Sneaking in Some Midsomer Magic

The end is nothing. The road is all. Willa Cather

Time to quit living on Someday Isle (I'll), and just enjoy my journey. Time to put a little Midsomer Magic into my days.

And a good reminder from Jim Rohn, my favorite motivational speaker. RIP Jim. Click HERE. It's really short.

On Monday I was watching my Midsomer Murder when I had to pause it and go bake Oatmeal Cookies and Banana Snack Cake. I knew I had the ingredients for both and my bananas needed to be used. Now I have something in the freezer in case someone drops in Midsomer style. Whew! Don't want to be caught with an empty freezer. Now if I can just stay out of them.

QUAKER’S BEST OATMEAL COOKIES

1-1/4 cups (2-1/2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1-1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

3 cups uncooked oats, quick or old fashioned

1 cup nuts of choice (optional)

 

Heat oven to 375°.

 

Beat butter and sugars until creamy.  Beat in egg and vanilla.

 

Add combined flour, soda, salt, and spices.  Mix well.

 

Stir in nuts and then oats.

 

Drop by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets.

 

Bake 8-9 minutes for a chewy cookie or 10-11 minutes for a crispy cookie.

BANANA SNACK CAKE

1/2 cup shortening

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1-1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional) 

Heat oven to 350°.

Sift dry ingredients into a small mixing bowl, whisk together, and set aside.

 
In a large mixing bowl, with hand mixer, combine shortening, bananas, and eggs.

 
Add dry ingredients and fold in just until moistened.

 
Pour into a greased and floured 9” baking pan.

 
Bake 35-40 minutes.

 
Leave in pan five minutes; then turn out onto waxed paper or a clean dish towel over a rack.

 
When cool, frost or dust with powdered sugar and cut into squares.

 

Happy Birthday America on Tuesday. I received only one handmade card. Not a popular theme with most cardmakers.

From Jean

I love 4th of July, so I sent some cards.

And I got a really cute summer card from Katie. Love this layout.

Someone celebrates every holiday by decorating her car. I see it at Aldi all the time.

Fannie Mae and Mim invited me to join them in their 4th of July tradition - a hot dog at Sam's. So much fun watching everyone coming in wearing red, white, and blue. Some had tee shirts with flags, some just wore r, w, and b, and some had special clothes. One guy was wearing a beautiful shirt with a blue background and covered with skyrockets, star bursts, flags, and white cats. Cats? And I loved watching the little ones with a huge piece of pizza, trying to manuever the wobbly tip into their mouths. One fastidious little guy asked mom to cut his into smaller pieces.

Of course I was the only one who had potato chips with my hot dog, but Mim did break down and get a swirl soft-serve ice cream; however, she also got two more cups and spoons, so we each had a third. Good lesson - if I only have a third, that's all I want. Guess it's the old "clean your plate" habit. 

I finished off the day by watching A Capitol Fourth. I actually knew some of the performers this year. The best part is watching the crowd as they celebrate. My neighborhood is usally quiet after the fireworks deadline, but this year they went on until sometime after 11:00 p.m. Perhaps I'm correct that there's a shift towards patriotism in America. 

Wednesday I got a robocall about 11:15 that trash pickup would not be delayed due to the holiday. Great! That means they picked up in my subdivision at 6:30 a.m. - five hours before I got the call. I find people are increasingly incompetent, but worse than that, they're uncaring. Maybe having smelly trash in my garage for an extra week will teach me a lesson. Must adjust my thinking. Maybe I'm attracting incompetent people.

I ran some errands and stopped by our local thrift store to look for green glasses for Terri. No glasses, but I bought three pictures for $4 each to replace the faded ones in the diningroom. They're not really faded, but somehow changed color so that the background is gray, which is totally out of sync with the room.

Old pictures

New pictures

The old pictures had better frames, so I'm saving them to see if I can find some better prints online. I actually bought three pictures, thinking I'd put one on a short wall, but then realized two were identical, so probably donated by a retail store. I must stop hurrying, and pay more attention when I shop.

After hanging the pictures, I realized they weren't even. How could that happen? I rechecked the size, one against the other. Exactly the same. I checked the position of the hanging brackets. Exactly the same. Hmmmm.....then duh! The brackets on the old pictures weren't in the same position. But like Scarlett, I'll think about that tomorrow. Until then, I'll just pretend I wanted them slightly offset.

The janitor skunk came to do outdoor cat food cleanup duty. Monday it was a team of raccoon and possum, and tonight a mama raccoon brought three babies. So cute! I got the camera, but every time I turned on the light, mama hustled them out of the patio before I could take a photo. And what a mess they made of the water bowl.

I fell asleep watching my Midsomer episode, so I had to start it over the next day.

Thursday I finally finished my grocery shopping. I was afraid I was going to be reduced to eating rice and canned goods. Feels good to be stocked up. And I bought myself a little Midsomer Magic - $5 and Kevin just told on his vlog that he got a dozen beautiful roses at Trader Joe for $7. Why can't we get a Trader Joe?

I also went to $ Tree to look for the green glasses, and wow! they had the lemon glasses to go with my dishes. They were out of them when I bought the dishes. I felt justified in buying them, as I plan to keep the lemons as my summer dishes.

I got a bill from T-Mobile with a CREDIT balance of $37.64. Why am I not surprised?

Friday Rita came over and we loaded the last ten bags of books into her car. Then we headed to the rummage sale at Jean's church. We each bought 6 lbs. of pecans, and I bought 

Six pretty pink napkins (donated by Jean)

A yellow cake stand.

Some ants for a picnic table.

A 4th of July centerpiece.

A white tablecloth.

and some costume jewelry.

Then off to Cracker Barrel where I had my favorite - chicken-fried chicken.

The Glenstone thrift store was open, so we just had to shop. I bought some fun shoes which have perfectly clean soles. There's a little wear on the tops of the sides where the plastic tie  hooked them together (which told me they're new).

$2.50

And a purse which needs a little glue on some of the beads - 75 cents. Guess I was just in a blingy mood.

I also bought some Christmas stamps.

What happened to "I am not going to buy any more clothes, things for the table, or things to craft!"?

Saturday I made strawberry freezer jam and did food prep with all the groceries I bought Thursday. I threw out the watermelon I bought at Walmart. It was actually pale pink instead of bright pink and absolutely tasteless. I also threw out almost an entire half gallon of milk from Braums. They've added something to make it easier to digest, and it tasted like chemicals. Yuck!

STRAWBERRY FREEZER JAM

3-1/4 cups crushed strawberries – 2 containers (1 lb. each)

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 box Sure Jell MCP Premium Fruit Pectin

4-1/2 cups sugar

Put the strawberries into a large bowl.

Stir in lemon juice.

Stir pectin into strawberries. Mix thoroughly.

Let strawberries sit 30 minutes, stirring every five minutes.

Slowly add sugar, mixing thoroughly. Continue stirring until dissolved.

Pour into glass jars or plastic containers with lids.

Leave on counter for 24 hours.

Refrigerate for up to three weeks, or freeze up to one year. Thaw in refrigerator.

Note: For a lower sugar version, buy the low sugar pectin. Each box of pectin also comes with instructions. 

I tried really hard this week to cut my calories by eating smaller portions. Using smaller plates and bowls helps, cutting off the crust of the bread, a few potato chips instead of half a bag, only one pickle. And if the pickle can count as a green vegetable, I ate the rainbow that day.

I tried eating only one taco, but couldn't resist going back for another.

I still wanted to inject some Midsomer Magic with afternoon tea, but they looked like this.

I cheated one day, but I didn't want to waste the sides I cut from the Banana Snack Cake. This is one side cut into thirds.

Almost 3:00 p.m. and all I've done is take photos and work on this blog post. I did, however, multi-task and changed the sheets and finished all the laundry.  I actually don't change sheets; I wash the sheets and put them back on the bed. Saves folding sheets. When they wear out, I'll use another set.

Question. Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Jill Biden, even the first lady of Ukraine, have all appeared on the cover of Vogue. But the most glamorous and beautiful of all the current first ladies, Melania Trump has not. It seems Vogue offered her a picture layout inside but would not guarantee the cover, so Melania declined. Wonder why Vogue wouldn't be thrilled to have Melania on the cover? 

Busy week coming up - trying to get caught up on work so I can make some more Midsomer Magic.