Post-Holiday Return

The holiday weekend is over and I once again return to the normal world from the fun time with my family.

Vinny was pretty thrilled with the whole concept of Christmas morning. All those presents... what's not to like, at least in principle? In practice, waiting through opening all those danged presents, that is no fun. This is one major drawback to having literally carloads of presents.

Some of the highlights of his haul included a kid-sized easel, a pirate game, and this pretend electrical board that I made for him. It's a small pegboard with a set of switches and outlets that he can attach to the board with bolts and wingnuts. I took actual electric outlets and light switches, attached each end of them to a small block of wood, and drilled holes in the wood so that the blocks would align with the holes in the pegboard. Then I also got some replacement plugs plus a few other interesting accessories (such as a plug that converts an outlet to a light bulb socket, and another one that converts it back the other way) for him to play with too.

The most exciting gift for me was a Roomba (a vacuum cleaning robot). It is supposedly a time-saving device, but in order to save time, you can't sit there and watch the thing do its work. Vinny and I are both mesmorized by it. So far I've had it clean two of the bedrooms in the house, which has been great, because it can reach under the beds a whole lot better than I can!

I made some special oatmeal for Christmas morning. A friend at work told me you can make oatmeal in the slow cooker overnight, so I thought I'd try it. You have to use steel-cut oats, not rolled oats, and they are a bit harder to find, but I found some in the "health foods" section of the grocery store (which makes me wonder, is the name of this section an indictment of the quality of the rest of the food in the store?). Anyhow, the ratio is 4 cups of liquid to 1 cup of oats. I used half milk and half water for the liquid. I put it in the slow cooker right before I went to bed, and it cooked on low all night.

It did stick to the side of the crock, unfortunately, but it wasn't too bad. Next time, though, I think I'll do a double boiler -- use a larger size slow cooker, half filled with water, and put the oatmeal in a smaller bowl inside. I say "next time" because there will be a next time -- it was really delicious and creamy. This is saying a lot because I am not really an oatmeal person.

Anyhow, I had a great time at home the past four days, and I'm kind of sad to have to go back to work this morning. But oh well. Once I get back into it, I know I will enjoy it. Thank goodness for having such a great job!