Banana Split Pie

When the weather is as hot as it has been here, the last thing I want to do is heat up the oven to bake. So last weekend, I beat the heat and put together two of these pies for our Sunday afternoon gathering. 

There was no baking...

just a little prep time (although there is some waiting time)...

and it was refreshingly cool and yummy! 

BANANA SPLIT PIE

Line a prepared graham cracker crust with banana slices. (I used two bananas per pie.)

Get out your chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla ice cream...

...allow it to soften for a few minutes
(it won't take long because it's August!)...

...and randomly plop four scoops of each flavor into your crust.

Lay a piece of plastic wrap over your ice cream and smoosh it down a bit to fill in the spaces and make it even(ish) on top.
Put it in the freezer for a few hours.
(I left mine overnight, but a couple of hours should be sufficient.)

Put your camera away and forget to take any photos of the next steps.

Oh wait...that's what I did!
You can just proceed with whipping up a cup of heavy whipping cream (per pie) until stiff peaks form. Spread the cream on top of the ice cream layer.

Pretty up that pie with a drizzle of chocolate syrup and some chopped banana and strawberries.
I used half of a banana for each pie and some thawed frozen strawberries, but you could use more or less because you are the artist for your pie!

Put it back in the freezer until you're ready to serve!
I suppose you could serve it at this point, but I like the whipped cream to be frozen...and it's easier to slice that way too.

And that's it...an easy, cool, and yummy summer dessert!

Just be sure to invite lots of guests so you won't have to eat it all by yourself! :)

Gathering the Moments | July

Photos tell a story, don't they? 

That is one of the reasons why I love to gather the moments at the end of a month. As I look back, I remember the moments that have been woven together to make our life story. I am always amazed at all that has happened in a brief span of thirty-ish days. 

This month's story is one of gatherings. Gatherings with family and games of charades and breaking bread together and cuddly babies and seafood and pie and coffee and multiple generations and the sun porch door opening and closing more times that we can count and adults saying "Close the door please." Gatherings with friends and Mama Coffee and catching up and hosting FLDC (Fashionably Late Dinner Club) here at Pineapple House for the first time and Kati's friends coming to play games.

The story told is one of house projects. Installing the new dryer in the basement and taking the old one out of the bedroom closet. Painting the living room and dining room and feeling more at home. Sewing new fishtail swags for the living room windows. 

The story is one of love and loudness and sharing and sweetness.


But beyond the photos...

there is more to the story.

Also part of the story this month is vehicle woes. First Kati's car, then Ron's truck, then Kati's car, then Ron's truck, then Kati's car, then Ron's truck. (Yes, it's true.) Along with that is the story of cha-ching and coordinating schedules so that everyone could get where they needed to be.

This month's story tells of a huge (to us) unexpected bill...in three unexpected parts. (Money is flying out of Pineapple House!)

The photos don't show that the elderly man for whom Kati had cared for a little over a year passed away this month.

This month's story is also a sick kitty and changed plans and discouragement and impatience and hot, hot, hot.


And thus...the story is life. 

As I tell you the hidden parts of the story, it is not with complaint. Oh, yes, I have fretted some, but then I have settled in my heart that it is all from His hand. Life is filled with sunshine and shadow. In both, He is near. In both, He is faithful.

It has been a good month!

Weekend Snapshots: Scorcher

The main word for the weekend was HOT!

It was a breakfast meeting (Ron), kayaking (Kati), house-puttering, repair the truck (again!), summer eating, no company, reading, napping, bring-in-the-fan, Anne-of-Green-Gables-watching, Pepperidge Farm cake kind of weekend.

photo by Kati

How was yours? 

Pineapple House | Living Room and Dining Room {In Which I Probably Tell You More Than You Even Wanted to Know}

We moved into our new home at the end of April. As Miz Elle's beautiful things were moved out, and our own furniture was moved in, it began to feel more like "us."

Those of you who have moved more than we have (which would probably be almost all of you!) know what I'm talking about. It takes time for a place to feel like home. At first, it feels like you're living in someone else's house, or maybe like you're on vacation and staying in a furnished condo. 

But nothing has made Pineapple House feel more like our house than a coat of fresh paint! 

{BEFORE: lovely, but not quite "us"}

So, I'll take you on a little tour around the living room and chat with you all the way. (Note the subtitle of this post. ~smile~) 

We used Behr Premium Plus Ultra® paint. The walls are antique white, not a Behr color, but color-matched from the paint we used in The Farmhouse, in a flat finish. The trim and the fireplace wall is (more or less) Linen White in an eggshell finish. I say "more or less" because we originally color-matched this years ago from an Olde Century Paint color, but it has been tweaked a time or two. 

I truly loved all of the colonial colors that I had in The Farmhouse...

the barn red in the kitchen,
the "Duckety Mud" on the kitchen cabinets,
and the colonial green in the dining room

...but I felt like there needed to be a more neutral background in Pineapple House, so that's what we went with.

This is the wall that drew us to Pineapple House!

We decided to paint the paneled wall and the bookcases the color of the trim. I had searched Pinterest for ideas on fireplace walls, and I most liked the ones that were monochromatic.

We're still working on getting our books on the shelves. There are boxes of unpacked books in the school room. We're planning to add shelves to that room, but there's room for a few more books in here.

You may notice that we treated the covers for the hot water baseboard heat as baseboard, painting them the color of the trim.

So what's left to do in the living room?

~ First of all, I need to paint this little TV stand that I bought for a song the week we moved in. Ron will eventually design a taller cabinet with doors to house (and hide) the television and other electronics. But in the meantime, we are using this small stand that Kati found for $49! I didn't want to paint it until we painted the room so that I could judge how the colors would work together. But now the seafoam green has to go.

~ Secondly, I have to decide what to do with the windows! Ack!

Some decorating decisions are easy. Arranging the furniture was a breeze. We tried two arrangements and settled on one within days of moving in. Paint color was easy-peasy. But window treatments...not so much.

My conundrum lies in the fact that I love light and I adore the large picture window in the living room and I don't want to cover it up, but we now live in a neighborhood, not out in the country surrounded by farm fields, and there is a need for privacy. The half-curtains on the front windows is a temporary measure until I decide what I want need. (Another Pinterest board is dedicated to window treatments.)

My plan is to make fishtail swags for the front windows and Ron will make paneled shutters for the bottom sash. We may purchase cellular blinds to shade the morning light so that our furniture and rugs do not fade. These would hide behind the swags most of the day.

Here is the fabric that I am considering for the fishtails:

Choosing window treatments for the picture window is even more difficult!

The sun porch is behind this window. That helps. But once the leaves fall in autumn, we will lose some of our privacy, especially in the evening when the lights are on.

Is the window too wide for a fishtail swag? (That would be a l-o-n-g fishtail!) Could I make a couple of "dips" in the swag? We can't put the same paneled shutters on the back window, because the sofa sits in front of it and there is not room for shutters to open or close. Do I make a simple valance for the top of the window and hide cellular blinds behind it? (And do you know how much cellular blinds cost for a window that wide?!) Should we go way out of the box and put bamboo roll-up shades on the porch windows, eliminating the need for any window treatment on the picture window?

Let's move on to the dining room. 

(Before I begin, I must say that I am not happy with the quality of these photos. The dining room is an interior room with no windows, so my amateur photography skills aren't doing it justice. In my pictures, the room looks dark and almost yellow-ish, and in person it does not. Maybe this room will be the impetus I need to finally learn to shoot in manual!) 

I totally love that these two rooms flow together! That's what makes it perfect for our large family gatherings...everyone can be in one place.

This view of the dining room is looking in from the living room.

And now we'll move clockwise around the room...

The colors in the dining room are, of course, the same as in the living room. We decided to use the Linen White below the chair rail.

Having the lights on for photos means that you can't see the chandelier very well (remember, I'm photography-challenged), so here's a picture of the new chandy, unlit.

What's left to do in the dining room? 

~ Tweak! I am not yet satisfied with the wall arrangements. I'm not sure if I like the hanging cupboard on that wall. I may move the folk art girl to that wall and hang the botanicals (from The Farmhouse dining room) over the sideboard. I still have a mirror and the spoon rack with the family spoons that I really want to use in here. I think some rearranging is in order! Also, we need to buy a few more wooden outlet plates (the store only had four; we needed six) so that they can be painted to match the chair rail. We may go ahead and buy the matching switchplates at the same time.

~ The china closet that we had in The Farmhouse kitchen was way too big for this dining room. (It had been a computer cabinet in a prior life and it was quite deep.) It went down to the basement, but now we have an empty space. We're keeping our eyes open for a stepback hutch at a good price...which might take a while. Actually, Ron has plans somewhere for a stepback cupboard designed by Adam Peck (ordered years ago from Country Living magazine). He has lots of projects right now that are more pressing, but if we haven't found the right thing by the time he finishes what's on his plate, we may just dig up those plans.

Fresh paint has made our home-sweet-home even sweeter! Now we're looking at every room with paint-colored glasses!

And if you've gotten to the end of this l-o-n-g post, then I believe that you love house-y things as much as I do!