Thursday, January 31, 2013

Road Trip!

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I'm taking a road trip today to go see Erin, Jessi & Liam.  I've been missing them something terrible, so what better solution than to jump in the car and head south!

I'll start with the beautiful sunrise as I headed out of the mountains.  I pulled over to the side of the road to capture this...the mountains are actually behind me, as I had been driving about 2 hours at this point...I love the sunrise over the river, but it is also incredible over the mountains.  We don't get this perspective from our cabin...we have to wait until the sun rises over the mountain peaks.

Driving out of our driveway showed a little snow still falling...
..I did call Jessi on my way and told her she should know I loved them more than snow!!!  We giggled about it, and frankly, I'd rather see them than the snow at this point!  But the snow lightly blanketed our holler and was pretty as it fell upon the windshield as I drove down the mountain.  

When I stopped to use one of the ever so convenient and much appreciated rest stop facilities, I looked at my car and had to take a picture...I was one of the few cars with snow on it at this point.  This picture makes it look like it has a huge front end, doesn't it?!

The trip was uneventful, unless you want to include that when I munched on a granola bar I broke my temporary crown again (yes, again, I didn't tell you I broke it last week and my NC dentist had to replace it once already...he said I must have a hearty chomp !)...an event that caused me to use many unseemly words in a loud and boisterous manner to myself as I spit half the crown out...I did call my NC dentist who basically couldn't do anything for me as I was already 300 miles away (or toward) my destination, whichever way you prefer to look at it.  I called my FL dentist and have an appointment to get yet another temporary crown inserted before I head south for my visit.  (I could just hang in there and see what happens, but I can't stand the idea of eating with my head tilted and the possibility of ending up with a severe toothache while having an impromptu visit with some of my loved ones!)

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

"C" Is For Cookie, That's Good Enough For Me


...Sesame Street...one of my favorite children's shows (along with Mr. Rogers) when the girls were young.  It didn't take me long to decide to write about baking cookies for ABCWednesday (featuring the letter "C"), because I immediately began singing Cookie Monster's Cookie song to myself.  

I had already decided I was going to try baking Banana Granola Cookies again on this very day for several reasons (cookies look good, don't they?)...
  • they tasted good even though the last time I baked them they turned out very cake-y...I thought it was because I added a little extra banana so I wanted to try again,
  • I had a bunch of really ripe, perfect for baking bananas (they don't look very good, but trust me, bananas that look like this are full of intense banana flavor!),
  • it was forecast (correctly) that this very day would be extremely rainy with the potential for severe storms, so I knew it would be an inside day,
  • I am packing for an impromptu, short rode trip to go see Erin, Jessi & Liam (my daughters & grandson) because I am missing them,
  • and I want to bring them some of my home cooked cookies!
So while the clouds broke open and it rained cats-n-dogs, I sang the Cookie song while following the recipe as indicated.  Guess what, the cookies are still cake-y, though the edges are a little more crispy, thus making me a happy camper.  It is such a simple recipe, you can click here if you'd like to try it, I won't detail every step, but you start with these ingredients...
...you end up with cookie dough like this...
...to arrive at cookies like this!

With my cookies completed, I continued my packing to the cacophony of rain on our tin roof, with claps of thunder and periodic cracks of lightening joining the clamor.  Criminy it's loud in here!  Now if only the rain would stop coming down so I could pack my car!

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise