Tuesday 4 Favorite Things

 

A Few of My Favorite Things



Welcome back to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4 and if it's your first time its great that you are here and helping make it fun for everyone.


1. Do you have a favorite family recipe? Would you share it?

It's not necessarily a favorite "family" recipe, but it is a favorite of my hubby's and mine. The kids never cared about it much, but we enjoy it and often eat this for breakfast when we have a nice fresh loaf.  Banana Nut Bread!  I can share this right now because I just baked this today!  Whenever we buy a large bunch of bananas you can usually be certain that there will be some banana nut bread happening in a few days. I can only stand to eat bananas when they are still just barely green. When they start developing "freckles" on the peel, I can no longer tolerate them.  Hubby might eat them for another day or so on his cereal, but if I can smell them, they're ready to become banana nut bread!  

Normally I only have enough bananas for one loaf of bread, (three bananas), so I only do half of this recipe.  Also, when I mix up the ingredients, I usually mix all the wet ingredients together first and then add the flour, salt, baking soda and nuts.  Mix the shortening and sugar first, then add the eggs and beat them in good, and then add the bananas and continue to beat them well. Once the mixture is fairly smooth, then add the dry ingredients.  This recipe is always very moist and delicious.  I also always test it with a toothpick once it has baked for about 50 minutes. Often times it needs to bake for 55 minutes.  I store it in the refrigerator once it has cooled.  We slice pieces and hubby likes his with butter and I like mine with cream cheese.  Makes a good quick breakfast with a cup of tea or coffee.

2. Do you have a favorite book? How about a movie? TV program?

Well, the Bible is my favorite book...it is more than a book...it is the only guide for my life. As far as other books go, it would be difficult for me to narrow it down to one book. I really don't know where to begin.  I have some favorite old authors from way back and I have collections of their books...most of which I'm sure you've probably never heard of, they are so old.  

Here are some of my favorites:

This is a series of books written by Mary J. Holmes, mostly back in the late 1800's.

I love these old fashioned romance and adventure novels...they are always written from a wholesome perspective with strong Christian values, but are full of mystery and intrigue.  

Then there's a series of books written by George Barr McCutcheon that I love as well...most of them are in the "Graustark" Series, which again are high adventure, romance and mystery...and again written around the turn of the century.

This is one of the books:

And here's another book I love, written by Arthur Hornblow.

I particularly love this one because it is one of three books given to me by my maternal grandfather following the death of my grandmother.  They were books that belonged to her that she loved, and so I love them.  This is just one of them:

This was such a great story about a shipwreck, and this high society young woman and a young man from down in the fire stokers of the engine of the ship are both survivors and land on a deserted island. He takes care of her but doesn't feel worthy of her, and she is so helpless...they fall in love but then are finally rescued and she has to go back to her family and he knows he can't go with her...he's not worthy of her and her family would never accept him...but later it turns out that he is actually a son of a very wealthy family who had gone astray and that is why he was where he was on that ship...and long story short, it turns out they end up living happily ever after after all...but it sure took a long time for all of that to happen!  It's a great story, and I love that it is one my grandmother loved and I think of her when I read it...

So you can see why I love these old books...and sadly you will not find them in any library today I'm sure.  That's why I hang on to them so they aren't lost forever. Many of them are so old they are literally falling apart, but I keep taping the covers and trying to hold them together. Someday I'm sure they'll get thrown away, but it's too bad. The stories are all so good.

As far as movies go, I've told you before my favorite movie is "The Bishop's Wife", with Loretta Young and Cary Grant and David Niven. If you haven't seen that version of it, you need to watch it. It's a classic.

TV programs...Not much too good on Tv anymore, but I do love Maine Cabin Masters and Hometown., and I watch them each week. I am not the one in control of the tv remote at our house, so I really don't care that much about watching tv.  

3. What is your favorite snack? Favorite sandwich?

Snacks?  Hmmm, Does a peanut butter sandwich count?  Or how about yogurt and fresh fruit and granola? Those are my go to snacks nowadays.  Favorite sandwich besides peanut butter is probably ham and swiss on pumpernickle bread, lightly toasted until the cheese melts.  I like mustard on it and a little bit of mayonnaise.  I also love good chicken salad, whether in a sandwich or without bread, either way...or on a croissant...now that's good!  

4. What is your favorite color for a home exterior...a car...a room ?

Favorite color for a home exterior?  I guess I like what we currently have okay, a light taupe with bright blue shutters and door.  But I like lots of other colors too.   

A car?  A deep midnight blue would be pretty, or a deep burgundy/maroon.  Our current vehicle is a dark charcoal grey.  We took what we could afford. Color wasn't really that important. A deal is a deal.

A room?  I tend to like more neutral colors than bold. Something calming and that goes with a lot of different colors or styles of furniture. Our current walls in our house are a light buttery very light tannish color. It suits me fine. I wouldn't mind having a light pine cabin style accent wall.  I love the warm feeling of a cabin, but not all walls, which can be too much wood. 

Random thought:

After looking at that picture of our front porch above with the bright blue shutters and door, I realized that the blue is about the same color as this bluebird!  And the birdhouse is close to the same color as our house!  I guess you could say I like bluebird blue and bluebird house colors for my house! LOL.

And with that I will close this post. Tuesday is almost over and I'm just getting it done.

But it was a busy day...spent the morning at Dixie Cottage and the evening at choir practice.

 

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent! 

Do you practice Lent?  What does it mean to you? Do you "give up something for Lent", or do you try to do something meaningful to observe the preparation for the Easter season?

I try to do the latter...as I "listen" to God's Word and seek His direction for my life, I pray that He will guide me to live more fully in His presence during this special time of preparation for the remembrance of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.

My prayer is that the miracle of Christ's sacrifice for our sins and resurrection from the dead will bring me a new and refreshing hope in my walk with Him during these next 40 days.

Jesus said in John 8:12

“I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, 

but have the light of life.”

May the Light of Life that comes only through Jesus guide me in this part of my life's journey.

Amen.

Now, let's check out what others are writing about today.  I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll catch up as soon as I can.

For the Love of Old Books

I wonder how many of you have a love for old books? Over the years I have collected some very old books, primarily from a couple of favorite authors who are long gone and out of print, but they wrote such interesting, old-fashioned, clean but adventuresome, romantic but mysterious thrilling novels. 

Here's a few of my favorites: This first shelf (below) is primarily from one author, Mary J. Holmes. Most of her books were written before the turn of the 20th century, in the late 1800's.

Below are a couple of the covers of her books. They are so old they are falling apart. Many of these books I found at estate sales and/or bookstores that sell old books. I've had these for at least thirty years! They are that good that I don't want to get rid of them. 

You can't find these in any library today.

 I  found this bookmark in one of the books:

(Front)

(Back)

Wouldn't you like to have some of those "Five Good Things to Have in the Home"? Ha Ha. I believe they will cure most anything that ails you!

I am not sure exactly how I got started on these particular authors.  George Barr McCutcheon was

one of my mother's favorite authors and she shared his books with me, so that explains that...and apparently even her mother, my grandmother, enjoyed reading his books, 

because this one in particular was in my grandmother's collection...

and it was passed down to me from my Grandpa Tedlie after my Grandma Tedlie passed away:

As you can see, it is quite vintage...copyright in 1906!  My Grandma and Grandpa were married in 1901, so perhaps she had this book from the time it was brand new!

Don't you love these wonderful illustrations?

 They certainly make you want to start reading to find out exactly who's who and what's what!
And that is what I am planning to do. I am sure I have read this book many times over the years since first receiving it in 1967...but usually enough time goes by between readings so that the details have been forgotten to make it seem brand new again. (Nowadays that doesn't take very long...)

While flipping through the pages to look at the illustrations above, this little "Easter" card fell out of the book.  Apparently it was being used as a bookmark, and by the looks of it, it is also quite vintage. It must have belonged to my Grandmother, which makes it even more special to me.

This picture of my Grandma Tedlie was taken about the same time this book was written!

This is my Grandma many years later, but still before I was born:

Click HERE for a link to a previous post that has more pictures of my maternal Grandparents and family.

I guess I'm getting a little side-tracked here.  The reason for looking at these old books was because I found myself between library books and looking for something from my own collection to read until I can get back to the library to check out some new books.  I've ordered some books online from the library, but it takes a while for them to locate all of the ones selected and send them to our local library where they can be checked out.  If our local library branch doesn't have all of the ones in a certain series or by a selected author that I want to read, they can usually be found in some of the other branches of the county library system and sent to our local branch usually within a few days of when I requested them.  If timed just right, by the time I get finished with one stack of books, the next batch is ready and waiting for me.  However, this time, for whatever reason, they haven't shown up yet and I was finished with the others and getting anxious to read something else! Reading is my evening entertainment while hubby enjoys watching sports or other programs on the TV.  (and reading library books is FREE!!)

Of course, my other form of entertainment is sitting here at the computer and reading the things my friends write on their blogs or on Facebook and then also sitting here and writing my own blog like I am doing right now (instead of reading the book I was wanting to read! LOL! I do get side-tracked quite often!)

Do you have any favorite "old books" that you treasure and enjoy reading over and over again? Would love to see what you have or hear about your favorite "old" authors.

Well, it's getting late and if I am going to get up in time to go to Sunday School in the morning (at 8:00 am), then I'd better quit yakking here and start getting ready for bed. Guess I sort of ran out of reading time for tonight...but I hope you enjoyed seeing these interesting antique books with me.
Have a peaceful good night and a blessed SONday tomorrow!