve never purchased Maggi Seasoning, it is a liquid seasoning.  You will find it in the international aisle of the market.

Marinate the chicken strips in 1 tblsp of the soy sauce for 10 minutes.

Heat your wok (or skillet) and add the canola oil.  When the oil is good and hot, add the onions and quickly stir-fry until aromatic, this takes just a couple of minutes.  Add the bell pepper and the freshly ground black pepper.  Stir-fry for 1 minute then add the chicken strips.

Continue to stir-fry until the chicken is cooked through.  Add the remaining tablespoon of soy sauce, the Maggi sauce and the Splenda (or sugar).

Continue to let cook until the onions are nice and caramelized.

Like I mentioned, I calculated this to serve 2 with rice, egg roll, etc., but if you’re hungry you might want to make more.

Enjoy!

P.S.  This will probably feed 2 people;  I guess all the Rotary members went back for 2nd helpings.

Comments(0)

It’s been a bee – u – ti – ful weekend in this neck of the woods.  We’ve been enjoying clear blue sunny skies and warmer temperatures.

We actually got a late start on enjoying Saturday due to a very late night on Friday.  It began when J’s mom wanted to go to the opera, Rigoletto, I think.  She alerted everyone to the fact that she wanted to go but, because neither she nor Dad like driving in downtown Tulsa they needed someone to take them.  So in jumps their ever helpful, opera loving, fancy dinner loving, granddaughter (our daughter), Cassie.  She volunteered herself and Travis to come to Nowata to get them, go to the opera, then dinner, then bring them home.  Of, course Grandma didn’t want Cass & Travis to have to drive that far so they said they would meet them in Owasso.  Well, that over-protective husband of mine didn’t like the idea of Mom and Dad driving in the wee hours of Saturday morning so I called Mom and told her we’d take them to Owasso, the kids could pick them up and we’d come back to Owasso to get them when their evening was finished.  We used to wait up ’til the wee hours of the morning for our kids to make it home, now we’re waiting up for our parents to make it back home (hee hee).  It was well worth it though, they all looked smashing;  Cassie in her pretty little black dress, Mom in her sparkly black and white blouse with slacks and fancy new hair-do, and those 2 fantastic looking (other) men in my life, Dad & Travis both dressed to the nines.  I would have loved to have a picture of the 4 of them but when Cass picked them up she was undressed (well, not dressed for the opera) and alone (without Travis) and when we went back to get them. . . well, to tell you the truth at 1 am I didn’t really care how striking they were.

J and I had decided that we’d head over to the lake cabin and get the water pump fixed.  It had froze and busted earlier in the winter and it’s been so blistering cold and snowy no one really wanted to go back over anyway.  However, now that the skies are blue, the temps are warmer and the sun is shining I’m certainly getting the lake-itch (sounds like a rash or something doesn’t it) again and I know J is wanting to get his boat out and I am without any doubt at all that J’s parents are ready to get back over there.  So, once we were up and around we headed out, stopping only for a quick bite of lunch.  J worked on the water pump and with only 1 trip into town for extra parts, before I knew it, he had running water.     Before we left he had to shut the pump off (inside) because the pressure switch (or something) wasn’t shutting off by itself, so I’m sure we’ll be heading back over very soon to get that changed out,  then we’re ready to go I think.  J and I love the lake cabin so much we’d spend every single free moment that we have there if we could.  We’re already talking about, maybe (just maybe) putting off the 2 week summer vacation we have had planned just so we can go to the lake and boat more.   We’ll see.

Speaking of Summer and the lake, J’s mom and dad have told me I can use the cabin for a week in June and have a “Girl’s Week” with some of my old high school friends.  We are all so very excited about it, every time we talk about it on the phone at least one of us will begin to giggle (and no, it isn’t always me).

It seems like lately all we’ve been doing is making plans. We’ve planned a 2 week vacation (we’ll see if we take it now), our Girl’s Week at the lake, we’ve made big Spring Break plans for next week when Kati is home, we are making plans for a big (big, big) church birthday party in June which will involve making and selling tamales and having a Chili Cook-off.  There is just nothing more fun than big plans.

On the way home from the lake yesterday J asked if I’d like to stop by one of Oklahoma’s wineries that happens to be one of 3 between us and the cabin.  I love wineries.  I don’t know what it is about them, I’m not even that big of a wine drinker, but I love wineries.  We stopped at Blue Coyote which is outside of Adair for those of you who’d like to go.  It is family owned and open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.    We were the only guests (at that time) and J and I chatted with the young lady as she told us about her family, the business and the wines.  We tasted one of the reds (I’m not much on reds, but this one came pretty close to my liking), chardonnay, a catawba, one made from Porter, Oklahoma peaches and a smoky muscadine (which I cared nothing for although J, who doesn’t care much for wine at all, thought was okay).

As we were making our purchases 3 women walked in and took our place at the tasting bar.  What I didn’t tell you earlier, is that  Blue Coyote also makes a jalapeno pepper wine called Dare You.  They also make a Triple Dare You made with habaneras.  I had purchased one to use in marinades, etc.  Well, the 3 ladies that had come in wanted to know what it tasted like but were afraid to taste it.  They asked me if I had tasted it and I had told them I hadn’t.  Well, one of them said “I Dare You”, so. . . the hostess poured me a glass and I drank it, J also drank some.  We all had a good laugh, they swore they would taste it too after they’d tasted all the other wines (it is best to taste something like jalapeno wine once you were finished with all your other wine tasting). It really wasn’t bad.  I’m not saying it’s a wine I’d sit around and drink with or after dinner, but I think it is going to be great in cooking. It tasted exactly like jalapeno peppers and had quite a bit of heat, although the heat didn’t stay with you like, say, eating a pepper would.

We took pictures as we were leaving:        

I’m sure we’ll visit them again, although there is another one between Adair and Chelsea and another between Claremore and Chelsea that I’d like to visit also.

Now here it is Sunday afternoon and this beautiful weekend is at a close.  I hope you enjoyed yours as much as we enjoyed ours.  I hope that you enjoy a wonderful, love-filled, life-giving week.   Blessings!

Comments(3)

Here we are at the end of another week.  Time does fly when you’re havin’ fun, and I’ve been having loads of fun this week.

The picture is a batch of granola I made Tuesday afternoon.  It is packed with fiber and tastes like honey and peanut butter.  It all began when J called me about 3 o’clock Monday afternoon and said he had to make a quick business trip to Henryetta and wanted to know if I wanted to go along for the ride.  “Well, heck yeah”, I said.  So off we went.  On the way back home we stopped in Tulsa for a bite to eat and a quick trip through Whole Foods, J has become very smitten with this market since his first trip here while back.  I can’t blame him, I’ve loved it for years.  The trip to Whole Foods fit perfectly into the evil hi-fiber granola plan I’d been hatching since we left Henryetta.  I picked up rolled oats, wheat bran, flax seed, and a mix of almonds, peanuts, sunflower seed kernels, pumpkins seed kernels,  dried cranberries, dried apples, raisins and carob chips.   If any of you are interested in the easy recipe leave a comment here and I’ll post it.  The granola is good for plain old snacking or as I did this morning, adding to yogurt. 

Tuesday’s Rotary lunch was a quick-n-easy lunch as they had a date with the local elementary students to read stories.  I threw together lunch baskets of club wraps, a cup of fruit salad, a bag of chips, a pickle spear and an ice cream cone cupcake for dessert.     I think they were all happy.

Wednesday was our noon Lenten service and soup lunch at church.  My friend Joyce prepared a yummy Chicken Fiesta soup and a cabbage and sausage soup.  After service I ran home and threw together a snack for the church youth for after school and packed an overnight bag (more later).  I have been trying to switch the kids over from sugary snacks to healthy snacks, so I had a tray of cheese & crackers and a plate of vegetables and dip.  They seemed pretty pleased and totally cleaned the trays while working on the meditative mandalas I had brought.

After youth group I hung around and cleaned up our art mess and the kitchen.  Before you knew it, it was time for my weekly  Bible study class on the last week of Jesus’ life.  We had a great discussion group before being assigned our next reading assignment.  After a quick catch up chat with Pastor Rob about youth group I hurried out the door to catch up with J.

J’s business is entering it’s really, really busy time of year and it seems he is always on the road here or there.  It just so happened he needed to be in Sawyer, OK Thursday morning.  The only new part of this is, now that we are empty-nesters I get to go with him sometimes.   So Wednesday evening we headed out toward southern Oklahoma.  We stopped in McAlester for the night and would finish our little trek the next morning.

While J did his business I studied the lesson I would be sharing with the youth on Sunday morning.  I read the lesson, jotted notes I might need later and marked pages for copies I would need to make for the young people.  Once this was done I began reading the next chapter for next Wednesday’s Bible Study class.

If you’re thinking that my church, church studies, church youth, etc turns up in my life quite a bit, I have to agree.  And to prove it, this is what we saw lit up on the side of a hill while making our way to McAlester on Wednesday night: 

And on our way back home on Thursday, this is what we saw on the side of another hill:    I’d have to say I see Him in my life on a daily basis; sometimes in very literal ways.

Also on the way home J told me that everyone tells him that if you like Italian food and are in the area you really need to stop in Krebs because it has many yummy Italian restaurants.  So driving through Krebs we came upon this one:    Fortunately it was closed (ha, for a very long time), so we drove on the the next one:    Italian??  It was and it was actually very yummy.  There was another one named “Pete’s” but it didn’t look open so we chose the Isle of Capri.  If you’re ever in Krebs (near McAlester) go ahead and give them a try.

I’ve stayed home today and have been enjoying (honestly) dusting, sweeping, mopping, laundry, etc.  I have the window blinds open and am welcoming in the sun in today.  I wanted to get this done today because we’ve made plans to head to the lake cabin tomorrow and try to get the water hooked back up (frozen busted lines over the winter) so that J’s mom and dad can begin going back over whenever they are ready.

That wraps up our week, I hope you’ve had a great one too.  It’s so beautiful outside I think I’ll go out and see what type of trouble I can get myself into.   Remember to let me know if you would like the granola recipe posted.

Blessings!

Comments(2)