Happy Birthday Nanci

the baking continues...

About 3 years ago I tried this recipe and have used it ever since. It's that good.
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The Best Banana Bread Ever. Seriously.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 5 or 6 bananas)


Preheat oven to 350.
Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
Combine flour, baking soda and salt.
In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar.
Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended.
Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Don't over mix!
Pour batter into loaf pan.
Bake 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.
Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack.

Enjoy!

Go Bolts!

Go Bolts!
Originally uploaded by photo kitten.

Getting ready to watch the game....

Sweet Dreams

I need a new mattress. When we got our pillow top mattress years ago, I thought it was heaven. It was sooo comfortable. But, unlike wine, a mattress does not improve with age.

So I'm looking at the Tempur-Pedic mattresses online. I have a Tempur-Pedic pillow and love it, so I'm thinking the mattresses will be pretty nice. They have a range of mattresses available. The first one is called "The Grand matress". Hey, that sounds good to me. Well.....it better be good for $6000 bucks! Next, the BellaSonna....$5000. Then, the Celebrity. This one has the has pillow top action goin' on. It's less than I thought it would be....only $3500. So now I just skip right to the end of the line because I need new tires, too, so $3000+ ain't gonna happen. I click on the "Original" bed. The name isn't really grabbing me like BellaSonna or Celebrity, but you know....$$ matter. So I figure I'll be lookin' at about $1000 bucks or so. Not quite. The ordinary ole "Original" bed is $2000.

Sheesh.

I know money isn't supposed to bring you happiness, but one thing is for sure, it can provide you with a more comfortable bed.

Happy Birthday Dianne!

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In Good Times & In Bad

Loving you is hard
One minute I am yelling at you
Then I am professing my endearing love
It's like being on a roller coaster

I wish I didn't care
You make me cry
Then you bring me joy
SO many ups and downs

Life would be less tense without you
I could relax and have less anxiety
I'd have a normal pulse
My blood pressure would be better, too

But I can't quit you
I do love you
I'll be your fan forever
Charger Power in my heart

So far I have done a good job with the resolutions....but it's only Jan 3rd. I've made my New Year's cards....soon to be dropped in the mailbox for delivery. I also made the oatmeal bread....however, the dough didn't rise. So....I did something wrong or the recipe sucks. I'm going with the recipe sucks. Tomorrow I might try muffins. I'll be perusing my cookbooks tonight looking for inspiration.

I also took another sunset photo. Greg took me to Moonlight Beach on the 1st and I got some nice shots. Here are two I posted on Flickr.

Sand Heart

Golden Foam

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I know Christmas is over, but this site is worth looking at if you have time to kill. It's good for a few laughs.
Tacky Christmas Yards

And I could not pass up posting my Elf name....

Your Elf Name Is...

Holly Sugar Butt

What's Your Elf Name?

Happy 2008!

I was asleep at midnight and Greg woke me up to count down the last 10 seconds and kissed me. That might seem..... pathetic, but it really isn't. I am just not a late night girl. I don't stay up till all hours like my friend Laura.....who, by the way, is in Rome! Now that's a New Years Eve to remember! She has been in Italy since Dec 22nd. Sounds nice, huh?

Anyway, so I don't stay up late.....I get up at the crack of dawn. Case in point, I am typing this at 6:45am. Just an early riser and I like it :)

I've been thinking about the new year a lot. More than I think I ever have before. You know, we make our own destiny. If we think we will fail, we will. If we think life sucks, it will. We create the things that happen in our lives. Sometimes that's hard to understand. Because, for example, how do we make our boss be a jerk? Well, he/she might be a jerk, but we choose how we will deal with it. In the heat of the moment it's hard to think "choose your destiny...", but in the time after you've cooled down, that is when a choice is made. Be mad, be hateful, be stressed....or....choose to move on. Moving on is the best thing to do. Staying in a bad moment is like taking the bad side of the fork in the road ~ laughs!

Also, everything happens for a reason. Nothing is by chance. It is our responsibility to learn from the things life serves us. Not always a fun lesson learned, but those lessons are sometimes the most character building. As Oprah says, ask yourself:

"what am I supposed to learn from this?"

The answers are not always easy and may take some time to be answered, but if you pursue the answer, you will find it....and there will be value in it.

So anyway, it's all about choose your destiny in 2008!

Now....resolutions. Are they a good thing or a bad thing? Worth doing or not? I don't know the answer. I think most people make at least one and by Valentine's Day they have fallen off the wagon and don't look back. But I guess they are a good place to start at least. So I've made some. And I really am going to try to still be on track by Valentine's Day. Hopefully by 4th of July I will still be going strong. Here's the list.

Make cards.
In 2007, I slacked off of card making in a big way. I made very few. I even purchased cards! I just wasn't feeling very creative. It was...well, a very lack luster year. But not this year.....cards, cards, cards! Just to prove, I'm making New Years cards! I started them last night :)

Health.
This is a biggie. The most important on my list. I don't talk about it. Not even to Greg. But I have some heart issues. Every time I go to the doctor she tells me my blood pressure is very high. That's scary considering I am on blood pressure medicine. So the meds are not controlling it. I know if I try to chill out at work, this will help. But there is other stuff I need to do, too. Not hard things, it's all very simple. It's just a matter of choosing to do it or not. This goes back to choosing our destiny. If I can lighten the load in my mind, I know I can take this head-on and win.

Photos.
Do you know I think I took one sunset photo in 2007? That is just....sad. I didn't feel like picking up my camera very much in 2007. Taking photos is one of my most favorite things to do....and I wasn't doing it. I missed a spectacular sunset in Hawaii because I didn't have my camera with me. If I had been in my right mind, that camera would have been hanging on my shoulder every where we went. 2008 will be different.

Baking.
I like to cook, but I love to bake! I watch the Food Network all the dang time. It's really better than regular TV. And I find it inspiring. Cooking is a creative persons playground. And baking can be like art. There is nothing better than making something that makes people oooh and awwwe just from looking at it. And I get personal joy out of making something pretty. So I'm going to bake more. And hopefully it will taste good :) Today, I am making oatmeal bread! On the back of the King Arthur's flour bag, I saw this recipe and in the caption it said it makes great toast. I am a toast girl, so this is what really sold me. And if it comes out of the oven pretty.....I'm sure there will be a picture of it!!

Decorate.
Our bathrooms were remodeled in 2006 and both of them are lacking in the decorative sense. The master bathroom is 90% done, but there are a few more things to do. And I have the stuff.....it's been sitting on the floor in a bag.....just didn't feel like doing it. The other bathroom is pretty much bare and I have nothing purchased. It's yellow and white and the theme is ducks. Might sound weird, but trust me, when it is done, it will be cute. I was thinking of putting up the words "just ducky" on the big wall in white letters with a little swimming duck. I have tomorrow off, so maybe I will go to the craft store and look for letters.

Write.
If I fail at any of the things on my list, this will be the one. I love to write. And I don't mean emails or blogging, I mean stories and poems. I have soooo many ideas for romance stories, but writing them down is like a part-time job. I dream poems. Isn't that weird? I wake up and roll over and in that moment, I remember them. I always tell myself, "get up and write that down" ~ but never do. By morning I have a hard time remembering exactly how it all went. They turn out okay, but not as good as the way they were in my dream. So maybe my resolution should be to get your ass out of bed and write it down! :)

That's it. Those are doable and nothing extreme. I was going to put down to read a book, but I know that will never happen. I read crap all day at work and I don't wanna read when I get home. Grated, what I read at work isn't fun or interesting stuff, but it more than fills my quota for reading. And I read blogs and magazines, to that counts, too. So there ~ no need to read a book!

Happy New Year, everyone! In 2008, make a new beginning...fill your heart with new hopes, reach out for new opportunities and celebrate the new year with a passion to make this year....yours!

Christmas Day Sunset

The Gift

A poor orphan girl named Maria
Was walking to market one day
She stopped for a rest by the roadside
Where a bird with a broken wing lay
A few moments passed till she saw it
For its feathers were covered with sand
But soon clean and wrapped it was traveling
In the warmth of Maria's small hand

She happily gave her last peso
On a cage made of rushes and twine
She fed it loose corn from the market
And watched it grow stronger with time

Now the gift giving service was coming
And the church shone with tinsel and light
And all of the townfolks brought presents
To lay by the manger that night
There were diamonds and incense and perfumes
In packages fit for a king
But for one ragged bird in a small cage
Maria had nothing to bring

She waited 'til just before midnight
So no one would see her go in
And crying she knelt by the manger
For her gift was unworthy of Him

Then a voice spoke to her through the darkness
"Maria, what brings you to me?
If the bird in the cage is your offering,
Open the door and let me see."
Though she trembled, she did as He asked her
And out of the cage the bird flew
Soaring up into the rafters
On a wing that had healed good as new

Just then the midnight bells rang out
And the little bird started to sing
A song that no words could recapture
Whose beauty was fit for a king

Now Maria felt blessed just to listen
To that cascade of notes sweet and long
As her offerings was lifted to heaven
By the very first nightingale's song

Hi All. Stopping here for a moment to pass along something. Below is a quote from a show I watch (Bones) and the scene was someone asking a therapist about Christmas spirit. She didn't understand why adults "lie" to children about Santa and why we must have a Christmas tree.....stuff like that. This was the answer she got and I think it's really insightful.

"As adults, we’re imbued by the pragmatic routines of life, which makes it difficult for us to regard anything with child like wonder. But, you know, it’s alright for us to try. We put on silly hats and drape trees with sparkly lights and wrap gifts in garish paper and that’s good for us. It’s not only alright to allow children the transient experience of innocence and joy – it’s our responsibility."

Take care and Merry Holiday to all.