Dior

Dior by debralynn5 featuring pastel dresses

Miss Dior Perfume Bottle Print by debralynnmejia on Etsy

Miss Dior Perfume Bottle Print by debralynnmejia on Etsy (clipped to polyvore.com)

Banana Bread With Chocolate Chips!

My friend Kathi always makes really delicious and moist banana bread.  My banana bread is inconsistent.  Sometimes great, sometimes too dry.  I finally asked her for her recipe and here it is:

Banana Nut Bread

2 1/2 C flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 c. butter or crisco

4 eggs

6 mashed (over ripe) bananas

1/2 c. nuts

Cream together crisco and sugar.  Add the eggs and bananas.  Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl then add to the banana mixture, 1/2 a cup at a time.  Then add the nuts.

Use 2 bread pans or rectangular cake pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes.

Well, I didn't have that many bananas or any nuts.  So I cut my recipe in half and added chocolate chips instead of the nuts.  I run my life by the theory that chocolate makes everything better!   I switched out a dairy free margarine for the butter because I can't have dairy.

* A good tip from my friend is to put your bananas in the freezer when they start to get dark and  speckled.  I keep a zip lock bag in my freezer for the bananas that are over ripe and ready for banana bread.  That way you can keep them for a when you have time to bake.  Just thaw them out and you are ready to go.

This isn't a full size rectangular cake pan, since I only made half the original recipe.  I have a smaller cake pan.  ( I couldn't find my bread pan)

Sorry, we kind of attacked the banana bread as soon as it came out of the oven.  We didn't get a photo of it in it's pristine fresh out of the oven glory.  

It was really moist and very yummy!!

Keeping Cool in Vegas

This past weekend we made a quick round trip to Las Vegas to visit my mom.  She has been very ill.  It was good to see her, but it is so hot in Vegas!

The fountains in front of The Venetian Hotel & Casino

We bought some new summer dresses to keep us cool in the Vegas heat, and to cheer mom up.  She's  always been a lover of fashion and loves to see us display our new shopping finds!  In this case the budget dictated a $15 Walmart maxi and a $19 Target Austen & Ally Disney dress :)

Etiquette Series - Whispering, Gossiping, and Yelling

For todays post on etiquette, I turn to one of my favorite books to keep on hand;  "Manners" by Kate Spade.

"Whispering, Gossiping, and Yelling.  
whispering once or twice in a movie or during a performance is justifiable, and yelling on a baseball field is also understandable.  But gossiping is as reckless as riding in a car without a seat belt.  Buckle up, button up, zip it, sshhhh."  -  Kate Spade

Illustration by Virginia Johnson for Manners by Kate Spade

I can probably handle the first two pieces of advise, but gossiping in my family is a favorite hobby.  I was brought up on it.  I end up doing it without realizing I am doing it.  So I have to make a conscious choice to not gossip everyday!

Classic Chanel No 5

I'm lucky to have a godfather who likes to shop.  The other day we were shopping and passed by the Chanel counter.  I stopped to smell the perfumes.  After painting so many Chanel items, I wanted to refresh my memory of how the perfume smelled.  I'm very careful about what fragrances I wear, because even if I like it the first time, after a couple of days I usually can't handle a fragrance anymore.  I sprayed myself with the sample bottle just to see if I could last all afternoon with this scent on me.  Then my godfather surprised me by buying me a bottle of the classic eau de parfum!  Lucky me!  There really is a difference between the parfums and colognes.  The parfums last so much longer.  The fragrance lingers in the room subtly after you have applied it. 

The top notes are Ylang-Ylang, Neroli, Aldehydes

Middle notes are Jasmine, mayrose

Base notes are Sandalwood, Vetiver

To me the scent is a classic pretty and comforting powdery floral scent.  Plus the bottle will look stunning on my dresser!

It is said that Coco Chanel created this scent to epitomize the modern flapper and speak to the liberated spirit of the 1920s.

Am I Blue? New Revlon Nail Polish!

I've been jealous of everyone's blue nail polish lately.  My favorite bottle of Avon Lagoon blue polish dried up a couple of years ago and I just hadn't found a blue that I liked as well.  However, this weekend my daughter and I were in Walmart searching for our favorite blues.  After walking the cosmetic isles a couple of times we agreed on Revlon Nail Art Sun Candy in Northern Lights and Revlon Parfumerie in Surf Spray.  The Northern Lights is extra fun because you can wear it two ways. One side of the bottle has the opaque blue and the other side has a clear glittery over coat.

We were sporting our new blue polish this past weekend when we went to the Natural History Museum.  The kids were able to work some water wheels to get his huge plastic frog to shoot a stream of water into this huge plastic flower we are standing under, getting splashed I might add!