This past week to 10 days has been pretty busy.  My sister-in- law (brother's wife) lost her mother yesterday afternoon.  But you know, she had her family all around her and she just went very peacefully. 
The sad thing is -  just a year ago this woman found out she had lung cancer.  This is someone who never smoked a day of her life.  A short while later she had surgery to remove the cancer, which the doctors thought they did.  But this summer she started not feeling well and only a few weeks ago she was not able to eat and just started going downhill.  Went to the doctor and found that the cancer was everywhere.  Only about a week ago she came home after a short stay in the hospital for some radiation treatments......and by Thursday she was gone.  I could not believe how fast her situation changed.  You see,  I have known my sister-in-law and her family all my life.  We kind of "grew-up' together.
The good thing in all of this is that she had her family all around her as she passed.  Of course it was very hard on them, but they know that she loved them and  she knew that they loved her.  To me, that is the most important thing in our lives --- to tell our loved ones how we feel and not "hold it in"..thinking that it somehow shows "weakness" on our part if we show any type of emotion.........I told my nephews that it was just fine to show those emotions,  because we are emotional beings......it's just part of who we are!
Through all of this, I have gotten a chance to get closer to the youngest nephew ( he is 15)..... When I decided to leave last nite, I gave him a big hug and told him that if he needed to talk, he knew how to reach me.  He grabbed my things and  walked me out to my truck.  We hugged again and he said he had something to tell me....he said "You are my favorite aunt"......  Oh my goodness, that about made my heart melt ;-)
I told him how much that meant to me and said I was glad I could be there for him and his family.
My sister-in-law and her brother now have the difficult task of finalizing the arrangements for her mother's service.  I will have the honor of playing the piano at her "Celebration of Life" service.  I also made a Movie DVD of her life and that nephew (who has just recently started taking guitar lessons) played the background music. A beautiful song -- "Will The Circle Be Unbroken".  He was playing that one night while I was over there and I told him that he ought to play that at her service or as background to the DVD.   It took us a little while  to get all those pictures scanned and the music just right, but we got that DVD all finished.
I made copies for all the family so they could have something to watch and remember their "Granny" by.
After all of this, I was pretty tired last night.  I got home around 10.  After taking my bath I got into bed,   looked at  a few magazines and went to sleep.  I haven't slept that good in a long time.  I am quite sure that everyone in my brother's home slept good too.  They have been "on alert" since this started over a week ago.  The other night we were all talking and my brother was (whining, haha!!) about wanting a peach cobbler and his middle son was talking about the cinnamon rolls he had come and picked up at my house the other night, and that youngest son was talking about pie also.  So, yesterday when I went over there I took some apples, my apple peeler, and the "stuff" needed to make an apple cobbler.  I got it made and set it on the stove and I think everyone's mouth was watering.  Around 3 or so we ate lunch and then everyone  "attacked" that cobbler.  My brother made the comment that the next time I had better make a much larger one cause that one went way too fast, haha!!!!  I am just glad they liked it~!
There is a house that is for sale next to their property and that youngest nephew is trying to talk Ritzy and I into buying it cause he would have Ritzywife's cooking very close by.  hahaha!!!!!  I think the brother would like it too cause he was trying to "bargain" with me the other night.  It got so bad that he said he would change the oil and filter in my truck for a pie.   I'm thinking I just need to show him how to make one, hehe!!
Speaking of baking, I have some sourdough in there that is going to be used to make some sourdough cinnamon rolls after while.  YUMM, I can hardly wait!!!!!  Yeah, my two guys here have been kind of neglected, but they understood what was going on.  I put a chicken in the crockpot yesterday and it was done by the time they got home.   They both said it was good.....
Gee, I had more on my mind than I realized.....That being said.......Ritzywife is out!!

Hey, that's fun to write,  haha!   Have been busy the past few days.  Cooking, baking, cleaning, doing laundry, ticking people off.......oh, did I say that???
Sometimes you do your best and people still are not satisfied.  I say "not my problem"!!!!!
Yesterday I picked green and red bell peppers & jalapeno peppers from the garden.  This weather has been perfect for peppers.  I thought about having stuffed bell peppers last night but then another thought came to mind.  I have 2 dehydrators and have been using one to dry apples.  I got the other one out and cut up the bell peppers and loaded them onto the dehydrator.  Had about 50 or so jalapenos.  I had already strung some up so I cut some of these in half and proceeded to take the seeds out, barehanded, mind you.....not a good idea!!!!!!  I knew better, but I did it anyways...While loading the dehydrator with jalapenos I thought about making some cheese stuffed jalapenos to eat, so I saved about 15 of the biggest ones.  I proceeded to stuff them with cheese and wrap a piece of bacon around them.  Put them in the oven for 45 minutes.  Well, while they were cooking something came up that I had to leave, so I asked the son to watch them.  After I returned home, I asked if there were any left.  The son showed me there were about 10  halves left.  What was kind of funny tho, is that I was warned about the "heat" contained in these little peppers.  I ate them anyways, they were a little hot, but heck they are supposed to be........I got to the last one and oh my goodness it set my mouth on fire. (must have been some seeds in that one)
I asked the son later if he liked them and he commented that they were so hot that he couldn't tell if he liked them or not, hahaha!!  Well. he ate them, so they must have been ok....
Back to preparing those peppers with no gloves.....my hands seemed to be "ok" UNTIL I was cleaning my kitchen and ran hot water on them.   Oh, my goodness---my hands felt like I was holding them over a fire and I could not make it stop.  I was wishing I had used those gloves.
I searched online for a way to "make it stop".........Found that milk and tumeric would work so I tried it.  Soaked my hands for a few minutes, the heat went away and even when I took my bath it didn't return.  My hands are still a little sensitive today,  but I WILL NOT prepare jalapenos without gloves again.
This was not a fun lesson to learn, but a lesson well learned......
Anyways, I got all those peppers dried and crushed and now when I need bell peppers or jalapeno peppers in a recipe---I have them on hand!!!!  There is nothing worse than realizing you need something like this for cooking -- and it is 8 miles to the nearest grocery store ;-)
My niece's kids came over for a little while this evening.  We built a fire in the pit and had a weiner roast.  It was fun.......The nephew came in the house to play the son's X-Box and his sister and I stayed outside.  She was playing and I was enjoying watching her, then  she sat beside me in the swing and we were just talking about "stuff".........fun to do with a 5 year old ;-)
That about covers my weekend and now a brand new week is starting, I guess we'll see how that goes...
Ritzywife out..................................

This week has been pretty busy.  I didn't realize how long it had been since my last post until tonite.  Had a cousin's funeral to attend Saturday afternoon.  Saturday evening we attended my nephew's birthday party.  His birthday wasn't till the 4th but they had the party  during the weekend.  Saturday was also my brother's birthday, the little nephew's Papa.   Brother wanted a peach pie for his gift, so--Ritzywife made him one.  Sunday was church, then starts the workweek.  Monday I took my sister-in-law to Tulsa to get her mom's (who is in the hospital) car.  After Ritzy got home Monday nite, we went back to town to buy groceries.  Tuesday I had to make a trip to Chelsea to get some stuff at the dollar store.  Today my mom and I met the daughter in Owasso for lunch/shopping.   Went to church tonite and here I am.  Oh. I forgot to mention that yesterday I wanted to make an authentic Tex-Mex meal so I made the homemade corn tortillas, homemade chili/enchilada sauce and proceeded to make some cheese enchiladas.  They turned out really good.  I also made some pumpkin-cranberry muffins.  Was gonna used canned pumpkin, but didn't have any.......but.......I did have a "pie pumpkin" that I was using as decoration in my kitchen.  Gee, that little thing sure was hard to cut!!!   I processed that and used fresh pumpkin instead.  The muffins turned out great.   I also started some apples in the crock-pot last night to make apple butter.  Did some research online and found it could be done in the crock-pot.  I decided to give it a try----and I sure am glad I did.  The apple butter turned out wonderful!  It sure beat standing at the stove for hours stirring..... My parents have about 30 apple trees on their property....it's not like I am going to run out of apples anytime soon.  I will probably be making a lot of this butter.  Tonite I started another crock of them and also a dehydrator full of sliced apples.  They should be done by morning.  Will be making a lot of dried apples too.   The family loves to snack on them......
I was telling Ritzy that starting tomorrow at 6pm in Vinita they are having a display of part of the Vietman war memorial.  This will visit only 6 cities this year.  I told him that we should go to see this and pay our  respect to those soldiers whose lives were lost during that horrific war.  Makes a person stop and think about what is really important in life and who we should thank for our freedom. 
As far as I know, Friday is open and I will finally get to enjoy this beautiful weather we are having here in Oklahoma.  We better enjoy it while we can ;-)
Well now that I have cleared my mind, I think I can rest better. haha!!!
Ritzywife out.....................................

Here it is 10:30 pm and these are just out of the oven.  I made some the other night and this afternoon after returning home from lunch and shopping with my daughter and mom, I decided to make some more.  They are sooooo good!!!!  I have a sourdough starter  that I keep on the cabinet and ready to bake with at anytime....
Ritzy and I are eating some of them now.  They are delicious!!!  He has only ate 4 of them, so far, haha!!!  The poor son just got home from work a little while ago.  I put his supper (BLT's) in the fridge.   He has eaten them but said he did not want any rolls.  That kid must be tired!!!!!!!
I did have a very good day, visiting with mom and the daughter,  we look forward to meeting every Wednesday. 
The weather here in Oklahoma has been perfect----sunny skies, light winds, moderate temps.  I say we deserve it after that scorcher of a summer we had. 
Ritzy has been burning a fire in the firepit in the evening.  It is so soothing to sit there on the patio in the swing  and listen to and watch the fire. 
A friend that I have not seen in a long time is supposed to come by tomorrow while on her visit to Oklahoma.  It is going to be wonderful to catch up........
It's time to get the son's workclothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer......
With that Ritzywife is out.....................
(there better be some cinnamon rolls on that cabinet in the morning!)

Well, sometimes I just have to "vent" a little.  This time the subject is those who have the mindset of  "all about me".......While we need to take care of ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually it is never supposed to be "all about me".......
This is a hard lesson to learn, not fun either, but we must learn it if we ever want to be happy in this life.  We make decisions in this life and then we better be prepared to deal with the consequences of those decisions.  Something goes wrong or things don't turn out as we planned and we want to "bail".
The correct order is God first, others second and me last.......when we do things right everything else seems to fall in to place, not by chance mind you but because we have put things in their respective order.  If we don't realize this little fact and decide anyways to  make it always "all about me" when we get old no one will be around, because we didn't take the time or effort to "invest" in them.  I don't know about anyone else but I cannot think of anything worse than being alone, and no one caring whether I was alive or dead.
That is why we make the effort to love our families and friends.  Yes, sometimes it might be hard but our responsibility ( because of the choices we have made)  is to love them and show them we care about them.  Also, if our kids are still at home-- to make our kids feel that there is NOWHERE safer to be than at home with their parents and that their parents are together on EVERYTHING, and always will be there for them................
You might wonder why in the world I would write something like this, but sometimes a person just sees things going on around them in their family or friends lives and wonders how or why it ever got to this point. 
We would all come out better in the end if we could just remember that it is NOT "all about me" !!!

Now that I am thru "venting" I can go on to other things.  I baked more breads today:

Ritzywife out...........................................

Today the daughter, her boyfriend, my mom, sister-in-law, nephew and I all met at Olive Garden for lunch.  Had a good time eating and visiting.  The rain from Tropical Storm Hermine started here in Oklahoma.... sure is wet out there.  Keeping that in mind, Before meeting at Olive Garden, I had to stop at Best Buy to pick up Season 6 of The Office for the son.  Being the good mom that I am I got out of the truck (in the rain) and walked to the store.  In my head thoughts of the cement being slick were going on so I was "watching my step"  I made it inside the store and must not have wiped all the "wet" off my shoes cause when my right foot hit the cement floor, the foot just kept going and Ritzywife's buttcheeks kissed the floor.  It was one of those "Geez, I sure hope no one saw that" kind of fall.  I'm sure they did tho, probably got it on tape to watch and laugh over and over.  The young man greeting everyone came over and asked to help and I told him I was fine.  I proceeded to get up and go get what I came in for, that darn blu-ray........I just stood there laughing at myself.  You know I have figured out that if you can't laugh at yourself, you are in pretty sad shape.  I do have a feeling that I am gonna be sore in the morning tho.  Have already took a couple of ibuprofin before bedtime. 
I told the son what had happened tonight and I could see him snicker.  I told him that I literally went thru "hell and high water" to get that darn blu-ray and he had better enjoy it ;-)
Got home and took a short nap before starting a pot of chili for church supper tonight.  I made it in my new enameled french oven.  I love this new pan.  It makes cooking fun and is so easy to clean up. 
Chili sure tasted good!!!!  Ritzy has some for his lunch tomorrow.  I sure am glad he doesn't mind taking left-overs for his lunches at work. 
Tomorrow is the daughter's 24th birthday.   Hope she has a good one. 
Watching the rain on the radar on tv.  looks like it's gonna get pretty wet around here (callin' for 3-6 inches).  I usually prefer sunny weather but we need this rain so bad that I am grateful it's here.   It looks like the HOT weather is gone for this season!!!!!! Come on Fall!!!!!
With that said, Ritzywife is out................

70's and low wind, and not a cloud in sight.   
Looking forward to Monday and the cookout and fellowship at Mom & Dad's.   It's so fun to watch the little ones play.    Gotta love that bar-b-que too!!  The daughter told me that she asked for chicken.  Just give me some brisket or baby back ribs and I am happy ;-)  She also requested a salad that I make, so I guess I will be getting the ingredients needed for that tomorrow. 
I think I hear my pillow calling...........and with that Ritzywife is out....................