Bananas Around Here

I bought bananas last week for the express purpose of making banana bread, which I’ve been craving like nobody’s business. I’ve wanted it all summer, but this summer has been something else – a newish baby, putting our house on the market, keeping said house clean for showings, having it sell quickly, finding a house, trying to pack, etc. – so I buy bananas over and over again, let them get too ripe to eat, miss the window, and then either put them in the freezer or the trash. If I had a dollar for every banana I’ve wasted, well, I’d have some dollars. I also have a history of making less than tasty loaves, but I don’t lack perseverance and store-bought banana bread is gross. So yesterday was the day. Bananas? Check. Sort of. Two overripe and one in the produce drawer that might have crossed the line to rotten. Betty Crocker cookbook? Damn. Packed. Okay, find suitable recipe online? Check. Start batter. Loaf pans? F**K. Packed. Let’s go with a casserole dish! Buttermilk? What the heck? Who actually has buttermilk in the fridge. Go with the standby of a couple of tablespoons shy of a half a cup of skim milk topped off with vinegar. Mashed bananas. What? I needed a cup and a half of bananas? Well, even including the part-of-a-mostly-rotten third banana, I have just shy of a cup. So…let’s throw in some applesauce! I’m suuuure this is all going to turn out fine. Recipe for disaster. Okay, maybe not disaster, but not good food either.

Surprisingly, it was the best banana bread we’ve ever had under this roof. Who knew? High pressure cooking is apparently up my alley. Tomorrow the remaining pots and pans are getting packed. Might as well end on a high note.

(Original Recipe from the Betty Crocker website)

Lori’s Can’t Believe This Worked Banana Bread

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened (60 seconds in the microwave on 20% power)
2 eggs
1 cups mashed very ripe bananas (Turns out clear rotten is cool too. I had three smallish bananas.)
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup buttermilk (or “buttermilk”)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

1. Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom and sides of a four quart casserole dish because your loaf pans are in storage.

2. Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, applesauce, “buttermilk” and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Pour into dish.

3. Bake a four-quart casserole dish 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Dump loaf out of dish, being surprised that it doesn’t fall apart. Plan to cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Scratch that idea and cut it immediately and slather with butter and ignore that your fingers are burning. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days. Or eat it all in one day like we did.

Debuting in 2015. Or so.

This blog rises from the dead. Check in for thrifty furniture and room rehab before and afters, family tidbits, links to things I appreciate, and general nonsense.

 

 

Countdown

Kings Island opens in…eight days!  Last year I (in various combinations with my family) went twenty-five times.  Let’s see if I can break that record this year!

Flail

The light
Streetlight light
through bamboo blinds
Striped right arm
Quiet
Sharp warm and skin
Drifting into electronic heaven
Synthesized
Waking screaming with no sound
Repeat

Comedy With Feet

I know kids say the darndest things (How on earth did a sentence with such a ridiculous word in it get to be so commonly used?!), but a lot of the time they aren’t worth the trouble for the comic relief. Between the feeding, the dressing, the bathing, the teaching, the discipline, and certainly not least the sickness, sometimes it’s easy to forget just how FUN they can be.

Today Log said, “I need a ruler.” Well I only have a six-inch ruler handy, so I asked, “How long?”  His response?  “Only about three or four minutes.”  Ba dum dum!

You can’t buy that kind of fun.

Spring

I just wanted to share my love for the green green grass in my front yard…

On grammar…

I swear, this is truly a strange conflict, and so unique to the internet era.  I think it might even have trumped the most recent evil argument, “Working versus stay at home moms.”  I didn’t even know that was possible.  I have never seen a group more defensive than those whose writing comes across as near-illiterate. 

I care about good grammar (for myself) even in the context of emails or Internet message boards.  I wouldn’t speak improperly just because I was ordering food at McDonald’s and not delivering a Presidential address. Nor would I consciously type things spelled wrong, punctuated wrong, or using the wrong form of a word. Not that it doesn’t happen; I haven’t met anyone yet who never makes grammatical mistakes!  But it’s nuts not to think it affects a person’s image any less than any other part of herself that she puts out there.  Put it this way.  Say you have very nice hair. My guess is that you spend a good bit of time on it – adding product, straightening or diffusing, etc. before you go out, yes?  Well I don’t give a shit about my hair.  At all.  I wash it and I comb it.  And it doesn’t ever look very good.  I am totally cool with this, but I would never expect someone to not judge me for it.  Or, say you keep your kitchen spotless.  And you go to someone’s house on a Wednesday afternoon and her kitchen is really, really dirty. I’m talking grease stains behind the stove, crumbs all over the floor, dirty dishes in both bowls of the sink, and a funny smell coming from the fridge. Do you still love your friend? Sure.  But do you notice and dislike the ick?!  Yeah, and if you say you don’t?  Probably lying.

Because here’s a truth. We ALL judge each other. No matter how many times it’s denied, it’s how it works. The way we look, the way we act, the things we say, and the choices we make. And based on these judgments, we find our friends. The people we like, the people who interest us, and the people we connect with  – the people we want to spend more time with. Just because we don’t always condemn people for our findings doesn’t mean we aren’t doing it.

The Internet age is special people, and loads of fun.  We find ourselves putting more and more of our personal information, our quirks, and even deficiencies of personality and intellect right out into the world for anyone to see.  And having good – or at least decent – grammar is as important to me as putting on deodorant and clean jeans.  Neither how I write nor what I put on affects who I am on the inside, but both keep me from looking like a skeezy idiot.

I’m It

My friend Heather did this to me on Facebook.  I got so much out of reading hers that I actually decided to participate.  It took me all day, so I’m putting it on here too.  I hope you and I are still friends after.

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

1. I am prejudiced against Canadians. As a rule they drive me nuts, and I start to get wary the moment I find out someone hails from north of the border. Texans generally bug me too.

2. When I was in my teens (and interestingly, had my first subscription to Seventeen magazine), I really REALLY wanted to be a model – and dreamed about it all the time. The only things that held me back were being too short, too fat, and not pretty enough.

3. I love to poke the bear. Afraid of birds? I’ll send you a picture of me covered in birds. Do certain words freak you out? I’ll say them as much as I can, sometimes even if the context isn’t quite right. I apologize for being this way, and would never push it to the point of being hurtful.

4. In third grade I had quite the hallucinogenic experience, and wound up in the hospital for three days after eating the orange seeds from inside a thistle pod. Scared the bejeezus out of my parents and missed Thanksgiving dinner. As an adult, I’d love to go give ’em another go.

5. I LOVE old stuff. Furniture, houses, clothes. I do not love antiques, as I’m not a careful person. Just old and ratty please.

6. I am a walking, talking crisis of faith. I didn’t believe in God until I was in my early twenties and, after seven or eight years, couldn’t hang onto the feeling of a higher being. I can’t imagine EVER telling my children this, as I feel that faith is the cornerstone of humanity.

7. I get very, VERY jealous, very easily. Over stupid stuff – travel, appliances, cars, kids, pets, you name it. It doesn’t usually last, and I NEVER tell.

8. I judge people who have terrible spelling and grammar – especially if they homeschool.

9. I have two separate sets of scars that were acquired while rolling down hills – once in a box, once in a pipe.

10. My favorite daydream is running off to the tropics and being some sort of beach bum waitress. I also imagine driving my car off the edge of most bridges and overpasses when I cross over them. It’s almost a struggle to keep the wheel straight. Oddly, I’m quite happy and content most of the time.

11. I LOVE having company – watching other people’s kids, sleepovers, having friends over for dinner, parties, weekend guests, whatever. I love to host. I would rather have people in my home than go out any day of the week.

12. I don’t like animals very much. I like to visit my friends’ but I don’t really want one of my own. Except maybe a goat. A friend’s ex-girlfriend told me she feels the same way about kids.

13. Elderly people creep me out and scare me. I find this really embarrassing, and am working hard on getting over it.

14. I will spend hours and hours online filling up virtual shopping carts with things I’d like to have, but never buying them. Well, not never, but rarely.

15. I wish I hadn’t gone to college.

16. I’m a sneak eater. I’ll go out to eat, get carry-out, or even bake batches of cookies and eat them all and not tell anyone.

17. I LOVE LOVE LOVE West Virginia. An almost unreasonable amount. To the point that my eyes tear up every time I cross the Memorial Bridge. But I wouldn’t want to live there again.

18. I really like to go out alone – shopping, dinner, movies, whatever. I enjoy going with friends and my husband, but going solo is just as good.

19. When there isn’t another adult in the car with me, I keep up a running commentary while I’m driving. Things like, “There you go buddy, go ahead and get over now,” or, “Was that really necessary. There’s no need to be rude,” or, “I’m really sorry, my bad.” I bet someday my kids will think I’m nuts.

20. I hate shoes that tie. The only pair I have are sneakers, and I usually just keep them tied and squash my foot in. But I only wear them to the gym.

21. I LOVE to have my scalp massaged. And to have my hair washed at the salon. I swear, if I had a tail, it would wag.

22. I totally love having a mini-van, and have never understood the “I’m too cool to drive one” mentality. I can fit six kids or a 4’x8′ sheet of plywood in there – and have!

23. I would like to be a cabinetmaker.

24. I wait until the last possible moment to do everything. A trait I thought I’d grow out of.

25. My parents are definitely among my top five closest friends.

Winter Sucks

I used to be a snob.  Not an “I have more money that you” snob (because #1, I probably don’t have more money than you and, #2, I don’t care), but an “I couldn’t live without four distinct seasons” snob.  I couldn’t imagine living anywhere without winter sleigh riding, spring mud puddle splashing, summer swimming, and falling into a crisp pile of autumn leaves.  I looked shamelessly down my nose at those unfortunates who couldn’t experience a full range of seasons.  But now?  Well, let’s just say that Florida isn’t looking so bad.

The Itch

When I got married, one of our non-registry gifts was a very thoughtful Kim Anderson scrapbook kit, full of darling little black and white pictures of miniature child brides and grooms.  I hated it.  It sat in the box for the first year of our marriage, while I determined when I could donate it to charity without being a bad person. 

 Then I found out we were expecting.  Woo HOO!   Can you say, “excited?”  I was all about pregnancy.  I had my first ultrasound at seven weeks, and when they gave me the mottled little printouts, I was like, “What do I do with these?”  The obvious answer?  Scrapbook!  So I went home and dug out that awful boxed kit from my wedding.  I had some really cute animal wrapping paper, and used that to decoupage over the offensive child couple on the front of the album.  The kit came with plenty of stickers, a glue stick, and paper (which of course had annoying little graphics on it, but the reverse sides were white!), so I went to town.  Using my new kit, and my own markers and art supplies, I did my very first scrapbook page.  “We’re having a baby!  Due, 10-18-01!”  It was really, really ugly.  I didn’t even know at the time that scrapbooking (scrapping, cropping, whatever) was something people did.  Yes, kids, I thought I was original.  I didn’t know about the existence of specialty papers (I used construction), die cuts, rub-ons, embellishments, none of them.  I was the caveman of scrappers.

Since then, I have often been overwhelmed by layouts I’ve seen, crafted by some pretty amazing women.  They can only be called art, and it’s somewhere in my lofty goals to someday create a page even half as beautiful.  But I haven’t touched the stuff in two years.  When we moved to our darling little house, I completely lost any space I had to pull out my things and create a page.  I suppose the kitchen counter would work, but I’d like to avoid butter stains and the inadvertent bacon splatter that is a sure thing in this house.  I always knew I’d scrap again someday, but have waited patiently for a little corner of my own in our soon to be finished basement.  The real rub is that we live in a fantastic city, and scrapbook stores abound.  I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t even walk in the door until my space is ready to work – and I kept that promise.  Until yesterday.  A friend of mine needed to come up with a layout for a scrapbook being compiled as a wedding gift for her future sister-in-law.  And she came to me for help.  Well I am nothing if not a helper.  So I went with her to the local Archivers to pick out some papers for her horseback-riding-in-the-surf themed page. 

Oh. My. God.  Things have changed so much since I last bought a fancy paper or bit of ribbon for a page.  The patterns!  The colors!  The variety!  The EMBELLISHMENTS.  I am completely frothing at the mouth with excitement and anticipation to dig my hot little hands through just the clearance paper section of this scrappers’ Mecca.

 I need to go back to my list of gifts and givers and re-thank whoever gave us that scrapbook kit for a wedding present.  She’s responsible for motivating me to go downstairs tonight to finish up my little office corner, and for supplying me with a hobby that will last all my life.