Today was a good day

Hallo! Shalom! And all those wonderful greetings to all of you friends around the world; how the heck are all of you?! As for me, I am doing great! I started training in my new job, I am happy and in a place in my life that I feel is peaceful.

The only thing that I am disappointed in myself about is that I missed church this morning; I can't believe I did that! I totally forgot about turning the clocks forward for Spring, so this morning I thought I woke up at 9 a.m. and so I didn't nag my husband to get ready or anything, because church starts at 10:45 so I figured we had plenty of time......that was until I looked at the clock on the television that said it was already going to be 11:30 a.m!! We decided to just take the day as it is and enjoy what was left of our morning because by the time we got dressed and made it to church, it would have already of been over :( besides that hiccup, we had a nice day.

My husband made me a delicious breakfast sandwich that had sausage, a slice of turkey and then grilled it with melted cheese and topped it off with a nice steaming cup of my favorite tea ( this is probably why I was in such a mellow mood in the morning). Afterwards, we watched a few episodes of some random reality tv show ( seems like that's all there is on tv now a days) then we got dressed and set out on our adventure for the day.

I told my husband I wanted to be romanced and go on an adventure with just the two of us, because I know once I start working, I'm not going to have so much free time as I do now. Sadly, the only thing he could come up with was to go get some cupcakes at this cupcake shop two cities over from us. I told him, " is that all you can come up with? I have like a dozen different adventures running through my mind just as we speak?!!" He asked me what ideas I had and I told him, we could go on adventures to see how many countries we can visit without living the state? I know we have a Mexican town, China town, Korea Town, Little Armenia, and even a Dutch town and I always wanted to just take a road trip and see all of them. The way I see it, if you fly around the world, you have to buy a plane ticket, rental car, rent a room, pay for food, etc. and in the end that will cost you what, between $5,0000 to $10,0000 or maybe more? If we just traveled to each town, which has the same culture anyway, we would only be spending what $1,000 tops? By now beloved, you all know I'm cheap, so which one would you choose?

To make a long story longer, we didn't end up doing that or the cupcake run. Instead, we used a free coupon I got in the mail for one of my favorite restaurants, then we walked and bought some cream puffs from a near by Papa Beards. Usually, I love their cream puffs, because they are so light and fluffy, but today they seemed a little dry; oh well, se la vie. After our dessert, we walked around town and found this really great shop called Ten Thousand Villages, that is a non-profit store. Apparently, from what I read, they buy handmade merchandise from people in different countries and sell them to help pay for their livelihood, like food, water, etc. they had some really cool things in there like jewelry, sculptures made out of recycled cans, etc and each item has a sticker with the location from where they are from and the name of the individual who made it. I walked around for awhile and found this really cute onyx cut elephant. It was from Pakistan, but it didn't have the name of the person that made it. I LOVE elephants and if you look inside my home, you will see that I have quite a few around my living room.

 The elephant is actually pretty small and fits in the palm of my hand and it is grey with a little but of brown, gold and white in it. I think it is so adorable and I love buying things that go to good causes, so even though I'm broke as a joke right now, I was still more than happy to indulge with this item. After walking around, we decided to walk back and somehow made our way to a clothes store (it wasn't me that lead the way, I swear....or maybe it was)? Anyway, we made it into the store and I told my husband that I wanted to look for a dress for my upcoming birthday party. For all of you that are following me already know that this is a big year for me since I'm getting closer to the top of the hill and decided to throw myself a mad hatter tea party unbirthday spectacular!! So we walked around and I found a couple of options and showed my husband and he told me I should try them on. So being the obedient wife that I am...heehee...I took the dresses and tried them on for him. The first one just didn't do it for me. The second one was alright according to my husband, but then I tried on the third one and when I walked out of the dressing room to show him, his eyes lit up and he told me, " that one is REALLY nice!" Pleased with his response I changed back into my regular clothes and brought the dresses out to give back to the store clerk. Then my husband being the spoiler that he is, told me that if I really want it, that I can put it on my credit card and that it really looked nice on me. I accepted his permission to use my credit card, because I know that it's hard finding things that fit just right on me and since the dress was less than $30, it made me happy that I wasn't splurging all that much. After dress shopping, we did a little more walking around and decided to call it a day, but remembered we had to go to the 99 cents store. For all the readers that aren't from around here, or ever heard of the 99 cents store, it is pretty much my most FAVORITE store to shop at. Here the name of the store pretty much sums it up; EVERYTHING is 99 cents!! Doesn't matter if its a pack of gum or household utensils, literally EVERYTHING is 99 cents! Well wait, actually not everything is 99 cents, it take it back. There are actually a few items that cost less than 99 cents like cups of noodles are only 29 cents and there are items you can buy 3 or 4 of them for a dollar, but nothing is over 99 cents...I love that store so much! Okay, Okay, enough praising of the 99 cents store. So we went and bought some fruits and vegetables that were too expensive to buy at the regular store, as well as some other food items to get us through the week, then we came back to our humble home and started to clean up a bit to get ready for the week. Then we sat down on our couch and spent the rest of the evening ignoring each other; oh what a glorious day! Just kidding, actually he is sitting right next to me playing video games and I am here chatting with you all, while I am waiting for my load of laundry to finish. On that note, I better get back to my wifely duties and get my husband off the video games before he turns into one of those zombie teenagers, then I will never see him again!! Until next time my beloved.........

Going Bananas!!!

Oh hello! I didn't see you there?! Thanks for coming to visit me today; You're actually just in time for  my latest baking adventure!

 Do you ever have those times when you buy bananas and expect to eat them through the week, but they end up just going bad and turning brown? Well don't throw them out!! When they turn brown, that is actually the best time to use them in baking, because they have mostly turned into sugar and are very sweet. I actually have two bananas which should do nicely for making a delicious banana bread.





The ingredients that you will need are the following:

• 1-1/2  cups

  all-purpose flour
• 1-1/4  teaspoons

  baking powder
• 1/2  teaspoon

  baking soda
• 1/2  teaspoon

  ground cinnamon
• 1/8  teaspoon

  salt 
• 2 

  eggs, lightly beaten
• 1  cup

  mashed banana
• 3/4  cup

  sugar
• 1/4  cup

  cooking oil
• 
  

  directions:

  
  

  
  

  1. In a medium bowl, go down the list and combine all of the ingredients together.

  
  

  2. Next stir all of the ingredients together until moistened and you have a thick almost cake like batter.

  
  

  3. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and while your oven is heating,  spray your loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray ( if you don't have cooking spray, you can also use cooking oil or melted butter and with a napkin, just grease the pan). Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

  
  

  
  

  4. Once baking is complete, cool your bread in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool thoroughly on a wire rack or enjoy while warm. If you want easier slicing though, a good trick would be to wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it over night, that way you can have fresh and perfect banana slices for breakfast...yum!

  
  

  My loaf came out a little dry, but to be honest this is my first banana loaf so not too bad for my first time! That's the fun part about baking, you get to learn and change things up, like what I did above, the recipe actually suggested I first put all the dry ingredients in one bowl and mix it together, then stir in two lightly beaten egg whites, Then pour in sugar, oil and mashed bananas as I slowly stir all ingredients together.  But as you can see, I said ah humbug and just added two whole eggs and everything all at once.  So don't be afraid to make this banana bread your own and try putting in your own ingredients and what not.  Well I hope you enjoyed my latest blog and below for your viewing pleasure, is a picture of my finished product. - At least it looks pretty right?!.. Until next time my beloved....

  
  

  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

A little piece of Heaven

Hello my beloved readers!! Hope all is happy and well? I just wanted to stop in and see how you all are doing? I know I've been a little down lately, so I thought instead of depressing you further, I would cheer you up with a cupcake recipe that gained my heart as well as my weight!! I don't know if I told you all this, but I just love to bake. I always say the Winter is my baking season and what better time to learn and create new recipes than the baking season!!!

I actually came across this recipe on a cupcakes website, but made it my own by adding a little something more, plus I don't like to follow directions when cooking or baking, because I feel that's the time you create new recipes so I didn't measure accordingly, but even so, these cupcakes were practically gone by the time I took them out of the oven!! I made about 18 cupcakes and by the time they cooled, only four were left ( my husband and nephew couldn't get enough of them) and when I finally took a bite, it was like biting into a cloud, it was so moist and fluffy.

I don't want to keep you guys in suspense, so here is the recipe for the most delicious cupcakes I've had in awhile:

Ingredients

• 1  3/4 cup cake flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1/2 teaspoon of ginger
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 stick of butter, softened

Orange Ginger Cupcake Recipe Directions

Combine all the ingredients together starting with the dry ingredients first. Next put the softened butter, eggs, vanilla and orange juice and mix until ingredients are creamed together.

spoon the batter into cupcake liners until 1/2 full. I like using and ice cream scooper for this job.

Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Next take the cupcakes out of the oven and let cool for a minute or enjoy right away, whatever floats your boat!! 

If you want you can make an orange icing to go on top, but these cupcakes were so delicious by themselves that I felt there was no need for anything else!! Mmmmmmm all this talk about cupcakes make me want some......hmmmmmm what will I bake next?????........until next time