I have a freezer full of homemade tomato soup and a fridge full of homemade granola bars. I’m feeling domestic and accomplished.

Before we moved to this house I used to get all sorts of things done with my weekends – baking bread and biscuits and cookies and pre-making lunches for the week. And laundry! Oh I remember when laundry was a regular thing we did rather than a regular emergency we have.

But that was back when I was home full-time on maternity leave. And even when I was back at work it was with full-time daycare. Also my health problems all started up a couple months after we moved here so I sort of feel like I just never hit my stride at maintaining this house.

In slightly related news, I’ve been feeling a lot more energetic lately. Interesting that we’ve had drier weather for a month or two. I’ve definitely found a lot of personal anecdotes online about mold allergies where the symptoms are really close to mine (including numb extremities and fits of derealization). I guess we’ll see if it comes back in the spring.

Meanwhile, here’s my granola bar recipe, developed while I was on maternity leave and had more time than money and was trying to eat healthy to shake off the post-baby-nursing-low-thyroid blues. It isn’t really that healthy, but it’s better for you than most store-bought granola bars. Tastier and cheaper too.

Granola bars:

2 cups rolled oats (or multi-grain porridge mix)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup rice krispies
1 cup flour
1/2 cup honey (warm gently in the microwave if using creamed honey)
1 egg beaten
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup applesauce

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 9×13″ pan
2. Mix oats, brn sugar, rice krispies, flour. Make a well in center and add honey, egg, oil, and applesauce. Mix well and pat into pan. I usually need to oil my hands a little for that step.
3. Bake 18 min. Cut into bars while still warm. 18 servings. Store in fridge.

Optional yogurt cheesecake topping :

4oz (half pkg) cream cheese, softened
1tbsp sugar
1tbsp lemon juice
2tbsp milk
1 egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa
Mix all ingr. Pour over granola bars before baking.