Category Archives: Uncategorized

TMI (LOL!)

1 Reply

Okay, I’m trying really hard to keep up with these Real Housewives of Oklahoma (RHOK). I know it’s not Monday and I’m not completely sure what a McLinky is but I can answer these questions better than I can do the slutty hokie pokie so here we go.

The RHOK

This is Everything You Need To Know or,  simply, TMI. (LOL! :-))

TEN FACTS

  • Name – Lauri
  • Nicknames – Lauri, Pebbles (don’t ask)
  • Any birth marks – Yes on the top of my right wrist. My mom thought it was dirt when I was small and tried to scrub it off with steel wool. And you wonder why I am this way. 😉
  • Hair color – Blonder than I’d like
  • Natural hair color – About this color
  • Eye color – Blue most of the times, green others
  • Height – 5’11”
  • Mood – Happy
  • Favorite color – Green
  • One Place You Want to Visit – Istanbul

TEN THIS OR THAT

  • Love or lust – love
  • Cats or dogs – dogs
  • A few best friends or many regular friends – Best friends
  • Television or internet – Internet
  • Chinese or Indian food – Indian
  • Wild night out or romantic night in – Comfy night in
  • Money or Happiness – Happiness
  • Night or day –  Day
  • MSN or phone – MSN

TEN HAVE YOU’S

  • Ever performed in front of a large crowd – Not often enough
  • Ever done drugs – I do Advil Cold & Sinus when the wind changes
  • Ever consumed alcohol -Yes
  • Ever Been on a dance team – No
  • Ever been on a sports team – Yes, cheer, rugby, track, swim
  • Ever been in a drama play/production – Yes
  • Ever owned a BMW, Mercedes Benz, Escalade, Hummer or Bentley? – nope
  • Ever been in a rap video? – No, but I’m actually in a Metallica video 🙂

(See the whole video here. This is at 3:23 approximately.)

TEN LASTS

  • Last phone call you made – One of my local titleholders
  • Last person you hung out with – The Dudelette and Scarlette
  • Last person you tackled – Hmmmm
  • Last person you IM’d – Geoff
  • Last person(s) you went to the movies with – I don’t usually go to the movies. It’s been too long to remember.
  • Last thing you missed – Leo
  • Last thing you ate – Cottage cheese with walnuts. Nom! 😉

WOULD YOU RATHER

  • Pierce your nose or tongue? – Neither. Did the naval and am over it.
  • Be serious or be funny? – Funny
  • Drink whole or skim milk? – Gah, blech, eeeuuww
  • Spend time with your parents or enemies? – parents but enemies are closer. LOL!

ARE YOU

  • Simple or complicated? – Confused

DO YOU PREFER

  • Flowers or candy? – Candy
  • Gray or black? – Black
  • Color or Black and white photos? – Color
  • Sunrise or sunset? – Sunrise
  • Staying up late or waking up early? – waking up early

DO YOU PREFER

  • Sun or moon? – Sun
  • Left or right? –  Left
  • Sun or rain? – Sun
  • Vanilla or chocolate ice cream? – Vanilla
  • Vodka or Jack Daniels? – Beefeater
  • Nervous Habits? – I’m not a nervous person, not sure I have one!
  • Are you double jointed? – No
  • Can you twist your tongue around and roll it? – yep
  • Can you raise one eyebrow? – yes, the right one.
  • Can you cross your eyes? – Yes
  • Do you make your bed daily? – No

QUESTIONS

  • Which shoe goes on first? – Left
  • Ever thrown something at someone? – Yes, we regularly throw dinner rolls around the table. 😉
  • On average, how much money do you carry with you? – debit card only
  • What jewelry do you wear? – wedding ring always, everything else up for grabs
  • Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it? – twirl
  • Have you ever eaten Spam? – yes when I was a child and had no choice
  • Favorite ice cream? –  coffee
  • How many kinds of cereal are in your cabinet? 0
  • What’s your favorite beverage? coffee
  • Do you cook? love to cook

LASTS

  • Last Alcoholic Drink: Beefeater martini
  • Last Car ride: To Tulsa
  • Last Movie watched: The Bucket List

Now let me see if I can figure this McLinky thingy out…

Tweet tweet tweet tweet auto tweet

2 Replies

I saw this tweet come through my stream last night:

I love this time of year-cool air, family & football!

Hmmm. In the 7 1/2 years I’ve lived in Oklahoma this is, without a doubt, the coldest winter ever.  The air isn’t just cool, it is by most accounts FRIGID.

And football? Well, the season is almost over. The Super Bowl is on Sunday.

An odd sentement to read yesterday to be sure. I wonder when it was set up to automatically tweet? I wonder if we’ll see it again in, oh say, June?

Twitter is for engaging. Actually being present, talking to the followers you have and those you are following. That is how real relationships are formed and sustained.

This is a particular soap box I like to climb on when I get the opportunity because the auto generated tweet confuses me. There is no engagement going on. When world events cause everyone who is actually present to be talking about that particular event and then you see a tweet like the one above come through, you just know that person isn’t really there.

So what do they gain? I just don’t know.

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. 🙂

Very special gifts

Leave a reply

I’d like to tell you about four very special women in my life. Women who started out as Mrs. Oklahoma but ended up being very special friends to me.

In our first year, we crowned Brookie. She was young, between the boys in age, but she was oh so strong and oh so amazing. Our first year with the pageant was lean. We were just being restored from losing all of our material possessions prior to our move to Oklahoma. The pageant is not a money maker but we are very grateful if it pays for itself. That first year, it almost did. But we didn’t have money for extras.

As we drove to Chicago, in a rented Durango, it was very, very dark on the road. Every time I tried to put the bright lights on, I’d accidentally turn on the windshield wipers. We were laughing so hard. While we were talking about hopes and dreams for the pageant’s future, I told Brookie that I was sad that she wouldn’t get any of that she said, “But we’ll always have this.” And we laughed some more.

Rachel, oh Rachel. I could not have gotten through 2009 without her friendship, help and prayers. A beautiful and quietly determined young woman, Rachel was my rock while my mom was sick. She kept things going, talking to potential contestants, helping me out, while I was in Illinois.

We have a lot of fun. Rachel is my go to gal and I love that I can bounce ideas off of her. She loves the International system and I’m so grateful for her continued involvement in the pageant and in my life.

In the middle of June, Heidi was thrown into my life, and my car, as Mrs. Oklahoma. With a scant three weeks to get her ready to compete at the Mrs. International pageant, it seemed like we were joined at the hip. After we got back from Nationals and didn’t see each other every day, it seemed weird, like something was missing.

Through our mad dash to Chicago, we became friends. Heidi is smart and savvy and she never lost her composure even though there was so much to do an such a short time to do it in. Heidi loves what the International system stands for – marriage, family and community service – and works hard to make sure other people see these qualities in her.

Although I was never her director, Shelly is most definitely my friend. When I took directorship of the pageant, I didn’t have a reigning titleholder. As Mrs. Oklahoma International 2004, Shelly was the one  who had most recently held the title. I knew her from another pageant and I asked her if she would serve as my reigning queen. She has been “in” since practically the first minute I started directing.  I call Shelly my field general and I wouldn’t want to do the pageant without her.

These four  special women are very special gifts in my life.  At this Christmas time, when I’m thinking of my blessings, I count them right at the top of my list. My wish for you is that you have people in your life that are as special to you as these ladies are to me.

xoxo,

Lauri 🙂