A slew of over ripe bananas and creative use of available baking supplies plus random items from fridge produced not one, but two varieties of insanely delicious banana 'bread'. Banana something anyways! So good I want more and desperately want to reproduce in all its yummy glory.


I'd list the recipe, but I didn't follow one. I had some ingredients and mixed them together to see what came up. Seriously.

Two bowls of ingredients were mixed together. One that resulted in a regular super crazy moist banana bread with fine chopped walnuts:


Then, feeling extra experimental (and loving the taste of bananas and chocolate), I added a bunch of stuff** together to get this:





Both were so good, and the antithesis to all things relatively healthy. My next adventure in banana bread will be an experiment in making a hearty bread made with all good stuff. But I'd be tempted to try and make one or both of these again.

• I remember I threw together a bowl of several mashed bananas, butter, flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, eggs, a splash of vanilla coffee creamer, the remnants of an almost empty sour cream container, small semi sweet chocolate chips swirled in, hot cocoa mix and a few walnuts. Maybe a sprinkle of brown sugar too. Oh and a few extra tiny chocolate chips tossed on top once poured into the pan.

It was a huge hit with anyone who ate it. They didn't believe what was in it. I don't think it was that weird, but I know my 'creative tendencies" in the kitchen can be questionable.

mmmMmmMmmMmmmmmmm

• sigh*

I'm sitting here looking at my user pic. I was musing over the events surrounding it when I thought more about the time frame. My user pic is one that I took with my phone (pocket pc 8125) over two years ago.

That was when I lived with (e:Paul), (e:Matthew), and (e:Terry).

wow, how time has passed!

Also, I am sitting at the same desk that is in that picture. I loved sitting at my desk, in my room, working on various writing and creative projects. The second hand desk was an important part of my little world. A lovely large Salvation Army find, now so long ago.

When I moved out, my beloved desk was shoved into my garage, left to sit and collect dust ever since. I was planning on selling it, until I had the notion recently to bring it inside my house. I had moved the furniture around my living room a bit, and now had a very empty large space. Which in most cases I prefer. Simple surroundings is a preference.

But I needed a better work space. I often used my dining room table, but that is a little out of the way (and cold), despite my loving the room it is in. I have a pseudo office slash exercise room slash cat litter box slash throw all room, but it isn't inviting to my needs at all. So usually I sat on the comfy couch with my laptop and just hooked up the printer as needed. My coffee table always in some sort of office like disarray.

yuck, clutter.

Couch is good, very comfy even, and likely preferred for mindless surfing, but now that I moved my desk in, and my comfy computer chair, I am loving it so much more. I normally hate sitting at a desk. I am tall with a long torso, so often desks, counter tops etc are too low, even with lowered seating, putting a strain on my back. It puts me into a forced bad posture. This desk sits high, and my chair is low, so my back is happy with good (ok, better) posture.

Now all I want to do is sit at my desk with a mug of coffee and write.

even my coffee tastes better sitting here.

and that's a good thing.

kinda dorky, but I bet some of you relate in some way :)

come on, girl, do it right!.... looks like Jackman is!



and so..
I just tuned in (ok, 35 minutes ago) to the Presidential Address to Congress, after watching, The Biggest Loser. I forgot how much I liked that show. Somehow it seems wrong to munch on gummie bears (e:theecarey,47879) while watching the people on there bike for 24 hours straight.

Reminds me that I need to renew my gym membership and get myself on a schedule. I'd like a training session to help me get back on track and to have a better goal in mind. I lose and tone quick (and lose tone and gain quick), so I want something further to reach for. If the trainers at UB Alumni didn't look so damn bored and put off by training, I would set myself up with someone from there. Alas, I don't need someone yakking with other college kids while I'm trying to learn and push myself. Leave me to my elliptical and weights, thank you.

ok, gotta get back to Obama. I think he just made a snarkyish comment about no more will people be flying their private jets to meetings, or something like that... heh

I really am in the market for an external hard drive. I think that has also been on the mind of another estripper? (e:tinypliny) perhaps? Was it/is it you? Whomever it is, did you come up with something yet?

I have most all of my pictures backed up. I know I copied several folders awhile back, but I am thinking that I haven't kept up with it since then, so I am going through them now and making sure that I have at least the past ten months copied to disk.

Then Word documents will simply be attached to an email and sent off to another email account. Most documents that I have are old school papers, so overall, nothing really vitally important.

HOWEVER, my music is.

This is what actually prompted my desire for backup more than anything else. Using a bunch of CDs would be ridiculous- time consuming and it would take way to many. So, I decided on burning all of/most of my music to DVD's. I just bought a ten pack at Big Lots for $4.00, should more than take care of my immediate needs. 4.7 GB each? yeh, i think so.

Once I scout around and find an external HD, then all will be backed up to that. Maybe I want a couple of HDs? Would that be better for keeping organized? ie; a place for all of my photos to be stored? This will all be new to me, as I haven't looked into/been interested in them before now.

also, I bought an optical travel mouse (retractable cord) for $8.00 *

and some gummy bears.

• The new mouse is working. Unlike the two/three others tried out in the prior post (e:theecarey,47877). It is smaller than I am used to, but I am thankful that it is working. It is all shiny blue and silver. I pledge to take good care of it. Keep it from plunging to it's death.

but I am still keeping my eyes open for other laptop misbehavior, as I feel skeptical that the others weren't working, and the touchpad was all wonky as well.

anyway, so far so good.

Sitting here sipping a mug of coffee, I have a few things to figure out with my laptop.

Could it be possible that I have two dying mice, or is it likely something more troubling than that. I'm betting on that latter, hoping for the former.

My notes so far- add suggestions if you please :)

My laptop mouse, once plugged in, works for a second or two, then cuts out. I had another laying around that I tried, and it too did the same. However, I am good at managing to let those things nose dive to the floor, so if either of them gave up working, I wouldn't blame them.

but I doubt it.

I also had a full day of normal mouse behavior in between the erratic mouse behavior (and now pretty much unresponsive).

So off to the Device Manager I went. Found the mice, uninstalled the drivers. Restarted, let the computer recognize and reinstall/reestablish drivers. Prior erratic behavior continues.

Use of the touchpad is now erratic (from smooth and accurate pointer movement to effortful placement and location of pointer) as well. and annoying,

Thinking it is not mouse specific at this point

Both USB ports work well -dug out an old A drive, also plugged my printer in.

So, System Restore. I can't think of any programs or other tweaking I have done to my computer recently, but I went back a couple of weeks anyways. As assumed- system restore wasn't fruitful. Could go back further.... but I don't want to at this point (if I don't have to).

so now I am stumped (or at least reticent to go where it might be going--motherboard). Laptop issues stump me easier than desk top issues. Everything is so integrated that it can be difficult to pinpoint, or even find an accurate starting point.


again, because of this, it is possible I am looking at a downhill motherboard.

but maybe not.

now I'm backing up some files to disk and flash drives.

and then some research, see what more I can come up with

oy!
(I've also since added liqueur to my coffee)