Free no more

As I have gone up north to work for Heather W. doing summer landscaping I have been able to check my email and blog. I have not used her internet, but a neighbor's wireless. Hey, if it's not password protected, it's open.

And now it's no longer an option because they either password protected it or moved. This means I don't have internet. Unless I want to get on Heather's computer, but I really don't. It's okay if I don't check my email every night. It's okay if I don't blog every day. Sure, there are things that come up, but they can wait a day.

So if you're trying to get a hold of me, the best way would be to try my cell phone. If I don't answer, then I can't talk and just like back in the day when people left messages on answering machines, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Or, if you can, text me. It's definitely easier to send a quick text.

Baked Oatmeal

I was all set to blog last night. We had run a few errands and when we came home, I finally had time to compose a post.

That's when Bill informed me that our internet was down.

I watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony instead.

I will post this to Friday's date, since I was all set to write it yesterday. Then, I will write another post for today that will post later tonight.

I have been searching for a baked oatmeal recipe. There's this little coffee ship in the town where I grew up that served a baked oatmeal for breakfast. For a few years my family went there to have breakfast (I think) with their Sunday school class. My mom always ordered the baked oatmeal. It always looked good, but I chose the cheese omelet instead.

The coffee shop stopped serving the baked oatmeal.

Recently, for whatever reason, I remembered that baked oatmeal and wanted to find a suitable substitute. I enjoy the homemade granola recipe and my oatmeal cookie recipe is delicious. Why not baked oatmeal?

I searched online and found several recipes. I tried one, it was nothing like I had hoped for.

I sort of gave up the search.

Then, on Thursday morning you'll recall I walked down to a friend's house for our book club, Trina had made a baked oatmeal. I had already had breakfast, but since I had walked through the snow I decided the extra calories wouldn't hurt.

Her baked oatmeal was exactly what I've been looking for! I begged her for the recipe, which she gladly shared. She has modified the original and this is her recipe:

Baked Oatmeal

from Trina Rookus

3 cups old fashioned oats

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl whisk eggs, milk, and butter. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Pour into a greased 8x8 dish. Bake 40 minutes or until set.

She had yogurt, blueberries and maple syrup for toppings. Really, you can top it with anything. It was so good. I'm excited to make some. Thanks again Trina!

I could have been...

Today was a rough day at work. The internet wasn't playing nice which meant I couldn't connect to the printer. Eventually, through a convoluted solution, I was able to print.

Then I called and whined to our IT guy (ha! I just realized he's our "it" guy), who came in on his day off and the minute he walked into the building everything worked like normal. He went home and approximately thirty seconds after he left, my internet went out again.

There's not a lot I can do without internet or printing capability.

Then I came home and read a post on Facebook. It's about having a bad day at work, purchasing a rectal thermometer (made by Johnson & Johnson), taking it home, reading the instructions which (apparently) state that every thermometer is tested before being sanitized and packaged. The gist is that at least I don't work for J&J. Har har. It made me laugh and whether true or not, at least I don't test rectal thermometers.

For that, I am thankful!

falling down

This week was not meant to be normal.

There's the weather. All the snow melted and we reached upwards of fifty degrees. Now it has returned in full force. It's hard to say, but I think we have a fresh six inches of snow that has fallen today.

Tuesday morning, I was awakened by thunder and lightning. But it wasn't a thunder snow (as Bill and probably others call it). It was just the rain that washed away the snow.

It caused a power outage at the church. Which I didn't know about until after the fact. After the emails had been sent saying the church was closed. After the emails had been sent saying the power was back on and after the emails were sent saying there was no internet.

How do you work in today's world without internet?

Well, you either go to a coffee shop (or stay home) and work from there, or you use your cell phone (because the land lines were also down) and do what you can on your computer that doesn't require internet.

It is not easy.

I had to use a phone book to look up a phone number.

Most of the staff chose to work at home or at a coffee shop. I stayed because there were things I needed to print and thankfully we were still able to do that.

That meant that yesterday, Wednesday or blog day, was spent finishing up work that I wasn't able to get done on Tuesday.

That didn't really happen and I ended up finishing a few things today.

Since I fell behind on my weekly blogging, I thought I'd try to share a little today. Yet, there's still more to share.

And wouldn't you know, there are pictures on my camera that I also want to share. Maybe tomorrow...