Prime Rib Recipe

As most of you know, I don't usually follow recipes.....I always add lib and try out new ways to cook things. This prime rib roast recipe is really good, I have tried different things to change it up and all of them made the roast that much better.

1- 5 lb Rib Roast

Fresh minced garlic

Salt/Pepper

Rub the roast all over with the minced garlic and generously salt/pepper the roast. If you use fresh rough ground pepper its better. Place roast in a rack roasting pan with rib side down. Preheat oven to 375. Cook uncovered for 1 hour. Reduce heat to 350. Roast for another hour. Cover roast with aluminum foil and let rest for15-20 minutes before cutting. This cooks the roast to medium, If you want a medium well roast.....cook it for another 30 minutes. I have added fresh rosemary sprigs to the roast while cooking and its great! I then use the juice for dipping. If you get a larger roast, I would add 30 minutes to the cooking time for every 3 additional pounds.

Hope you like it.....Enjoy!!! and have a great New Year.

Changing Pictures

One of the guys at work had a digital picture frame on his desk of his kids. WAY Coool! I want one of those:

10" Target Frame
12" Edge
12" Best Buy
15" Digital Framez

Christmas Dinner

Christmas day was at least 60 degrees today. Bright and sunny with enough wind to require a jacket on. Christmas breakfast was pumpkin and custard pie with a cup of coffee. Christmas dinner was served promptly at 1 o'clock, as the cook said it would. If you've had dinner with Kerri, you know that if dinner is said to be at 1 then expect to say the blessing a few minutes before 1.

Dinner was simple and delicious. Orange glazed ham, mash potatoes, ham gravy, cranberry sauce and hot batter-way rolls. Janice was here and Mark called. Katarina asked who Mark was. It is unreal that my children don't know who their cousins are. They seem so close to us, as if it was yesterday they were little guys. We chatted about times past and family traditions. Visited about the traditions of their grandparents and great grandparents.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Poem

This is a poem by Katarina. I just had to post it. Kids? You have to love stuff like this. Don't be getting all psychoanalytical either. It is all way over your head.

Mom you are always right,
and you kiss me good night.
Dad you stay out late,
that is what I hate.
Mom you cook scrumptious food treats,
that we all love to eat.
Dad is a landscape designer,
he loves to read in his recliner.
Mom you always clean,
you are the best Mom I ever seen.
Dad I never catch fishes,
because you make me wash dishes.
Mom you love the winter,
cause you are so tender.
Dad you are so true,
it is kind of new.

Merry Christmas, Katarina

Merry Christmas

Brrrrrrrrrrr....It got cold today. Stiff, relentless and blustery wind out of the north brought a Kansas blizzard to our doorstep. It left about an inch and a half in less than an hour. Kerri run out to the grocery store for Christmas dinner fixin's and to finish up the last of her shopping. The post lady is suppose to call if we have a package. The kids main gift still has not arrived. Hopefully on or before Christmas eve.

Janice is coming down to spend Sunday, Christmas eve and Christmas dinner with us. I've still got to get her stocking hung. Christmas eve will be homemade chili with cornbread for dinner. I'm going to put my Christmas jazz on and then let the kids tear into their gifts. Christmas morning is pumpkin pie and cream. Christmas day is orange glazed ham, mash potatoes, gravy, batter-way rolls (if I can find the recipe), cranberry sauce and love.

A Roadrunner has moved in under the cedar trees in the back yard. He moved in early this fall. It looks like he will be here for Christmas too. The Cardinals and Chick-a-dee's were too shy to get their photograph taken, but the Mockingbird taunted me.

We will be snug at home this Christmas. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Years.

Christmas times a comin', Christmas times a comin', Christmas times a comin'...

It has been such a stressful, busy time since Thanksgiving! School is finally out for the semester, the kids got out today. I really haven't recovered since my computer crashed last month. I have been so upset about all the pictures I lost. Then I started work. I was sick for about a week with the flu. Our little ice storm. Of course, today it was 61 degrees. Basketball games, Christmas concerts and shopping. It just doesn't end.

Work has been going good. My boss hasn't really been there, so I've been working with the chief civil engineer and a planner a lot. They have me doing everything. I'm researching projects, drawing planting plans, writing planning books, and today they sent me almost to Henrietta for a site visit on a wetland project. It has been pretty stressful, because they throw several projects a day at me with little guidance to go on. "You know as much as I know." sort of attitude. So apparently they are getting their money's worth, because they have me working full time over the Christmas break.

I got the bulk of my Christmas shopping finished today. Whew! I should be able to finish the rest on Friday pretty easy. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

5 Days left to shop

Well here I go this morning.....out to face the world of shoppers. As most of you know, I haven't been shopping yet and I've been hearing it from my kids about no presents being under the tree. Thank goodness for Liz's presents arriving yesterday!!! I have been the worst procrastinator this year....we've been so busy with running kids around there hasn't been time to shop. Well, you know its bad when my boss tells me "Take the day off and get shopping for those kids!!", so here I am....Tuesday morning and I'm going shopping. We miss you guys! I told Jord to take pic's of the tree and put in on the blog so everyone could see our Christmas.....he managed to take the pic's but no blogging----wasn't this blogging thing part his idea??? Somehow I feel we are being cheated out of his Wilson wittiness!!! Well, its time for Starbucks and traffice......

Ice Storm

Hello to all!!! If any of you have watched/heard the national weather.....Oklahoma got hit hard with a severe ice storm and we have 500,000 people without power....the wilson family being one of those 500,000. We haven't had power since late Sunday night. The candles came out, I fired up the BBQ (ice and all) so we could eat. We braved the nights---thankfully it was only 30-35 degrees outside and not colder. Tonight, I think we may bunk at the Foote's house because they have power. We finally had power at my job, so I came in today and took a shower. Our parking lot and much of the city of Norman looks like a war zone. Trees are down everywhere----on top of houses, cars, in the middle of the road and parking lots. We drove through campus yesterday and the big beautiful oak trees are all broken in pieces....very sad. So, if any of you need to get a hold of us....Call me at work...we are hoping to have power by the time we get home tonight. We haven't heard from Ruben & Manthy, I hope they are doing alright....I know OKC got hit worse than we did. Hope all is good with you all....Talk with you soon.

Holiday Weekend

Busy, Busy....We had a great feast at our house over Thanksgiving. Manthy, Ruben and the kids came down and also we had Janice here for dinner. Tasty!!! I do believe that Manthy and I thought we were cooking for the entire Wilson gang....there was so much food leftover. All was good until Zane came crying into the house....Creston had shot a fake arrow that hit him above the eye. Scary....I know Creston learned a valuable lesson....he was quite upset about the ordeal. Zane is o.k...thank goodness....bruised but o.k. Jord and I and the kids loaded up Thanksgiving night and went shopping at Garden Ridge. What a blast! We got fun things for the house and Christmas tree. They had 50% off all Christmas Decor', they had 6 rows of specialty ornaments....needless to say....we went a little overboard. They had fleece blankets for $2.99!!!! That was my shopping excurtion for the weekend. Hope everyone had a great holiday and you know what they say......28 days left of shopping.

Life!

Today is Jord's first official day at his new job. Exciting for the whole family. Creston had his first basketball game last night and Kat is still going at softball. I believe her last tournament is this weekend in OKC. We had a stressful weekend, as most of you know. Church Sunday was a solumn meeting, much of us thankful for life and yet grieving for what was to come. Many prayers are needed here. Ruben, Manthy and the kids were down on Sunday. I cooked Fajita's for everyone, Isaac came home with us too so he could play with the boys. We always enjoy company! Christmas is around the corner and of course I wait until the last minute to go shopping although Jord and I have a date for Thanksgiving night. Garden Ridge is open for the big holiday sale and we love to go and pick up things for the tree. For those who aren't from Oklahoma-----Garden Ridge is a huge warehouse full of goodies (like a Michael's but much bigger) I'm sure Manthy will be there at some point!! I've been trying to schedule pictures for my kids....I want to get them taken with all the beautiful fall color on campus but life is so busy, last week there wasn't one night that I got home before 9:00. A little hard to take pic's when its dark out. Where's Jan when we need her!!! Oh...I forgot....she's going to Hawaii!!!!!

Advice

For all of you out there in www land don't forget to back up everything on your computers. I would suggest copying all of your pictures this week on cd or dvd and storing them in a safe place. I have had numerous computer crashes over the years, but never one that actually melted all of my access to my documents and pictures. It literally would not allow me to transfer them off the computer on dvd, cd, flash drive or hard drive. Gone! Everything Gone! I had the most expensive and best anti-virus program and I got hit. I was able to save a few of my pictures. I had backed up some as I went, but nothing like I should have.

So if it was to hit you tonight, would you have backup copies somewhere? I have had a backup harddrive before, but it got infected, so I would really suggest making cd's of your most precious pictures. I have read several articles in the last year of people that actually reformat their computers every six months.

So....To MOM: back up all of your genealogy stuff immediately! Jan: Don't take a chance on a backup hard drive. Start pulling your pictures off and putting them on DVD. Archive all of your documents on DVD or CD. I know that my DVD writer actually has a command that allows me to backup everything onto DVD. Spend the time to figure yours out and use it.

1. So my plan:
2. Keep a much more organized computer
3. pull off my documents and store them on cd or dvd
4. only keep documents on my computer that I don't mind losing
5. Expect and be prepared to reformat my computer every 6 months or less.

Once the error messages start popping up it is an indication that Microsoft is crashing. After I downloaded Microsoft Office 2007 I started having trouble. I had a professor at school that had the same problem. My laptop crashed on Thursday, I hope I haven't lost the hard drive data on that or I'm going to be in real trouble.

I'm not very happy camper tonight.

jlw

Super Sunday

What a great day!!! The weather is beautiful, life is good. The whole family is excited about Jord getting his internship.....he's worked very hard and its nice to know that finally it will pay off. We had a great Sunday meeting. Lots of visiting brethern from DeWitt, OKC, Hobart. We actually had Ruben, Manthy and the kids in church with us which is always a treat to have family with you. They came home with us dinner along with Bro. Johnny Trevino (Sis. Dana is on a baby case in Hobart), and as usual....I went overboard with the food. BBQ Ribs, Chicken, Baked Acorn Squash, Fried Potatoes, Corn and Broccoli Salad....Oh and Brownies. It was great!!! You all know how I love to cook for a large group. Manthy's kids love to come and play with the kids and we love it when they come....it turned out to be a great exciting day for everyone.

Gotta Love FAll

*



Tithonia an Oklahoma native and Castor Bean an Oklahoma favorite

Softball Rules!

My internship search is over!

I'm pretty excited tonight. I got an internship with Guernsey Engineers & Architecture. I will be working under a licensed Landscape Architect, which is as rare as hens teeth in Oklahoma.

Happy Birthday Oklahoma

100 Years since Statehood.

What a great day and a great parade. It was our Centennial Parade this weekend. We got up to the performance square about 9:30 and watched rehearsals until the parade started at 2pm. It was great. It was the biggest parade for OKC and probably will be for a while.

Putting it in Perspective

Ok, here is the family tree from Mom. Well, the retyped family tree from Mom. (Mom, you need to check it over for misspellings and other errors so I can correct it.)

As you can see, this fan chart starts with my grandfather, Marvin Leroy Shockley. It starts with Creston and Katarina's Great-grandfather.

Thomas Guideon Shockley, and Susan Melinda O'Briant/Bryant are buried at Shilo Cemetery about a mile north of our house. Do you think it is purely coincidence that I live on Bryant Road? They would be Katarina and Creston's Great-great-great grandparents.

Now, My Grandpa Shockley's mother's parents, or my Great-great-grandparents John and Lectar Boydstun homesteaded 160 acres on the NE corner of 96th and HWY 39. Johnny and Dana Travino live in a development on that site. John Boydston's Dad, William Boydstun homesteaded the property that borders 108th and its North border is Bryant Road. It is just a little over 2 miles east of my driveway. He deeded the Cemetery, Willow View, from his land and William and Jane are buried on that property. Other Boydstuns are buried on the property also.

John Boydston

I found the Section that John Boydston homestead. It is the SW corner of Section 34.

Google Earth image of Section 34

Boydston Family Homestead

The coolest thing today! I decided to drop by the Historical Museum (how many of you do that on your day off?) and do a little digging into Slaughterville. I was just getting ready to walk out after spending about an hour digging through pictures, when one of the librarians asked me if I needed some help. I asked her if there was any records on the land run.

Yep! So, after digging through a few books, and reeling and spinning through some microfilm, here is what I come up with:

Here is my information

This information is out of the Homestead records at the history museum in OKC.
William Boydston Township 7 North, Range No. 1 West, Section 22
NE Corner
160 acres
Date of Sale: Feb, 22 1890
Reciept Number 6577
File No. 1877 October 5 1893 or 1895
(It looks like 1893, but the lady at the historical museum said it was probably 1895 because you had to wait 5 years to get or prove your patent.



William B. Boydston Township 9 North, Range 2 West, Section 11


John Boydston Township 7 North, Range 1 West, Section 4
160 acres SW
Date of Sale July 22, 1889
Number of Reciept 3983
File No. 2205 March 24, 1896


This info is from the Cleveland County Court House
William Boydston Trustee of Willow View Cemetery, which is 1 acre out of the center of his homestead.

James Shockley F. Owned property Township 7 North, Range No. 1 West, Section 22 (NORTHWEST--SW AND SE Corner.)

Here is a little farm house on the north side of the 160 acres. I'm not suggesting that it is where the old homestead was, but it is possible that it is the site of the actual old farm place.

Barns out buildings of the little farm

This is the Google Earth view of the full 160 acres. The north side is Bryant road and the East side is 108th street. Willow View Cemetery is in the center on 108th street.

It may be hard to see with this, but the old homestead is just a little over 2 miles, east, up Bryant road from our house. The Slaughterville place is only a mile North.

This is a picture looking West onto the homestead site

Here is the cemetery where the Boydston family is buried.

This is a picture of the corner at 108th and Bryant.

For my siblings that are not in the know (that would be most or maybe all of you.). The William Boydston family is our great-grandparents. Maybe Mom can clear this up, because our other great-grandparents are buried at the cemetery a mile north of us.

Rain, frogs and spiders

I think the news said tonight that we have had 52 inches of rain this year. That doesn't seem possible. However, I do know that it has been a very good year for frogs and toads. I have had frogs on my windows every evening eating bugs. The roads have been littered with frogs and toads and at night they are hopping every where in the car lights. It has also been a good year for the orb spider, Charlotte's Web Spider. They have been hanging in the trees and off of the eves. Tonight I stepped outside around sunset and the the ground was covered in spiderwebs. The picture only shows the reflections of the sun. But it looked like my whole lawn had a fine veil of glistening web covering. It was really quite stunning.

Current Rain Fall

It was 90 degrees this last weekend. It finally cooled down today to a beautiful 78 degrees. However OKC's current rain fall for the year is just over 52 inches. And you thought you were all wet. Isn't that unbelievable.

jlw

Ahhh....aren't they litttle sweeties?

Jord's Trophy Wall

I have to brag a little bit. I went to an awards event on Saturday, and won a merit award for my park design. I have pictures of my design at my Landscape Blog.

Back to the real life

Well, I'm back from the trip and all was great when I returned home. Jord and the kids had cleaned the entire house, done all the laundry and get this......my refrigerator was spotless!!! I think I need to leave home more often. I did ask the kids when the last time they had vegetables, and their reply was "Before you left." All is back to normal this week.

Civilization as we know it.

It is a very lonely house when momma is gone. It hasn't helped that school is so slow and boring this semester. I almost have 4 day weekends every weekend and it feels like I'm only going to class once a week. At the current rate of 2 pounds a weekend I should be up 36#s by the end of the semester.

The puppies have been a complete fiasco. The second puppy returned home because the young couple didn't realize how much work it would take and didn't want to commit to the time. Then a puppy mysteriously died. I suspected that it got hurt, stepped on or played with too rough. The next puppy left and returned. The young girl claimed the puppy had parvo. In reality she had cold feet and the puppy was fine when it returned. It goes on...and I still have 4 left. I might just keep them. I don't know.

Kerri left on Thursday and we haven't had solid food since she left. It has been corn dogs, pizza and Dairy Boy. (Well maybe not that bad.) The kids said on Sunday that they missed Mom's Sunday tacos. Yeah, me too.

The house is quiet. I'm up at 6:30 giving orders to the kids. They have the routine down better than I do, so they pretty much tell me what they have to do to get ready for school. They get home at 3:20 and we do our normal after school rituals of homework, game cube and tv. At 5 I scrounge some dinner around. Normally 5 is our vacuum, do-the-dishes and take-the-trash-out before mom gets home time. We all know what a lovable creature she becomes when there is towels behind the bathroom door, backpacks on the couch and a sink full of dishes. Especially if dinner is not started on top of all that. In that case, there is plenty of love to go around for the whole evening.

So Tomorrow will be the unpleasant day of cleaning up before Mom gets home. Out with the stack of empty pizza boxes. The laundry will have to be caught up. The book piles in the bedroom will have to be repositioned off her half of the bed back to the floor. The Laundry on the couch will have to be folded and the stack of knives and pans scrubbed. I will have to clean the Sonic bags out of the car so she can get in when I pick her up at the airport.

It will be back to the daily grind of living like civilized humans when she gets home. We'll have to have spaghetti, grilled chicken salad and bbq ribs for dinner. It will be tacos on Sundays again. Shoes will have to go back to the closet and towels to the laundry basket. Can you imagine if she was gone for a 2 weeks or a month? We might completely convert back to Neanderthals.

Need Addresses

Hello everyone......I need mailing addresses for everyone. All the immediate family...and also Aunts/Uncles if you have them. I have lost my book and so here I am starting over. Thanks a bunch!!!

Crazy at 41

Well, so much for getting rid of puppies. The young couple that took home a puppy, called today and said "We didn't realize that puppies were such hard work and we are just not ready for that much responsibility, Do you mind if we bring him back?" Are these people crazy or what???? So, I replied "Sure, bring him back but I'm not giving your money back!" I must be getting cranky in my old age.....we are only talking about $25.00. Such is life, I'm so glad today is Friday....I get to go home and do laundry!

From the big mama

Life is crazy on the prairie. Kids back to school...(jord back to school)...everyone trying to figure out what the schedule is. Too many things in to short of time. I know all of you have the same feelings. This time of year is when I miss Washington the most....Fair Time!!!!! We don't have a good county fair out here....Lots of State Fairs but nothing compared to good ole' Okanogan Fair. Lots of memories!! We only have 5 puppies left. Last night a young couple with a 2 year old took home Copper which was Kat's favorite. Kat was a trooper....no tears....a little sad around the eyes, but everyone survived. It's hard to let them go. I don't know how Jan does it. Got to go for now.

SURPRISE!

On the final weeks of our vacation in Washington, Janice, frantic, calls. "Aunt Kerri, your dog had puppies! What do I do?" My first response was, "It happened on your watch Janice, you have to take them home." It was a total surprise, we didn't know Shasta was expecting. The neighbor dog got through the electric fence, I guess. We have been enjoying them.

jlw