Chocolate Chip Banana Bread - or - How to wait for a realtor.

So the last post was not about bikes - except possibly the need for a garage to put them in.

This post isn't about bikes either.  Pretty much the same reason.  What can I say?  This house project is driving me bananas.

Closet shelves built into the wrong wall.  Unsodded land and an unguttered roofline ganging up to wash another half ton of dirt into the carefully constructed swale.  Squabbles over the well shared with a neighbor - a neighbor who doesn't want to share.

That was the list for this morning.  God only knows whats happening over there now that I have come back to the townhouse to wait for the realtor.  The realtor who was planning on four but can't come til five.

So what do you do with an extra hour at home?  Clean?  Vac?  Mop floors?  Yeah, maybe you could do that.  But I can't.  Not today.  I have had enough you-know-what for today.

I'm gonna bake something.  

This may be a problem unique to Florida, but in the past few weeks we have had three bunches of bananas come ripe.  And we have one more green one up there to go.  With about 80-90 bananas to a bunch, that's a LOT of bananas.   

See em up there?

Hanging just left of center with a big pink blossom underneath.

Here's what they look like up close (and ripe).

Small. But plentiful.

It's a typical August afternoon on our side of Florida.

I am trying not to think of how much mud there will be

to shovel back up that hill later.

The sod had better come tomorrow.

So, might as well go bananas the old fashioned way.  (As long as the electricity stays on.)

And what the heck?  The place will smell pretty good when the realtor arrives too.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread 

(Not even enough mental energy left today to experiment.  So this one is straight out of the Hersheys Chocolate Cookbook)

2 cups unsifted all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup mashed bananas

1/2 cup shortening (I'm not a fan of glucky shortening, so I used butter.)

2 eggs

1 cup Hersheys chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Grease bottom only of a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.  Set aside.

Combine all ingredients except choc chips and walnuts in a large mixer bowl.  Blend well on medium speed. 

(That's it for batter directions.  Simple, huh?  I creamed butter and sugar first though, then mixed in eggs and bananas, before adding the dry stuff.  I know - such a slave to convention.)

Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

Pour into prepared pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.  Cool ten minutes, Remove from pan.  Cool completely on wire rack.

Now this is how to wait for a realtor.

And boy am I glad I didn't knock myself out to clean the place. 

She never showed.

Oh well.  Her loss, right?

Demolition to Almost-House

Warning:  To read about biking click back to July.  This particular post is not about bikes or anything related to bikes.  Except maybe that driving this project from the beginning was the need to have an actual garage and get our nine bikes (plus bike workshop) out of the living room.

This post is for everyone who has asked, "How's the house coming along?"  

Which would be pretty much everyone we know.

Honestly, I can't thinking of a more boring subject, but here are a few pictures since the first of the year, when the actual build started.   

The tough part, getting it right on paper, took most of 2011.

We are just hoping that the build doesn't take all of 2012.  

December 2011 - August 2012

Move in date - ????

Matt, with Jose, our builder.

Eager to get started wreckin' stuff.

Demolition Day.

Me, with Kathy from next door.

Is it any wonder she keeps her shutters up?

Frank, next door on the other side, supervises daily.

Walls and Trusses

Looks big, doesn't it?

Windows and drywall.

Half wall for the kitchen island.

Too many choices!

But we have to narrow it down to two - inside and outside.

Sky blue.

(Also known as Gin Bottle Blue.)

The old dock and seawall were pretty messed up

after that no-name storm last October.

New seawall.

And unfortunately, also a new swale.

There goes our native vegetation.  :(

Meanwhile indoors...

Decisions, decisions.

"Driftwood" laminate flooring...

cabinets, appliances,

granite...

..."watermelon" pendent lighting.

Anyone recognize Blownfuse without a helmet?

Fans up, and lighting in.  Hooray!

Back outside for some sea grape modification.

Matt having waaay too much fun borrowing the neighbor's chainsaw.

Matt and our builder, Debbie.

Measuring what's left of the sea grape

for native plant requirement.

It's still a mess.

Both front... 

...and back.

But we like to think it has potential.