beauty

We have been having an unusual winter here in South FL. Today was no exception. Currently we are under a sever thunderstorm watch until 8 p.m. today. I left the house to go pick up my oldest from school and it was raining so hard then when we are getting ready to pull back in the driveway about 15 minutes later my youngest shouted "A RAINBOW!" It sure is/was beautiful!

When we wake up tomorrow morning it will be in the high 30's low 40's. I have been living here for almost 12 years and have never experienced a winter like this year.

Don't get me wrong though I am enjoying the cooler weather and before I know it I will be complaining about the heat.

playroom stats

This past summer while vacationing in MD at my parents house Mom and I walked to a yard sale up the street from her house. I saw this cute desk and chair set for $10. I walked away because how in the heck was I going to get it back to FL on the airplane, NOT going to happen. Then I had an idea. My 19 year old nephew goes to college in FL about 20 minutes from me, he is driving back down and can bring it with him. I got in my mom's car and drove to the yard sale with $10 cash in hand to purchase that desk and chair set. Well 19 year old nephew didn't bring it, I forgot he is 19 and had his things to bring down and my desk and chair didn't matter. So if you read my earlier post from today I posted about going to Clermont, FL. This little desk and chair is why we went. Friend's of my parents were camping there, so the family made a 3 hour trek to go pick up the desk and chair. Sure it now cost me more then $10 because we had to pay gas, buy food, and make other road trip stops. But I love it and it looks great in the play room! That is all that matters right? :)

Friday when I went to pick up Reed from daycare the director offered me this shelf for FREE and I snatched it up. I have been asked in the past if I wanted other items and have always turned them down. Well this time I was ready for it. Good-bye toy box hello shelving unit that is much more organized and the kids can now see what toys they do have! YEAH!!! At a later time I will have to go through the basket on the third shelf on the right. It stores too many happy meal toys for my liking, but I just couldn't part with all of them today. Some did go in the big blue bin that went to the curb today.

Randomly floating around in the toy box was quite a few bouncy balls won at a local restaurant arcade machine. While talking to my friend on the phone I was telling her about the bouncy balls and she said just pitch them. I couldn't do that so I got a vase and started filling it up. I think it will make a nice accent to the room. What do you think? Should I display them or pitch them? The kids can still play with them if they want.

Next on the playroom agenda is to get things hung on the wall. Oldest son has been designing his own t-shirt creations on paper. I think I am going to have him create them on canvas and hang on the walls of the playroom.

Orange Pickin'

Yesterday we took a little road trip to Clermont, FL (more info to come about why we were there later).
We looked up things to do while we were there and found a U-pick oranges place. I was super excited about going there. This past summer while in MD we tried to go pick our own cherries but were too late and they were done for the day.

There was an abundance of orange trees all over the place but I wanted navel oranges so we seeked out those trees.
Trying to find the perfect pickin' place.

Reed, the pirate, takes his orange.

Our, or should I say my oranges since I am the only one that will eat them!

Today's post is brought to you by the letter Pp.

I am fed up with my wonderful {not really} pots and pans that were hand me downs or cheap pans we got when we got married.

Seriously, I had a handle break on me on one of the said wonderful pots the other day.

I have been thinking about the Rachael Ray pots and pans.

What do you have? Love or hate about them? What do you wish you had or oooo and ahhh over as far as pots and pans go?

Should I go stainless steel or do a non-stick service?

I may get them for Valentine's Day. How romantic! But seriously I would be in love with a great set.

I do have a small skillet from Pampered Chef that I do like, but dh is not going to go through a consultant he will want to be able to walk in to a store, purchase and walk out.

Banana Bread

There were 3 very ripe bananas sitting on top of my microwave this morning so I decided it was time to make banana bread.

It took some looking to find the perfect recipe, the one that didn't call for butter because I didn't have any, but I did find one.

Once I found the recipe the next struggle was to locate the bread pan...couldn't find it. I think I gave it to dh to use for something he was doing in the garage. Oh well. So a searchin' I went for what pan I could use. Before children I would go to garage sales and hit up thrift stores at least once a week. I have a double shelf in my kitchen and I saw the mini loaf pan and thought oh I can make mini-loaves. Got it down, rinsed it off, because it was dusty, dried it, and greased it up.

They were popping over the edges because I probably could have used one more mini loaf to have 7 instead of 6. Total deliciousness!!!

"Reedism"

"There's bleed on my shoe."

scarf

I have been wanting to make one of these scarfs for awhile now and since I have plans to go north this coming Friday it is now time that I will need one. I started with 1/3 yard of black fleece. {I had looked at more interesting colors/patterns, but my jacket is white, with some red and black...decided black was my best choice. Discovered that there are so many shades of red.} I cut it in half and laid the 2 pieces on top of each other and sewed down the middle. This was nerve wracking for me to make sure that it stayed straight but it was actually quite simple.













Now onto a half inch from the middle on the right.













1/2 inch from the middle on the left.

I then laid it out and cut every 2 inches on each side.

Here it is all completed sporting it with my coat.