use real butter

I’ve got chocolate chunk banana bread and sour cream coffee cake cooling in the kitchen. Sour cream makes for a moist crumb. The coffee cake is for Suzanne who turned 30 on Thursday. Alex surprised her with an issue of 30 Magazine in which he compiled articles from her friends and family. She thought it was a REAL magazine! I can’t wait to get my copy of it (Alex is providing one for everyone who contributed). Suzanne is a huge fan of baked goods (all 80 pounds of her). Because I didn’t have enough rotting banana to make the banana bread, I picked up two more at Pavilions yesterday. I asked if they had any “brown” bananas. Produce Guy explained that they compost all of their rotting produce! How cool is that?! I can’t wait to have a compost pile. The amount of trash we produce will dwindle to almost nothing after recycling and composting! I wonder if I’ll have to grow vegetables on our deck? Otherwise I’ll just be creating a buffet bar for the local fauna.

I love the longer daylight hours, but it makes for short evenings. When we think it should be about 7, it is practically 9! The weather makes me hungry for watermelon. I couldn’t find any watermelon (recalling the summer days when Ro and I would talk about buying a watermelon and eating just that all weekend long…) But I found a ton of strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, asparagus, snap peas – mmmmm fresh produce makes me sing! I have a nice pitcher of southern sweet tea sitting in my fridge now. I love that stuff.

We’re under contract, kids! In my jubilation, I managed to email one of my bosses instead of my girlfriend. I hate it when that happens…

And while I’ve been in negotiation hell for the past week, my parents have been contemplating a house of their own (I mean another one). Mom faxed me floor plans today and Dad sent me some pictures: