You Don't Have to Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here

The time has come to move our blog.  I use Wordpress for a site that I've been writing for, so I figure if I move the blog to something that I use every day I'll spend more time on our personal blog.  You can check us out here.  So long, Blogger.  You've been good to us, old friend.

Just One Bite

Stuart and I haven't really been fishing since our trip to upstate New York in 2004.  We didn't want to exert the energy to go get liscenses.  We had no idea what it entailed but assumed that, since it was a liscense, it had to be a pain in the neck to deal with.   I mean, who wants to spend all that time going through a bunch of bureaucratic red tape to get a liscense to go on a trip where you may or may not come home with dinner, right?  Well, it turns out it wasn't hard to get at all!  Stuart got his liscense at Walmart last weekend before we went camping with Tony and Beverly.  He just told the guy he wanted a fishing liscense, the guy took his liscense, swiped it in a machine, and it spit out the liscense.  And it was only $9!  So this morning we decided that I needed one, too, and the trip to Walmart's sporting good section was just as painless as Stuart said it was.  Now I'm fully liscensed to carry my new, pink rod and reel. Fish beware!!!

It was ridiculously hot today (as are most sumer days here in the Crooked Letter), so we waited until a little after six o'clock to go out to Enid.  Although the sun was retreating and it wasn't nearly as hot as it had been earlier this afternoon, it was still scorching.  It was still too hot to even think about being outside and we were sweating like pigs after five minutes, but we wanted to fish, and there wasn't a whole lot that was going to stop us (not even the monster mosquitos, which were practically the same size as David).  We clambered down the rocks to the edge of the water, poles in hand, and got right to it. 

David didn't last very long.  Since he's only 5 years old and has no patience whatsoever, he can't just cast the line out and then chill.  He cast the line, then asked us to watch his bobber while he A) filled an old Coke bottle with rocks and dirt B)screamed at us because he "need[ed] to show [us] something!!!!" and C)threw rocks into the water near where we are fishing, thus chasing away our scaly, would be victims. 

About thirty minutes into our evening on the lake, I got my line snagged in a little bush at the edge of the water.  Stu came to help me untangle it, then decided he wanted to try out my new rod.  Originally, I had a little red spinner on my line, but traded it out for a floating lure because the fish were near the surface of the water, jumping up to eat the bugs as they landed on it.  He cast the line out once.  Nothing.  He cast the line out a second time and when the lure was about three feet from the bank, a big fish jumped up, attempted to swallow our bait--and missed.  He cast the line out a couple more times, but I guess the fish had gotten wise to our game and fled the scene.

That was our only bite today at Enid.  I think we're going to go out to Cossar State Park tomorrow and try ouir luck there.  Stuart seems to think that there's a dock there we can fish from.  And that's fine by me; I'll be able to sit in my chair and read my book while I'm waiting for dinner to take the bait.  Y'all stay tuned.  Maybe tomorrow you'll get to read about the disgusting art of cleaning fish! 

Kickin' It Old School

Recently, a new store opened in my little hamlet and I have to tell you, it's one of the best things to happen here in quite some time. The store is called The B.T.C Old Fashioned Grocery and it carries local produce and meats, fresh bread, farm fresh milk and eggs, bulk foods, and spices. They also have a variety of ethnic food stuffs and premium beers that are hard to find in this town. They have daily specials and their baked goods are delicious with a hot cup of coffee. They even have a fenced in play area inside the store for the kiddies so parents can shop without worrying about their children touching all the produce or breaking anything.

To me, the great thing about The B.T.C is that we only have a farmer's market here once a week. Now I can run down to the end of my street SIX days a week to find something to whip up for dinner. Since most of their produce is local, I'm helping out the farmer's in my area.




I bought green beans yesterday. Here's how I prepared them for lunch today.

Roasted Green Beans with Steak Spice

Ingredients:

1 lb. fresh green beans

1 TBSP olive oil

1 tsp steak spice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Trim ends from green beans and place in large mixing bowl. Add olive oil and steak spice. Mix with your hands, making sure the beans are all evenly coated with oil. Bake for 20-25 minutes, turning the beans after 15 minutes.

Single Motherhood: Day Three

After spending every waking minute for the past two and a half days reading about the Cold War, and having made it no further than what happened in 1950 at the 38th parallel, I decided to treat myself to a little retail therapy. Having recently received a windfall of graduation money, I decided to go looking for a couple of new nightstands and a piece of art to hang over the bed. I thought this was the best thing to do with the money because between you and me, it looks like we decorated the bedroom by picking pieces of dilapidated furniture from dumpsters and trying to pass them off as our own minimalist, chic style of decorating (if you call wrought iron, glass topped endtables serving as nightstands chic).
If you've never really been to an antique store in Oxford (I can only speak for these antique stores because they're really the only ones I've ever been in), you'll know that there is a ton of garbage in these places that isn't half as decent as the "chic" furniture we have now, but they put an expensive price tag on it and call it antique. The other thing about the antique stores in Oxford is that the things they carry are not all antiques. In every single store there are booths rented by local artisans looking to sell their contemporary wares at what is, in my opinion, also not worth the price on the tag. Don't get me wrong, that piece of tin that someone painted off-white was pretty bad ass, but for $49 I'll let it sit there until it rusts. I could do the same thing with supplies from Home Depot for less than $20. (Hmm, a business idea in the making?)
At any rate, I couldn't find anything I was even remotely interested in--minus that piece of tin and a $300 painting of the Oxford Square--but David was really interested in finding a cool, old toy that none of his other friends would have. As we were looking around we saw a really cool Lightning McQueen bedside lamp, an "antique" train (I use the term antique sarcastically here because that train wasn't made before 1990, I'm sure of it), and a couple of other things that interested him. But what FINALLY caught his attention was a bucket. A very large bucket. A TWO GALLON bucket. And this bucket was FILLED with old Happy Meal toys. I was not enthusiastic about bringing home a gigantic bucket of toys since there isn't room in our house for the toys he has now, but it was only $5 so I gave in and we bought it.
On the way home, David opens the bucket, and like a kid on Christmas morning, begins to hoot and holler about every single thing he sees. After a few minutes of "Mommy, look! It's Alvin!" and "Mommy! A race car!" he says to me, "Mommy, what's THIS?" He hands me the toy and I almost wreck the van from sheer joy. There in my hand was evidence that I, too, was once a carefree child. The object in question was a tiny car with a white haired man sticking his head out the window. And this was not just any car, or any man. It was the Delorean, driven by Doc from Back to the Future. And for one moment, I was so glad I bought my sweet angel baby that gigantic bucket of crap.

What the....

It seems that lately when I have been trying to open the link to my blog it keeps telling me that it's broken. That's really freaking annoying, Blogger. Can we do something about that?

It Wasn't Just the Tequila

Apparently, even before I knew what tequila was I didn't like wearing my clothes in public.

Eagle Brand Easter

I have a slight addiction to Eagle Brand, not that you could tell.