It's Party Time Whether You Want It or Not

Mom and Dad on their 25th wedding anniversary. This picture was a scan from a scan and not a very good image, but you can see how Mom almost lost it and burst out laughing. She tried not to laugh with her mouth open, but you can tell how hard it was for her to hold it in. This photo is in a frame in our bedroom and it makes me smile every morning.

Let me tell you about the day this photo was taken. I, being the oldest, thought it would be cool if I could surprise Mom with a small party on their 25th wedding anniversary. Daddy had to be in on the surprise because his job was to get Mom out of the house while we decorated. (See the two candles and the cake! It took days for me to get that look.) Not only did he have to get Mom away from the house, he knew that she was NOT going to be satisifed eating at home on their 25th! She let him know this in no uncertain terms.

This is how my dad pulled it off and made Mom mad at the same time. They hardly ever had any free time to themselves, five kids, but he took her to dinner. Mom was expecting (did I say demanding) a nice romantic dinner, possibly a movie, or least a drive around town and maybe an ice cream cone. The restaurant he chose happened to be the one just at the edge of Shawnee and closest to their house. In other words, he pulled into the first restaurant he saw. No, Daddy couldn't take her into town and do it up right, for he was to get Mom fed and back home for this surprise party. This makes me laugh because Daddy was taking his job seriously, so seriously that Mom got really upset that he was nudging her out of the restaurant almost before they got seated, not to mention he stopped at the first restaurant he came to. Not my mom's ideal romantic way to celebrate 25 years together. They drove back to the house with Mom in a huff, but as you can see it turned out to be a really nice evening.

See those candles, the ones you make by putting ice in a milk carton. That was the year I made candles, 1973, the first year I was married. That was my hobby of the hour. I grabbed those off the piano and improvised. I did the best I could with what they had around the house to make a pretty kitchen table. I managed to buy a pretty cake though.

The guests - well they were all family. The same family we saw at least once a week. Mom's three sisters and their husbands. Not even all my siblings were there because they were away at college. They received exactly two presents, one a set of silver embossed glasses that are in my kitchen cabinet right now. The other gift was from her sisters - the ugliest wall clock I had ever seen. That thing was 24 inches in diameter with geometric spokes. Oh the bloggers today would love that ugly old thing.

Even with the same old family, we managed to make this day special for my mom and dad, but I have wondered if Mom would have rather had a nice evening out with my dad.

Note to all you party planners out there and I am talking to myself, you don't have to spend tons of money and hours on decorations and food to make something special for someone. You just have to give of yourself. Often the more impromptu is more fun - not so much stress!

Remember Mom's face and her smile because tomorrow I am going to tell you about the time when Mom totally lost her breath when laughing. It is at my expense, but I laugh just talking about it. Till tomorrow...........

Time

One second - yes, that is how long I felt contented when I woke each day this week before I realized that my overnight worries were indeed real. They were not just nightmares. You know the feeling. You spend 3 or 4 hours a night worried about something specific or things in general. Then exhaustion takes over and you finally fall asleep till the morning light wakes you. You stretch feeling good, then bam, it hits you. That sick feeling. You know the feeling - the one you felt when you were 6 and spent a night away from momma - that lump in your throat.

5 days - that is how long it took before God graced me with a lighter heart. Tonight I shall rest easy and tomorrow I will wake with a good feeling and it shall remain with me throughout the day. I have received an answered prayer.

I have learned a lot about myself this week. How to keep my mouth shut, how to let go, how to step back, how to trust. I didn't know if my self-controlling nature could hold back, but I did and felt good about it. Maybe I am growing into a wiser woman?

Time - have you ever thought about how you are affected by time. It seems just yesterday when I was rocking my sick two year old and now he is 36. How did that happen? Time!

There are so many things that are out of our control, but time seems to eventually right everything - unto each season. Oklahoma is suffering with this heat dome, but in time the heat will break and this summer will go down in time records. Our nation's budget is running low on time with just hours before a decision must be made as to how it will be handled. But one thing for certain, in time we will know.

Time - I am realizing how I need to use my time more wisely. I have time!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTfbtZeGeU&feature=player_detailpage

What Do These Have In Common

What does a computer, basil plants, manicures, pedicures, Mexican restaurants, bruschetta, ice cream machines, Caprese Salad, a trip to Chico's, new spatulas, refillable perfume bottles, Power Point charts, purchasing a new air conditioner, Silver Dollar City, and a run-away dog have in common? Why, a Dawkins' camping trip, of course.

Kimberling City put on a great firework show and we had a great view from our floats on the water in the dark. One after another, they just kept exploding. I turned around and could see my husband start after my brother-in-law and I could see that b-i-law had a dog on a leash. Now that is odd since b-in-law has two dogs. Wonder where the other dog is. Hmm, oh well, back to the show. Thirty minutes later, we climb out of the dark water to discover that Ginger, the second dog was loose - got off her leash and ran away after the very first explosion. Everyone jumped in their cars searching the dark for Ginger. About an hour later, my b-in-law came back with Ginger in the car. Everyone was phoned back to camp and we spent the next 30 minutes reliving the search. All's well that ends well.....Well for that night anyway. There is another Ginger story, but that is for another time. Let's just say that Ginger has issues.
Who doesn't bring a couple pots of basil for a week of camping? "Have we got every thing in the truck? What about these basil plants? You want to take them? We are going to be gone 7 days, you might need both plants. Yes, we have room. Okay, got them in. Got room for the piano if you want it. I know you girls like to sing when you get together." As it turned out, three of us girls brought basil, but mine froze. How you ask. I turned up the refrigerator up to get it cold. Again, why you ask? Because it was taking forever to recover after filling it with 60 or more hot drinks. By the next morning, everything in there had frozen including a dozen eggs. Do you know how disgusting frozen eggs are? Moral of the story, don't turn up refrigerator temperature to get it to cool quicker.

What Dawkins camping trip is complete without homemade ice cream? My lovely sister loved us enough to make some delicious vanilla ice cream with both fresh strawberry and peach toppings.

What makes you think we got manicures and pedicures? Actually, only my niece went to the spa. The rest of suffered by doing our own. Look at the picture below to see what my youngest sister did to me. Crackle nail polish. One coat of white followed by black. Oh well, I am on vacation.

Check out my Caprese Salad. Just as good as it looked.

Restaurants We Enjoyed

As we were driving through Oklahoma City the other day, we started reminiscing about the restaurants we used to haunt back in the day - that being 1970s; our courtship days. Old expression, huh?


One of our all time favorites was Glen's Hickory Inn which was located at 10th and May Ave. That was the place for a good steak. As you walked in there was a large ice packed table with steaks all around. You could pick one of these steaks or just order off the menu. Occasionally hubby (boyfriend then) would pick his, but since I was a country girl at heart I leaned toward seafood. I had had enough beef to last me a lifetime living on the farm or so I thought then. Now I long for a juicy steak. We ate there almost every payday. They always brought a small tray of olives and celery sticks for starters. This was followed by their house salad with their own dressing which if I recall correctly was filled with bits of cheddar cheese. The entree we had most often was the lobster tail, sauteed chicken livers on toast, and a fillet Mignon. Hubby's office had their Christmas party there the year we became engaged and it was the first time I ever wore my ring. He gave it to me about an hour before the party. This last anniversary he gave me the old menu from Glen's which he had found at an antique store not far from the old building sight. That menu was the best present I remember in all these 39 years.

Tony's Via Roma - on NW expressway. It was a unique Italian restaurant and the lobby was filled with black and white photos of Tony's family working in the kitchen. The restaurant itself was filled with white tablecloths with lots of padding underneath - funny the things that stick in my mind. On each table was a drip candle in a wine bottle with the lower half of the bottle covered with a basket weave. I still have one in the top of my pantry covered with vibrant colors of wax. The lighting was always turned down low to give it that exotic ambiance. Off to the sides were small rooms that could be closed off with heavy floor to ceiling velvet drapes. When our daughter was about 6 months old we thought we could take her and our 3 year old son there without causing too much commotion. WRONG! Our son was wonderful being such a gentleman, but our baby daughter decided that was the night to throw a fit in a big way. We put her in the highchair and immediately her little legs went stiff. It was quite a struggle, but finally we shoved her in there. Again, wrong thing to do. This just made her mad and I do mean mad. She started crying, not just a whimper, but an all out scream. We knew that our evening was ruined because we could not allow her screaming and crying to disturb the other patrons. We should have just left, but we had already ordered. Hubby was generous enough to let me and our son eat our meals while he went to the the car with that little screaming monster. In a few minutes he brought her back thinking that maybe she was calm enough to salvage just a bit of our night out. Wrong again! By this time I had finished eating so I took her and our little angel of a son (for he was just an angel that night) to car while hubby ate his room temperature Italian food. Looking back I think she was probably upset that the lights were so low...all the better for us to slink out of the restaurant had it not been for a screaming 6 month old. You cannot slink with a crying baby. What a night, but what a memory that is still talked about 33 years later.

Another great restaurant was The Captain's Table, about 1/2 mile west of NW 23rd and McArthur. As the name implies, it was a beautiful seafood restaurant on the 6th floor. It had floor to ceiling windows and you could see McDonald's in the distance. We took my high school age sister there once and when we asked her how she liked her lobster, she said it was ok, but would as soon be at McDonald's having a burger! Ingrate! Believe me, she likes lobster now.

Zamudio's, an early Mexican restaurant in Midwest City was one of our favorites. I could tell many, many stories about this place. When I turned 21 years old, the girls from the office (Tinker AFB) took me there for lunch to celebrate. Among all the presents I opened was one they had pooled their money for. They couldn't wait till I opened this one and were pretty vocal about letting everyone at the other tables know it was my birthday. I unwrapped it to find the most beautiful aqua colored negligee. But.......it was no ordinary negligee; oh no, not from the girls in the office. It might as well been made of gauze because that is how see through it was. I was so embarrassed. The girls just had a hey day with it. They loved to tease the little farm girl from Prague. Back in those days, almost everything embarrassed me so that I would turn beet red and opening that present was no exception especially when I saw a man at the next table wink at me. Oh the humilitation of it!

Across the Street was located where the Chequers is now on Air Depot. They had great Spaghetti Red, spaghetti with chili on top, and a great chef salad.

Lum's - located at the corner of 15th and Midwest Blvd had great shaved ham and shaved roast beef sandwiches. The meats were on a large skewer not unlike gyro places today.

Der Dutchman - seafood restaurant with several locations. One finally came to Midwest City where the first Henry Hudson's was at the corner of Key Blvd and 15th street. Now the building is complete gone and there is a new 7-11. Every Monday night they had a peel and eat shrimp special. It was served in a metal pie pan filled with crushed ice and dozens of shrimp. And their hot hush puppies. Yummmm

Kip's - located at the corner of 15th and Air Depot was one of our regular places. They had a great hamburger special consisting of a salad, French fries, and a hamburger with a special sauce and slice of bread right in the center. Can you believe I only weighed about 110 pounds then eating that?

Adam's Rib was located where Mandarin is now on 29th about 1 block East of Sunnylane and one of the first barbeque places I remember.

El Chico's in Shepherd Mall was a busy place back in the day. It was across the walkway from a movie theater and became a favorite place while dating. It was also the first Mexican food I had ever eaten and that was in 1964. We had a Future Homemakes of America convention at the Civic Center and then our bus took us to the new mall...a first for most of us Prague girls.

Sirloin Stockade was another Tinker lunch place long since defunct. It was the first time I ever ate a rare steak. One of my girl friends made me close my eyes before she gave me a piece of her steak. I must admit with my eyes closed, her steak tasted better than mine well done.

There are so many places we liked over the years which are now out of business. Such a shame that we cannot go back just one last time to our favorite, Glen's Hickory Inn. We now have other favorites which I will post someday and tell you the reason. Some reasons, like the restaurants of the past, don't have anything to do with the food. Love to you all!

Mom's Doughnuts with Syrup Glaze

Tuesday, I wanted to try something different and what could be more different than Pioneer Woman's Basil-Peach Topping? You can find the recipe on her blog at www.thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/07/vanilla-ice-cream-with-basil-peach-topping/.

I didn't have any peaches so I used strawberries and I wasn't in the mood for ice cream so just poured it over strawberries. I cannot say that this is something I will ever make again, but I am glad I tried it. Before I put the basil in the syrup, I tasted it and immediately brought back the taste of my mom's doughnuts.

The recipe for her doughnuts is in this cookbook. I found a copy of her cookbook in an antique store in Leadville, CO, several years ago. It was in better condition than mom's and I knew that one of my other sisters would want hers so I paid their asking price, $18, whew! I am sure the book was either free or not more than 50 cents for mom. It was published in 1949 by Crisco. As a child I was mesmerized by the picture on the cover. I fantasized that the woman on the cover was my mom and those kids were my brother and me. This is the happiest picture, isn't it?

And here is the actual recipe. Mom didn't sprinkle hers with sugar, but she dipped them in the warm syrup which she made with equal parts of sugar to water. She would boil the mixture until it started to thicken and dip the doughnuts. I loved pulling my warm doughnut off the wax paper and using my finger to remove the sticky syrup that was left on the paper. The syrup I made for the Basil Topping tasted exactly as I remember hers. Mom would also make this same syrup for our pancakes when we were out of maple syrup.

While I was looking through the cookbook tonight, I found this recipe right above the doughnut recipe. Look at it. It nearly gagged me just reading about French Fried Popcorn. Can you imagine how greasy popcorn made this way would be? These days, they don't even like us to eat theater popcorn. I can only imagine how many Weight Watchers points this would be.

Memory: Almost every Sunday nights after church, we would stop in for a little 30-45 minute visit with Grandpa and Grandma Dawkins. She would start a pan of popcorn as soon as she saw the lights of our car. She would put a little oil in the bottom of a copper bottom pan, add the popcorn and some buttery salt. It was the best popcorn ever! She only made one pan for all 5 of us kids; I never got my fill. Sometimes she would have apple slices for us to eat along with it. This is a special memory that all my siblings remember and tonight it is especially poignant. I have a lump in my throat remembering this one--remembering the loved ones in my life that are no longer with me and also the simpler times. No real worries for a 10 year old. Life was good. Life was good.

Raining in OKC

We have had many 100 + degree days lately, but this afternoon about 1:30 we got a welcome shower. As I stepped out of the dentist office, I heard the thunder rumbling and ran back in to tell the girls and left them hollering for joy. On the way home, I turned off the radio and opened the windows just to hear the rumbling. I love rain! I never get depressed or long for sunshine as so many of my friends. I could live in Seattle with no problem.

When I got home I fixed my bruschetta, took it outdoors and sat on the patio waiting for the rain. I only took one bite when a drop splattered on my "Birds and Blooms" magazine. I grabbed the outdoor pillows and my food and headed for the front porch where I could enjoy the rain without getting wet. Hubby joined me and spread out on the swing. It took him about 3 minutes before lights were out for him. Why fight it?! I put my glass dish aside and just lowered my head...that was it! La la land for me, too. The rain was really coming down, it was cooler, and it just felt so wonderful to be able to just do what we were doing on the spur of the moment. That is what retirement is all about.

Right now the rain has stopped, the humidity is back, and the heat is getting oppressive again. We got a much needed shower, and I do mean shower, because our rain gauge only showed a trace. We never even stopped watering.

This little shower made me remember so many things involving rain.

I remember it raining when we pulled in to Mount Vernon many summers ago on one of our many family vacations. It was a perfect time to be there because rain scared away the tourist--all except us Oklahomans. We didn't drive for days to be deterred by a little rain. The kids were little, probably 10 and 7 and were at the perfect age to ask questions of our tour guide. She was so patient with them probably because we were the only tourists there that morning. The guides and park services tried to keep the place as it was back in George Washington's day; no electricity. The house was dark. When we went upstairs, there was a tiny open window at the end of the hall which gave the only light, which was little on this rainy day. We then went out back to the veranda. The smell of the flowers and rain was intoxicating and the view!!!! Old George really had a beautiful view of the Potomac. I remember thinking at the time that they must have really enjoyed those rainy days to provide a little heat relief. George and Martha are buried on this property...as it should be!

I recall many summer afternoons in Red River, NM, when a summer rain would come up. The air was already crisp and clean, but the rain made it even more so. I loved getting caught out in it and having to dash back up to our lodge with damp hair. We would grab our books and head to the porch for a view of the pouring rain between us and the mountains.

An earlier memory I have of rain is when we would hoe peanuts ($1 per hour). A summer shower would come up and that would be what we were looking for...an excuse to head to the house. The thought of not hoeing overcame our urge to make money. We were just teenagers and any excuse to goof off was good just like today.

As a farmer's daughter, I think I appreciate rain more than most. A farmer's livelihood is wrapped around rain or lack thereof; weather in general. One specific moment I recall was standing on the front porch with my dad as rain was headed our way from the Southwest. We watched it as it rumbled across our farm toward us. It started raining and raining hard. Oh JOY! My daddy was happy; we were all happy. It was an answered prayer, literally. Daddy took me to Shawnee and bought me a dress that very day for he knew that the peanut crop was going to be a good one. Most of my clothes were homemade and don't get me wrong, they were beautiful creations by my mom, but being the high maintenance girl that I was (am - I admit it), I always longed for a store bought dress. I remember it to this very day. It was a wool black and white hounds tooth pleated skirt, a white blouse, and a red vest. Oh my gosh, it was wonderful and so "Teen" magazine looking. I never asked for that dress, but it was something my daddy gave me unexpectedly.

So many things trigger memories for me. I hope that you, too, will find those triggers for your own memories. Rain...who would have thought that rain would bring back such great memories. What a wonderful afternoon! Don't let the rain catch you crying.