In Your Neck of The Woods

The Real Housewives of Oklahoma are so excited to roll - out a new meme!

We housewives don't get out much. You know we are busy getting our facials, mani/pedi's, firing our nannies, yelling at our housekeepers, sipping martinis & gossiping about all our housewife friends.

So, we need you to show us what's going on in your world. Share something funny, scary, sweet, sad, crazy...whatever you want! It can be a pic, story, quote, favorite place or person...just show us what is going on in "Your Neck of the Woods"!

If you watch the Today Show then you know at the end of Al Roker's weather segments, when they cut to local broadcasters for regional updates, he says: "That's what's going on around the country, here's what's happening in your neck of the woods...."

So, here's what's happening in Mrs. Montgomery's neck of the woods...

This was taken at my local Sonic. 

Yep, those boys were waiting in the drive-thru line on their horses.

 I asked if I could take a picture  & they said, "Yes 'Mam."

Shortly after I shot the picture, their momma drove up in her Lexus. 

She rolled down her window & yelled in her best Okie accent, 

"You boys get those horses home right now!"

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

So what about you?

What's up in...

 your part of the world,

 your part of town, 

your neck of the woods!

Share your stories or pictures with the RHOK today and link up! 

Here's the drill...

1. Answer the question on your blog (or in the comments sections if you haven't a blog).

2. If you answer the question on your blog, add your name and direct link to our meme.

3. Grab our super cute, new button from the sidebar and post it either in your reply post or on your blog.

4. If you don't already, follow the RHOK here on our site and on Facebook. 

5. Be sure to visit some or all of the blogs who link up and share some comment love with them. Don't you love when that courtesy is extended to you? 

6. Enjoy and have some fun!

Can't wait to see what's going on in your neck of the woods!

Can I get a Yee-Haw?

Mrs. Montgomery,
Living in a hick town like...

Fun Facts about Oklahoma

Since we are The RHOK ~ Real Housewives of Oklahoma, I thought it would be fun to share some interesting facts about our great state. Some of these I knew, but a lot of them I didn't. I do know that there is nothing to be ashamed about when you say you are an Okie!

1. The bread twist tie was invented in Maysville, OK.
2. The shopping cart was invented in Ardmore in 1936.
3. The nation's first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City in 1935.
4. The first Girl Scout Cookie was sold in Muskogee in 1917.
5. Cimarron County, located in the Oklahoma Panhandle, is the only county in the U.S. bordered by 4 separate states — Texas, New Mexico, Colorado & Kansas . (I've actually stood on all those state lines!)
6. The Oklahoma State Capital is the only capital in the U.S. with working oil wells on its grounds.
7. Boise City , OK, was the only city in the United States to be bombed during World War II. On Monday, July 5, 1943, at 12:30am., a B-17 Bomber based at Dalhart Army Air Base, Texas, dropped six practice bombs on the sleeping town, mistaking the city lights as target lights.
8. WKY Radio in Oklahoma City was the first radio station transmitting west of the Mississippi River .
9. The nation's first "tornado warning" was issued March 25, 1948 in Oklahoma City minutes before a devastating tornado. Because of the warning, no lives were lost.
10. Oklahoma has the largest Native American population of any state in the U.S.
11. The name ' Oklahoma ' comes from two Choctaw words — okla meaning "people" and homa meaning "red." So the name means, "Red People." The name was approved in 1890.
12. Oklahoma has produced more astronauts than any other state.
13. Oklahoma has more man-made lakes than any other state.
14. During the "Land Rush," Oklahoma City and Guthrie went from vast, open prairie to cities of over 10,000 in a single day.
15. The nation's first "Yield" traffic sign was erected in Tulsa on a trial basis.
16. The Pensacola Dam on Grand Lake is the longest multi-arched dam in the world at 6,565 feet.
17. The Port of Catoosa (just north of Tulsa ) is the largest inland port in America.
18. The aerosol can was invented in Bartlesville.
19. Per square mile, Oklahoma has more tornadoes than any other place in the world.
20. 
    The highest wind speed ever recorded on earth was in Moore Okla. , on May 3, 1999 during the Oklahoma City F-5 tornado. Wind speed was clocked at 318 mph. (My husband almost lost his cousin and cousin's two girls in this tornado.)
21. The Will Rogers World Airport and the Wiley Post Airport are both named after two famous Oklahomans, both killed in the same airplane crash.

Oklahoma towns offer it all:

Love the summer?
~Poolville, OK
~Sunray, OK

Want something to eat?
~Cookieville, OK
~Corn, OK
~Grainola, OK
~Hominy, OK
~Olive, OK
~South Coffeeville, OK
~Sweetwater, OK

Why travel to other cities? Oklahoma has them all:
~Cleveland, OK
~Orlando, OK
~Miami, OK
~Pittsburgh, OK
~Sante Fe, OK
~St. Louis, OK
~Chattanooga, OK
~Peoria, OK
~Burbank, OK
~Fargo, OK

Don't forget the wildlife!
~Bison, OK
~Buffalo, OK
~Deer Creek, OK
~Eagle, OK
~Elk City, OK
~Fox, OK
~Wolfe, OK

There's a town named after a number:
~Forty-one, OK

A town whose letters don't spell anything:
~IXL, OK

For the sportsman who wants to get away from it all:
~Fisherman's Paradise, OK

We Even Have A City Named After Earth's Only Satellite!
~Moon, OK

A City Named After Our State!
~Oklahoma City, OK

Feeling a bit chilly?
~Cold Springs, OK
~Slick, OK
~Snow, OK

Oklahoma is full of LOVE:
~Bigheart, OK
~Lovedale, OK
~Loveland, OK
~Lovell, OK
~Loyal, OK

We even have our fair share of presidents:
~Adams, OK
~Carter, OK
~Clinton, OK
~Fillmore, OK
~Grant, OK
~Jefferson, OK
~Johnson, OK
~Lincoln, OK
~Reagan, OK
~Roosevelt, OK
~Taft, OK
~Taylor, OK
~Washington, OK
~Wilson, OK (This is where our very own Mrs. Hart is from.)

Just a smidgeling of songs about Oklahoma towns or the state:
~"Does the Wind Still Blow in Oklahoma?" – Reba McEntire & Ronnie Dunn (2007)
~"Home Sweet Oklahoma" – Leon Russell
~"I Heard Oklahoma Calling Me" – David Allan Coe
~"Never Been to Spain" – Sung by Three Dog Night, written by Hoyt Axton, an Oklahoman.
~"Okie from Muskogee" – Merle Haggard (1969) — 58th on the Top 500 Country Music Songs list.
~"Tulsa Time" – Danny Flowers, recorded by Don Williams, Eric Clapton, Reba McEntire, among others.     Flowers was the guitarist in the Williams band; the Williams and Clapton recordings were both released in 1978.
~"You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma" – writers: Sandy Pinkard, Larry Collins, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, recorded by David Frizzell and Shelly West, 1981.
~"Idabel Blues" – Red Dirt Rangers. Later recorded by Stoney LaRue. (I've seen Stoney LaRue perform this one. If you haven't listened to Stoney LaRue, you should!)

And, the big one that everyone knows is:
~ "Oklahoma" is the title song from, and the finale to, the Broadway musical Oklahoma!, named for the setting of the musical play. The state of Oklahoma officially adopted the song as its state song in 1953. State Representative George Nigh, who later served as the state's Governor, was the principal author of the legislation designating the state song.

Other city names that will make you smile:
~Bowlegs, OK
~Bugtussle, OK
~Bushyhead, OK
~Frogville, OK
~Hooker, OK (I actually lived in Hooker for a very short time. It's in the panhandle.)
~Loco, OK
~Slapout, OK (If you blink your eyes, you'll miss this little town if you are driving towards the panhandle.)
~Slaughterville, OK (This is south of Norman.)

And regardless of what side of the fence you're on......
~Gay, OK
~Straight, OK

There will be a Oklahoma history quiz next week! I expect you all to pass with flying colors!

~Mrs. Albright

A Christmas Memory

A Christmas memory? What?  You're probably sitting at your desk shrieking, "Mrs. Nesbitt, has the Oklahoma heat gotten to you? Have you done gone mad?"

Well, "mad" is a relative term and today I think I'm relatively close. Factor in the following things: summer vacation, a holiday which involves 20+ guests and explosives, some business drama I'd rather not disclose (nor deal with, to be quite honest), a week of Camp Nesbitt wherein my three children and my sister's kids camp out at my house and we watch gratuitous amounts of "Phineas and Ferb", make pom-pom crafts and God's Eyes and eat a lot of hot dogs and the fact I have PMS and you now know why I am dragging out a Christmas memory for you today.

Consider it my gift to you, while you sweat and watch your hair frizz in the humidity, you can read about a simpler time, a cooler time, a time in which the scene opens to the Nesbitt kitchen, December 2009.....

--FADE IN--

...........The kids and I watched A Christmas Story the other day and ya know, that is one movie that never gets old and always amuses the heck out of me. I particularly love the dad and his penchant for swearing. I know, it shows a lack of intelligence to swear and all that, but the 12 year old in me still finds cussing absolutely hilarious. The scene at the end of the movie where neighbor Bumpus' dogs bust through the kitchen door and make short work of devouring their turkey is rip-snorting hysterical to me because the dad's cussing is so hilarious.

Tuesday morning Cousin Courtney and Conner came out to make Christmas candy. Okay, really Conner had nothing to do with it; he served to entertain my children, thus keeping them from bugging us in the kitchen. She and I work very well together and just enjoyed dipping and sugaring and melting and stirring and laughing.

We made chocolate-covered marshmallows, chocolate-covered caramel corn, chocolate suckers and some Double Chocolate Ooey Gooey Marshmallow Pillows That Will Surely Put You Into a Diabetic Coma for the Holidays. Courtney also decided to try her hand at peanut butter balls, which she thought were just peanut butter and powdered sugar mixed together. I had no idea, but it sounded good to me. They lacked some substance. We're thinking there might've been another ingredient or two. As she was trying to glop the balls of conglomeration into the molten chocolate they were disintegrating, so I suggested freezing them.

She plopped the gooey messes onto a cookie sheet and because my boy-child was the one who was breezing through the kitchen in search of Koolade at that particular moment he was the one who was nominated to run them to the freezer on the back carport. We carried on with more candy-making and about 45 minutes later she wondered if I thought the peanut butter balls were set up enough to dip and headed to the back door to find out. I visually followed her path through my utility room and caught sight of my office window which looks onto the carport. It was then noticed something - the freezer door was open.

It's a large stand-up freezer and when the door is open it blocks the window completely. I screamed "THE DOOR IS OPEN!" Courtney jumped and said, "No, the back door's shut, Mrs. N." I said, "OH MY GOSH THE FREEZER DOOR IS OPEN!" and I all but knocked my itty bitty cousin over as I plowed past her to....well, I don't know what I thought I was going to do.

We both blasted out onto the carport to find frozen Schwan's pizzas all over the ground and as soon as we hit the concrete cats started flying out of the freezer like they were being catapulted. (Get it, CATapulted? Ha! I slay me.) Out flew the gigantic tom cat, Michelle Duggar (Yes, we have a cat named Michelle Duggar. She's quite...uhm....fertile), that fuzzy black and white thing and the hateful black one with one white whisker - all of them feasting upon the icy delights beheld in my freezer. I, of course, started cussing. And hollering. And shrieking. And between my wailing I heard my oldest say to my male offspring, "OHHHHH you better get ready because you are about to get BEAT!" I also vaguely remember him saying, "BUT I SHUT IT! I SWEAR!" All that was background to the blood pounding in my ears. I do remember kicking the dog who thought us being there was some kind of permission to continue on what he had been doing, which was gnawing on a frozen package of hamburger. Seriously, dog has some crazy strong teeth to have gotten through half a pound of frozen hamburger.

Courtney was laughing and I knew I should've been, too, but at the time all I could think was why on earth do we have SO MANY CATS? When I finally calmed down enough to see straight and quit verbally threatening my son's behind and the life of every feline on our property I started taking stock of the damage. Half a package of hamburger, gone. One frozen chicken, gnawed on and scratched. I tossed both of those out into the yard. I looked up at the cookie sheet of peanut butter balls and said, "Courtney, I think your peanut butter balls are okay! They look okay!" She, however, was not convinced. She shook her head and said, "Ohhhh, I don't know....that fuzzy cat was right there when got out here....I'm not sure...." I reassured her they were fine, so she pulled the cookie sheet off the shelf. I was still checking out the three rolls of frozen Blue & Gold sausage to make sure there were no teeth marks on any of them when I heard her bust out laughing.

I looked up to find her holding the cookie sheet in my face. She said, "Uhm.....the balls are NOT fine. LOOK!" Sure enough, there were three balls gone and nothing left in their place except for frozen smears with cat-tongue prints in them. At that point, I allowed myself to laugh.

After I secured the freezer and double-checked the door, we went back in the kitchen and it occured to me that I had just been Bumpused. No, it wasn't the Christmas turkey on my dining room table that was obliterated by the neighbor's hounds, but instead my cousin's balls in my freezer by my own cats.

--FADE OUT--

--SCENE END--

See, don't you feel cooler and more refreshed already?


~~Mrs. Nesbitt

When Life Imitates a Bad Sitcom

Our house was built in 1976. Up until last summer the windows in our house were the original windows - flimsy, aluminum windows. The pegs that you pushed to open the window were dry-rotted and broken on the majority of them and that meant if you wanted a breeze you'd have to prop the window open with wooden spoon or one of those free rulers you get at the county fair each summer. Several of them were rattly which was unsettling when the ol' wind would come sweeping down the plains.

A few years ago a guy selling siding and windows came to our house to give us his pitch and try his darndest to sell us new windows throughout our house. After calculating the number of windows (18) and telling us the merits of his fancy schmancy windows he wrote an absurdly obscene number on a sheet of paper and slid it across the table at us. After we picked our eyeballs up and put them back in their sockets we told him to get out of our house. He wanted nearly $20,000 for 18 windows. I have this sneaking suspicion that company didn't sell a lot of windows and that maybe the ones they did sell were to little old ladies who are now eating dog food because they spent all their money on windows.

After that we didn't entertain the thought of new windows anymore. Even though we knew that his bid of $20,000 was WAY more than windows actually cost, we were still gun shy. We decided to spend our money on important things like a trip to Disney World. But then the economy started taking a dive and the environment went all wonky and our electric bill started climbing higher -- it was like an algebraic equation for dog food casserole.

The year before, Mr. Nesbitt's brother and nephew had new roofs put on their houses and they used an Amish company out of Kansas. They were very impressed with the work and Paul's nephew also had them install windows. Again, the work was impressive and the price was lower than what his brother had paid for windows at Lowe's a few months prior. Paul called the number on the business card he was given and even though the card said "Leave a message" he ended up talking to a real live person - a real live AMISH person.

In our community there are quite a few Mennonite families and a church/school just a few miles up the road. They are like Amish Lite - they drive cars, have phones, electricity, etc. but they still wear the cute little Amish clothes and seem to be pretty religiously strict. I've always been under the impression that the Amish do not have electricity or phones, nor do they drive cars. I mean, you see the pictures of their little buggies sharing the highway with cars, right? My aunt, apparently an Amish expert, explained to me that they can have phones as long as they are not taken into the home. And this particular Amish fella has a driver that drives him and his crew to jobs and then sits in the truck all day while they work. (Smart guy, that driver) So he and Mr. Nesbitt chatted that night and worked out a time for him to come over and measure for windows.

I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that day. I briefly thought about changing into a skirt before he arrived but then remembered I don't own one. So I just decided that I would stay in the house and stay out of the way because I thought the menfolk would stay outside. See, my darling husband had been asked earlier that day by me to take down the blinds in the bedroom and hose them down because folks, they were DUSTY. And by dusty I mean "so dirty they should be in a haunted house." But no, he said, because the guy would measure from the outside. Now, my intelligent mind told me that this was not true, but my man would not be swayed. I think he was in denial that his wife is a horrible housekeeper and he just hoped the guy would measure outside.

Well, right after Mr. Amish Man and his non-Amish driver showed up Mr. Nesbitt stuck his head inside the front door and said, "Hey, come out here a minute." I looked down at my jeans in panic, considered quickly wiping off some of my makeup, but then decided I didn't have time. I stepped out onto the porch, smiled at our Amish guest and then gave my opinion on what color windows we were going to get.

It was at that precise moment my black-fingernail-clad 12-year-old daughter came busting out the front door wearing a shirt postiviely COVERED in skulls, mouth full of toothpaste, declaring loudly, "DUDE. I JUST BROKE MY TOOTHBRUSH." Then she realized there was a strange bearded man in a straw hat standing on our porch holding a window in one hand and was trying to keep our dog, Gravy, from humping his leg with the other. She nodded his general direction, sucked the toothpaste in her mouth and said, "'Sup." Then went back in the house. I looked at Mr. Amish Man and shrugged.

But then, because God truly does have a sense of humor, that was the exact moment our youngest daughter came busting out the front door, screaming her head off, our son and my nephew close on her heels, waving Nerf guns over their heads shouting, "KILL THE GIRL! KILL THE GIRL!" We just grinned and shook our heads. And Gravy just kept on trying to hump that poor Amish man's leg.

After it was decided we would be getting white windows, I went back in the house, plopped down in my chair in front of my laptop and grabbed up my cell phone to send a Tweet about our amorous dog. The seven-year-old came into the living room and asked why there was a leprechaun in our front yard. I just patted her arm and said, "Sweetie, we live at the end of the rainbow. Now go play with your brother and cousin some more." A few minutes later Mr. Nesbitt and Mr. Amish Man came in to begin measuring. Didja catch that? They came IN to begin measuring. I was wishing I had a nifty pause button on my life like we have on our DVR - I just needed long enough to hose down those haunted house blinds, do a few loads of laundry, mop the kitchen floor, sew myself a skirt and maybe find a different shirt for our Emo child

I moved to the couch so they could get to the window. As Mr. Amish Man was measuring he asked the question, "So, Mr. Nesbitt, where do you work?" I stopped mid-Tweet to watch the conversation. Not thinking to lie through his teeth, my husband replied, "I'm a Supervisor at a casino. I work on slot machines."

The poor guy's beard actually twitched as he briefly paused his measuring to process that reply. I bit my lip to keep from busting out laughing and decided that Twitter would have to wait a few minutes because I needed my phone free to throw at my husband if he said anything else that might cause our window man to have a massive coronary in our living room.

Funny. He didn't ask about my profession. I can only assume he thought I was a street walker or voodoo priestess. I'm sure God got a big ol' earful from that little suspendered man that night. In fact, I'm pretty sure their entire community had prayer for us heathens.

When it was all said and done he gave us a super low bid on the windows and even though he said he wouldn't be able to install for three months, thus giving me sufficient time to sew myself a skirt, I instead decided to keep it real -- and I wore shorts.

~~Mrs. Nesbitt

Word to Your Possum

Since it's National Humor Month I thought I'd yuk it up this week, although I don't know if there's any post that can beat Mrs. Albright's last post. I'll give it a whirl, but it's not about poo. And even though I have plenty of stories about poo myself, I'll leave that particular genre to Mrs. Albright and Mrs. Priss. I hear Mrs. Priss is the Queen of Poo Posts. But maybe that's just a rumor Mrs. Robinson started.

-------------

Mr. Nesbitt, the little 'bitts and I live on 40 acres out in the rural paradise of northeast Oklahoma. We have roughly 30 acres of pasture and the rest is woods. We have two ponds on our place as well as a barn. What I'm getting at is this: There is no shortage of hidey-holes for critters and varmints out here. We have seen our share of coyotes, rats, mice, possums, raccoons, deer, bobcats and panthers. Oh and also squirrels, birds and snakes. It's like Dr. Doolittle's dream vacation spot.

Now, y'all, I love living out here and I grew up in the country, so I can legally call myself a "country girl", but can I share something with you? I don't like critters. I hate birds, and chickens scare the living daylights out of me. I am terrified of mice, a fact which makes my husband take great delight in chasing me around with a dead mouse on a trap when we have the misfortune of having a little rodent visitor. Our children have ZhuZhu pets because that is the only form of small rodent creature allowed in the house - the kind with mechanical guts. All others rodent intruders are subject to traps, poisons and if they get too close to me, death by drowning because I will pee my pants. I don't like holding baby chicks, cuddling with fuzzy kittens or feeding ducks at the pond. I'm definitely no Ellie Mae Clampett.

 A few years ago I was outside on the carport late at night. A lot of times in the warmer months Mr. Nesbitt and I will go outside after the kids are in bed and just sit in the lawnchairs or on the swing and just enjoy being where we are. That particular night he didn't join me - probably because there was a COPS marathon on TV and who can resist that? The carport is on the end of the house and opens up to the front, side and backyard, so it really is a good place to sit and just enjoy the scenery. At the time we had a gigantic Chow/Lab mix named Jake, the most gigantic and gentle dog that ever existed. He would bark when someone drove up to warn us of possible danger or robbery, would bark when critters would wander about the yard to warn us of possible attack a la Animal Farm and would bark when the wind blew to warn us of impending uhm....windy-ness. He was fiercely protective of the kids and me and once tried to bite the septic tank guy because he smelled like well, septic tank and made a sudden move toward me and I guess Jake equated the smell of poo with danger and doom.

That summer night on the carport I was in a lawn chair with Jake at my side, both of us quiet and reflective (well, as reflective as a dog can be, I guess). The windows were open, there was a little breeze blowing, the frogs were chirping out by the pond, all was right with the world.....when suddenly Jake bristled next to me and let out a low growl. I was snapped from my rural reverie and looked around to see if it was impending burglary, animal takeover or .... wind.

It was a possum.

On the carport.

WITH ME.

I immediately jumped up and hollered, "POSSUM!"

Now, I expected that with a cry as desperate as that, my brave husband would have heard my distress and come running. No such luck. Apparently the escapades of the characters evading police capture on the TV were so captivating he had blocked out everything else - including his wife and dog who were at risk of possum attack.

Again I hollered, "POSSUM! POSSUM! POSSSSUUUUMMMM!" and then I did what I had seen my Papa do back on the farm - I stomped my foot at the varmint and hissed. I guess the possums on Papa's farm were big ol' fraidy cats because they always ran when he did that. Oh, but not the ferocious furry beast on my carport that night. I can only assume that stomping and hissing is possum gangster talk for "Let's rumble, punk." He hissed back and moved TOWARD me.

The rather benign creature who had wandered onto the carport in search of dogfood went from looking like this:

to looking like this:

in mere seconds.

And that's when I took off running. I headed toward the front of the house by way of the sidewalk, barefoot as the day I was born, ratty nightshirt flappin' in the wind, hollering, "POSSUM POSSUM POSSUM POSSUM!" the whole time.

Paul said he was sitting there in his recliner watching TV when suddenly he heard THUMP THUMP THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP followed by screams of POSSUM!, then saw me fly by the front picture window. Preceded by the dog.

He could hardly shoot the dang thing because he was laughing so hard at his not-so-brave country girl wife and less courageous dog.

We've only had one other possum wander onto the carport since that night and the only reason I can figure why is that the phrase "Let's rumble, punk," by way of a stomp and a hiss, followed by the blast of a shotgun means I am one truly effective rural gangster. Word.

~~Mrs. Nesbitt