accumulation

An accumulation of gratitude, snow, and granola bars...

I thought I should drop in here to say, "Phew! February is on it's way out!" And I would like to say thank you for all the encouragement to be bold back to this longest shortest month, and return all the virtual high-fives you gave me about the Crafty Crow appearance. Thank You!This is some of the beautiful snow that fell last week. Here is what we did with some of it:*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

For some reason today, I just had to make granola bars. I haven't tried making it from scratch before. I've found it hard to find one that I really like at the store. I'm picky about the bars I buy; I don't tolerate cashews, don't want the chocolate (I know, I know, blasphemous), like a good portion of chew, a titch of salt, and not too sweet. Please. Oh, and I love knowing exactly what's in there. I guess it should have occurred to me sooner. I tweeked a recipe I found over at delicious Smitten Kitchen. My modifications: I only had whole almonds, so I sent them through the nut-grinder. I didn't have wheat germ, so substituted oat bran. In my impatience, I added the oat bran before I was instructed, so it got toasted with the oats, almonds, and coconut (unsweetened); no harm done. Our honey is very solid, so I melted it a bit before mixing it in. And I felt compelled to add 2 tbls of butter, melted (Deb said I could!) For fruit I used dried cranberries, dried apricots, and raisins. You can see the sunflower seeds on top; that's because I forgot to mix them in. I just pushed them onto the top of the granola bars after it was all pressed into the pan. YUM. I think you should make some too. {By the way, that rigatoni is calling my name!}

So, if you're reading, you've made it through February too! Hooray for us! I hope to have a finished object (or two) to share later this week. Time to check out the Closing Ceremonies; the Olympics really helped me through this last bit of the calendar. :)