life, & a granola (bar) recipe.

babies are mysterious things.
sometimes i wonder if it's phases that make them so difficult, or if it's based in their personality, or what. especially if they're fed and freshly changed and had a nap recently. (like the one above: s is 6 months old, and he fought that nap like no one's business. cranky babies fighting naptime is not fun. nope. and i'm pretty sure rocking chairs save lives. because babies eventually fall under the spell of spacial disorientation via said rocking chairs. thank God for those things.)
that's one thing i ponder, as i have 2 young nieces and a nephew --the latter of which is 6 months old, and fantastically (and i say that sarcastically) loud sometimes.
why do i think of all this? because i'm married and everyone asks when --whether in their thoughts mostly or not-- we will start to have kiddos. the answer is not yet. i have my fill of babies with my nieces and nephew. they're all cuties.
but, omg...gotta love their phases.

in other news, i adore the hoodie weather of yesterday and today. (just earlier this week, it was hot and windy. perfect for drying clothes on the line and saving the propane via the dryer.)
we haven't turned on the air conditioning since thursday. ceiling fans to circulate the air has been all that's needed since then. it's amazing.
oh my word.
hoodies and hot coffee and leaves just barely starting to turn.
i mourn the coming of winter after this beautiful, hot summer, and the autumn that is (hopefully) starting to set in.
but goodness, the fall day i feel all around me presently is such a relief.
such a beautiful relief.

i'm thinking of starting a new blog.
a different, clean, fresh place.
i started a new journal in the middle of a huge school-type notebook that i've been writing in since november 2012.
i got so tired of the plain bulky thing that i lugged everything in my purse.
so i dug around in a storage bin and found a few empty journals that i've either found or been gifted through the past few years.
and what did i do? i started a new, pretty, smaller, spiral bound, hard-back journal.
less space for so many words. less expectation.

also, i love hanging art.
this print from marisa's etsy is so cute, and i bought it in july 2011 for my house someday.
i'm thinking it'll look even better against pale yellow walls in the kitchen when we (hopefully sometime this year) paint it. :)

so, i started making no-bake granola bars.
and i can't find the recipe that i first used and adapted and memorized. i swear i pinned it, but it disappeared.
here goes.

no-bake granola bars

put in a medium sized bowl:
4 cups old fashioned oats
2 cups rice crispy cereal
stir to combine well.

simmer in a small saucepan:
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick of butter
dash of salt
whisk steadily until the brown sugar is dissolved and the mixture has bubbled for a while.
add a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg if you like the idea of some depth of flavor. (we like it a lot.)
take the saucepan off the heat.
drizzle a tsp or two of vanilla in and stir till combined.
pour over dry ingredients immediately and mix till dry ingredients are well coated.
pat firmly into a slightly greased pan, and refrigerate for a couple hours.
cut into bars, and enjoy!!

p.s.
if you're a blog friend of mine and you have Instagram and we're not friends yet, my username is love_beka_hill. i update that realm way more than facebook or my blog these days. hahah.