Friday, January 14, 2022

Bathroom Inspiration: Use Your Words

 

Peanut Butter Candy Cheesecake, a creamy Reese’s cheesecake, studded with chopped Butterfingers and topped with a shaved chocolate bar. | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dessert

 

 



Today’s post is a monthly writing challenge. If you’re new here, this is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once. All of the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s  participating knows who got their words and in what direction the recipient will take them. Until now.




At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.
I'm using:  bologna ~ wallpaper ~ hitch ~ reward ~ razor
They were submitted by Diane of On the Border.
 
Today's post was inspired by the bathroom. I know you're thinking I'm full of bullsh!t bologna, that bathrooms aren't exactly the place people go for inspiration, but this particular bathroom speaks to me.
 
Yes, speaks to me. Despite the fact that I started out hating it.

There's a back story. Of course there is. 
 
It goes all the way back to when we bought this house. It was not only bigger than our first house, but the guy who bought our first house bought most of the furniture too. Starting from scratch is fun, it's hectic, and most of all, it's expensive. 

My family owned an Ethan Allen store, so some of the furnishings were bought at cost, but my taste is more contemporary, as is this house, so although Ethan Allen is well represented, it's not the majority of the furnishings I bought. And although my mom advised not doing everything at once, I knew I'd have a hard time telling my boys (in 2nd and 3rd grade), that maybe they'd have a bed to sleep on next month.

The point is, that although the previous owner's decoration choices were not at all mine, I made the decision to leave the carpet and tile and wallpaper and paint colors and just work with them. For the time being, anyway.
 
In some rooms there were quick fixes, like throwing out the kitchen curtains or topping a wallpaper border with another one, but mostly I concentrated on furniture, rugs, and art. 
 
The bathroom off the back hall, though. I had a hard time living with that. The former owner was a golf pro, and the bathroom was all golfed out. The top of the wallpaper is golf sayings, the border through the middle is old timey looking golf pictures, and the bottom is plaid. Not my taste. Not even in the same stratosphere as my taste. I was dying to rip that paper down. The reward would be obvious, but the hitch was the time, energy, and money, none of which I had to spare.

So, as I said, I went with it. I tried to add a little whimsy to each room, so I found this guy and put him on the floor under the pedestal sink:

OK, that helps, at least the little guy makes me smile.
 
Bathroom Inspiration | picture taken by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

 
But with time, that bathroom wallpaper started to make me smile too. Those sayings on the top half of the wall? They were . . . well . . . supportive. Hey, any port in a storm when you're the mother of young rambunctious boys.
 
It didn't start with supportive, it actually started kind of mocking:
 
Bathroom Inspiration | picture taken by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com
 
 
A good walk? Really? I've got a house full of kids, dinner to make, and a cheesecake I'd promised to make for a friend's party. The only walk I have time for is from the kitchen to this bathroom. 
 

Peanut Butter Candy Cheesecake, a creamy Reese’s cheesecake, studded with chopped Butterfingers and topped with a shaved chocolate bar. | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dessert
Peanut Butter Candy Cheesecake


But from there the tone changed. And I started to get the message. There are parallels, it seems, between parenting and golf:
 
Bathroom Inspiration | picture taken by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Yeah, so is parenting, my friend, so is parenting.

And:

Bathroom Inspiration | picture taken by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com


Confirmation that the little white lies you have to tell now and then (like that McDonald's is closed on Tuesdays) are OK, they're just what you need to do to get through.
 
Then there are the sayings that boost my parental self esteem:
 
Bathroom Inspiration | picture taken by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Jeez, I must be a great parent, I'm hitting nobody.
 
And one final bit of confirmation:
 
Bathroom Inspiration | picture taken by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

 
You know, I don't have a cart to fall out of, but it's true that I've yet to fall off of the toilet. And let me tell you, there were days when a good concussion sounded awful tempting.
 
All these years later that wallpaper remains. I wonder if the future owners of this house will take a razor to it, or find inspiration in it. I guess I'll never know.
 


Use Your Words, a monthly group writing challenge | developed by and graphic property of www.BakingInATornado.com | #bloggingchallenge #MyGraphics
Here are links to all the other Use Your Words posts:
Climaxed



Baking In A Tornado signature | www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics






Peanut Butter Candy Cheesecake
                                               ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs
1 TBSP brown sugar
4 TBSP melted butter
 
1/4 cup mini Reese's cups (about 15 minis)
2 1/2 bars (20 oz total) cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup heavy cream, room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 TBSP brewed coffee, room temperature
3 eggs, room temperature 
1/2 cup Butterfingers bars, chopped
1 mini Hershey's chocolate bar

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a springform pan. Wrap the bottom of the pan with tin foil.
*Mix together the graham cracker crumbs, 1 TBSP brown sugar, and the melted butter until it holds together when pressed. Press into the bottom and partially up the sides of the prepared pan.
*Melt the mini Reese's cups in the microwave for about 1 minute, until smooth when stirred. Set aside.
*Beat together the cream cheese, heavy cream, sour cream, 1/2 cup brown sugar, sugar, and coffee until smooth. Beat in the melted Reese's cups and then the eggs, one at a time. Mix in the chopped Butterfingers bars.
*Pour into the prepared crust and bake for 70 - 85 minutes, until the center is just set. Allow to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate for at least one hour before releasing from the pan.
*With a grater or peeler, shred the Hershey's bar onto the top of the cheesecake.
*Store, covered, in the refrigerator. 

24 comments:

  1. Great work with the words! And I love the sayings! And the golfing moose. A nice Canadian touch!
    P.S. sometimes I get my greatest inspiration in the bathroom. ;) Just sayin'...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As soon as I saw that golfing moose in the store, I knew his new home was going to be my bathroom (poor thing).

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  2. I love little bits of whimsy in a home! And yours is predictably so cute and...whimsical! Reflecting your fun eye. /Carol C

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    Replies
    1. Thank you. It's fun to see people's faces when they catch something unexpected I've worked into a room.

      Delete
  3. It's not uncommon to get inspired in the bathroom. It's when you have nothing else to do than, say, take a shower of brush your teeth. Let's your thoughts run wild.
    A golf bathroom? I think I might be traumatized, too.
    Nothing that couldn't be cured with a nice piece of that cheesecake of yours. Looks and sounds delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  4. A golf bathroom? I don't play, never had, but there's just something about the way you describe it - I have to laugh. The other day at work (retired by still working part time) we were given an assignment to test fixes in some homegrown software we use, and my manager assigned me to further test "any weird issues we find". So, I'm officially weird. I was already unofficially weird. Now, this bathroom is so different that I would have kept it and I'm glad you did, too. The moose is perfect! So is the plaid. And the cheesecake - not weird - just "wow". Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, the bathroom is different, nice way of putting it. And the cheesecake is definitely wow.

      Delete
  5. I've heard that the average person redecorates their house every five years, so I love that you've not only kept the wallpaper but learned to love it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Replies
    1. True. Although despite the fact that I've come to terms with it, I still don't like that bathroom {{sigh}}.

      Delete
  7. All in all words well used...............

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wish I had time for golf..maybe a half course of mini golf(wink) glad you had some good memories from this wallpaper.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I can't imagine doing all of that with two small boys underfoot! You must have the patience of Job! I'm a go with the flow kind of decorator as well. Actually hubby seems to take over that!

    ReplyDelete
  10. The Gerald Ford Quote: The day Bing Crosby died, I was at school. When I got home, Dad told me, I said, "You're kidding!" He said, "No, Gerry Ford hit him with his golf club!"

    ReplyDelete

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