I think I’m back

Hello everyone, 

I’ve already blogged about things keeping us busy.  And you all know how the pandemic halted most travel plans. 

Well, my husband and I are vaccinated and boosted so we felt it was safe for us go on a Branson vacation we scheduled months ago.  

We celebrated our 40 and 41st anniversary during the “stay at home” days so we tried to make this long awaited vacation as memorable as we could.  

We spent a week in a condo and mostly saw lots of shows.  We ate a meal out everyday and then had light breakfasts and suppers in the condo.  

Outside the patio of our condo were pine tree with long skinny pine cones- they were about 6-8 inches long and I thought about bringing some home but they were full of pine sap and very sticky so all the pine cones stayed in Branson.  

The Duttons 

Steve, Larry and Rudy Gatlin 

Johnson Strings - their costumes light up and changed color 

Hughes Family Christmas 

Clay Cooper 

Jesus at the huge Sight and Sound theater 

We ate some very good meals but I only took a photo of this one 

Loose meat sandwiches at Heroes Tastes and Taps-  so good! 

We saw more shows but I didn’t  take photos at any of them.  

We shopped just a bit but I’m not much in a shopping mood these days.  

Branson is a great town.  It is very busy now as so many people are back vacationing.  

My advice - if you want to travel there- check online reviews for the attractions you’re thinking about, take lots of patience and take a big pile of money 

My husband and me- in the lobby of the Mansion theater where the Gatlins played just one show.  

I plan on blogging regularly now

See you all soon

❤️ Rhonda 

Probably my only November2021 post

Hello everyone 

I have no plans to stop this blog but life has lots of extra things going on that are not leaving me with much time to do homemaking in my home.  And since I usually blog about home things,  no posts have been written this month.  

Possibly toward the end of the November,  things will be normal and I’ll get back to both homemaking and blogging. 

Yesterday was the Marine Corp birthday.  It’s not a big deal to anyone but Marines.  But to Marines,  it’s a very big deal.  

They have formal birthday balls, tell each other Happy Birthday and Semper Fi all day and celebrate a lot.  

No ball for us since retirement but I did bake a cake for my Marine husband and we happily reminisced looking at old photos.  

This ball was in 1984.  I sewed this ball dress and I remember I spent $7 on the fabric.  I wasn’t cheap on purpose but we had $11 in checking and I needed a make a formal.  I used a remnant of velvet for the bodice and the sleeves and skirt were some very cheap Halloween costume fabric. 

I got lots of compliments on it and wore it to several balls.  

My husband had been promoted before this ball so I bought this dress at Dillards.  Look at those crazy lace covered padded shoulders!  I liked that dress then and wore it to several balls too.  But I don’t much like it now.  

And no,  I didn’t color my hair.  We lived in California and I spent most afternoons in our front yard watching my children play.  Just the California sun bleached my brown hair that lighter color.  

I’m fine.  Just busy and I’m hopeful by December,  life will be more normal and routine.  

Hope to see you all soon 

❤️ Rhonda 

October #9 just food stuff

Hello 

We have pretty much abandoned our garden -because I was busy and husband was down with his back so much over the summer, 

But he was checking on what we needed to do to clean it up for winter and what a surprise to find all these peppers!

So we had fajita bowls for supper last night and will have stuffed peppers maybe tomorrow 

I tried a popular person’s Candied Pecans recipe-but they just ended up tasting like  roasted pecans as the butter sugar mixture did not stick.  

This recipe was done in a skillet.  In the past, I’ve done other candied nuts recipes in the oven that I liked much better. 

Grandchildren were here and none of these went to waste but they didn’t turn out at all like I expected.  

I was given a bread machine - I’ve owned several bread machines but have worn them all out.  

This is a Kenmore and it was still sealed in the box and never used, but it’s a number of years old. 

I was pleasantly surprised it worked so well.  

It makes a long, traditional shaped loaf.  So far I’ve baked 2 batches of the Cinnamon Raisin bread in the instruction book. 

It’s a very good bread and makes wonderful toast. 

It only uses 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 tablespoons of sugar - much less than I’ve used in the past for sweet breads but it makes a delicious and sweet enough bread.  

I do chop the raisins just a personal preference. 

With the cost of groceries rising,  many of us may be choosing to use recipes that use smaller amounts of expensive ingredients 

And I recommend this recipe. 

October #8- 2 lists and stuff, etc

Good morning- I made and photographed this to-do list Sunday night 

Below is a list of meals that we have ingredients for.  I don’t usually menu plan and designate each meal for certain days in advance 

but having just a general plan like this is very helpful. 

We’ve already had taco salads, beef with mushrooms and the Joanna Gaines meal.

This recipe sounds really plain but it is delicious!  

I cut it down and used 2/3 pound of beef and 1 can of biscuits.  We had it for supper and the leftovers for a lunch.  

The salad is so good with it.  

This photo is one I took the first time I made them. 

When I made them week,  I shaped them into a turnover shape and that was much simpler than the 3 sided way described in the recipe.  

My husband’s sister sent the long pillow to us.  

A few replies 

Practical Parsimony- the reheated breakfast burritos are very good.  The eggs were not tough at all.  My husband especially liked them. 

Lejmom- we do keep water and lights in the storm building.  Our Oklahoma meteorologists are so good at telling us in advance when tornado conditions happen.  

We usually know a week ahead and can plan to be ready.  Never are we just unaware of anything and then all of a sudden a surprise tornado in heading our way.  

Terri and Tammy- those giant cookies are not for health, just for fun.  It might be hard to sell these at a yard sale and make a profit as they had 3 bags of chips in them.  

  I did find another giant cookie recipe that uses sprinkles and white chocolate chips that looks very kid-pleasing.  However she says to bake the entire recipe into just 6 cookies.  

  If I ever do make them,  they may be large cookies but not as big as the recipe writers. 

     

https://www.thediaryofarealhousewife.com/gideons-bakehouse-sprinkle-funfetti-cookies/#recipe

It’s been warm and windy in Oklahoma this week.  No photos but I got the biggest giggle while I was driving in town, watching several people walking in pajama pants.  

The wind was blowing their loose fitting pants around like flags and their pants seemed to have a life of their own.  

So if y’all are ever in OK on a windy day, put your long hair in a pony tail and maybe wear actual pants.  

Hope you’re all having a good week 

❤️ Rhonda 💨 

October #7 cooking sewing

Hello everyone 

I cooked a few different things over the last few days and got a little sewing done,

I made some breakfast burritos that have been frozen and can be microwaved in a paper towel to reheat

Hash browns, Turkey bacon and sausage and scrambled eggs- my daughter and 3 grands were here and we ate breakfast with all this food and I made breakfast burritos- 2 birds with 1 stone 

After they were rolled in foil,  I out them all back into one of tortilla bags and froze them 

Our favorite bacon is Butterball Turkey bacon- the slices don’t shrink much and the skillet doesn’t end up full of grease,  

It does not taste exactly like pork bacon but it is very good. 

I saw a story about Gideon’s Bakehouse is near Disney World that sells huge cookies.  I don’t normally bake over the top recipes like this but I really wanted to try these,  

I had some helpers- the copycat version I used is a fairly basic chocolate chip recipe.  But they are portioned to a make a large cookie and then the tops are covered in toppings - we used chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips and milk chocolate chips. 


The cookies were delicious but I thought they would of better if the toppings had more variety- like chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and nuts instead of 3 kinds of chocolate,  

https://cookiesandcups.com/ultimate-chocolate-chip-cookies/

We kept enough here for everyone to have 1 and the rest went to my son in law’s work for his coworkers.  

It was warm that day and the chocolate wasn’t set enough to bag the cookies,  so we just put them in foam plates and stacked them in boxes where they wouldn’t touch.  

The cookies were so big that 4 of them fill one plate! 

On to sewing-  I’ve got half of the yellow checked napkins hemmed. 

I used the rest of that fall themed printed fabric panel that used for Cora’s shirts to make a wall hanging and 2 pillow shams 

Replies 

About our storm shelter,  it’s a 10 foot square, concrete, above ground building. The Concrete walls are 8 inch thick and will survive an F5 tornado. 

It’s on the edge of our patio and just a few yards from the backdoor.  

This summer, the grands had fun painting it with water.  

It’s an ugly building but I don’t mind,  it looks like safety to me.  

In Oklahoma,  we mostly have clay, rocky soil that is hard to dig and doesn’t drain well so basements don’t work in most places.  

In ground shelters are another option but they are usually very small and sometimes flood because heavy rains frequently come with tornados,  

And one more food thing- these 2 had a big time building with marshmallows and toothpicks.  They also tried using candy corn but it was too hard 

Hope you all are having a good weekend 

❤️ Rhonda 

October #6 new dog collar, 2 “free things” and misc

Hello everyone 

Oklahoma is having bad weather most of this week.  We are as prepared as can be.  

We have a tornado safe room just a few feet from our backyard.  

Out town has tornado alert sirens and there is one less than a block from our home and it is very loud. 

Im keeping shoes, a leash, my handbag and a lantern on the table by the back door and we can be in our building in seconds if we need to head out .

I looked into ways to safely walk Ducky and after lots of research, I ordered a new collar, just for walking, from Amazon.  

So far,  it’s working great!  He doesn’t mind wearing it and doesn’t gag or choke with it,  

He just walks nicely and leaves a little slack in the leash and wags his tail the whole walk- but he doesn’t pull or yank at all.  

  

One job I didn’t have on my to-do list was to clean out the freezer on our kitchen refrigerator. 

And y’all be amazed but I remembered to take a before and an after photo. 

BEFORE 

AFTER 

I guess these photos aren’t too dramatic but it really is much better. 

  

  

I reused some plastic tubs to hold things.  

I pulled out the saved chicken bones and started a batch of “free” chicken broth 

I let it cook all day and then strained it. 

It made an almost full gallon and almost a quart 

It will chill in the fridge all night,

Then tomorrow I’ll take the fat off the top and put it meal size containers and freeze.  

Today, our public library had free flu and Covid vaccines,  

I got a flu vaxx and it maybe took 5 minutes.  I usually get an achy arm after a shot but so far, I feel just fine.  

While I was there, I got my library card reactivated as it became inactive during 2020 when I went almost nowhere, including the library. 

I walked the children’s section between where the vaccines were and the main desk.  They had lots of freebies for littles so I picked up a craft kit and color sheet for Cora. 

While I was out,  I dropped off some donations at a thrift store and a used car seat that still had plenty of time before it expires to a family who requested one on a Facebook buy nothing group.  

If feels good to help others and to have some more room/breathing space in our home.  

I hope you all are getting things done and enjoying the beginning of fall, 

🍁🎃 Rhonda 

October #5 fall things and replies and my new to do list

First, here’s my to-do list for next week

I’ve started a few things in the sewing room 

I ripped up a bed sheet into squares to make napkins- I plan to hem them soon 

I used this sheet on the bottom futon on some bunkbeds we used to have and it’s really nice thick woven percale.  

Cora needed some fall themed clothes for her day care - they do different themes each week and she doesn’t get special clothes each week but this seemed like a fun week to do it. 

I used fabric from I already had and put iron on fusible on them and cut out the shapes,

  after I ironed them on,  I machine stitched with a straight stitch close to the edge,  

I cut up some fabric strips to make a garland for our fireplace and I want to finish this fall theme cross stitch I did years ago 

And I hope to sew up this fabric panel for a fall themed decoration for our dining room, 

It’s the same fabric I used on 2 of Cora’s shirts 

Goofy Ducky likes to lay right in the middle of the sewing room - and yes, he is in the way 😵‍💫

Speaking of Cora- I stayed with here one evening while her parents went out to a local restaurant. 

She was already asleep in bed when I got there and I watched her on this little monitor.  

She kept me entertained as she flops and wiggles a lot 🥰
She never knew I was there but I enjoyed it just the same

Replies

Lejmom- still have the banana keeper but it’s soooooo big and I’ve only been buying 3-4 bananas at a time recently. 

Traveling Oltmans- I don’t pre-bake my pizza crusts but lots of other recipes do.  

There were lots of good, informative replies yesterday.  I hope y’all read them too.  

Terri left a good pizza crust recipes and Tammy left a variation of pimento cheese that uses bell pepper instead of pimento and sounds delicious,  Tammy, I think the cheese balls that Jimmy makes have diced bell pepper, among other things, and they are really good

Are you all planning your new week? 

Hope you all have had a good weekend 

❤️Rhonda