Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness

Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness

      So I've finally gotten a job! Yay me!! It's for a furniture store and I will not be in sales, which, makes me happy.  I will be in the office and customer service department and I can't wait!  I get benefits and a discount on furniture, just so happens I kind of need to replace my living room couches.  The one's we got when we first moved to Tulsa were on the cheaper side and have filled their purpose. 

     Anyways, I start on Monday and how am I going to spend the next four days of off time?  Laying around and working on my summer reading list, catching up on sitcoms or working on my tan?  Nope, I am going to clean this house from top to bottom and organize everything I can.  Yes, I know fifties housewife much... Shut up!  I like things clean and right now after us being gone and me letting things pile up it needs a good scrubbing.  I swear when we move and our bills are back in order I am calling a house cleaner because I am soo sick of cleaning, I really hate it!

Pardon the French, but, this sort of sums up my attitude today!

     After looking up pictures for this entry, I started thinking about how different things were in the fifties to today.  Women were just expected to do all the housework and pretend like it was fun.  How did they do it?  I would be the biggest bitch all the time, how dare you tell me I can't work and because you're a man you're better than me!!!  Yes, the gloves would be off and the claws would be out!  

Yeah, I would just like to see someone try this on me.  The results would not be pretty!

This didn't have anything to do with cleaning, but, look their are olives, celery and something else floating in this Jell-o Mold.  That's just nasty!

I saw this ad in a movie once.  I wonder if the people that made it knew that in 2012 we would still be looking at it?

Yeah, this lady does NOT look happy!

     Just look at some of these ads, they are beyond ridiculous.  Then I started looking at the ads today, the majority of cleaning ads feature a woman cleaning up after kids and a clumsy husband.  So have things really changed?  Do men still want us in our kitchens playing the part of a short order cook?

Sometimes I wish I could be like Samantha, wiggle my nose and my house is clean!

Well I have to actually go check some things off of my to do list!

Love and Fifties Cleaning To All,

The Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions

So I've had this one picture that I intended to put with my camping blog entries, but, somehow forgot about.  I thought I would just make one now.  

Danny grilling bacon!

Oh yeah, this was amazing!! Could really go for more of that right now!

It's funny how when you're on vacation everything is great- and then you come back and your life starts again and all you can think about is going back on vacation to run away from the day to day pains in the ass you have to deal with each and everyday.  So today as my stomach growls trying to get my attention that food needs to be eaten and quick I think of the breakfasts on the lake, oh yeah we would get up and go run our lines and come back and eat the best food ever.  Why is it around water, food just tastes better? 

I have 51 more days to go and then I leave for Florida and I get another vacation!  I am dreaming of Cuban food in Little Havana, of pizza at Hollywood Boardwalk and of Ju Pina my favorite soda in the world.  One you can not find in Tulsa, OK by the way.  Once Target had two two liters shipped to them by mistake, we scared one of the employees as we ran up to here like two crack addicts looking for their next fix, asking (more like shouting) where more of these sodas were.  She of course didn't know and really just wanted us to stop screaming in her face, so we bought them both and tried to savor them as long as possible, which in turn turned out to be about a day.  

Well I am off to go finish the laundry we went through on our trip and clean up the rest of the house too!

Love and Camp Food,

Steph

"Redneck Yacht Club"

“Redneck Yacht Club”

     All right, this is a when in Rome kind of moment, but whatev.  There is a place on Broken Bow Lake known as Jet Boat Cove.  Jet Boats get out a race and everyone goes out and watches.  This was Dan’s favorite place, probably because there was lots of beer and float time.  This is most defiantly the “Redneck Yacht Club” because you just pull up, get your cooler out and have some fun.  

       Watching the boats is really entertaining, but, it’s really the socializing with everyone that makes it fun!  I tried to write all this down last night while everything was fresh in my head but I was so tired I just couldn’t make a coherent sentence!  So this is just going to sum up the weekend.  

     Yes, we did get some fish even though our bait was on the small side.  The first day we got one blue, two channel and one flat-head… but the flat-head was too small and had to be let go.  He literally got off the hook and will live to swim another day.  I was so excited when I reached down into the water and grabbed the line and something was fighting me!  Yes! That’s what I wanted!

     We went back and moved our traps to try and get bigger perch, although we did get some bigger perch we still didn’t get the one’s I was hoping for.  I mean you can’t go swimming at the bank without having those damn fish biting your legs but we couldn’t get the big ones to swim into the trap for anything!  How is that possible?


     Although this morning we ended up with a really good sized flat-head… which is why we went through the trouble!! There was also a baby-baby flat-head on there and a channel cat.  So it wasn’t too shabby, I mean we really aren’t that serious about it.  But I have seven bags of fresh fish in my freezer and will be making it soon enough.  I can’t wait-because fresh fish or fresh anything is the best!

     No one felt like tubing much because it was so freaking rough this weekend.  We had such big gusts of wind you couldn’t keep your plate on the table even with food on it, it even broke our awning!  So floating and tubing weren’t that fun, sure you could go in a cove but it was so covered with people that when you fell off the tube you kept wondering when one of them were going to hit you!  The term sitting duck was going through my mind many times.

     It’s funny how much you take something for granted when it’s always in your reach.  When I was a teenage, wanting to get out of that town so bad I could taste it, I couldn’t understand why anyone would drive several hours to come to Broken Bow, Oklahoma.  Now that I live in Tulsa, I understand this lake is gorgeous!  When I was there I was a Bald Eagle, several deer, a crane, countless fish and when baiting on of the lines at night an owl decided to talk to us.  My step-dad Brad can mimic an owl call and this owl was a chatty Cathy.  Of course Oscar could not understand what in the hell was in that woods making so much noise!

     The weekend went to fast, as almost all fun weekends do.  I hope to go back soon, before the Oklahoma heat has us all suffering so much you can only stay inside!  The next time we go I think we will float the river, which will be fun because I haven’t done it since I was about fourteen and Dan has never gone.  It’s the perfect thing to do when the lake warms up and it’s no longer refreshing!


Now I have to go unpack and decide if I want to make this fish tonight!


Love and Memorial Day fun,
Steph

Campfire Memento's

Campfire Memento’s:

     I am writing this at my campsite so I won’t be able to post it until I make it back to Tulsa, but, being that I have had a full day on the lake and am exhausted I think I will just write my thoughts down now.  It’s better when they are fresh in my head anyways! 

Oscar loved the boat!!

     It is our first full day here and we have one to two more days to go.  I’m not sure how much Dan has actually enjoyed this but I know I have.  He is currently asleep in the camper and we are anxiously awaiting our dinner to cook.  Why is it everything tastes better on the lake?  Tonight’s menu is steaks and potato pouches and they smell delicious.  I am also waiting to cook my S’More!  Today, I’ve been tubing, catching sun perch and then setting up trot lines. I am really hoping to catch a huge catfish!  

S'More Time!

Yum!Yum!

     The night wasn’t so great though, even though we have a generator and can enjoy some A/C in the day and all the lights we need; it’s quite hours starting from 11pm to 6 am.  If you know me at all, you know that to sleep well my house must be transformed into an igloo and I need a T.V.  So it took a while to fall asleep but once I was I slept pretty well.  Although, at first I thought I was going to be motion sick because the camper had that slight swaying motion that a plane does while you’re sitting at the terminal.  But I am not going to complain over the breeze it’s the only way I slept half way as comfortable as I did!!
Trot Lining was a lot of fun.  My dog Oscar thought the perch were something fantastic.  He was very confused when we put them into the live well.  He just kept looking over the edge of the boat and scratching on the top of the live well.  Seriously though, put yourself in his position- how weird would it be if the floor just opened??  

Oscar trying to get to the bait!!!

     The tubing: fun to watch, not, as much fun as I remember.  For one, I weigh about a million pounds more than I did the last time I was tubing, two, I am about ten years older and it hurts my knees, and three wind and water spraying your face DO NOT mix with contacts!!!  As soon as we made it back to camp I ran for the contact solution!  For those of you that don’t know I have extremely bad knees, when I was thirteen years old I blew them both out at the same time at cheer camp.  Now I get the pleasure of slathering on the Icy-Hot before bed!

This was me, trying to hang on!

     Right now though, I am sitting beside a camp fire, the wind is blowing through my hair and I am smelling wonderful food cooking.  I ask you, could life be any better than this?  I will be the first to admit I could never live back in this town but I finally know what all the fuss is about when it comes to the lake.  It’s gorgeous.  I’ve lived a lot of places and even though Tulsa isn’t that far away its best lake pales in comparison.  


     I’ll write more tomorrow night on the day’s adventures and if we caught the fish I am hoping for!


Love and Campfires,
Stephanie

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Summer- Snowcones and Haircuts!!!

 It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Summer!

In this little town of Broken Bow, OK they have the best snow-cones in the history of the world.  I've gone to other snow-cone stands and no one can hold a candle to this stand.  It's just a aluminum sided building and I've asked the owner, what do you do to these snow-cones? They are delicious!!! She says she makes the snow-cone and adds snow-cone love to each one.  How sweet!

Does anyone else have a tradition of summer? Mine is coming home swimming at the lake or my mom's pool, eating at Grateful Head Pizzeria and going to the snow-cone shack!  We are also going camping this weekend and have been setting up the tent this afternoon.  Trust me, I will be blogging about my grievances of the people next to us- I am fervently praying that they are not campers and do not steal our tent.  Being that this a holiday weekend it is necessary to go and put up your tent on a Wednesday to get a good spot!

I also got my hair cut today, which was badly needed.  I think I cut about seven inches off which wasn't scary at all as some people with long hair may think.  I hate long hair and this was a little experiment on my part.  How long can I let my hair grow out before I absolutely freak out and cut it myself?  When my hair was first having the big chunks cut off Sarah said they looked like snakes!  I absolutely love the end product and feel more like me.

My Hair Snakes

That's A Lot of Hair!!

We'll got to go clean out the camper,


Love and Summer Fun to all-


Steph

Gamma Rays and Sunshine

Gamma Rays and Sunshine

I thought this painting was amazing, I don't know who the artist is... but I give your art two thumbs up!

     Do you feel sometime that, you, are the worst you there is?  I get these moments when I am sleep deprived.  It’s like 95% of the time I am the nice, placid Bruce Banner but then give me a night when I haven’t slept and I become his green rage filled monster.  Today has been one of those days, everything has made me annoyed.  I took Zyrtec which I thought would help me sleep, but, just made me toss and turn and wake up foggy and disoriented.  My mom has kicked me out of her store because she says that I am being snippy to everything she says, which is true, now I am sitting in the parking lot of my old high school waiting for my sister to get finished with dance practice.  But, it’s given me a chance to be by myself and maybe calm down a bit.  

     So do any of you have to deal with feeling this way? Sometimes when I meet someone really nice, I wonder what’s my beef? I mean other people have days when they just aren’t themselves but they handle it much better than I, so what’s my deal?  Why can’t I just smile and move on instead of having a snarky comment and making an awkarwd situation?  I want to be one of those super nice bubbly girls... you know the ones that everyone loves to see and wants them to be their friend?  I hope to become one of those people.

     This time in the car has given me a little bit of time to reflect, I for one think that you should always strive to recreate yourself for the better.  I will try to contain myself, which, is very hard to do sometimes.  Even though I know that it is difficult when all you want to do is make a snarky remark and be sarcastic I can be nice and bubbly... and usually even though I have always had a bit of a sarcastic standoffish personality I do make people laugh a lot.  I just need to work on bringing out that side of my personality when I am having an off day.  So let me know, how do you handle yourself when your not having a good day or someone is just really annoying you.  Do you tell them how you feel regardless the consequences or smile and bare through it?

Me as Wolverine. When we go to Target, we usually wonder into the toy department and this is what happens!

Dan as Capt. America!!! My hero!

Love and Comic Book Super Monsters,


Stephanie

Autumn Wedding

Autumn Wedding

     If you know me, you know that Dan and I have been together for seven years now.  The plan is to get engaged soon, although up until now I really wasn't ready.  Having my own parents go through a terrible divorce before I can remember, most of my childhood memories involve two adults fighting over what weekend was theirs.  I remember in small child mind that you were supposed to share your toys so why not your kid too?  Daniel also comes from a divorced home, although his happened when he could remember the details... sometimes I think  I was lucky, I mean how can you miss something you never had, right?

     But this entry isn't going to be depressing, that was just to explain why I was hesitant on the while to death do you part business.  I am ready now.  And I am hoping that we can have our wedding in October or November of 2013 (providing that whole Mayan Calender thing doesn't wipe out life on this Earth as we know it- hardee har har!) so that is what this blog is dedicated too, either our wedding in our home state- or destination wedding in Key West, FL.

This is just a really cool decoration idea!

     As I don't have a lot of friends so I am sure that the wedding party will be somewhat small.  We are also on somewhat of a budget... a small one.  Which is why I think destination may be the smarter way to play.  However, my grandmother isn't in the best health and I know there's no chance in hell that she could ever make it to Key West, FL.  I've always loved fall so either way I want to get married in late October or early November, it would be beautiful here so the foliage could be caught on film, but, I would hate to rent a venue and no one show up.  Then you just wasted a lot of money.  So here are some pictures of what I would do no matter which we choose.

That was for our home state kind of wedding, which has a sort of whimsical kind of quality to it.  But this would be our destination wedding, after living in Florida for as long as we did it's also home.  

So really, how are supposed to decide between the two?  They are both so pretty and both are probably pretty expensive!

Love and white dresses,

Stephanie