born imaginative.: February 2015

Chocolate Coconut Bars

I had little book entitled "Totally Chocolate Cookbook." Flipped through it and found this amazing little recipe. It's basically a brownie bottom and a magic bar top. Brilliant.

Without doubt, a new favorite.

Here's the recipe, adapted.

Chocolate Coconut Bars

12 oz semi sweet or dark chocolate, chopped

6 T butter

1 cup sugar

1/3 c. water

4 eggs

1 1/2 c flour

1 1/2 c. coconut

2/3 c. nuts (pecans, almonds or walnuts)

1 c. chocolate chips

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1) Melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Add sugar, water and eggs. Mix in flour.

2) Spread in a greased 13x9 pan. Bake 350 for 15 min.

3) In meantime, mix coconut, nuts, choco chips and condensed milk.

4) When 15 min. is up, spoon mixture over the brownies.

5) Bake until set (another 15-20 min.)

Enjoy!

Now, I'm really not one to mind winter. And I haven't minded it yet. There's so much goodness of being home and inside with my littles. So many projects we have done, so many yet to do!

However, as I make another batch of soup, I do find myself dreaming of the produce to come. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful we still have homegrown stuff to use up.

But soon, we will be enjoying all this:

And be able to pick these:

Just hold on...there's much goodness to come.

Daddy and his littles.

When I first met this man, I knew he would be an awesome dad.

I was totally right.

Sometimes...

It's 11pm Wednesday night and I just sat down to blog. I feel too exhausted to think clearly or go through the weekend snowshoeing pictures I was planning to post. I should just go to bed, but typing out a little something is something I look forward to, so I shall blog a few words before bed.

What a week it has been, and it's only Wednesday. We had a busy weekend and had little time at home to devote to weekend chores. Given our no furnace situation, work and snowstorms, we haven't had a day that we have been away from our home for more than a couple hours. A much needed family day, indeed.

After that busy weekend, it's been time to kick it into gear. Since Monday, I have logged 25 hours of work at my day job, I've made 12 loaves of bread, washed 11 dozen eggs, I'm on my 10th load of laundry (where does all that laundry come from?), packed 3 hennies sold on etsy to go and live on their forever farms, visited 2 sets of neighbors, made 1 1/2 gallons of yogurt, ran a bunch of errands, made no bake cookies, brought my kids to story hour and read countless books to them there, went to the thrift shop, tended animals, loaded the woodbox more times than I can count, did a bit of sewing and read an entire novel (I just couldn't put it down).

Too busy. Sometimes I have a hard time finding the balance and that was today. I've kept myself so busy that I've hardly slept! But Thursday is a whole new day. I'm not working, I'm home. And I'm going to plan on doing a little less, which in turn will make all of our hearts feel much fuller.

Old Flannel Sheets to Upcycled Unpaper Towels

Nearly 9 years ago, I ran off and married my husband in Antiqua. When we returned, we were blessed with many wedding gifts, including two flannel sheet sets.

The two sets have been rotated for 9 years and both have bit the dust this month.

We have fantastic new LLBean flannel sheets on the bed now, but I just couldn't throw away the sets with holes. Sure it had holes, but the rest was usable.

So, I made unpaper towels with just the fitted sheet of one of the sets.

All I did was take two 12 1/2 inch squares, sew them right sides together, leaving a 2 inch gap. I then turned them right side out, pressed the seams and edge stitched the whole square (which happened to seal the 2 inch gap). Lastly, I zig zag stitched from one corner to the next to seal the layers. Easy, although repetitive and a bit time consuming.

Even with the holes, I was able to piece and make 20 different flannel squares that fit perfectly on a paper towel roll.

This nice papertowel holder my dad made has been empty for years (I cannot even tell you how many years it has been since I bought paper towels). Now, it's filled.

So, there you have it. An old sheet that I couldn't throw away, turned into something much more useful.

Zoom approved. One down, three to go. What can you make with an old sheet? Ideas? I still have 3 to use up. Oh, the possibilities...

Goats and Kids

Our goats and our (two legged) kids. Pals for life.

Mama Made: Woolen Boy Pants

I spent 2014 creating for my little girl mostly. 12 dresses was the goal set and completed. (See them here. ) She has many mama made woolens. He had none. Now he has one.