This is August?!

My, what gorgeous weather we've been having. I've had the windows open all day and it's August!

This week has gone by so fast. I only have scattered bits of things I actually remember.

One day JJ and I went across the street from work to get coffee in the other building. While we were there, we noticed that a tree was flopping about quite a bit and decided to head back rather precipitously. We did not drown.

Right now I'm baking banana bread for the Durham FM Association annual picnic tomorrow.
Today my parents planted several large plants in my yard. That was very exciting. My dad also almost finished the workbench that he's been building in my garage.

Last night I went over to GM's apartment. He cooked a great meal, including chicken curry, raspberry spinach salad and apricot bars for dessert. It was pretty impressive. Afterwards he and FT picked out some DVDs from a friend's place, across the street. We ended up watching the Bridges of Madison County. I've never read the book, so the movie seemed pretty good, although it was fairly sad.

I just took the banana bread out of the oven and it smells fantastic. This time I added orange peel, cinnamon and nutmeg. It's actually two tablespoons of orange peel! This is the orange spice variation in Baking Illustrated. I have the hardest time getting it done in the upper middle. I already baked it for 5 extra minutes and my toothpick didn't come clean. Unfortunately, I waited until after I took it out of the pan to test it, but it was easy enough to plop it back in. I hopefully another five minutes as it heats back up to 350F will do the trick.