Monthly Archives: January 2011

I’m late

8 Replies

It makes me crazy to be late. I used to say that I was habitually early. For a lot of years of my life I was like that. But now, the closer I get to the pageant and the busier I get, I tend to be late sometimes. And it makes me crazy.

The RHOK

Over at The Real Housewives of Oklahoma, they are having a Super Bowl appetizer contest. I talked about it with Mrs. Hart and I assured her that I was going to enter. So I got ready to do the recipe today, went over to the site to see the requirements and  found out: I AM LATE.

The contest ended last night. Boo. I do so love to win.

Yes, I’m very competitive. I’m the one in grade school that stopped being invited to birthday parties because I would win all the games (and, hence, all the prizes!) but I digress.

Mrs. Hart, being the big HARTED woman that she is, said she still wanted to mention my blog on her post so I’m going to tell you about my Heroin Wings.

These are fabu, they are low carb, they are so flipping good, you will wish you had doubled the recipe!

First you’re going to want to take aluminum foil and line the pan. I understand that the gunk that will bake on if you don’t do this will destroy the pan. I haven’t tested it but I hate to do dishes that involve more than just loading them into the dishwasher so I use the foil.

I use of the the 4 pound bags of frozen chicken wings. Let them thaw out first.

Melt 3/4 cup of butter in the microwave.

In another bowl, put 1 1/2 cups of parmesan cheese, 3 tablespoons of dried parsley, 3 tsp of paprika, 1 1/2 tbs of oregano, 1 tsp ground pepper and mix up.

Then dip the chicken pieces in the butter

Cover them with the cheese mixture

And line them up like little soldiers on the pan.

Bake them at 350 degrees for an hour and you will have some addictive nomminess! (Is that a word?)

Sigh. I really wanted to be a Real Housewife of Oklahoma (check out the crown on their logo!) but at least I get the booby prize, ooops, the CONSOLATION prize, of a batch of these fabu wings. 🙂

Heroin Wings

4 lbs chicken wings or thighs
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons dried parsley
3 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon salt (I never add salt)
1 1/2 tablespoon oregano
1 teaspoon pepper

First, preheat the oven to 350.
Line a shallow baking pan with foil.
Then combine the grated cheese and the seasonings.
Melt the butter in a shallow bowl or pan.
Dip each chicken piece in butter, roll in the seasoned cheese, and arrange in the foil lined pan. Bake for 1 hour at 350.

IRL

5 Replies

So indulge me while I run my mouth a little more about one of my favorite things – twitter.

I saw an article the other day about 40 ways to be a social media rock star. Well you know that being a rock star is right at the top of the things I want in life (I just don’t want to fall down the stairs in front of my fans at my first gig) so I clicked through to the article.

I got to number 6 on the list and it is:

6. Make connections with people online, and then go and meet them in person in the real world offline

Meeting people in real life, IRL. That has been the very best part of twitter for me. I feel like I have friends all over the world and it’s so great to sit and have coffee with a new friend that I’ve come to know via twitter as we did yesterday.

@DougDowen, originator of one of my favorite phrases Carpe Java and another former Marine, DMd me that he would be in Tulsa dropping off a load and maybe we could get together. Doug is a truck driver and writes a cool blog about his experiences, at Dowen Rants. I have particularly enjoyed his Road Scholar series about his travels and travails as a truck driver. Cool stories from an educated man with an ability to turn a good phrase not to mention an 18 wheeler on a jug handle curve. 🙂

@DougDowen and I carpe-ing the java

I have one twitter list and it’s a list of people I have met IRL. Part of the reason for this is that I don’t want to offend anyone with a list I have that they aren’t on although I’m not going to lie, I love being added to a list called “awesomeness” (thank you @DanGordon).

@BeckyMcCray thinks that I have over thought the list thing but I like it that way. Either I’ve met you or I haven’t. You can’t fall off my list if you are on it. You never have to worry that you did something to be removed from the list and be sad. Okay, maybe Becky is right, maybe I have over thought it but I’ve had those feelings before.

I’m on a list and then I’m not. OMG what have I done?

But I think the reason I feel that way is that I truly love the relationships that I have on twitter and I feel they are very special.

With my blue eyed sister @corkit

My first goal with twitter was to follow, and get to know, everyone in Oklahoma. Now I think I need to start taking photos with the people who are on my list so you can see my very special twitter family.

It’s amazing how a device such as twitter can bring people together and forge such great relationships. The man I trust second most in my life, my hairstylist @gwelchel, I met via twitter and then IRL. Now we are Trichology Salon heads until we move out of Oklahoma.

While I do use twitter for business, and I do like it for that, it’s my personal, @LauriRottmayer account, where the magic happens.

So if you haven’t gotten into twitter, I say what are you waiting for? So many cool and interesting people to meet who may end up being your next best friend. Awesome! 🙂

Like white on rice

2 Replies

Or white rice. As the case may be.

We stopped eating white rice (and all white things i.e. flour, sugar, etc.) a while ago so it seemed odd to put that bag of white rice into the shopping cart last week. But my coffee grider was dirty.

Huh?

Yep, we grind our coffee (or whack our beans as we lovingly refer to it :-)) every morning. After a while there is a quite a build up in the grinder. This build up can cause the beans not to grind evenly and even make the coffee not taste as good as it previously did.

Using white rice is the simplest way I know of to clean the blade coffee grinder.

Exhibit A: Here’s the grinder after a week or so of whacking beans.

Gross, yes?

So to clean it, add white rice

and process like you are grinding coffee.  You will notice that all of the caked on coffee and oils will become mixed up with the ground rice. Empty it out and…..

Voila!

Shiny as new.

Super simple, super cheap, and hopefully, bringing you some great coffee! 🙂

The replacements

3 Replies

The other day as we were making plans to shoot the cover photos for the 2011 program book, Heidi, Mrs. Oklahoma International 2010, said, “Don’t like all this prep work for my replacement.”

It made me laugh but it sort of makes me feel sad and guilty, too.

Once we crown the new Mrs. Oklahoma, aside from helping her prepare for the Mrs. International Pageant, my job is to start finding her replacement and making arrangements to replace her.

Sad, yes? But Shelly, Brookie, Rachel and Heidi have each carved out their own special little place in my heart and that place will always be filled by them and no one else.

Dear Mrs. Oklahoma International 2011,

I love you, too.

Love, Lauri 🙂

Suddenly, I’m bright and breezy

4 Replies

Getting to know you,

getting to know all about you.

Getting to like you,

getting to hope you like me.

Remember that song from the old movie The King and I? Well, that’s how I see social media.

It’s all about relationship.

I have a sort of method to my social media madness. I want to like, follow and friend everyone in Oklahoma. I think that seems like a worthwhile goal since I live here and my business encompasses the entire state.  Along the way, I pick up other people who are not in Oklahoma who I enjoy just as much. But the first requirement for me to decide if I want to make the connection is “Do you engage?”

I want to, I LOVE to, talk to people and get to know them. Once you know someone, it’s so much easier to have fun and enjoy the relationship. Which is the only reason that I spend time doing something by choice – it’s fun. 🙂

So there is this follower I have on twitter. He has over 50,000 followers. The other day he posted that Klout (a tool used to determine some twitter stats) says that he must be the envy of his friends because of his large follower count.

I decided to visit Klout and I saw that his true reach (measured by interaction, retweets, etc) is 1,000 people. Interesting. With a follower count that high, I would certainly hope I would reach more of those 50,000 people.

Then I decided to check my Klout stats. I have a little over 3,200 followers and my true reach is 907. Nice, eh?

Why? Because I engage. I talk to people, engage them in conversation, encourage them to reach out to me and retweet items that I think will be of interest to the people who follow me.

So there it is. I’m sure I annoy some people on twitter who may think that I tweet too much. But to that I say, you need more followers. 🙂