BREAKING NEWS: U.S. House Passes Obama’s Stimulus Package

http://www.worthynews.com/4230-breaking-news-us-house-passes-obamas-stimulus-package

Quote from article... " I remember the Great Depression very well. I don't remember any of the many government programs affecting the course of the Depression."With unemployment at its highest level in a quarter-century, he recalled that "Government programs didn't work then, I don't know why we think they would work now." Bartlett stressed that, "our obsessive borrowing has fully mortgaged my kids and my grandkids. Now we're working on mortgaging my two great-grandkids. Mr. President, I think it's more than a little bit selfish to try to solve our economic problems which we created by burdening future generations yet to be born."

Tried and True 1

I get a lot of recipes off All Recipes and try them, if I like them i put them in my Tried and True notebook. This is absolutely the best banana bread I have ever had!

Banana Sour Cream Bread

PREP TIME
10 Min
COOK TIME
1 Hr
READY IN
1 Hr 10 Min
Original recipe yield 4 - 7x3 inch loaves

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup butter
3 cups white sugar
3 eggs
6 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking soda
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Grease four 7x3 inch loaf pans. In a small bowl, stir together 1/4 cup white sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Dust pans lightly with cinnamon and sugar mixture.
In a large bowl, cream butter and 3 cups sugar. Mix in eggs, mashed bananas, sour cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Mix in salt, baking soda and flour. Stir in nuts. Divide into prepared pans.
Bake for 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

I cant sleep...

Like I said before we had an earthquake on Saturday that shook me up a bit. (I didnt try to say it that way it just came out:0) I find myself scared while taking a shower, thinking ones going to hit and I wont be dressed. Weird I know! I also feel anxious being separated from the kids during the day. I know I cant let the fear of an earthquake control my life. So anyways now Ive got something to take my mind off of it for a little while. The volcano across from us might blow. It went from yellow to orange (24 hour watch) on Sunday. Tonight I could smell a slight tinge of sulfur in the air. Theres been quite a bit of seismic activity surrounding it and it seems to be preparing itself to blast off. They say it could happen within the next several days. Everyone is stalking up on breathing masks, batteries (for radios and flashlights), and of course water. We made our trip over to Home Depot earlier this evening and then decided to eat dinner at Carls Jr. In the middle of eating an employee starts telling people that it blew and they were recommending people not be in their cars. She went on to say that this "source" was saying that they may evacuate the peninsula. I like to think of myself as calm and collected but Im not, I panicked. We rushed out and drove home, I was shaking, thinking we were breathing in ash. There was so much freezing fog I could barely see, I thought the fog was possibly ash or maybe a mix of fog and ash. When we got home I hurried the kids into the house and checked the info that we had heard, well none of it was true, although the volcano observatory did receive numerous calls within the hour asking if redoubt blew probably because of the fog and slight sulfur smell. I was quite relieved to find out that I had panicked for no reason. I do hope if it blows, it will happen in the day so maybe I can get a pic before closing ourselves up in the house. Then I got to thinking, what if we have a big earthquake before it blows. Ughhh I cant sleep!

5.7

Today we had the biggest earthquake since we have been here. At first they were saying 6.1, but when all was confirmed it was 5.7. Fortunately it happened out in the water about 90 miles away from us. I was sitting at the computer chatn with a friend when my chair started to shake as well as my desk. It was a very strange feeling! The kids panicked a little, their immediate response was to run down the stairs to me. We then stood under the door frame waiting for any after shocks. I explained to them to crawl underneath the dining table the next time, and I would come to them. Paul was at men's bible study, as he was talking he started to wonder if anyone else was feeling the movement as it was making him dizzy. All in all it was quite "moving".

A little family update...

The girls are both doing gymnastics. Mercy is a Nazi gymnasts and in my opinion the best in her class. You can tell Justina is a ballerina though, everything she does she points her toes perfectly and has graceful fingers:) Not really suited for back hand springs but shes getting there. I may take her out as things are really starting to scare me. She went on the uneven bars for the first time the other day, yikes! They also go off a diving board doing flips in the air into a pit of soft blocks. Stillll... Its a little much for me:) Justina is doing well in school. I have not really started with Mercy yet. Its hard knowing that I have 12 years of school to do, why start early?
Paul is doing the same old thing "working". We have had very extreme driving conditions for the last week. It makes me very nervous when he has to go far. Today he is driving a couple hours away on wet ice. There has been many accidents here. Just yesterday near our road somebody went off the road and flipped their explorer. Not sure if they were ok, an ambulance had just arrived on the scene when we passed by. I have been trying to stay off the roads as much as possible! I wont say much more as he hates if I write anything about him without his approval:)
As for me, Im always trying to do something crazy. My new thing is training to do step aerobic instructing. The club was looking for instructors and I somehow stuck my name on the list, before I knew it one of the managers was telling all the other instructors that I was going to do a class. What she didnt know was that I was actually going to cross my name off of the list, but now if I dont do it I will look like a huge flake!!!! I actually dont do well at stepping, counting backwards and talking at the same time. But I will make a go at it I suppose! Paul is very supportive, so much so that he made me do it!
Just another thing to add to my list. Take care of the kids, do school, fix breakfast, lunch and dinner, dishes, laundry, scrub toilets, grocery shopping, pay bills, exercise, post on the blog etc... You know we really do EVERYTHING! Its a hard job being a homemaker! But very worth it:)

I have to write this down before I forget! Paul the other day was making Mercy a quick lunch. Mercy had her choice of mini corndogs or the little whale chicken nuggets (she calls the killer whales "flipper" and she made me buy them the other day). She went back and forth with it and then finally came to the conclusion, "I want to save the whales". Paul said his Aunt Linda would be proud!

Its been a while...

Well once agian I have been inspired by Pauls sister to post an update since it has been about a month. Of course we havent went on any exciting trips like disneyland and we dont have the wii Hannah Montana game, but last i night I did play the Hannah Montana DS game I got for Justina, but only for about 3 hours:)

We had a good Christmas, I think, actually Im not sure what I did just yesterday but nonetheless I dont remeber anything "not good".

Its hard durring the Holidays to not have at least some family around, uuhummm, like AUNTS, parents or fun cousins to play with. But we make it work. Paul and I battle it out on the Risk board, so far Ive won like 13 games and hes won about 8. Yes I just had to say it!

We had tons of snow on Christmas which was nice and the day after we went sledding together. We had a hill all to ourselves, it was a lot of fun.

We are going through a cold snap now and temps have been -20 to -35 (-35 this morning). I really need to go out and spit to see how long it takes to freeze:) If you walk out with your mouth open it takes your breath away for a split second. It really hurts to touch anything outside for more than a second or two. Our truck failed us last week and needed to be taken in by ambulance (tow truck) to the hospital where it recieved a battery transplant and a few other minor things. Im parking it in the garage now, right next to my laundry.

Well I think Im done rambling for now.