Lavender Farm

This past Saturday, Bob and I took a day trip. We went to the Country Cottage Primitives Lavender Farm in Shawnee, Oklahoma. While it is not what I expected, it was worth the trip. For $5.00 you get to pick a bundle of fresh lavender. I have a beautiful bundle in our bedroom. The smell is unbelievable. Before we went picking, we had a glass of lavender lemonade. Strange taste. Glad I tried it, but don't need to try it again.



This is a row of the purple lavender. The garden is arranged by varieties. While I don't know the names, the colors are light purple, dark purple and white. The bees are flying all over the place. The lady told me they were making lavender honey.


This is a view of the gardens from where Bob was sitting under a huge shade tree. I love the Angel of the Garden. The whole place is so serene and quiet.


I don't know what the deal is, but we keep running into lizards on our day trips. There were lots of lizards running around the garden. You really had to watch were you were stepping. They were so hard to see when they were just laying there.

Here is the link to their website.

http://www.countrycottagelavender.com/

There is another lavender farm outside of Tulsa that has a winery attached to it. We are going to go to it later on.


We ate lunch at the Original Vans Pig stand. Good Bar-B-Que. When we got back into the car, the smell of Lavender was amazing.

Our rating for this trip is a great big:

June 16. Happy Anniversery Bob

Happy Anniversary Bob.

37 years. Can you believe that?!

What is even scarier is that I met Bob when I was 9 or 10 and we began dating when I was 15.

My parents ran a softball stadium for the Oklahoma City Parks and Recreation department. Dad was the umpire, Mom ran the concession stand and I sold tickets. Bob’s dad was the assistant director for the Parks department and was basically my boss. Bob was riding with the man that was picking up the ticket money for the nightly deposit. I did not know him from Adam and Bob came through the gate and would not stop to buy a ticket. I did what I was hired to do … I called the park policeman and told him to throw the bum out. The park policeman went and told mom, who promptly freaked out. I decided that I did not like Bob, and for the rest of the summer, he was a thorn in my side.

Every summer, he re-appeared. Just like a bad penny. Then the funniest thing happened during the summer of my Freshman year. He showed up with a friend of his, Roy. Roy asked me out and we doubled with Bob and his date, Lyn. Bob and I spent more time talking to each other than our dates. Bob began coming to the softball stadium to sit with me while I sold tickets. Our first date consisted of him taking me for a coke and then home after a nights work. We wound up driving completely around Lake Hefner. We have been together ever since.


Yup, that means we have been together a total of 42 years. 37 married and 5 dating.

We have had a lot of adventures and made a lot of memories. I hope our girls look back on their childhood and know that their parents loved them and tried their best to be good parents. We have bungled some things, but never meant to.

Yes, Bob and I have had our fights … OK, it is true that I threw his shoes and jeans out the front door into the yard … but the key is that we never gave up on each other and our marriage vows. At times, it would have been easy to just throw in the towel, but we both meant it when we said “till death do us part”. I promise, I have never kinked his hose long enough for him to lose consciousness, just long enough to get his attention.

Bottom line ... Bob I love you and thank you so much for loving me in return. You got the short end of the stick as far as wives go. I still can’t cook, but I can order in with ease. I know I drive you crazy with my constant putting stuff up in a different places in order to organize our lives better (wish I could remember where I put the razor blades, honey I promise I am still hunting for them). I have learned so much from you. You have always had faith in my ability to do whatever I wanted and have always been my number one cheerleader. Without you, I would not be the woman I am today.

Bob, I have tried to come up with the perfect Anniversary present for you and think I have found it. I will watch a Law and Order marathon with you. Now that is true love!

I love you forever,
Cindy

THE Tech. Conference

OK, So you guys have been hearing about THE Tech Conference forever. It has come and gone and I did not need to go to the hospital in between sessions. I promise you this will be the final discussion on the conference and I further promise Bob that he will not have to sit through one more rehearsal of either presentation. But first, here is a recap of my adventure.

For those of you who may have been in a cave the last few weeks, I was asked to present at the OKCPS Tech Conference. This all stemmed from my desire to become more of a Tech person and set up a blog, twitter and do Face Book. While I thought it was a joke, they were serious. There are lots of "older" folks who are not using the Internet and computer to make their lives easier and the thought was "if that old lady can do it, so can you."

Next thing I knew, my one session had been turned into two sessions. One was titled "Social Networking in the 21st Century for all ages". The other was "No matter your age, anyone can use Technology." I was so grateful that the titles did not say "Old lady can use the Internet".

Here is the sign that was hanging outside my door showing where people could find me. Pretty cool, I thought.


"No Matter your Age" was the first presentation. Basically this was a crash course in different applications that can and do make lives so much easier. Excel, downloading photos, Shutterfly and Photo Story were the ones that I went into in depth. I briefly touched on Ancestry.com, online banking and pharmacy websites. I set up blogs for each presentation so people could have some where to go for help. Here is the blog address for this session: http://nomatteryourage.blogspot.com/

Session two was Social Networking and I showed Face book, Twitter, Blip and Blogging.
Here is the blog address: http://aglesssocialnetworking.blogspot.com

I love this graphic. This could be Bob and I at his computer. Bob doesn't agree with me. He thinks that I would be reaching over him trying to get to the keyboard. [No comments from the peanut gallery accepted here :-)]

And here I am standing in front of the PowerPoint presentation.


This has got to be one of the highlights of my life. I learned so much during this process. I am not talking just about the technology that I learned, I learned a lot about myself. The only negative comment that I ever heard was from a person who questioned why someone like me would be allowed to present at this conference. I struggled with that and now know the answer. I may not have the initials behind my name that you do, but I am not a dummy and what I presented may have helped one person think outside the box that they have put themselves in. What better reason is there? Isn't that why most of you guys began teaching?

Thanks to all who helped me accomplish this feat.

The Prohibition Room

Linda and I went out to dinner last night (6/3). We went to the Prohibition Room located in the Gold Dome bank building at N.W. 23rd and Classen Blvd. We went on a Wednesday night and there were very few customers. In fact, there was one other group there. That made it very nice.

The ceiling is open which does not allow for any noise to be muffled. As most of you know, I have trouble hearing, and if there had been more people there, I would have not understood much of what Linda was saying. Keep that in mind if you go on a weekend.

They have unusual drinks that are reminiscent of the Prohibition era. Linda had a Dirty Martini while I had a Milk Punch and then a Lemon Drop. I had a friend tell me about both drinks and I simply could not choose, so I did both. The Milk Punch has milk, brandy, dark rum, sugar, vanilla and nutmeg. It was good, but I am so glad I had it first, because I will probably never order anything but the Lemon Drop again.

The Lemon Drop is Lemonade with vodka and grand mariner. The whole thing is served in a martini glass rimmed with sugar. OMG!!!! I wanted to order another, but thought 2 drinks would be enough.

For appetizers, we had Bruschetta. You get to choose 4 toppings and we decided to try some unusual toppings. White bean,Parmesan and Truffle oil: probably would not order again.
Roasted garlic and mozzarella: Good, probably would get again. Prosciutto and figs: Yummy, would get again. Brie and Fuji apple: OMG, this is a home run. I wanted to order it again for dessert. It is wonderful.

The main course consisted of Pork Loin with Habanero pepper sauce (the nightly special) and Filet Medallions. The pepper sauce was not too hot for me, just an after burn. Linda really like it though. The Filet was wonderful.

Of course we had to have dessert and opted for Banana's Foster. Wonderful (even though Linda intervened and wouldn't let me drink the sauce).

I was worried that we would be uncomfortable at the Prohibition Room as it appears to be a place for the younger crowd, but we felt right at home. In fact, we were there 4 hours!

I will definitely be dragging Bob there. This would be the perfect place for before a show, although I have a feeling that the weekends are jam packed.