Watch out: I'm baking again

I recently got back from a primary meeting. This meeting only lasted for two hours because our timer, Rachel, went off and we had to close. Before I started bringing this cute little timer, we would sometimes meet until close to midnight. It's crazy, I know.

Today we were planning our Stake Primary Leadership Training Meeting. I missed the last meeting because it was a spur of the moment meeting that was called on Andrew's birthday and since we already had plans, I couldn't go.

At that meeting they decided that for this leadership training meeting I should do a breakout session with all the secretaries--to give them ideas on how to be more organized.

I guess I learned my lesson: never skip a meeting. I came straight home and gathered my primary stuff that was stashed about the house and tried to organize it. I'm really going to have to work on this whole organization thing before the leadership training meeting...

Not only did I come home feeling like I needed to organize. I also felt that I had to bake.

We discussed dessert options and it made me rather hungry. Furthermore, Sister Baxter told me how she felt like she wasn't home very much today so she made five pies (to make her feel like she was "at home") with cute little cut out hearts on the top and took them visiting teaching. The lesson this month is on being of one heart and one mind.

I don't know about you, but when I'm tired and feel like I haven't been home all day I just want to relax. And when I went visiting teaching we talked about Elder D. Todd Christofferson's quote that says to become of one heart and one mind "we must begin by becoming one with ourselves" by getting our bodies and spirits in tune with each other. We then talked about how hard it is to be a mom (the sister I visit has a 2 month old baby as well) and all but cried in each other's arms over our sleepless nights.

Somehow I don't think I've mastered this motherhood thing yet. When I'm tired I want to sleep, not bake 5 pies. But hearing Sister Baxter talk about her pies, dreaming about the apple crisp we're planning on making for the leadership meeting, and seeing the overripe bananas on my counter made me decide to make banana bread.

Making banana bread is difficult for me. I hate the smell of ripe bananas. The bananas on my counter have been driving me nuts for days because I catch a whiff of them every time I walk by. To add to that banana stench, I thawed out the bananas I had waiting in my freezer--I think this made me gag almost as much as my egg incident last week (you'll be happy to know we bought fresh eggs and I had no such problem today).

Mushy bananas remind me of when we were little and would collect slugs after it rained and pile them up on a board and then dump salt on them and watch them ooze all over the place. Dead slugs have a very distinctive smell and look which is very much tied to the part of my brain that recalls the mushy banana smell and look--and that's why mashing bananas makes me gag. It's also why simply smelling overripe bananas makes me ill, I'm sure.

Banana bread smells so good though, and it tastes good, too, so I got out my big blue mixing bowl and started to make the batter. The recipe I was following didn't call for maple flavoring, cinnamon, nutmeg, or applesauce...but my banana bread heart was calling for those things, so I threw them in.

While I was cleaning up, I decided to make apple crisp topping for the bread because at the meeting we were talking about how we should perhaps forget the apple and just have crisp because the topping is, oh, so very good. Unfortunately, I used the last of my margarine in the bread batter so I had to improvise and used peanut butter instead.

I'll let you know how that turns out, but for now, just keep me out of the kitchen!