Hippest Bananas

This is what the hippest bananas will be sporting in the coming months. According to Chiquita, the winners of their sticker design contest have been chosen.

Photo: Chiquita Brands International via Slashfood

The bananas at your local food market will be sporting some pretty creative stickers thanks to the winners of the contest. See all the winning stickers here and read all about the contest and winners at Slashfood.

My personal favorite is Ben M.’s design of the fingerprint. Something decidedly “Fringe” about it.

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Foliage update

For those of you who are wondering….and just because I couldn’t resist taking some pictures since everything is so breathtaking this time of the year….here are some foliage pictures

Prime Rib Soup

Tonight I made what is probably Tom and the boys’ favorite meal — Prime Rib Soup. Go figure, other people drool over the rib roast (yes, that would be me drooling) and my family drools over the leftovers. Yesterday I dug a small rib roast that I bought when it was on sale from the freezer and cooked it. Yes, it was delicious, but they were conservative with their eating since they knew whatever was leftover would be the ingredients for the soup. Eat less meat, have more soup – there’s the logic. Yes, we had a nice roast dinner last night but tonight…well tonight was the meal they were all waiting for.

It’s one of the throw-together recipes that I make. It originated from one Christmas when we had a rib roast leftover and no one is big on leftover meat in its roast form. So, I basically take the meat and bones that are leftover and sear them and then add beef broth and let them simmer slowly all day, along with some onions. Then I remove the bones, chop the meat, season it and add rice. Wah..laa – soup or more stew-ish actually.

Add the homemade dinner rolls and ta-da….. dinner!

Moonstruck

Here are some of the moon pictures I took tonight from the porch….

Birthday dinner

I must say that it has been a good birthday. I had a nice breakfast out with my hubby and then a delicious dinner cooked by Tim and his friend, Ian. He made Fettucine Bolognese with a Chocolate Cake for dessert.

The cooks hard at work…..

Tim made a meal totally Uncle Lou style – enough to feed a small army…..

And to top it all off a great cake….made with lots of chocolate and lots of love —the best combination!

Foliage

Took this picture on our way back from birthday breakfast – the colors are really showing now – it’s a beautiful day.

Autumnal Equinox

Today is the first official day of Fall, which began with the autumnal equinox at 11:09 p.m. EDT last evening. It was also a special equinox since the full moon occurred last night creating a true “Harvest Moon” called such because it is when the full moon occurs closest to the autumnal equinox – it happened this year just about as close as it could get, within hours of each other. The equinox is one of the two times in the year that the sun rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west. While the actual day of the equinox can vary from year to year, it is interesting to note that it will never occur in my lifetime on my birthday. The last time it occurred on September 24th was in 1931 and the next time will be in 2303.

Tiny Budda

There’s this twitter feed that I subscribe to, Tiny Budda which is pretty darn awesome and I suggest that you check it out. Sometimes, it gives one inspiration for the day or just something neat to think about when you’re sitting there thinking about nothing in particular. Today on their blog, they list “25 Awesome Things that We Take for Granted”. I thought that I would share the list here since it gives you a pretty down-to-earth perspective on the little things that we all take for granted, which aren’t all that little at all really.

Personally, there are some days where #1 on this list is enough to be thankful for but if you need something else, #25 is pretty darn cool too.

1. You woke up breathing. No matter what happens in the hours ahead, you can come back to your breath for a sense of peace and presence.
2. You have the freedom to choose what you’ll do today, even if you have some limitations. Sometimes we take it for granted, but what we do on a daily basis truly is our choice.
3. You had a bed to sleep in. Even if you didn’t get as much sleep as you’d like to, you had the opportunity to rest somewhere relatively peaceful.
4. There isn’t a hurricane, tornado, typhoon or other natural disaster going on outside your door.
5. You have the means to eat three meals today, even if one of them is Top Ramen (or spam and rice, as my boyfriend made on our first night in our new place).
6. Your roof isn’t leaking copious amounts of water directly on your head.
7. Your significant other is alive and healthy, albeit a loud snorer, an off-key shower singer, or a consistent maker of ridiculously strong coffee.
8. Your shower works—with hot water—meaning you don’t have to go to work with bed-head or skin that smells like night sweat.
9. If you don’t have work to go to, you have endless possibilities for your future. Right now might be a little uncomfortable, but your future is completely open, ready to be seized and enjoyed.
10. The sun is shining, giving you all those feel-good brain chemicals (the sun actually increases serotonin production—it’s a natural mood lifter!)
11. You don’t have Wicked Witch of the West syndrome, meaning that if it’s raining, you likely won’t melt.
12. Your closet didn’t catch fire overnight, meaning you don’t have to go to work naked or fashion an outfit out of hefty bags.
13. Your iPod works, so you can listen to your favorite tunes during your commute.
14. If you don’t have an iPod, you probably have access to music somehow—radio, streaming music online, your mom’s old 8-tracks. Music is such a powerful mood lifter that we can access any time.
15. If you drive, your favorite morning radio show is on and it’s so funny you almost don’t care about the gridlock traffic.
16. As for that gridlock traffic, the fact that you’re in it means you have a working car.
17. Your computer works, meaning you won’t need IT guys to come help you, disrupting your usual flow.
18. You have a cell phone, even if it isn’t an iPhone, Droid, or Blackberry. (Mine is none of the above.) Even a bulky, old-school cell phone that can’t connect to the Internet can make life world’s easier.
19. You have an office or workspace, even if it’s shared, meaning you can get things done relatively efficiently allowing for free time later this evening.
20. If you’re like me and don’t have an office or workspace, you have the freedom to work wherever you want. Go work under a tree for a while—you can!
21. You received some type of email that lets you know someone cares about you, even if it’s one of those chain emails your grandmother sends to the special people in her life.
22. If you didn’t get one of those emails, you have the capacity to send one (mass-emailed or personalized) to make a meaningful difference in someone else’s day.
23. You got a call or voicemail from someone you miss, giving you the opportunity for connection and even a little shared nostalgia.
24. If you didn’t get that call, you have access to a phone, meaning you can make one. Any day you connect meaningfully with someone else has the potential to be a great day.
25. Someone somewhere loves you, so no matter what happens in the day ahead, you’ll get through it with the support of people who care.

TinyBudda.com

Apple Pie

One of the best parts of fall and our house is that we have an orchard full of apples. All you have to do is walk by, reach out and grab one right from the branch. It is especially convenient when you want to make a quick dessert for dinner that night. Nothing easier than going out and picking your own apples for some apple pie.

Can you see the little swirls of smoke escaping from the pie? Yum…it was delicious. This was before my stomach aliens took over and I’ve been eating nothing that exciting or delicious.

Where’s dinner?

As I write this, it is 7:39 and I am waiting for soup to heat so I can feed the masses – one of which isn’t even back from soccer practice yet. Considering that they don’t have lights there, I don’t know exactly how one practices soccer in the dark – I can only imagine.

We came back from a cross country meet at MSJ which was actually at College of St. Joseph – I love the way nothing is every where it seems to be – but I digress. Tim had a full blown asthma attack during the race – scared himself to death – but was fine shortly afterward. I had to impress upon him that it is important when that happens that you tell the person you are running with or who passes you so that if you should pass out or need help, an adult can come rescue you.  Despite the asthma attack the boy came in 5th place – ribbon and all.

The definite highlight of the afternoon, since it was hosted by MSJ was the knife juggling by Father Tim. We’ve seen him juggle before, flaming batons, although knives are pretty much right up there. Everyone enjoyed his finale to the award ceremony.

Then errands on the way home for lunches tomorrow and a trip outside to cover everything we could – we are expecting temperatures around 30 tonight and frost. —- Winter it seems is not waiting too patiently for her entrance.

And friends make 8

The boys each have a friend (or friends) over this afternoon/evening. Tim has a friend over solely for pleasure. TJ has two friends over for a biology project brainstorming and then fun. Tyler has two friends over and they are the ones doing the most of the work – a big social studies project. The extra boys make a total of 8 men in the house – I am feeling very outnumbered. Boys eat—a lot. A crockpot full of chili and three homemade loaves of bread are pretty much wiped out totally and I fear it won’t be long before they start moving in on dessert.

I must admit though, that it is nice – the boys all have nice friends and having their friends over is always good. Usually a lot of laughing going on…. and tonight work too.

Straight

So yesterday I went to get highlights in my hair. Since it’s near impossible to see the highlights in wet, curly hair and she had  the time, the stylist asked if I would like her to straighten my hair – flat iron it. Since I’ve never had it straightened (well, once a long time ago when straightening meant blow drying it to death) I decided to let her have at it and see how it looked.

It was like having someone else’s hair on my head. By the way the boys and Tom’s faces looked when I got home, I could tell that (after they picked their jaws up and properly re-attached them) straight was not for me. Even our neighbor’s daughter that I picked up (I figured I’d get a female opinon) thought I was meant to have curly hair. Since open house was last night, a quick shower restored me to my former (and evidently meant-to-be) curliness.

Here’s the picture – but no laughing.