Goin' Bananas

If your house is anything like mine, you seem to end up with one or 2 bananas left out of the bunch that no one eats…they just sit on the counter and turn brown, eventually winding up in the garbage. I’m not sure what it is about the last couple bananas that turn people off. The rest of the bunch disappears in rapid fashion from the minute they come out of the grocery bag. Politely leaving the last one(s) for someone else? Possibly. I’ve discovered a great use for those icky-looking over-ripe little orphans: cookies.

Banana Cookies

• 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1 cup of mashed bananas (about 2 ½ large bananas)
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 2 cups of flour
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground mace or nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves
• 1 cup of pecans (walnuts and chocolate chips are fine alternatives)
1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.

2 Mix the mashed bananas and baking soda in a bowl and let sit for 2 minutes. The baking soda will react with the acid in the bananas which in turn will give the cookies their lift and rise.

3 Mix the banana mixture into the butter mixture. Mix together the flour, salt, and spices and sift into the butter and banana mixture and mix until just combined.

4 Fold into the batter the pecans or chocolate chips if using. Drop in dollops onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until nicely golden brown. Let cool on wire racks.

Makes about 30 cookies.

What's That Sound?!?

Listen....can you hear that??? It's the sound of the Big Yellow Birds firing up after sitting unused over the summer!! I guess I am an odd duck, because I love to buy school supplies...notebooks, pencils, binders, pens...last fall was espcially nifty for me because I was buying school supplies for ME. Yeah, it was just one college class, but dang it was awesome to go back to school :0) Anyway, my son has registration next week...gets his student ID pic, his schedule, his locker, ect. He will be a FRESHMAN this year. Yes, my baby is a freshman. Boy does it make me feel old saying that...and I have the grey hair to prove it!

Chatting with my MIL about the upcoming family reunion yesterday....getting our ducks in a row on who's bringing what food (I'm springing a Wild Rice Waldorf salad one everybody - yum!), ect. I can not stress enough how excited I am about this event...there are several people on my hubby's side of the family that I have never met. They don't get together much, so this will be extremely cool :0)

I saw this story on my Yahoo! homepage when I fired up the ol' computer this morning and just had to shake my head. You all have heard Bill Engvall and his "here's your sign" skit, right? Well, this guy totally ignored his sign and lost his truck. People like him are the reason we have stupid warnings on EVERYTHING (like "do not use in shower" on your blowdryer). Hope you get a giggle out of it:

Pa. man watches helplessly as train squashes truck
Mon Aug 4, 9:06 PM ET

Nathan Miller learned the hard way that "Road Closed" signs are posted for a reason. The 25-year-old Milesburg man ventured onto a closed road Sunday afternoon in search of good fishing at Bald Eagle State Park, but got his pickup truck stranded on some railroad tracks.

After trying for 45 minutes to dislodge the truck, Miller said he could do nothing but step back and watch a Norfolk Southern train smash into it.
"I backed up a little bit and watched the show," he said. "It looked just like TV but louder."

Signs clearly stated the road was closed, but Miller said he decided to "give it a shot" after hearing about the fishing spot. He has no intentions of going back.
"I was an idiot," Miller said. "Pretty much a local idiot just trying to go fishing."
Police cited Miller for trespassing.

Neighbors could hear the train screeching its brakes for some time before the crash, and state police said no one was hurt.

Have a great day y'all!!!!

Can I Start Over???

Good morning! Weekends go so fast, don't they? Why can't the work week go that fast instead of dragging on and on....and on.

Do you have days that you get up, ready to tackle a new day, when things just start to go downhill, turning your day and spirits to mush??? Having one today...hoping to maintain my sanity and not turn into a raging b-word by the time work is done. If there wasn't so much stuff to get done, I'd turn in a vacation form and go home. Back to bed. Start the day over. Sigh.

We rented a couple movies over the weekend; I picked "No Reservation" with Catherine Zeta-Jones. I had wanted to see this when it was in the theaters, but never got around to it. This was a very cute movie...certainly a bit more serious than I had expected, but if you're wanting a good movie to watch with the gals, this is one to keep in mind. The hubby rented "Bank Job" with Jason Statham (from "The Transporter" movies); this was interesting. It is based on a true story about a bank robbery in England in the 70's...and I'm not sure how much of this was "creative license" but allegedly there were some pretty....incriminating...photos of a member of the Royal Family being kept in one of the safe deposit boxes in said bank, which was actually the reason for the robbery in the first place...to get the pix and dispose of them. I will have to check into this whole story and see what exactly happened, but the movie was worth the time to watch.

Okay, back to work for me! Have a good day!!!

Update

Happy Friday to ya!

So here is a short synopsis of the concert:
Left home around 1:45, got to SLC a bit early so we could have lunch before we headed out to the ampitheater (we ate at Thaifoon at the Gateway - excellent food!), enjoying our last minutes in an serene, air conditioned environment :0) The line to enter the ampitheater was a mile long - literally - but moved quickly so we really weren't waiting outside the venue very long...missed the opening band, Trapt, however. Got to hear them, but not watch their show (the tix said the gates opened at 4, the show started at 5, but it was around 4:30 when Trapt fired up). Sixx AM was the second act...for those who don't know, Sixx AM is Nikki Sixx's side project, who got together and wrote the "soundtrack" to his book, "The Heroin Diaries". They put on a good show - the crowd went NUTS when Nikki came out and the singer worked the crowd well. As a special treat, Nikki's teenage son, Dekker, came out and played a tune with the band. (I guess if Eddie and Wolf can do it, why not, right?) Next came Papa Roach. I'm not real familiar with their stuff, but do know a few tunes...they were very good...those kids had more energy than they knew what to do with for sure :0) At one point the singer came out and wandered around the ampitheater while singing one of the songs (I don't remember which one), which was cool. He stopped in the section next to us and climbed up on the seats so everyone could see him. Of course he also had about 4 monster security guards with him. It was in the break after Papa Roach that my BF Aundria and I met DJ Ashba. Super guy, really can't stress enough how sweet he was. And he walked around without any security...just hung out like everyone else. Then came Buck Cherry....wow. Fantastic job by that band. The singer got a little crude with some comments before he started the song "Crazy B**ch", which I was not exactly thrilled with....I was a bit offended, but you know we have that whole ammendment thing that gives us freedom of speech in our country. Aside from that they were real good...they played "Sorry" which is my fav. besides "Lit Up" (which they also played). And at last...the band all us "old" hairband-lovin', stuck-in-the-80's big hair, spandex and miniskirt wearing people had been waiting for - CRUE. Now, let me say that I don't get offended easily (despite the Buck Cherry incident earlier) and I knew going in that Crue are know for pushing the envelope at their shows. BUT. Nothing could have prepared me for the sights they had playing on the screens flanking the stage...it was clips from porn movies! And I am not even kidding...it really was. I about died. At first, I was thinking "did I really just see what I thought I saw?!" and then the image flashed by again - yep, I guess I did really see that. OMG. So I tried not to look at the screens unless they were showing the band. That said, the music was awesome! Vince struggled with the singing here and there, but Mick Mars ROCKED, as did Nikki and Tommy. They played for about an hour and a half or so, but could have easily played all 6 hours of the show! I danced all 6 hours, yelled myself horse and had a fabulous time...my quads have finally recovered, my feet almost there, but I would happily suffer through another show tonight!!!