Banana Bread

A good friend of mine recently gave me a whole grocery bag filled with ripe bananas. Most of them got peeled, wrapped up in foil, and frozen, but I left a few out to make banana nut bread. I have to say that I am pretty proud of this recipe. I am not sure where it originally came from, but it is the same one that my Mom has always used, and because of that so have I. When it comes to banana nut bread, there are about a million recipes out there, but this is my go to.

 

• 2 cups sifted all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1t vanilla
• 1t baking soda
• 1/2t salt
• 3-4 mashed bananas
• 1 cup ground or chopped nuts

Cream the butter; add sugar and cream. Stir in eggs and vanilla; add bananas. Then stir in dry ingredients and nuts. Pour into 2 bread pans, and bake at 325 degrees for 55-60 minuets.
*****Something that my mom and I do that make this even extra yummy, we rub butter or shortning on the pans then coat them with sugar. Yum Yum!!

This bread is great for breakfast, and also just for a snack throughout the day. I love to warm it up in the toaster oven, and then add a little butter!

Spending The Weekend In The Woods

A year ago, Steve found an article about this cabin in a magazine, and the whole family fell in love with it. So, Steve did some research and found where the cabin was, and we started planning dates on when we could all make it out there. Well often times life gets in the way of our plans, and we had to reschedule a couple of time. We finally made it out on the last weekend it was open for the season! How lucky!

It took us about 6 hours to get to the cabin, so I got all that time in the car with my hands free of kiddos. I got a lot of knitting done! It is not that often that I get so much time at once to work on a project.

This cabin is tucked away in the White Mountains. It has running water, and is solar powered. There was an amazing front porch with a view of an open meadow, where wildlife sightings are common. Oh, and the fireplace, I love that fireplace!

We took Miss O fishing for the first time, and Short Round was content to hang out on the big front porch. He loves to be outside.

It only took us about 15 minuets to decide that we wanted to come back to this beautiful place. However, next time we will chose a warmer month to visit.

This Monster Cookie Goes Out To Mike Cromika

A year ago today we lost a special man; one of the best. We miss him greatly, and think of him often.

Thrifting

This giant mess in my sewing room floor is my stash from my latest thrifting adventure

I got a couple of sheets. I am not sure what I am going to do with the blue sheet, but the heart one is going to have a new life as a pair of pj pants. I got it for $1.60, you can't beat that for a pair of pj pants! The one on the far right is a tablecloth that I plan on using to protect the table, when Miss O and I are working on crafts.

These are just some cute kids clothes.

 

This is my collection of pillowcases that I am going to use to make pants for Short Round and maybe a dress for Miss O. Oh, the Tow Mater pillowcase is for Miss O. She kept calling it her blanket, and it was just to cute so I had to get it.(it was only 30cents)

New shirts for DJ! $3.00 each

Ahhhhh! Thrifting! I love it. I have not gone in so long. Since before Short Round was born. I am super pumped to get started on repurposing some of these things into stuff that my family will use. I will make sure I post the finished results.

Knitting Update

Now that the weather is cooling off, many folks have picked up their needles and started knitting. For many, it is nice and cozy to cuddle up with a blanket and a current project, but for me I get the crazy urge to start knitting around July. This has been a trend ever since learning how to knit. Another trend is planning to make Christmas gifts for my loved ones, but never starting soon enough to knit a gift for anyone. This year I got an early start. I have many of my gifts planned out, patterns printed, and yarn purchased. I even have a couple of the projects started, but I have to be careful of what I am working on when I am around some of these folks.

For someone special, I decided to try something new; lace. Now keep in mind I am a fairly new knitter, and have not branched out a lot. I also do not have much experience in troubleshooting.

 

Well, I messed up, and did not know how to fix it. Sooooo, I just ripped out what I have spent the last few days of spare time working on! As you can see from the picture above, I did not get very far, but my spare time is very limited these days, which makes having to rip it out more tragic.

New goal, learn how to fix my mistakes so I don't have to do this again!

Enjoying The Last Days of Summer

Even though it is now Fall, and most of the country is cooling down, it is still pretty warm in the desert. We are all still wearing t-shirts and shorts, and spending lots of time outside working in the yard. A couple of days ago I was watering the herbs in the front beds and Miss O just could not resist the sprinkler. I got to sit, knit, and  listen to Miss O giggle while playing and enjoying the nice weather.

 How nice!

{this moment}

A Friday treat- a single photo with no words to capture a moment in the week

 

Joining Amanda for {this moment}