Valley Girl

I can't believe it's over halfway through July! Time sure does fly. I think I'm finally getting used to being here in Tulsa. I'm getting the hang of being a wife anyway. We have, of course, been doing a lot of traveling in the last few weeks. The annual 4th of July meeting was spectacular. And last weekend I had the pleasure of seeing my dear friends Blake Wallace and Heather Fesler get married! In the interim between these two events, my parents came to visit for a few days.

It was very strange being the hostess to my own parents. But they didn't really let me do much in the way of hostessing. They bought us groceries, and took us out for dinner a few times, AND bought a bunch of paint and paint supplies for my birthday! Dad had the graciousness to paint the living and dining room for us while Mom sewed my bridesmaid dress. It was so good to see them again, and very sad to see them leave. Next time I see them will be Thanksgiving, Lord willing.

I promise I will be posting before and afters of the whole house soon! There won't be much in the way of decorating, but we hope to have every room painted by the end of July. We'll see... I've got a lot of work to do in that department.

I've officially been here 2 months. There are some things about Tulsa I knew to anticipate, and some things that have caught me by surprise. For example, I thought Clermont County had the worst drivers in the world, but I do think it has been outdone by Tulsa County. I was driving on the expressway the other day and saw someone literally come to a complete stop at the end of the entrance ramp onto said highway. Instead of merging, she was just sitting there waiting for traffic to clear! I was flabbergasted. And then, just yesterday, I was on that same entrance ramp, and the woman in front of me did the exact same thing! She just stopped, right there on the entrance ramp! I was so mad, because now I was starting from 0 mph, too. Most irritating. And I know for a fact these were two different people... Tulsans definitely don't know how to merge, but that's the worst case I've witnessed.

One thing I discovered about Oklahoma the very first week I lived here is that the wind does indeed come sweeping down the plain. Constantly. It was actually a source of contention between Etienne and I that first week when I had a moment of frustration against the wind. (Remembering that little spat makes me laugh now... How ridiculous). I guess Oklahoma is a land of extremes because when summer hit, the wind died completely. There's an occasional breeze now, but nothing compared to the spring time gusts.

Naturally it would die right when it would actually become valuable. Summer came with a vengeance. It got up to 107 - 113 degrees every single day for two weeks solid. It still breaks 100 on a daily basis. It would get hot in Ohio, but it wouldn't stay hot like this. No wonder Oklahoma is so brown. They don't get much rain, and the sun scorches whatever it touches. There's not much in the way of shade in most places. Our lawn is quite brown and crunchy. It cracks me up to look out at the peach tree Etienne just planted a few weeks ago. I've been watering it pretty faithfully, and I believe it's holding its own, much to my relief. But what's funny is the 3-inch ring around the tree of green, green grass in the vast barren wasteland of brown everywhere else. The grass just around the tree has been enjoying the water I give it everyday.

We do have some superb trees in our yard, especially by Oklahoma standards, but I do miss the towering trees of the Ohio valley. I know I'm going to be shocked at just how tall they are whenever I get to go home again. My eyes will have grown accustomed to the medium-height (and smaller) trees of Oklahoma. And I miss the green! I miss soft grass beneath my feet, and I miss brown dirt, and the gray Clermont County clay. Here, it's red dust or red clay. Take your pick.

I don't want to be ALL down on Oklahoma. It does have its beauties. There's something captivating in the sweeping plain, and the gently rolling hills. They're not tall hills, but they are pleasing to the eye. It's as if the whole earth was moving like the ocean, when you get way out from the shore, and just froze that way. The land has rolling ocean swells, dotted with the occasional tree or brush. And the sky is amazing. You can see from horizon to horizon when you get out of the city without trees to block the view. I particularly like going out to Lake Skiatook, about an hour north of town. The cliff faces are so beautiful. It's absolutely rich with greens and browns and grays. I'll have to post pictures sometime. The land has the lake to drink from, so it's nice and green, not parched and scorched by the sun.

Still... I long to see my beautiful Ohio valley again. What can I say? I'm a valley girl. ;-) So to everyone back home, take a moment to enjoy the beauty around you. Drink it in, for my sake, and cherish what you have.

Love you all!
Elizabeth

Here is Etienne with a baby I won't recognize next time I see her. Sigh... I hope you're doing well Landreman family!

A Fish Story

Well, this really hasn't been a banner week for me. I've been kinda down. Not sure why, really. But I'll try to make it interesting and entertaining instead of gloomy and depressing.

We painted the bathroom last week. Woohoo! That wasn't a problem. It looks really good! And it's a pretty small room so it didn't take long at all. I still need to put some finishing touches on it, and then it'll get it's own personal blog post. I'm excited about it! And that excitement helped inspire getting the rest of the house done. We want to do the bedroom next, so we decided to pick a comforter. We really didn't agree on much. So I went with the only one we did agree on. As soon as I ordered it, I started doubting. Which grew to complete dislike of the comforter. It arrived yesterday, and is going back. I already have another picked out that has yet to make me doubt, so I'm confident in what our bedroom will look like! For all interested parties, I am choosing this one: http://www.kohls.com/upgrade/webstore/product_page_multiple.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524892808882&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374757579802&searchTerm=bamboosa+8+pc+set&bmUID=1340201813060

I've come to realize our toaster doesn't like me. It took a few pieces of bread to find the right setting, but I did. I make Etienne's toast first and it come out perfectly. But then I make mine, haven't changed a thing, and it's overdone. Every single time! I've even tried turning it a setting lower and it STILL burned. What in the world, toaster?! Why you bein' nice to Etienne? He didn't even want you! Well, I hope whatever it has a against me will be short lived so I can start eating some decent toast. =P

I'm working this week as a greeter in a fancy house that is a part of what Tulsa calls the Parade of Homes. It's much like Home-a-rama in Cincinnati. It's a beautiful home! It won second place in it's price category ($800,000 and above). The builder, Dennis, was pretty pleased with that. It's kind of a boring job, but all the interesting people make it ok. There's some weird ones out there, let me tell ya! Oh! I almost forgot! The first day, Saturday, this man was hanging around me waiting for what looked like his mom to finish touring the house - or so I thought. She finally came back to the front and walked out the door. Before he left he said he had a question for me. I said, "What?" and he said, "Are you single?"    ARE YOU SERIOUS?!   But then I had the privilege of saying, "No, I'm married." And it was pretty cool. =)

I found out that I need to register and pay for classes by July 9th. I did not know that until a few days ago, and really am not prepared. I was planning on getting into the Honors program, and then getting the Honors tuition waiver, but that's a process that could take a month. Now I find out I have two weeks. I'm still trying to put the process in motion (which is even more difficult it being the summer), but I don't think it'll be done by July 9th. I'm debating just waiting till just before school starts in hopes that I'll get it before then, and then just pay the lame $25 fee for signing up late.

Looking back on the last few days, there's really no reason to be down. What's silly is the one of the biggest things that's happened that should've brought me down really didn't have much effect on me at all! I totally burned dinner last night. My first time to fail in the kitchen since being married, and only the third time to fail in the kitchen in my life. Since these are such isolated incidences, I don't pay them much mind. Anyway, I call this a big event because of how dramatic it was.

Blackened salmon was on the menu. First of all, I've never made any kind of fish before because I don't like it and never eat it. Second of all, I was expecting Etienne to make it, because he talks about making it all the time. But when I asked him if he was going to make it, he told me he had to clean the garage, and went outside. So I attempted it.

I had found the recipe online and really should have listened to one of the ladies that commented on it and gave an oven alternative to the skillet. But I didn't. I prepared the fillets (which were WAY too spicy for ANYONE'S taste, so the recipe was partly to blame for the epic failure this fish became) and threw them on the skillet, on high heat as directed. Immediately smoke starts billowing out of the skillet. This has happened before when Etienne makes steak (which is all part of the cooking process - he does it on purpose) so I knew what to do. I turned on the microwave fan, threw open the kitchen window, and turned around to see even more smoke pouring from the pan. This was a lapse of maybe ten seconds. I turned the salmon in vain hope of saving it, but this was very blackened salmon. Heat was WAY too high. Etienne came back in and opened all the doors, and it's something of a miracle the smoke detectors didn't go off. The house was full of smoke. I took the fish out of the skillet (that side was less blackened though it had been in there longer. Go figure) and put it on a pan to put in the oven. It needed to finish cooking. While the outside was charred, the inside was raw.

Eventually we ate it and Etienne pronounced it the worst blackened salmon he'd ever eaten. Which made me smile. At least now I know he's being honest in his reviews of my cooking. Turns out, he buys salmon fillets already blackened from Sam's and all he has to do is heat it up. So when I asked him to make it from scratch, he was intimidated and found the garage a necessary task for the moment. What's funniest to me about the whole thing is, it's the only fish I've ever eaten that I've been able to stomach without gagging. I didn't say I liked it - there was too much burn flavor for me - but I honestly didn't hate it either. So that was the ordeal with the fish. I now know to buy the already blackened salmon from Sam's if I ever want to do this again. And also, it might be a good idea to listen to the lady who gave the tip about the oven if I ever decide to attempt that recipe again.

Well, that's all I've got for now. I hope my blunders of the past week have made you smile. I think I've been down because I just miss home. I guess I'm still adjusting to this living in Tulsa thing. Pray for my spirits to be lifted while I muddle through being a grown up down here!

Love,
Elizabeth

My fishing buddy, Rex, at my grandparents' farm in McAlester.

New Car Smell

I've heard a lot about that "new car smell," but have only ever experienced it once that I can remember. (I hope someday I'll experience it again with a shiny blue Toyota Tacoma...). Some people love that smell (or perhaps they just love the fact that they have a new car), and some people hate it. Nevertheless, the smell eventually fades as the newness wears off.

Before I got married and moved to Tulsa, I had the idea to start this blog about all of my Tulsa happenings as a way to keep in touch with all my friends and family back home in Ohio. Tomorrow marks Etienne and I's one month anniversary of being married, and it hit me that the new car smell is quickly fading on my new life here, and if I was serious about blogging and staying in touch with everyone, I'd better get on it. So here I am.

It's been an interesting month to say the least. We got off to a great start! The wedding was absolutely beautiful and I had a great day start to finish. And then we spent the honeymoon in Disney World (I wanna go back so bad!!!) and enjoyed a day at the beach on the way out of town. It was glorious! But I'll blog about that some other time. We got home to Tulsa at midnight Friday a week after the wedding. We literally couldn't move through the living room because of all of the STUFF jammed in it. We were certainly blessed with gifts for our new marriage.

However, I had my work cut out for me. It took awhile for us to unwrap and sort all of the presents, and go through all of my boxes from moving. Then there was the matter of cleaning.... Oh my. Etienne has owned the house we currently live in for six years, during which time he has had about 20 different roommates. Thankfully, some women from church came over and cleaned the bathrooms for me while we were on the honeymoon, but I still scrubbed the bathtub another two or three times and it grew shades lighter each time. When I got to the kitchen, I finally realized I was cleaning up after 20 men and six years of bachelorhood. It took a lot of elbow grease, but I really didn't mind. I got to bond with my new kitchen quite a bit. =) And now, the kitchen is sparkling and doesn't take much to maintain.

We did a lot of traveling this first month, too. Florida was quite a bit of time in the car. The next weekend we went to the Memorial Day meeting in Ozark. The next weekend we went to Kansas City for a wedding... With all the traveling and trying to get the house together, it was easy to distract myself about the fact that this wasn't just another trip to Tulsa. That I wasn't going home. Because I was already home. I didn't do myself any favors by distracting myself, to say the least, because then I just exploded after awhile. I cried like a baby (finally) and called my mom and cried and cried and cried. And then I was fine. It's hard for me to accept that Tulsa is home; I have a lot of loyalty to Ohio. So I've decided I have two homes, and that's okay.

That's basically my first month out here in a nutshell! I'm having a pleasant time figuring out my own routines and which grocery stores are the best (I'm a regular at Aldi now). Laundry is actually kind of fun for me because I hang all the clothes on a line outside. We have a tiny garden with a grand total of 8 plants (big plot of land, not many plants. Kinda silly lookin). I planted Morning Glory by my little section of picket fence my father-in-law built me, and will be planting sunflowers courtesy of Heloise Besse this week. I'm a member at Gold's gym and have a great time working out with Etienne.

(Funny story real quick... The other day we were working arms, and I had little 5 pound dumbbells doing a tricep exercise on a bench. This guy next to us asked Etienne to come spot him for a minute and he picked up these MASSIVE dumbbells - I don't think they come any bigger than those - 135 pounds at LEAST and starts benchpressing them. I was literally laughing at how pathetic I looked next to him with my teensy little 5 pounders. It's always a walk of shame in the gym for me, but I'm getting stronger! Maybe one day I'll be a hoss). So far Etienne has liked everything I create for dinner. We had my in-laws over for dinner last week, and our first overnight guests stayed with us last night (the lovely Krull family, minus Lori and Rachel, on their way to Cedar Creek Camp).

Slowly but surely I'm figuring out how to be a wife and keeper of the home. I'm not looking forward to throwing in the wrench of getting a job, but I guess it's gotta happen sometime. But before all that, we're going to conquer a rather exciting task....

REDECORATING!!!! I am truly excited for this. Right now, every room and ceiling is the same shade. Somewhere between brown and gray. I cannot wait to transform this place with color! Of course, I will post before and afters of each room as we tackle them. Stay tuned! More exciting posts a surely to come!

For now, I just want to say, I miss you all terribly and think of you often. I hope I can come home for a visit before school starts, but I'm not pinning any hopes on that. Please don't hesitate to call or text me! I'd love to hear what's going on in that part of the world. In the mean time, know that I'm doing just fine and Etienne continues to be the best husband I could've prayed for. I'm happy in my own little way with my new life. Frankly, though, I'm glad that new car smell is fading, and I can feel more like Tulsa really is home. But that will never diminish Ohio's place in my heart, and all the love I have for the people there.

Love,

Elizabeth

Etienne and I in a swirling teacup at Magic Kingdom! This was before the swirling....