Friday recommendations, 12/6

1. I absolutely hate making muffins. I do not just "whip up" a batch of muffins. I find it unnecessarily laborious. But I'm looking for recipes and snacks that I can make from scratch and the kids can take to school. This banana muffin recipe was what I found when I looked for muffins with butter instead of oil. I suppose you could substitute coconut oil in a regular muffin recipe but MOST muffin recipes call for canola or vegetable oil. I went on a crunchy rampage recently and threw out all of those. :/ 

They are great the day of, but butter doesn't preserve the way oil does, so eat them quick. Also, neither of my kids ate them :)

2. The Ultimatum is back. The surge of joy I felt on Wednesday night after a hard two days when I sat down on the couch to turn on Gossip Girl reruns and instead saw a new season of The Ultimatum...It was something else. I much prefer this trainwreck to Love is Blind.

3. We had a major home improvement delivery the other day and Scott couldn't be home to receive it. Very grateful his friend was able to come over and download it from the 18-wheeler with the tractor and forks. For some reason, I didn't quite trust myself to do such a thing. Especially since the 18-wheeler had to park on the road and the speed limit in front of our house is 55mph. I could picture a panic attack happening. 

4. I would like to recommend Diet Coke. This is dumb. I generally hate diet soda but I've learned to like Diet Coke. Why? It's what they sell in the vending machine at work and I don't like the aftertaste of regular Coke and I hate Dr. Pepper. I am in it for the caffeine and there's been multiple afternoons in the last few months where the only thing between me and a meltdown of tiredness and crankiness...is a Diet Coke. 

5. Lastly, this brown pen. I have gotten more compliments on this pen than any other. I used it at parent conferences and many parents complimented it. Teachers compliment it. Kids notice the uniqueness of brown ink. It's kind of funny. It just came in a multi-pack, but I though it was worth mentioning. Energel have always been my favorite pens, but I generally use the blue ones. 

Hoping to catch up and write a few posts this weekend...I have Amazon finds to share..books to share...would like to share a gift guide of sorts. It's just been a week for some reason.