#13 Make a New Recipe

Book club is off the ground and running, just not very fast. Tonight I am hosting book club meeting #2. We got together last month for our initial meeting to select the first book. Unfortunately for tonight, two members are sick and we are pretty certain two have bailed! Oh well. It might take some time to get a steady group together. Our first book, as mentioned before, is entitled “The Next Thing on My List.” In the book, the main character June gets in a car accident with another character Marissa. Marissa dies in the car accident and the last thing she is doing before she dies is giving June a copy of a Weight Watchers taco soup recipe. So in honor of our book, I prepared the taco soup recipe for book club tonight. (Along with an excellent recipe for margaritas I got from Mollie last week at Bunco). It’s an idiot proof recipe, unlike one of my items on my list which is to try out a Martha Stewart recipe. All I had to do was open a bunch of cans, mix, heat, serve and voila!

#12 What we have here is a failure to communicate

So I’m continuing on…in the hopes of become America’s Next Top Model! Just kidding! I started with that and couldn’t resist. I’m continuing on with my quest to watch a ton of really popular movies that I’ve never seen before. I started with “The Godfather,” as you know, and moved on to “Cool Hand Luke.” I had heard A LOT of people say this was there favorite movie and it made some of the best movie of all times lists, so I put it on the Netflix queue. Turns out, it’s about a guy, named Luke, that goes to prison for vandalizing city property. They call him cool hand Luke because of the way he bluffs when playing poker. It was a little boring but mildly entertaining. Movies were definitely different in 1967 than today.

I did learn that Kelly’s best friend Keeling loved the movie and I can see why. Keeling was always making bets about stupid stuff he could do. (I.e. drinking a gallon of milk under a minute, getting kicked in the nuts a million times, etc.) In the movie, Luke makes a bet that he can eat 50 boiled eggs in under an hour. Next movie on the list: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Side Note: The other night my husband was reading (the first book he has read since he was required to in college) and came across the abbreviation e.g. followed with a list of examples. He leaned over in bed and asked me if I knew what e.g. stood for. We both knew that it meant examples were to be followed but neither of us knew what i.e. or e.g. was abbreviated for. Out of curiosity and in honor of my life list, I decided to look both up to become more knowledgeable and clear the air. Here is what I found:

The abbreviation i.e. stands for the Latin id est, which means "that is." It is followed by an explanation.

The abbreviation e.g. stands for the Latin exempli gratia, (meaning "for example").

After finding this I didn’t feel so dumb for not knowing. It’s all Latin to me!

#11 Take a hike

I put a variety of adventurous/outdoorsy activities on my list. A big part of my list includes getting that adrenaline rush and pushing me past my limits. Hiking is one of the more mild activities on my list but, nevertheless, it’s on the list.

I was already in the middle of accomplishing one of the more adventurous tasks on my list, camping, when hiking became possible. The state park where we were camping out had family friendly trails easy enough for my 3 year old nieces. We hit the trails with little expectations. Really, we were just looking to pass the time. It was mildly fun, but a little lame. I can say now that I’ve gone hiking although I will probably attempt it again with a more difficult hike.

#10 Go camping, on the ground, in a tent

I have zero memories from my childhood about camping and haven’t bothered to ask my parents if I’ve ever been. I’m going to assume because I have no recollection, that I have never really been camping before. We did a lot of traveling when I was a kid, but we stayed in hotels everywhere we went. My sister and brother-in law went with my Dad and stepmom a few years ago but I opted out. My brother-in law called me at the beginning of last week and mentioned they would be going again and extended us an invitation. I was supposed to be getting my wisdom teeth out on that Friday so I told them we would have to go another time. It’s not like it was something I was looking forward to or really had any interest in doing.

The dentist’s office called me Tuesday or so to let me know the doctor had a conflicting surgery for Friday and I would need to reschedule. Thursday rolled around and I got to thinking about my life list. Camping just happened to be on the list and here I had the perfect opportunity to cross it off and was not even going to take it. I talked to my easy going husband and had no trouble talking him into it. I called my sister and got the details and told her we changed our minds and would love to come.

We had to do some rushing considering it was Thursday night and we were going to be heading out to Greenleaf State Park the next day after work. We managed to throw enough things together and hit the road Friday around 5:45 pm. It took us about an hour to reach the camp site where we found our tent already setup. I was only slightly bummed that I wouldn’t have the experience of setting up a tent. Oh well, plenty more camping experiences to be had.

We arrived just in time to get the hot dogs cooking for dinner. We did the whole sit around the campfire and eat smores just like I had hoped. I mentioned to Kimberly that I knew a ghost story and ended up getting suckered into telling my lame 1st grade scary story around the campfire. Slightly embarrassing, but at least I did some REAL camping. We headed off to bed around 12:30 am which is when the true camping experience kicked in. At 3:15 am I had to trek off to the bathroom. I got back to the tent to go back to sleep only to hear the most annoying bird ever. The damn bird chirped for half an hour before it finally stopped long enough for me to fall back asleep. It wasn’t 3 hours later when it was time to get up and start the day. I hadn’t been up that early since high school!

We had muffins and bacon for breakfast then headed down to the fishing dock to try our luck there. My 3 year old twin nieces were with us and they got bored of the fishing concept about 5 minutes after we started. We girls decided to abandon the fishing and go look for the hiking trails, which was perfect because hiking is on my list!

We hiked, rented paddle boats, grilled some burgers for lunch and had had all the camping any of us could take. We took a group photo, said our goodbyes, and hit the happy trail. I have to say that the first camping trip was quite successful. Maybe even enough so that I will try it again, or maybe not?

#9 Eat at Tulsa’s #1 Restaurant

I found it hard to believe that a pizza joint made the top restaurant in Tulsa out of 671 restaurants according to tripadvisor.com, but it did! Hideaway Pizza tops the chart of restaurants in Tulsa. They’ve been in business for 50 years so they must be doing something right! I can recall eating there once before years ago so I thought I needed to give it another go. This time, I wanted the full experience. I’m pretty sure last time I had them make me a pizza like I would get from Pizza Hut delivery. I ordered plain old pepperoni I think. This time, Kelly and I decided to have the “Paradise Pie” which included: Alfredo sauce covered with a blend of mozzarella and smoked provolone cheeses, grilled chicken breast strips, smoked bacon, fresh sliced mushrooms, fresh spinach and diced Roma tomatoes. It sounded amazing! We also ordered side salads and I got a glass of Chardonnay and Kelly got to try a beer brewed right here in Oklahoma (gotta support the local economy every chance we get). We got our pizza and I’m going to have to say I was underwhelmed. It was fairly good pizza but hey, I’ve had New York and Chicago pizza and Hideaway just has nothing on them. Maybe I just ordered the wrong pie but it was pretty under seasoned as far as just salt and pepper goes. It didn’t have the subtle flavors I was hoping for that are usually found when eating a white sauce and it definitely wasn’t rich like Alfredo sauce tends to be. It was a nice meal out, but I will only be returning when my husband insists because he quite likes Hideaway Pizza.