I have found my banana

A little family history here. I was second to the oldest of seven children. I had an older brother and two brothers just under me. Then came three little girls. For the longest time I thought I had to compete with my brothers to show them I could do anything they could.

With so many in a family there were hardly any leftovers. If you wanted something you had better eat it then because it would not be around later. When bananas came into the house we ate them then and there. There was not waiting around for them to get ripe. So I grew up knowing mostly green bananas. A ripe banana is just yucky.....it tastes too banana-y. I like my banana just a little past crunchy. None of the soft mushy stuff.

With my Meniers disease I was put on a diuretic. The doctor told me I would need to eat more foods with potassium, bananas being a good source. I was complaining to one of the area docs about ripe bananas and he told me of a variety of banana here that doesn't ripen as fast as the variety we have in the states.

The most common variety here and at home is called Nanica. They ripen quite quickly. The other variety that ripens slowly, doesn't ever get soft, and still retains that almost dry feel in the mouth is called Prata. Generally they are a little smaller than the Nanica and sort of flatter, not as round.

The Pratas are on the left and Nanicas are on the right. I am in heaven. I can buy a bunch of bananas and they stay edible for me for a long time. I wish I had know about this sooner.

A Quick Trip Home

Around the middle of March the temple closed down for maintenance and we went home for two weeks. I went to a hearing and balance center to figure out what was causing my vertigo. Turns out I have Meniers disease. New diet and supplements seemed to have taken care of the vertigo. I am very happy about that.

I finished the Brazilian Butterflies quilt and gave it to the new baby. I had all the blocks sewn up so I put them together, added borders and then quilted it on my big machine. I was so happy to know that my skill was still there. Dang, that was fun. I love this picture of my mom holding the quilt with just her eyes peeking over.

One of the first things we did was go to Costco. I laughed at the things we had in our cart. Gotta have the basics.

We were able to meet out granddaughter. She was so cute and so much fun to hold and cuddle. I am so glad her mother takes a lot of pictures and shares them with us. We feel as if we are almost there.

We took a family group photo. One is how we would like you to believe is how we normally are.

This one is the truth.

One of my favorite pictures is of my dad, me, my son and my granddaughter. 

While we were home it snowed. I think the snow came to encourage us to go back to Brazil.

I also picked up a bunch of yarn to knit socks, a scarf, and maybe a shawl. That has given me hours of entertainment. Will do a separate post on my knitting accomplishments.

We loaded our bags with peanut butter,  chocolate chips, walnuts, crisco, deoderant and such to tide us over for six months. We gave our kids big giant hugs, our granddaughter lots of kisses and came back. It was fun to be home.