Funny, Crazy People and their Scissors.

First off, I should say that this post is inspired by my Cousin, Anna.  I'll be honest with you, I thought I was the only person that had stupid little quirks about things like, Scissors, for instance.....Turns out, that's not the case.  I'm glad to see that it runs in the family....well, sort of.....not really, but we don't need to get into all those particulars now.  Just know that family is family and crazy is crazy and being a little different is.....just plain funny.

The above picture is of my beloved scissors.  Yes, they are giant scissors.  They are over 20" long, wooden and don't work, but they are my favorite.  You cannot move them.  You cannot dust them and not put them back properly.  You cannot play with them.  They just belong there, right on the bookshelf.  A place to hold them up and to display them properly.  It's a thing I have......about scissors.

I have scissors everywhere.  Good scissors, somewhat dull scissors, scissors for cutting off split-ends, scissors for baking.....(don't ask, it's hard to explain), scissors at my desk, scissors in my bakery room, scissors for mending (I'd say sewing, but I hardly qualify as a seamstress), even kitchen scissors.  They all have a place.  They all have a function.  

Wait!  Let's think about that last sentence for a bit.....They all have a function.  Yep, that is correct.  You do NOT use kitchen scissors to take to the backyard to cut off a runaway branch that's in your walking path.  You do NOT use the baking scissors to cut open a bag of chips.  You do NOT take scissors out of one place, use them for something and then forget to put them back.  Scissors are sacred.  They can get dull.  They can get nicks in them.  They can get dirty.  They can rust.  I'm not sure about you, but do you want my baking scissors to be used, opening up a UPS box?  I don't think so!  

Anyway, Anna, you're not alone in your "do NOT use my sewing scissors for anything but fabric."  I get it.  I really do.  And, while your issue might only be with your sewing scissors, I SOOOO understand.  This post is for you.  Lol!

Recipe - Whole Wheat Chocolate Banana Crepes

A quick and easy recipe that will leave you wanting more!

Crepe:

1/2 Cup Skim or Non-Fat Milk

1 Tbsp Butter, melted

1 egg

1 tsp Vanilla

1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder

2 Tbsp Powdered Sugar

1/3 Cup Whole Wheat Flour (if you really don't want whole wheat, you can substitute with All-Purpose flour)

1-2 Fresh, Ripe Banana's, cut into slices

World Market (Cost Plus) Banana Chocolate spread

Directions:

In bowl, combine the milk, melted butter, egg and Vanilla.  Whisk together, incorporating Cocoa Powder until completely mixed in.  Add powdered sugar, then add whole wheat flour last.  Once completely mixed, allow mixture to rest for approx 10-12 minutes.

Heat omlette skillet over med. heat and spray with cooking spray or I can't believe it's not butter spray.  Pour a small pancake amount of batter into warm skillet, swirling around batter to cover entire skillet.  Cook about 2 minutes, then flip over and cook another 1 to 1.5 minutes or until done.  (Be sure that your heat is not too high, as you can burn the next crepe you make.)  Repeat this process until batter is gone.

Place finished crepe on a plate and spread some of the Banana Chocolate spread in the middle.  (If your chocolate banana spread is too thick, put a bit in a bowl and microwave it for a few seconds).  Put your sliced banana's in a row, down the middle of the crepe.  Fold the crepe closed and place, seam down on a new plate.  Top with a couple of banana slices, drizzled melted banana chocolate spread and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.  It's just too good to resist................

My Bakery Room...and Dinner

So, I'm working on my "Bakery" room.  This room is solely dedicated to all thing baking and has become a great place for storing EVERYTHING!  I've bought bakery racks and shelving, had Chris make me a cake box storage rack and painted.  (The room isn't mustard color, as the pics below show.  It's more of a school bus yellow-orangeish color and pretty bright) Here's a few pics at what's been going on for the past year or so......

Now that everything has been organized and set up, I've been wanting to give it some sort of decoration.  I've been looking at different wall hangings and art work and just haven't found anything that I thought would be reflective of this room.  So, on Sunday I was browsing around Costco Photo Center online and noticed that you could purchase a poster board size photo of your own pictures.  When I clicked on the link, I found some more good news.  You could actually make a collage of your OWN photos, with up to 30 different pictures and you could get it printed on a 20x30" poster board.  Fantastic!!!  It would be fun to display some of my cake photos and have my own poster in the bedroom.  It was easy to do online, cost roughly $24 to make, and was ready within a couple of hours.  It turned out amazing, despite the fact that I put the same picture in twice....whoops!  This is how it turned out:

I'm sort of liking how everything is shaping up in this room.  Our next undertaking is removing the carpet and replacing it with Laminate Flooring.  Since this room isn't what's considered a high traffic area and is only 110 square feet, it's not going to be that expensive to do.  I wonder how long it will take Chris me to do??  Lol!  (Okay, we all know that I'm a control freak, but all the same, Chris will probably end up doing the majority of the job and I'll make a GREAT Foreman!!)  Anyone out there done there own laminate?  With the lock-in-to-place stuff.....is it fairly easy?  I've read up on it and done some research and it doesn't look all that difficult.  I've laid tile before, so I think if I can do that, I can do the laminate.  Guess we'll see.  I think I'll go get some samples....and then contemplate how to get more cake business, so we can pay for all of these fun projects  :-)
Dinner tonight was cooked on the grill by the incredible Chris Morris.  Greek Souvlaki with Tzatziki!  It was so good, I could have eaten a few more helpings, but I refrained.  (Recipe for this was posted back in July.)  The smells of Oia permeate the house.  (And, this particular meal is great for scaring away unwanted advances....the garlic smell that radiates off you afterward, is frightening.)

Just One of Those Days!

I should have known, when I was still up at 4am, that today wasn't going to be a good one.  If anything could go wrong, it did, and then some.  It's been so bad, that I've just wanted to pummel someone!  So, all was going well, until around 10:30ish this morning, when I decided to go out and do some running around, gathering up stuff for my bakery room and generally looking for that elusive red and white striped shower curtain.  After hitting my first store, I get an email from a lady that I had sold something to on craigslist, explaining that the Southwest credit I had sold her, could not be put in her name, but had to be used by the original person of the canceled flight.  Back in March, I had a last minute canceled trip to St. Louis and while I knew I wouldn't get my money back from Southwest, I knew I at least had a $350 credit.  That's all good and well.  Chris travels a lot for work, so I was sure he could use it and somehow we'd get reimbursed.  Or, I'd take a vacation somewhere and we'd need it.  Well, being that it's already August and we aren't planning on going anywhere and Chris has already purchased tickets for his travels, I decided to post the credit on Craigslist, just to see if anyone would take it, at a discounted rate.  Sure enough, I got a great lady to buy it and we did a safe paypal transaction over the weekend.  Today, she tells me that when she tried to use the credit, Southwest gave her a message that said the original ticket holder was the only person that could use the credit.  WHAT???????  I've used many of Southwest credits for other tickets, for other people.  I called Southwest and sure enough, recently, they decided to crack down (because other airlines didn't allow their passengers to transfer funds - Seriously, that's what the guy said) and not allow you to give your credit to someone else, even if you book the ticket for them.  The original issuer must use all funds.  STUPID!  What difference is it, if I use the ticket or if I buy the ticket for someone else?  It's still being used on Southwest.  They are not refunding any money to me.  The ticket would be in someone else's name and they would have to provide their own I.D.  You can still use a Southwest rewards ticket and issue it in someone else's name.  Is there any difference here??  Uuuuhhhhgggg!  Now I had to return this very nice woman's money.  So, I rush home to do this, as I don't want her to think I was trying to scam her out of anything.  Got that all reversed and now that I'm good and bothered, I decide it's time to call Verizon Wireless about my stupid phone.  Onto saga #2......
If you've talked to me on the phone over the past 3 years, even just a couple times, you are probably a victim of my one way audio problems.  All of the sudden, the person I'm talking to, thinks I've hung up on them, because they no longer can hear me talk.  The call is not dropped, it's just audio dropped.  I can hear everything the person on the other end of the phone is saying screaming "Donelle, are you there? Hello?  Donelle?  Donelle?  Hello?  What happened?  I guess she hung up on me."  Now, I'm screaming at the phone, "No, I didn't hang up on you.  Wait just a minute.  I'll call you back"  Of course, this is all to no avail, as THEY CAN'T HEAR ME!!!  I've contacted Verizon so many times, I've lost count.  I've had so many different Blackberries in the past 3 years, I could open my own store, if I did not have to send each one of them back.  Verizon has told me that it's everything from a dropped call (it's not.....I have full bars and I'm still CONNECTED to the other person on the end of the line!!!!), to a bad Blackberry or a bad signal in our house.  (Hmmm....Chris has his own cell number on my plan and he doesn't have any of these issues in our house.  And, it happens everywhere, not just the house.)  How in the world, have I had over 10 different Blackberries and 4 different models, and managed to get a defective one each time???  Does that make sense?  Absolutely not!!  Yet, for some reason, Verizon fails to figure out what the problem is.  Each time a customer service rep promises to call me back and I wait and wait and wait.  It's been over 33 months and I'm still waiting for Verizon to figure it out.  So, after a bunch of ticked off friends, growing frustration (I'm putting that mildly) on my part, I decide to try an Android phone.  The catch is, I don't want to pay for it.  I shouldn't have to pay for it!!  Verizon has done nothing for me, to fix a known issue and I've never asked them to give me any sort  of compensation.  Today, I wanted an Android.  After negotiating for a bit, they agree to send me one out.  (Of course, it's not the one I want, but at this point, I'll take anything to try and figure out my own technical problems)  After the customer service person places the order, he then tells me that I must return my blackberry within 10 days of me getting the Android.  By this time, I'm so mad, I'm seeing stars!  Why in the world should I have to give up a phone, that I'm not too happy about giving up in the first place?  I just want to try the droid, to find out if I still have audio issues.  I don't want to stick it out, I love my BB!  I've been a blackberry user for over 8 years.  Up until 3 years ago, I was a happy camper, with both Blackberry and Verizon.  Customer Service has gone down hill!  I'll get off this nasty subject now, but I had to vent.  I can't stand incompetence and people that just ignore something because they can't figure out a problem.  Ignoring it, doesn't make the situation go away.  It just causes more issues.
Well, now that I've worked myself all into a fit, I think I should just sign off.  Tomorrow is another day, right? It will get better, with any luck.  :-)

It's 2:30am and I can't sleep

Why in the world can't I sleep?  I've taken my ambien and for some reason, here I am, up before the crack of dawn.  This can't be a good way to start anyone's week.  After finally tossing and turning, I got out of bed only to stumble to my computer.  It's not like I don't have plenty to do there.  That should put me to sleep!  NOT!
Okay, does this only happen to me?  I'm not what you'd call a shopper.  I do shop, but I have to know what I'm going in for and if I spend longer than 8 minutes in a store, something's wrong.  I go in get what I want and leave.  And, should they not have the item I'm looking for, I'm in and out of there quickly.  That's not so much my problem.  My problem is this:  I get an idea in my head of exactly what I want.  Take for instance today.  I have decided that our guest bathroom needs an overhaul.  It's been the same for 7 years, I want to change it up.  I want a vertical red and white striped bath curtain.  I want the stripes to be fairly wide and I don't want burgundy or wine or pomegranite, I want RED and WHITE.  I figured this isn't going to be too difficult to find.  How is this not a standard of bath curtain out there?  It's no where to be found, be it amazon, bed bath and beyond, sears, pottery barn, and many other stores I've never heard of.  Ebay wasn't much help either.  It directed me to red and white FABRIC.  Perfect!  It's just what I want.  Evidently, it's just a little tease, trying to get me to buy 10 yards of the fabric for $99.  That might be all good, but I don't have a sewing machine.  Not that I don't know how to sew, but I just don't have a machine.  Plus, I'm a little fuzzy on how to do grommets, so it's probably best I don't buy this particular fabric............even though it's staring at me thru the computer and screaming at me to buy it!  This is where the heart of the problem lies.  Once I've got something in my head, I have to have it.  I cannot/will not rest until I know I've found it.  It's the same with clothes, shoes, stuff for the house.  It's really frustrating, because I will literally dream about it at night.  My mind never shuts off!!  So, if anyone comes across a red and white striped shower curtain, please pass along the info.  This is what I'm looking for:

Not difficult, right?  I'm not asking for a modern drawing, featuring a lush tea garden and koi pond on my shower curtain. My little frustrations at 2:45am..........................