On Fun Monday #4, I Break the Rules a Little

This week, our Fun Monday hostess is kitten. She is interested in finding out more about our homes. Her assignment is:

I think it would be neat to hear about the story behind your home and the road you live on. It doesn't have to be historical, maybe just something that stands out to you. It would be nice to have pictures to go with your little story. I also would like to know who has the oldest house. Whoever has the oldest house will get a little Christmas treat from little ole me.

I've written about my home before. In fact, finding a new home was a significant focus of my blog back in the early days (not so long ago). There are posts about searching for a place to live, and posts about the move. I even wrote about the day I found out we were going to have to find a new home. I think I've exhausted this subject.

Instead, I'm going to write about the little house that was our home for twelve years.

I had just turned twenty-seven a couple of weeks before we moved in. It was the first home I'd owned in Oklahoma, my home state, since moving to Kansas at the tender age of 22. We had moved frequently, making our home in places as diverse as Topeka, Kansas, Lee's Summit, Missouri, Newport News, Virginia, and Aiken, South Carolina. The older two children were small, my little boy still in a crib. Even though they were small, the moving was already becoming difficult, and it was time to settle down.

The little house was painted a garish, 1980s country blue when we bought it. Inside, the walls were covered in wallpaper in the style of the time, with even the light switch plates covered. The paper in the kitchen was done in two matching prints, a large version below the chair rail and a smaller one above it. There was more country blue in the background for the wallpaper of the main bath, which was covered in dusty rose colored posies. It was hideous. The wallpaper in the master bathroom was the only one I could stand, and even that was outdated, a cream colored paper printed with flowers and a shiny stripe. It looked like a country magazine had thrown up all over the walls.

The house was located in an excellent school district. It was on a large corner lot, with trees in front and back. The high vaulted ceilings made the living areas and the master bedroom seem larger than they were. I loved the bay windows that looked out into the back yard. The open floor plan was exactly what I was looking for, and despite the horrid wallpaper, the bones of the house were good, with upgraded countertops in the kitchen and baths, gorgeous built in bookshelves and woodwork and a lovely master suite. I moved in thinking that we'd stay a few years, maybe five, tops.

I got to work, stripping wallpaper, painting, and replacing light fixtures that dated from about 1986. They were uglier than the wallpaper. There was a large dog run along the back of the house that I tore down one summer day while the children napped. My husband tore up carpet in the main bath and linoleum in the kitchen. He replaced it with tile he laid himself, learning how to do it from a book we bought at Home Depot. We ripped ugly, neglected bushes out of the flower beds in front of the house, enlarged the beds and reshaped them. We replaced the bushes with lovely double flowering azaleas. Then replaced them again with something else equally ambitious. And finally settled on boxwood,crimson barberry and a little ornamental peach tree with a carpet of creeping jenny.

Our lovely daughter's room went through several incarnations in that twelve years. The ones I remember most vividly are her garden room and her "grown up" room. I can't find a picture of the garden room, but imagine white French furniture with gold accents, linens reminiscent of a Monet garden painting, palest pink walls and a rose vine trailing its way from the base of the door up to the ceiling and around the whole room. The grown up room, which she loved, wasn't very girly at all.

The boys' room started out life as a red and white nursery for one and ended up a jungle room for two. My little guy still asks to see pictures of their jungle room and has selected animal print linens for his new room here.

We put our hearts, our sweat and our tears into that little house. Up until we moved in August of 2006, it was the only home my children had ever known. Our youngest came home from the hospital to that house we had remodeled and reshaped with our own hands.

We never did get around to replacing the horrible carpet. When we first moved, my lovely daughter told me the thing she missed most about the house was the old, ugly blue carpet. It was our home. We still miss it. But now I think it's just the idea of the house we miss.

And I, for one, don't miss that blue carpet at all.

Images of the Ice

The ice will be gone today or Thursday. Most of the ice on the lawn is already gone, partially melted by the rain on Tuesday and partially by the high temperature of 39 degrees fahrenheit. Our forecast is for scattered showers and 36 degrees fahrenheit today. On Thursday, we are expecting sun and 45 degrees fahrenheit, but another storm system is headed this way on Friday. This time, the forecast is snow.

The power outages rose to 618,000 customers statewide today. Almost 251,000 of those are in and around Oklahoma City. This outage is the worst in the state's history. A similar storm in 2002 left about 250,000 without power at the height of the power problems. All 77 counties in Oklahoma have been touched. The current occupant has declared our lovely state a disaster area. Today the power companies held a press conference to say some of those poor people may be without power for a week to ten days, despite the fact that help is being brought in from out of state.

Even though we've had a couple of 30 second outages that made me hold my breath, we still have power. Several of my husband's coworkers who live no more than one or two miles to the east of us weren't so lucky. And because their homes are all electric and serviced by electric powered rural water wells, they have no power, heat or water and have had to leave their homes.

Soon the picturesque ice that has caused all the problems will be gone, so I thought I'd share a few more shots from my neighborhood.

A stand of trees on the east side of our front yard.

Our mail box.

The blackjack oak in the middle of our front yard.


The little junipers in front of my bedroom window. I wonder if they'll recover.

Another shot of the stand of trees on the east.

One of the lights that marks our driveway.

A tree from the back yard.

There are some wonderful photo slide shows of pictures residents have sent into the television stations. You can see pictures of the damage as well as some really beautiful shots of ice covering trees, bushes, furniture, houses, and statues. If you'd like to view them, go here. My kids will return to school tomorrow and our life will be essentially normal. There are many residents here who won't be so lucky. Keep them in your thoughts.

ice, ice, everywhere

We are having a big ice storm. The deluge started Saturday night with freezing rain followed by sleet and a few snow flurries. On Sunday morning, before the roads were too bad, my husband drove me to the grocery and the hardware store for supplies. I loaded up on kiddo food and canned goods plus milk, eggs and bread. We bought de-icer, ice melt for the sidewalks and driveway, and a key for the gas fireplace at the hardware store. The kids were out of school on Monday, and they're out again today. We are lucky; Monday morning the news programs were reporting 137,000 customers without power in the state. Now, that number is up to 500,000, but our power is still on. (Knocking wood as I type.)

My parents have no water or electricity and are staying at a hotel for the next two or three days. We haven't been able to reach my husband's mother, but we're fairly sure she is with his sister. The power outages are particularly bad in Tulsa this time. The Tulsa International Airport was completely without power on Monday and is expected to be today as well. One of the water processing plants has no power and Tulsans have been asked to conserve water.

Ice is dangerous and brutal. There have been twelve deaths as a result of traffic accidents since the ice started just in the Oklahoma City area and another death from exposure. Monday morning I heard that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and the OKC police had responded to more than 100 accidents. I'm sure by now it's many more.

Our neighbors two doors down lost one of the big trees in their back yard. Luckily, it didn't fall on their house or the shop. I spoke to my father, who lives about 140 miles north of us, and he's lost so many trees on his land that he thinks he'll have about twelve ricks of wood to cut when the storm and its aftermath are over. It's no wonder the trees are coming down.

The ice is thick on everything. When I took the dogs out Monday morning in the ice covered grass, I laughed so hard I nearly cried. Jack gingerly picked his way across the yard, refusing to pee until we found some soft grass under the blackjack oak. Maddy didn't really walk across the yard. Once we were off the patio, she jumped and hopped. I think she was trying to get across the ice, thinking if she hopped just once more, things would return to normal. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen a dog do.

Our yard backs up to a hay field. We haven't yet put up a fence, so the back of our yard is still marked by barbed wire. Just behind the fence there are little trees and bushes. They are all covered with ice and glistened in the little bit of sun that broke through the clouds.

The ice is on everything. I couldn't open the doors of my car this morning, even with de-icer. I had to resort to heat and a windshield scraper. Icicles hang in a thick fringe from the eaves. We had to pull one of the trash cans inside the garage and let it thaw just to take the trash out of the house. The little bushes in the front yard are so heavy with ice they are bending to touch the ground.

More freezing rain was forecast for Tuesday, but at 11:30pm the temperature in the Oklahoma City metro was 34 degrees F. It looks like the worst of it is behind us. For this storm, anyway.

My lovely daughter turns seventeen years old today. She told me she thought the weather turned at just the right time. Late enough that school was called off . . . so she gets a snow day for her birthday.

Fun Monday #3: I blew my whole Christmas decorating budget on one little train

This week's Fun Monday is hosted by katyabug. It is a fun and simple assignment:

In the spirit of the season I would like to see your favorite Christmas tree ornament. Not to be confused with the WHOLE tree. I want you to zoom in and show me one or a few(you know I can't choose just one!) of your favorite ornaments. If you don't decorate a tree, show me your menorah or dreidel, Kinara, or Yule Log. I want to see your favorite decoration for this holiday season.

I went with a decoration rather than an ornament. This is my favorite Christmas item. I must have been about twenty years old, maybe twenty-one. I was working in the human resources department of a large employer in Tulsa. It was the late eighties, I was going to put up my first Christmas tree of my own, and I didn't have one ornament. I had allowed myself a budget of about fifty dollars for the tree and decorations. One of the ladies I worked with was selling Christmas decorations that she had made. They were beautiful and I fell in love with them. One in particular caught my eye. It was lovely, seven pieces, all hand painted, with a Christmas tree that actually lit up. The price was $50. Because each item was hand made, she required orders to be placed in October and payment up front. I had never spent $50 on anything outside of my wedding dress before. Back at the time, my weekly grocery budget was just $40. I ordered it anyway. I'm so glad I did. We still enjoy it today as much as I did that first Christmas, when it was the only Christmas decoration in my house.

a very full day

Yesterday was an unusual day. It was hectic and full and required me to wear heels. I drove to our old hometown, leaving our house at 6:00am, for an appearance in court. I arrived in good time for the 8:30am appearance and promptly signed in, just to sit and wait until almost 11:00am. Much back and forth, negotiating, and red tape. I actually appeared before the judge at around 1:00pm, with no break for lunch. I was famished and the room was cold as an ice box. The judge, however, was lovely. I was sworn in and answered two questions in about four minutes. Hardly worth the drive.

The really harrowing part was sitting in the crowded and too warm waiting room for so long. Court rooms and their waiting areas, especially in larger cities, are not very pleasant places. No one who works there seems to know anything at all except for the judge. Some of the people I dealt with looked like they were half asleep. I do try never to generalize, but I think government workers get a bad rap for reasons based in reality. No food, no drink and I really think they would prefer that you don't talk or breathe as it's inconvenient for them. There was one bit of excitement. A woman of about thirty stormed into the room through one door, practially ran across the room to the exterior door and left in an obvious huff, cursing all the while. Some joker in the room made the comment that if she came back it would probably be with a gun. Those in the waiting room laughed. One of the ladies that worked in the office gave him a dirty look and got up to see if the woman drove away.

Afterward I drove to my favorite convenient store in the free world to fill the car with gas, buy a sandwich for lunch, and just breathe in the atmosphere. It's a silly thing to miss, but I do miss them, so much. They are clean, spacious, and well stocked. The gas pumps are covered generously, car port style, so that you can stay dry in the rain. The whole parking lot is lit up like day time at the first hint of darkness. The convenience stores here are mostly 7-11s and I just hate them. They are small and dirty and everything is crowded into a space that's far too small. I write the company back home and tell them how wonderful they are each time I visit, then beg them to build one here. In between visits, I get used to the stores here and forget just how great the ones I left really are.

By the time I arrived home, the boys were home from school. The dogs nearly knocked me down when I walked in the door, they were so happy that I actually came back to them. I love that about dogs. The cats casually glanced my way and several hours later, came to sit on my lap and demand attention. My elder son was somberly practicing skateboard tricks on the driveway, running in and asking me to watch about every ten seconds. The little one did his homework and went next door to play.

The rest of the day was a blur of chores, homework, and dinner. It is a rare evening that we are all home together. My family chatted and laughed while I fed them quiche for dinner because the chicken was still frozen solid. I went to bed tired, but happy. And wondered how I ever managed to work and maintain a home at the same time.

Thanksgiving Day

Note: This post was originally called Thanksgiving Preparations, but I have been so busy it never got posted. Better late than never, I say.

I am preparing Thanksgiving dinner for my parents, my family, and my daughter's best friend. We'll have turkey with giblet gravy and dressing, whole cranberry sauce, a potato casserole, a corn dish, two kinds of sweet potatoes, freshly baked crescent rollls, pumpkin pie, pecan pie and a relish tray filled with olives, pickles, deviled eggs and the like.

In the past I have searched recipes and tried variations of traditional fare. Some were successes, some were merely serviceable. This year, I let my husband and children decide the menu. Almost every recipe was something I can prepare mostly in advance. As I write this, my Thanksgiving dinner is two thirds prepared, and it is Wednesday evening. Tomorrow, I will get up and roast the turkey, make a fresh pumpkin pie, put finishing touches on the sweet potatoes and bake everything. It has been the easiest Thanksgiving meal I have ever cooked.

Roast Turkey

Combine 1 part sugar with 2 parts salt. Season to taste. I use sage and chili powder, about a tablespoon each. Mix well and rub over the skin of the turkey. Refrigerate the turkey overnight without covering. (I put parchment paper in the bottom crisper of my refrigerator and pop the turkey in with the rub applied to the bottom, then apply the rub to the rest of the body and return the crisper drawer to the fridge. It works like a charm.)

Remove turkey from the refrigerator in the morning and rub off the seasonings (do not rinse). Apply olive oil to the skin. Do not stuff. Place celery and carrot sticks in the bottom of the roasting pan. Halve an onion and slice; add it to the pan. Cover just the bottom of the roasting pan with chicken broth (about one cup). Place the turkey on top of the celery and carrots. Place in a 325 degree oven and roast for 3 to 4 hours, depending on size, until it reaches the desired internal temperature (I like 170 degrees). The skin will be crisp and beautifully browned. The dark meat will be cooked through and the breast meat will be moist. Every time.

I used to brine my turkey. This is much better and requires infinitely less preparation.

Traditional Southern Dressing

Brown one pound of bulk Italian sausage. Add a sweet onion, diced, and two stalks of celery, diced. Cook until the vegetables are tender. Drain. Return to flame and add four cups of chicken stock and two tablespoons of butter. Simmer while you prepare the bread.

Cube one 8" x 8" pan of cornbread. Add one tablespoon of rubbed sage. Combine with one 16 ounce package of herbed dressing mix (I use Pepperidge Farms). Add several tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley.

Combine sausage mixture and bread mixture. Mix well. Add chicken stock to achieve desired moistness. Turn out into buttered 3 quart casserole dish. Bake in 375 degree oven for 30 to 45 minutes.

I don't think I have ever made dressing the same way twice. This is the basic recipe I use. Sometimes I add chopped pecans or dried cranberries or both. My mother uses oysters and adds green peppers to the onion and celery. The result is always delicious.

Fresh Cranberry Sauce

Combine two cups of cranberries, one half cup of sugar, two tablespoons water, one tablespoon fresh orange juice, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and a pinch of salt in a large, heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until cranberries burst, about six to eight minutes. Serve warm or cold.

I like this spooned over vanilla ice cream when still warm.

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As it turns out, this really was the easiest Thanksgiving ever. I got up and put the turkey on to roast at 7:30am, then baked the pumpkin pie. I have two large ovens, so I could bake the dressing, potatoes, sweet potatoes and corn dish in one oven as the turkey finished roasting in the other. The crescent rolls were baked last while the table was filled with food. Dinner was served about 12:30pm. Everything was warm and everything was delicious. Best of all for me, it was easy since I did most of the work on Wednesday. The children cleaned up while I put away food. I spent the afternoon visiting with my parents and my husband. I don't ever remember having such a leisurely and pleasant Thanksgiving. Well, not when I was the one cooking, anyway.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

My First Fun Monday

Karisma is hosting Fun Monday. All my blog friends have been participating for weeks and it looks like fun, so I decided to join in.

Karisma says:

I want you to take a trip down memory lane, and keep right on going, right back to your childhood. And I want to hear "THAT STORY". You remember the one? Yes, you do! The one your parents, siblings, extended family or friends, would never let you forget, live down or get over!"

Dead laptop equals no pictures of Kaycie as a kid.

But, there is absolutely no lack of embarrassing stories. In fact, I am having difficulty deciding which one to tell. The one where I fell from the swing set while showing off and cut my back open then cried, not because I was hurt, but because there was blood on my brand new sundress? Or the one where I ran up the stairs into the very clean, very closed sliding glass doors and did a somersault backwards . . . in a skirt . . . on Christmas Eve . . . in front of my father's entire family? The one where I told my parents the Sonic reached out and hit my truck? Or maybe the one where I put a hole into the hollow core bathroom door with a kitchen knife trying to get to my brother? No, definitely not that one. Hmmmm. I know.

I was eighteen years old and a senior in high school. My father had just bought me a new car. It was a Volkswagen Rabbit to replace the incredibly cool but ridiculously dangerous fiberglass Bradley GT Daddy gave me the summer I was sixteen. He wanted me to have something reliable to drive to college. It was blue, had a stereo and I could get more than one friend in it. I thought it was SO cool. There was just one problem: it had a standard transmission and I could not drive it.

I had been driving almost two years and drove about as well as any other teenage girl. Which means badly. My father never rode in a vehicle with me if he could help it. It always ended in him yelling and me crying. However, my mother did not drive a standard, so it fell to him to teach me.




The Rabbit was parked in the driveway. I got into the driver's seat and my 6' 2", 225 pound father folded his big frame into the passenger seat. I remember being amused because the top of his hat touched the ceiling and even with the seat all the way back, his knees were almost touching the dash. He told me to start the car. Without depressing the clutch (!), I turned the key. The car lurched forward and died. It came to rest on top of the air compressor that was between the car and the house, the front bumper pressed against the siding on the house. It was a miracle nothing was damaged. I immediately asked Daddy why the car was in gear. In a snotty, teenaged girl kind of way. For some reason I thought the car should have been in neutral because the parking brake was set. Choice words came out of his mouth and there was something said about me being ignorant of driving and a smart ass on top of it. Anyway, we went around the block a couple of times without me killing the car and Daddy called it done. I am sure it was to keep from murdering me.

Later that evening, my mother sent me to the store to get some cheese for the tacos she was making for dinner. Daddy decided I should take the Rabbit for practice and sent my brother with me to help me through shifting gears. My fifteen year old brother. Yeah. That didn't work out so well for us.

After much fussing (me) and threatening to walk (my brother), we finally made it the six or seven miles to the grocery store. My brother complimented me on driving through the parking lot without killing the car. It was most definitely sarcasm. The grocery store was just south of the Sonic and they both sat right off Interstate 169 which ran through the middle of town. After successfully buying cheese and starting the car, I turned out of the parking lot headed north, and just as we were passing the Sonic, an enormous rendering truck ran the stop sign on the other side of the street and hit the Rabbit right in the driver's side door. The impact of the accident threw the car into the driveway of the Sonic. I'd had the Rabbit three days.

My brother remembers having his eyes clenched tightly, afraid to look. Without opening his eyes, he said my name. I didn't answer. He said my name again, louder. Silence. After a few seconds, he got the courage to open his eyes to look my way. The door was standing wide open and I wasn't answering him because I was gone. He got out of the car, stood up, and looked at the truck that had hit us.

I was about 5' 4" then and 110 pounds soaking wet. I had climbed up onto the running board of the truck and was furiously yelling at the guy who had hit us, waving my finger in his face. My brother says it went something like: "Don't you know what that stop sign means? I have had that car three days! Three days! My Daddy is going to kill you when he gets here, you just wait!"

I yelled at him until someone came up and gently led me away. Nowata is a small place, and the people who owned the Sonic knew who we were. They called Mom and Dad who were there in no time. The police barely beat them. The guy driving the truck tried to blame me for the accident. Shrinking violet that I am, I began yelling again.

Anytime that anyone in my family talks about accidents, sooner or later (usually sooner), someone tells this story. My parents seem to take special pleasure in telling it now that I have a teenager driving. My brother, of course, laughs with glee, then tells anyone present how he was scared for his life anytime he was forced to get into a vehicle with me. The jerk.

My husband takes this story as evidence that I have never been smart enough to be afraid of anything or anyone.

Hey, at least I can take care of myself.