How to Replace your Showerhead

I'd have come up with some cutesy rain/shower title for this post, but with all the damage that this area has had because of rain, I just couldn't do it.  Read more about the rain and floods here.I was shopping the other day when I found a showerhead on the clearance rack.  It wasn't on my shopping list, but I love a bargain, and ours could definitely benefit from replacing.  I know that the ultimate showertime horror is this classic movie,

but my shower runs a close second.  First of all it's a stand-up coffin.  There is barely enough room to shampoo, much less shave.  I've had plans to rip out our master bath and completely redo it, so replacing the nasty showerhead hasn't ever been on my list, but when I found one marked down to $14.97, it jumped in my cart.  Want to see the scary one?  We have hard water, and I have to soak these things in vinegar on a regular basis, and yet they're all gunked up.  I swear, I do clean in there.

Even scarier is the side spray, which I've never used because it's covered in rust.  Eek, look at the broken disgusting sprayer line.

First things first, I removed the old one.  It twists off with some muscle and a wrench.  Righty tighty, lefty loosey.  I then grabbed some steel wool and cleaned off the pipe threads.

I cut a length of plumber's tape and wrapped the threads with it.  Plumber's tape is like floral tape, you need to take both hands and stretch it a little for it to stick.

I attached the new head and side sprayer making sure to buffer the wrench with a towel so as not to scratch the new one.

Voila!  Less scary shower.  Both heads are bigger and offer multiple spray functions.  Yay!  Ignore the floral wallpaper border, it's on my list.

Thanks for popping in and DIYing with me. 

A Moment of Silence



Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

I had every intention of making some dairy-free banana nut muffins for a friend, but when I realized we were out of walnuts, I tossed in some semi-sweet chocolate chips and oops they were no longer dairy-free.  It's a good thing the boys had off of school(roads still flooded - read more about it here,) because my mistake won't last long.

Here's where I started.  There were 4 bananas in my fruit bowl that needed to be used.  They had become brown & spotty and my kids won't eat them that way.

I placed them into my largest pyrex measuring cup,

and mashed them up with a fork.  I like to mash them in a measuring cup, because sometimes 4 bananas could be as little as 1 1/3 cups mashed banana, and sometimes I have gargantuan bananas like these that will mash to 2 cups.  This is how I gauge how much of the rest of the ingredients I should add.

To this I added 1/4 cup vegetable shortening and 1/4 cup coconut oil.  It's been cooler around here and my coconut oil was in a solid state.  I heated these up in the microwave until the coconut oil had melted, then mixed vigorously so the shortening would partially melt.  I added the oil mix to the bananas,

 as well as 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and 1 tbsp Kahlua.  You can use espresso instead of the Kahlua or skip it altogether, but I think it adds a special something to my muffins.  Beat well with your fork.

In a separate large bowl, I whisked together 3/4 cup rice flour, 1/2 cup sorghum flour, 2/3 cup tapioca flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1/4 tsp salt.

I then added the wet to the dry and mixed to combine. 

Here is where I would normally fold in 1 cup toasted walnut pieces, but lacking the nuts, folded in 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips.  I scooped the batter into a greased muffin tin by the 1/4 cup full.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.  Turn out and cool on a rack.

The boys really enjoyed my mistake, and I'll be back in the kitchen soon to make a treat for my dairy-free friend.

Thanks for stopping by and baking with me.  I'm linking this up to Gluten-Free Homemaker's Gluten-Free Wednesdays.

We Made It Through, But...

The rain ended early this morning, and we made it through the night with a dry basement.  The trenches and new drains that CG had put in held up to the onslaught of water.  The only blip we had here was that a skunk had taken refuge in our garage.  Don't ask me how it got in.  Unfortunately not everyone here was as lucky as we were.  Our friend's parents' home early this morning had 4 feet of water in the basement and the water was still rising.  That would be floating drywall that they had been planning on using to finish off the basement.

This is the bridge around the corner from their home this morning.  For those who don't live near water, the rivers and creeks will continue to rise for up to a day beyond when it stops raining. 

All that water that came down on the hills is still running down to the creeks and rivers, swelling them even further.  That's why even though it hadn't rained all day, the river wouldn't crest until tonight.  All the driveways on my street looked like this all day long - a river of water coming down off the hill.

You can see all the cars submerged in the Walmart plaza.

There are hundreds of homes between this plaza and the river.  Homes that are all seeing at least some flooding.

I spent part of my day driving around, trying to check on friends in lower lying areas to help out any way that I could. The task was made more difficult, because so many of the roadways had been closed.  The parkway that connects Vestal(my town) to Owego(the next town over.)

Owego was particularly hard hit, seeing over 10" of rain.  The Owego Elementary School will take weeks to recover.

An aerial view of Owego.

  My cousin's home was in an island type section of Johnson City.  Her home stayed dry, but there was flooding to the south, west, north, and east of her.

Thanks for popping in and checking on our wet, wet area.  Please keep this area in your thoughts and prayers tonight.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I posted 1st day of school pics earlier today in the rain, and the rain just kept coming.  By midday schools were closing and sending kids home.  It was a very short 1st day for some kids, and a very long one for others.  There were a few washed out roads, so some bus routes couldn't go out and parents of the kids on those routes had to come to the schools to pick their kids up.  This was my road at midday.(Sorry for the poor driving/camera phone pic.)

 Our backyard waterfall is a raging torrent of water.

Broome County(the county we live in) just issued an immediate evacuation order for all areas that were flooded in 2006.  They're predicting that the river will rise above 2006 levels.  This was the Walmart plaza parking lot in 2006.  The water was at the tops of the cart return rails.

This "lake" is Ty Cobb Stadium in 2006.

This was our basement in 2006.

We don't live anywhere near the river, in fact we live far up a large hill, but the water rushing down the hill overwhelmed our french drains,and topped our foundation.  It was literally raining from the ceiling tiles in our basement.  We've dug new drainage ditches, laid new pipe & gravel, and so far it's holding.  We don't expect water this time around, but I know that those who live in lower areas will almost certainly be flooded again.  Fingers crossed the river level predictions are wrong.

Thanks for popping in and commiserating with me.