Year In Review

 It has been almost an entire year since I created this blog, and almost an entire year since my last post. 2012 was a craaaazzzzzyyyyy year. Think that might be hyperbole? In May 2012 I gave birth to our beautiful daughter Kaitlin (the happiest baby I have ever met - I don't expect that to happen twice...). I spent the summer trying to garden like I had planned only to find that my expectations for new-motherhood were a little steep. It's a good thing I have a wonderful husband who helped me when he could and a great friend to co-garden with who picked up pretty much all of my slack. The summer also brought the one year anniversary of purchasing our home and moving in (trims still have tape around them and some even still need the last coat of paint!).

 Then in Autumn my sister-in-law was diagnosed with Crohn's disease so we asked her to come live with us. We had a spare room and she needed to get out of the parents house. I've spent the months since then learning about Crohn's, low fiber diets, and what long term exposure to prednisone actually does to a person. Suffice to say, the ladies of the house have had some interesting days between baby mood swings, pre-natal mood swings, prednisone mood swings and just plain old PMS! (my poor husband!) 

 This year I am going to try something new. Or, actually, quite old. I'm going to attempt going back to journaling and I'm going to use this blog to do it. I love the idea of sharing my thoughts with strangers who happen upon my musings and I love being able to add pictures too! I make no promises, but I'm hoping to make this at least a weekly adventure if not more frequent. 

See you soon!

Sunday Breakfast

Sunday mornings are the only mornings that hubby and I get to spend together not rushing to get ready for work. Recently I have decided to make Sunday breakfasts a family tradition; maybe in anticipation of our kidlet who is soon to be here, or maybe because I just love to cook breakfast and it is so much more fun to cook for two than for one. For the past few weeks I have been on a pancake kick. They are easy to make in a short period of time, and I can try so many variations! A few weeks ago I made whole wheat banana pancakes that hubby gobbled right up. This week, I was inspired by a cinnamon bun pancake I saw on another blog. I thought, that would be so tasty with apples! So I decided to make apple cinnamon pancakes.

One problem... I looked in the fridge to discover that I didn't have any apples.

But I did have nectarines!!!! I have to tell you, I have never really been a fruit person. I like apples and those nice firm grapes, but I am much more a vegi gal. Being pregnant, however, has changed a lot of things for me. I am craving fruit more than anything else. So when i saw that we had two nectarines in the fridge, I thought to myself, how can I put these in my pancakes? And then it came to me.

I cooked the nectarines and puréed them with a little bit of Victorian Epicure Apple Pie Spice, then added the purée to my pancake batter. I have to say, they were delicious pancakes! They were light and fluffy, but with a slightly doughy texture that hubby likes the best in a pancake. They were even better with a little Summerland Sweets raspberry syrup. I hope this makes you hungry to try your own fruit infused pancakes next time you are cooking breakfast for your family.

P.S. I'm contemplating coconut pancakes for next sunday....

Inaugural Blog

As we have been renovating our little three bedroom, one bath home, I have been using other blogs as inspiration for organisation, theme, and creative ideas. One problem I have found as I search for ideas, I have yet to find any ideas for a small, one story house that is shaped like a rectangle. You know the rancher style I'm talking about. They were so very popular in the late 70's and throughout the 80's because they were cheap to build, and could fit on pretty much any size lot. Ours is on a third acre lot surrounded by many large trees. Kind of like a little cottage in the woods. We have big dreams for our little house and big yard, a few less trees that reach 100ft, a few more fruit trees and shrubs, a garden to plant vegi's and flowers. We have painted almost all the rooms, replaced appliances with new-to-us appliances, given the windows new facings to brighten and lighten. We still want to do so much with our little place and as we finish the details and continue to renovate (we have a babies room to get ready for the end of April!)

A few goals to look forward to this year: 

Finish our guest room and baby room

Finish the laundry room (right now the walls have unifinished dry-wall mud and there is no storage what-so-ever!)

Create a root cellar in the crawl space

Get my garden planted

and Renovate the bathroom.

 I hope that you will follow along, share ideas, and even borrow a few.