Dear friends. I’m calling in a favour. Please help.
I am co-ordinating the new and improved Great Westboro Garage Sale at Dovercourt on Saturday June 6th and we still have tables left to rent. Here’s were you come in. I need you to either (a) rent a table or (b) help me tell the rest of Ottawa to come and rent a table.
As a member of the Westboro Community Association I can tell you that has been a lot of interest in this kind of event. I have been getting regular email requests for the past couple of years. (No kidding!) And now it’s finally here! My spidey senses tell me there is a lot of excitement about cleaning out our collective basements and bringing home trinkets and treasures to fill them up again.
We’re hoping that this event will become an annual fundraiser for our organization and help us fund some of our ongoing projects… the largest of which right now is the rejuvenation of Clare Gardens Park. We’re getting a new preschool play structure but we’re very short of funds for everything else.
If you’re looking to SELL, here is what you need to know:
- You can rent a table for only $10/each
- Tables are first-come-first-served and will be assigned a location at the time of rental. Book your spot through Dovercourt, in person or over the phone.
- There’ll be a bouncy house, food for sale, and it’s also the same day as Music in the Park. Combine that with Saturday swim lessons and anyone selling anything is TOTALLY guaranteed have a captive audience.
- For the past 14 years it’s only rained twice on the first Saturday in June. I’ll be damned if the sun doesn’t shine on that day.
- Ottawans are garage sale junkies. This is an incredibly easy way to raise some extra cash and get rid of the junk that’s choking up your closets. BUT if you don’t want to deal with the hassle, just drop your stuff off at the WCA table and we’ll sell it for you (and keep the change!).
Perhaps you’re just looking to buy? Please come out and show your support. Habitat for Humanity will be selling tickets for the annual Habitat for Humanity playhouse raffle, so please drop by and check it out. (The value of the playhouse is approximately $3500. Tickets are 10 dollars and the draw will take place on June 30, 2009.)
The Great Westboro Garage Sale begins at 9:00 and ends at 2:00. Please come by and say hello.
I am rather picky about my banana bread. And by picky I mean I KNOW WHAT I WANT.
I find it sad that some people have never experienced a proper banana bread, or worse, confuse banana cake with banana bread. KOO KOO CRAZINESS. Bread is bread, and cake is cake and never the twain shall meet.
That being said, I guess the inherent sweetness of this banana bread makes it less like real bread, and maybe it veers slightly towards cake territory… OH NEVERMIND. I guess I can understand how people get confused. I like my banana bread soft and moist on the inside, not too too sweet, and of a certain crumby texture which makes way for a healthy amount of walnuts. (Which are totally optional by the way.)
I will also admit to the internets that I like to spread butter on my freshly baked banana bread. My mouth is watering as I type this.
This is one of my most-requested recipes. I’ve made it dozens of times. It is very easy and very forgiving. I’ve messed up the measurements in more ways I care to remember, especially as it pertains to the baking soda and baking power. *sigh*
Everyone in my family loves this banana bread. I hope yours will too!
Here goes:
Banana Bread Recipe
You will need:
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 5 tablespoons room-temperature butter
- 2/3 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature, slightly beaten
- 3 mashed bananas
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder. In a separate large bowl beat butter and sugar on high speed for 2 or 3 minutes until lightened in texture.
Beat in the flour mixture until blended and the consistency of brown sugar. This will take a couple of minutes. Gradually add eggs. Fold in the bananas and walnuts until just combined. Scrape into loaf pan and spread evenly. (I line mine with foil that I’ve sprayed with oil. It’s easier to lift out and store afterwards.) Bake 50 to 60 minutes. Let cool in pan on rack for five minutes.
It tastes great eaten right away but it’s just as good the next day.
Enjoy! And let me know if you try this one.
I was at the doctor’s recently, discussing dry skin and possible stress-induced eczema (don’t worry mom, I’m fine!) and he recommended using Dove as a regular everyday kind of shower soap. Apparently their claims of moisturizing power is not a bogus one. I have switched and have noticed a difference.
Some products are better than others, but it’s hard to know what’s what, especially given the cost of some of these things.
Take shampoo for example. I found myself at the drugstore with four $8.00 bottles of shampoo and conditioner in my basket the other day. Crazy! Who can afford to wash their hair nowadays?
I’ve been up and down the shampoo aisle – organic and non – and always return to Pantene. (No, they’re not paying me to write this. It’s true.) Mark doesn’t seem to care what’s in the shower. He doesn’t have a lot of hair that needs care, but the three of us do. What’s more, our hair is wildly different.
I use Pantene Extra Straight shampoo. It really does work. I don’t have to wrestle with the flattening iron nearly as much. I tried the straightening conditioner that goes with it but for some strange reason it doesn’t leave me with good “day two” hair. (I wash my hair every second day.) Instead I’ve been using Pantene Restoratives Frizz Control conditioner. That seems to work much better for me.
And then there’s Sarah, dear Sarah. You’ve seen how much hair that kid has, right?
She uses Pantene for curly hair. It’s the best I’ve found so far. Trick is to use GOBS of conditioner. Especially the leave-in kind, otherwise we get a lot of frizz. I really need to experiment and find a really good one. We’re still battling the frizzies.
Awhile back Gwen at Nayla Natural Care kindly sent us some TruKid shampoo and conditioner to try. The smell was divine, the packaging fun and kid-friendly. The shampoo got our hair squeaky clean but we all thought the stuff was best suited for people who had considerably less hair than we did, especially as it pertained to the conditioner. (I’m thinking it would be perfect for toddler/baby hair.) Two pumps of shampoo followed by five pumps of conditioner every time we washed our hair meant that we ran out of conditioner pretty fast.
I would love to see someone develop a conditioner bottle that is 20% larger than the matching shampoo. I can’t be the only one who has this problem!
