Family Favorite Flapjacks

Okay, I don’t call them flapjacks, but couldn’t resist the alliteration. This recipe is one that I have been making for over 44 years.  At one of my wedding showers, the party host had everyone bring their favorite recipe on a card to give me.  This was one of those recipes.  Over the years I have changed it to be just what we like.  Here it is:

1.  Mash two bananas in a large bowl.  Riper bananas make for a better flavor, but I was impatient and mashed these more firm ones.

 

2.  Add 2 eggs and mix.

 

3.  Add 1 Tablespoon olive oil and 1 Tablespoon honey and mix.  I use raw, local honey.

 

4.  Add 1 and 1/2 cups of milk and mix.  I use almond milk.  Also, I use a 1/2 cup measuring cup and add three of them with the amount of milk being scant.  That means a little on the not full side.

 

5.  Next I add the dry ingredients.  1/2 cup of flour.  I use Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free Baking Flour.  I have not always been gluten free.  This recipe is delicious made with whole wheat flour, which is how I originally made it.  But, thanks to harmful chemicals in foods today, I am gluten free.  Wait to mix until you have added the next ingredients.

 

6.  Add 1 Tablespoon baking powder (aluminum free) and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  You can mix it now.

 

7.  Add 1 and 1/2 cups of rolled oats.  Mix this all together.  We will also be adding chocolate chips when cooking.  If your entire family enjoys chocolate chips in their pancakes, then you can add them now.  1/4 – 1/2 cup chocolate chips.  This batter will thicken as it sits, so you might want to wait about 20 minutes before beginning to cook them.

 

8.  Even though my pan is non-stick, I drizzle olive oil in the pan so they certainly don’t stick.  I cook them on medium-low heat. It works best if you allow the pan to heat up first.  I often use a large lid to cover the pan to create a little oven inside.

 

9.  Since not everyone in my family enjoys the chocolate chips, I add them as I cook them.  I can add as many or as few as I like to each pancake.

 

10.  Ready to enjoy.  We like them plain, but they are also delicious with maple syrup.  And there we have it, our Family Favorite Flapjacks!

 

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Workshop Do-Over

In my last post, I mentioned that Tom’s workshop would be the next story.  It took him about 3 months, I think, to finish it.  Being redesigned, a little bit, has made it much more usable for him.  Not to mention the getting rid of TONS of stuff has created much more room.

It began with the removal of everything inside and placing it in the driveway.

The inside looks nice when it’s mostly emptied. You can see the insulation in the ceiling.  See all of those boxes of laminate flooring?  Twenty-three!  They were left over after flooring the inside of the house.  I actually returned them to Costco for a refund of over $600.  I love Costco!

The first thing done was to install a plybead ceiling.  It’s similar to beadboard, but cut and formed from plywood rather than masonite.

I am not a very strong helper, so Tom engineered a contraption to help hold up the plybead while he screwed it into the ceiling beams.

The workshop has a 1/2 bath which makes it a super man cave, don’t you think?  He didn’t like the placement of the sink.  He bought a new one and moved it to a better location. The new configuration gave more usable space to the shop.  The photo below shows how he moved it from left of the toilet, to the right and adjoining wall. The board on the floor is covering the sewer opening.

This is how nice the bathroom looks now.  He installed a space saving pocket door as well.

The shop is now ready for some great projects.  I heard rumors that he’s going to get those bikes road worthy.

The large hoist in the picture, is what we use to put the 5th wheel hitch in and out of our truck bed.  The table saw is vintage, just like we are!  🙂

We are out of projects!  What to do?  Thanks for stopping by.  Maybe you have some ideas for our next project.  Oh wait!  We could, maybe, find some projects for the 5th wheel!

 

Nice and Tidy

Well, can you believe it?  We are all done with the work on our home! Here are some pictures to show you how it looks.

My husband added trim around all of the windows painted in Behr “Ultra White”.  He also put up dark gray shutters painted with Behr “Graphic Charcoal”.  We love it.

This is how the windows looked as he did them.  These are the front windows.

This is our nice shady space in the backyard.  We enjoy sitting out here on warm summer nights.

Then, after the windows were all finished, we had a screen company come out and put sunshade cloth on our west facing windows.  That means, the front of the house!  We, also, had them re-screen our Arizona room on the west facing side.  Also, with sunshade, but in a gray color.  That is my cute, little golf cart parked on the side.

The next project is remodeling my husband’s work shop.  Stay tuned for that.

 

What’s New?

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable summer!  We vacationed earlier on at the beginning of summer and spent the rest of our time at home.  My husband has been working on our house all through the heat!  He painted the entire exterior all by himself.  I can’t tolerate the heat, so I stayed inside with air conditioning.  🙂

You can see the difference here between the old color (beige) and the new Morning Zen by Behr.

This is another angle of the front from the other side.

Today, I actually helped him with his latest project of building and installing window trim.  He measured each window then built the surround for it, then painted it white, then after they dried he installed them.

This is from the front.  It looks so nice with our white fence and our pretty green trees.

This next view is taken in the driveway of the kitchen window and back door.

He is going to do a little caulking and hide the screws where he mounted them, then he will be done.  We are also planning on shutters, but those we will do later when the weather cools a little.  Or maybe A LOT!!

So, that’s what’s happening here at our place.  Thanks for taking the time to read about our projects.  See you next time.

 

Pickets!

Oh boy.  Now we have everything.  Yes, Tom built a nice picket fence around our front yard.  Years ago, he built a white, wooden, picket fence around our front yard at a home in California.  We discovered that to keep the fence looking nice, we had to paint it at least every other year.  That was a lot of work, because it was quite a few feet of fence.  So, this time, he decided that he would build the fence out of vinyl.  Our HOA rules state that any fences in the front yard cannot be taller than 30″.  We could not find a single company that built a vinyl picket fence under 48″.  So, Tom bought a 48″ fence and cut every picket to his own custom size, none being taller than 30″.

He also had to modify the posts that went into the ground, and the cross posts.

It is a totally original creation and I love it.

Now, I have the inside and outside pretty much caught up.  I’ll have to find some more things to blog about.  Until next time! Thanks for stopping by.

We Rock!

I promised to tell you about our rock and I will, but first I need to insert our new trees.  We added them before the awnings.  We bought four largish trees so we wouldn’t have to wait so long for them to grow up.  This tree being planted by the men from Whitfill Nursery is an Ash tree.

We, also, had an Oro Blanco grapefruit tree planted.

The front yard trees are Flowering Pear.  They bloom in January, have green leaves through November, then they turn red and drop.  They are without leaves for about 3 weeks.  #lifeinAZ

Okay, jump ahead now to April of 2016.  With a lot of help from family and a friend, we put new rock on our property.  In Arizona, people have rock yards.  My husband designed and drew up a nice plan for the yard.  He installed a French drain to take the water from the backyard out to the street.  It’s hidden under all the rock.  Here you can see the area where the French drain would be dug.

It went across the back yard and down both sides of our property to the street.

We had TONS of rock delivered for the front and back yard.  We even had babies working!  Notice the nice ring that Tom built around the trees.

After all the rocking was done, Tom added a spot of fake grass in the backyard.

It would have been nice to do the entire backyard with it, but believe me, it’s is not inexpensive.

We also had a third awning added.  A large one on the back of the house.  It looks super!

Whew.  I’m worn out just writing about all of this.  See you next time, and thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

 

Let’s Go Outside

Shall we?  In November of 2015 we extended our side awning to include the full length of our home.  To do the front awning, my husband and my son had to add a small section of concrete in order to anchor the new awning.

It looks much better to have the awning extended.  We did it for looks and to add shade.

The before and after show the improvement.

Here is how the backyard area looked before and after.

Enjoy a meal in the hot sun at that table! Not!

Oh, much better!  Don’t you agree?

See our rock yard?  I wear Gowalks by Sketchers and the little rocks stick in between the rubber nubs on the bottom of my shoes.  I have to pick them out before going into the house. Those little rocks have got to go!  And they do!  More about that tomorrow.

 

 

Oh Wow!

I love how nice my home is looking.  Today I will share photos of our master bedroom.

The room had two 4 foot closets with pretty enough doors, but they were too small.  Tom tore out the old structure and built a new one.  This is how the before looked.  The carpet was old.  That was torn up as well and new laminate flooring put down in it’s place.  See that mirror on the floor?  That used to be in the bathroom with a plastic frame glued around it.  That’s just part of being a mobile home from the 80’s.

The new closet is the entire stretch of the wall, giving us about three feet more of space.

We have weird windows here.  They are two windows per opening.  One single pain outside and one single pain inside.  With about five inches in between.  Our exterior walls are built with 2×6’s.  Makes for some nice insulation in the Arizona HEAT.  It is currently 102 degrees F outside.  Whew.  I live in a furnace!

Okay, back to the bedroom…  This is how pretty it’s looking now.  My dresser and chest were my mother’s.  She and my dad bought them in 1950 when they got married.  Yes, I painted them white.  My mother would have loved that!  She was an adventurer. The wall color is called Soft Sunrise by Behr, trim Swiss Coffee also by Behr.  The very nice area rug under the bed is from IKEA.

Whoa, I have finished the tour of the inside remodels.  Wait, I may have forgotten my husband’s office.  I have to look into that and post an update.

Later, friends!

Three Days in a Row!

Wow, I amaze myself!  The trick was that I added my blog page to automatically open when I open my browser each day.  Now I can’t forget to blog, I actually have to ignore it if I don’t want to blog.  Haha.

Let’s take a look at the master bath.  Just like every place else, Tom had to move the plumbing from the floor to the wall.  Without doing that you have pipes in the way of storage under the sink.

Also, as per usual, he gutted the entire room

There is that floor again.  We pulled it up, of course. I’m not saying I don’t like vinyl.  We actually prefer vinyl floors to ceramic tile, because they are more forgiving when you drop things and they are warmer to bare feet.

Everything is white.  We like white.  Here is the new shower surround.

Tom built a wall to add a little privacy to the toilet area.  I couldn’t find any white lights, nor could I find any ‘two light’ light kits that I liked.  I found these on Amazon and painted them white.  They were black.  The mirrors look nice in this bathroom also.  The color is Nutmeg Frost by Behr. The trim that you can’t really see is Swiss Coffee by Behr.

Yes, I like that shower curtain so much that I have it in both bathrooms.  We had glass doors, but I like foofoo.  hehe.

Next up…the master bedroom…tomorrow though.

Thank you for stopping by and getting a taste of my little world.  Blessings to you!

 

So soon!

Here I am again!  Today, I have pictures of the guest room remodel.  The room had texture panels in two corners that my husband removed.  New drywall went into their place.

We have friends in Georgia that we visit each year.  Their new guest room is yellow!  We thought it was such a homey place that we also chose a yellow for our room.  The color is Summer Bliss by Behr Paint.  The bed covers are from the guest room we had in our last home.  The cute polka dot rug is from IKEA.

The bathroom was quite a job to do.   My husband, Tom removes all trims and muds the area.  We are thankful for the free bulk pick up we have every three months here in Phoenix.  That floor.  It’s vinyl.

He gutted the entire room.  Yay.  Just like in the kitchen, my husband moved the plumbing from the floor into the wall under the sink.

I don’t do much to help, just supervise.  😉  The master bath had this beautifully ugly light fixture that I convinced him to let me paint white.  It now is mounted in the guest bath.

All is brand new.  The wall color is White Mocha by Behr and the tub area is Swiss Coffee, also by Behr.

The story of the mirror.  I decided that a framed mirror would look prettier than one flat mirror on the wall.  While perusing mirrors at Lowe’s one day, I saw this mirror on clearance.  They were dark, distressed wood with beveled edges on the mirror surface.  The regular price was $80 marked down to $11.  There were five left, I bought three, saving two for when we would remodel the master bath.  I painted them with chalk paint, Annie Sloan Old White.  We bought medicine cabinets with beveled edges to match.

This concludes the tour of our guest and bath remodel.  Have a great day, see you soon!