Oatmeal Banana (or blueberry) Bread

Today was a nice, balmy 10F degrees outside. Perfect temperature outside to do some baking (especially since I had some bananas on the counter that needed to be used, frozen, or thrown away). I found a recipe for some banana muffins a few weeks ago that I've been dying to try! For original recipe and post Go Here. In the original post she made muffins. I hate cleaning muffin tins and I didn't have any liners on hand so I made a loaf of banana bread instead.

Growing up it was not uncommon for my dad to be in the kitchen right along with my mom or even INSTEAD of my mom. This left me with the (unrealistic in my life) expectation that my husband would be there with me. A couple years ago my parents bought him some really kick butt knives for Christmas that he really likes using. Those knives have enabled me to coerce him into the kitchen to help me out a couple of times. He has officially become my unofficial nut chopper. That is code for he doesn't know this yet.

The thing I love about this recipe is that it only requires 7 ingredients (8 if you add nuts like I did) and no flour.

A little of this

Take these:
2 1/2 C. of old fashioned oats
2 eggs
2 bananas (very ripe)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
3/4 C. of sugar
1 C. plain greek yogurt
1 C. of chopped nuts (I used pecans)



Do this:
1. Preheat the oven to 350* grease loaf pan.
2. I blended the oats in the food processor before I added the rest of the ingredients until they were a coarse powder.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients (except for the nuts that the hubs was chopping while I mixed the rest of the ingredients).
4. Once the rest of the ingredients are well mixed add the nuts and pulse it in the food processor just until they are mixed in.
5. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan (next time I would probably try to split it because it was a little too full) and bake for about 40 minutes* or until a poke test comes out clean.

*I adjusted the time and temp from the original post since I was not making muffins

Warm delicious-ness

The bread is so good and would be easy to adapt into a Gluten-free recipe if needed. Now I just need to freeze some so I can take it with me to work! Also I think the muffin version of this would be perfect to grab and go... next time!

*Alright peeps... A little update. Today I wanted to make a batch of this that I could freeze and take to work but I didn't have bananas! Went to the store hoping to find some ripe ones and totally struck out! What I did find were some frozen blueberries that I decided to try instead. They turned out delicious!! So if you'd like, follow the above recipe but replace the bananas with 6 oz. of blueberries and probably omit the nuts. Just a little spin on an already great recipe. Equally healthy and satisfying for a grab and go breakfast!

Exercise, Bacon or both?

Would seem totally random... except that I LOVE BACON! So, naturally I would LOVE this and want to share it with people that I LOVE, that might share my LOVE for BACON!!

I guess this would require it be worn in selective places... for me that means a Saturday pajama day at home. I love it but I think it would be better suited for a man. They can wear things like this without much judgement (in my opinion).

I must say though... after working out, its almost inevitable that I crave something really greasy and bad for me, such as bacon. is it just me? If not, does anyone know why that is?


For this shirt GO HERE!

The call light is intended for emergencies

Ok peeps... You know in my first blog how I mentioned that sometimes the chaos takes place in the clouds?! Today was one of those days! Well, it continued on the ground too. Allow me to give you a glimpse into my day!

I checked in this morning to fly what I knew would be an exhausting day. I was flying from an unnamed pacific northwest (PNW) location to a city somewhere in the giant lone-star state and then turning around and heading right back to the unnamed pacific northwest city. I'm not naming cities because it keeps some mystery in our relationship, plus I would prefer to blog as a hobby rather than a full time job if you get my drift. Wink,Wink.

Anyway, back to my story. Please keep in mind this is not necessarily a normal day at work. OK. So, I along with my coworker, get onboard to meet the gal that we're flying with. She's a real peach but we're not getting the warm and fuzzies from her! This automatically makes the day interesting. Usually during boarding, as a flight attendant, you get a pretty good idea of what kind of crowd you have on board. i.e. party animals, families, business folks, low maintenance, high maintenance etc. etc. When people start asking for cocktails on the ground you can usually bet you're in for a doozy! Thats how the day began. We were in for a doozy day... or shall I say boozy day?! (Ok that was dumb but humor me its been a long day)

Midway through the flight, a passenger rings his flight attendant call button (I feel it is my duty to remind you that is for emergencies) to tell me that the passenger sitting next to him has different movies on her inflight entertainment system than he does and he wants to watch her movies! I know what you're thinking... "how old is this little boy?" Actually it was a grown MAN! I creatively fix the problem and continue with what I was doing. THEN fast forward a little while, after a very labor intensive couple of beverage services, the nice man that inquired about the cocktails on the ground pays us a visit. He is so happy with the service he has received that he wants to know if we can except tips. I inform him (with extreme hesitation) that, "No, we're not supposed to do that." The rest of the flight goes by and we land in the lone-star state. Mr. Cocktail, who was on vacation, going deer and pig "hunt'n" makes his way to that back and thanks us for the fantastic, FUN, flight and handed me and the other flight attendant each a $20 bill that we may or may not have excepted. GREAT LEG! Hypothetically, if we were to allow this man to buy us our next few meals rather than except a tip, we would be very thankful!!

Now, on the way back to the PNW we have some real fun! There was a very nice military guy (thanks for your service!) who after a few drinks with the gal next to him, had what I believe to be an alcohol induced love connection. I think she was a little more interested in him than he was her. None the less it was very fun to watch. THEN we were pulling the beverage cart up the aisle for our second service and I saw something that stopped me in by tracks... A woman was trying to eat a man's face!!!! Okay, not really but it sure as heck looked like it! These were 2 people that caught my attention during boarding and continued to hold my attention through ought the flight by excessively ringing their flight attendant call light (again intended for emergencies) now they were making out to the point where I felt a little uncomfortable. Please note, making me feel uncomfortable in the slightest is hard to do! I looked around to see how far spread their audience was and learned that it was at least about 15 people and my reaction probably attracted a couple more eyes. It was just gross! After providing extensive entertainment, they finally settled down and fell asleep.

Now lets talk about the ground action. We land safely (beautiful landing by the way) back in the PNW, and I hear a little girl crying. It wasn't until we were parked at the gate that we realize she was clearly not feeling well and the evidence had been projected all over the floor and seats around her. This was especially unfortunate for my coworker (the one I liked working with) because her bag, and a $250 pair of shoes (the price of comfort) were stowed under the last row of seats. That evidence was not only all over the floor and seats, but also inside the shoes and all over the bag belonging to my coworker! UGH!!! Deplaning usually feels long, but when you are stuck in the back of the aircraft, with the smell of vomit filling the air, it feels a little bit longer!

photo credit uselog.com

*This story has been modified from its original version. It has been modified to fit your screen.
In other words I shortened this story significantly so you didn't get bored

fireplace makeover

Over the summer, my husband and I bought our first house together. Finding a house that we both loved was an interesting journey. Luckily for him (and me) I was blessed with the ability to see the potential in a place. Needless to say, our new to us home, had a long way to go before it would feel like home to me. The kids were down at their mom's house for the summer so we wanted to be sure each of them came home to a room that was all their own, which meant other projects went on the back burner for a while. Our first priority (even before the bedrooms) was the flooring.

We got the flooring done. We got the kids bedrooms done. Next, and first on our "winter project list' was the eye sore in the living room. Our fireplace. Our home was built in 1975 and I'm pretty sure that everything in our home is original. 

I am no chicken when it comes to home projects. I get a major (natural) high off of a simple transformation! I get an even bigger thrill out of them when I can do it on a dime. 

Original fireplace... the before

This is a picture of our fireplace as it looked when we moved into our house. Im sure that when our house was built this was be-you-ti-ful! However, I could not fall in love with it! So... 

I'm pretty sure this made it worse

We tried painting it the same color as the walls in hopes that it would simply disappear. HA! No such luck. So every time I left for work I tried persuading my husband to surprise me with a fireplace makeover. My luck with that was about as successful as making it disappear. We were sitting around one weekend and I decided I had seen enough of this fireplace. I was gifted a little money from my mom and it happened to be just enough to purchase the supplies for this project. Before my husband could stop me I was pulling those would slats off one by one. Before I could stop him... he jumped in there and took over, so I took on the role as his assistant.  

The almost finished product

By the end of the weekend we had a new fireplace and what felt to me like an entirely new living room. Oh, and you should know that I did my share of hanging sheetrock, taping and mudding. My beef with the new fireplace is those stinkin' intake vents. I would love to get some ideas on how to cover them/disguise them. If you have any ideas let me know. Stay tuned for more home makeover pictures.

Why clouds and chaos?

What better way to describe my life than clouds and chaos?

When I think of clouds I think of the fluffy ones. You know, the kind where its as if someone left  a trail of cotton candy through the sky. Peaceful, happy, calm, clouds that are best seen (in my opinion) from somewhere around 35,000 ft. I literally live in the clouds most days of the week.

Then there's the chaos... the kind you experience when you walk through the door to your husband and three kids. Or in my case, the insta-family that I recently (officially) became a part of, my 3 step-kids and my wonderful husband. I do have to brag a little here because I don't want "chaos" to sound ALL bad. It's just a lot more busy than the quiet hotel rooms that I call home 2-3 nights out of the week. In ways of step children, I have been extremely blessed with the BEST step-kids out there.

Sometimes the chaos takes place in the clouds and sometimes the most peaceful place to be is among all the chaos.