I'm sitting here drinking my morning coffee. It's another cold day. I think I look pretty silly. I'm in my Christmas pajama pants, a sweatshirt, and a scarf! LOL! I put the scarf on when I took the kids to school and it's just so warm, I didn't take it off:) I love scarves.

Anyway...back to my coffee....I love coffee. I love it iced, hot, or warm. I also will drink it black...preferably if I have something sweet to eat it with. I also love having creamer in it. My hubbys' favorite creamer is vanilla. I will try any creamer. Right now I have vanilla spiced rum. However, this morning I wanted some vanilla and there was only a tiny splash left...I wanted more. So I got some milk and vanilla extract and poured it in a cup and mixed it together. It turned out pretty good.

Then, while I was holding my little jar of vanilla I remembered I found a recipe for homemade vanilla extract on one of the other blogs I read. I thought it was a great idea and I think I'm going to try it out. Vanilla extract is pretty spendy....especially if you get the natural kind.

So here it is...from http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/:

6 Vanilla Beans

6 (4 oz jars)

24 oz. vodka

"I purchased the vanilla beans and recycled glass cork top bottles from Mountain Rose Herbs. The vanilla beans are sold by the 1 oz (which is 6-9 beans) for $9.00, making it about $1-1.50 per bean. The jars were $1.60 each. I purchased the vodka at my local liquor store for $10 for 750 ml (which I figured out is about 26 oz). So you are looking at less than $5 per 4 oz jar, compared to easily double that amount at your local health food store. And with reusable glass jars, you can save even more with future batches (if you are making it for yourself, that is). The beans smelled fabulous! I cut them down the center with scissors and then into 2 inch pieces and put them in the jars. I then filled each jar with vodka and put the top on! That’s it! You must steep them for 8 weeks. Once you have used half the jar, you can refill the jar to the top with more vodka to stretch it even more! Make sure to make a note of this when you send it for gifts. You can also save room to sweeten with a 3/4 tsp of rum per bottle after it has steeped."

Hope you enjoy this recipe. I'll try to start working on it soon and let you know how it turns out. I bet you'll like the blog "passionate homemaking" as well. She has lots of interesting things on there.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal." Isaiah 26:3-4