I missed blogging this week!  I was at home (that is to say, where I grew up) without regular wi-fi, and it just seemed easier to not worry about blogging at all, with the exception of a couple of posts from my phone.  At least we do have reliable cell coverage in Clinton—I recall many visits back in the earlier cell phone days where the sprint network did not seem to cover Clinton.

Clinton, South Carolina.  My hometown.  I moved there when I was a little girl with my family, and we lived in a lovely home near Presbyterian College.  After a couple of years my dad (who is evidently prone to long-term, grand idea type projects) decided to purchase some land on the outskirts of town on which he was going to build a dome house for us to live in.  This took awhile, as he also worked full time, but on his weekends and vacations he worked on the house.  About 10 years later we moved in. 

This is all just a naturally accepted part of life for me, and I sometimes forget that people aren’t used to living in dome houses.  So I figured I’d take a few pictures. 

Oh, one other note:  Either I looked pretty wretched all week (possible, due to the humidity) or my family just doesn’t take good pictures.  I also felt less comfortable making them take pictures of me than I do with Chris—with him, I just hand him the camera and he doesn’t argue, but my parents and sister seemed to think my insistence on a nice picture was a bit selfish and ridiculous of me.  I don’t know.  I just like to document things, and love looking back on pictures of…well…myself.  But there aren’t any pictures of me (or of oatmeal) in this post.  I apologize.

The front door.  The "round" factor comes from a bunch of triangles that are made into hexagons and pentagons. 

From the side.  I would have walked around the back, but it was pretty muddy from rain.  You can see the back porch, and the side door that was originally planned to lead to a wrap around porch.  You can also see the nice triangle window.  Basically there are three floors—a somewhat unfinished basement that includes an office and a bathroom, the main floor: with kitchen, living room, dining room (all connected), breakfast nook, and then also laundry room and master bedroom/bathroom, and the second floor: three small bedrooms and a bathroom.  We kids lived upstairs.  I forgot to take a picture, but the walls bend in on you—you have three walls, two flat and one rounded…oh, and no real ceiling.  One of the things that bothered me most growing up was the absolute utter lack of privacy.  The bathroom did have a ceiling though.

At the very top of the dome you see a little lookout room.  It’s called a cupola and it’s where bugs go to die.  It’s a small room that you can get to by a little ladder of sorts. 

Looking up to the second floor—see the space between the walls and the ceiling?  That’s what I’m talking about.

Inside of the dome.  All of the inside is that wood and you can see the triangles.  That’s a skylight to allow in light. 

And that’s all the pictures I took of the house this visit.  I hope you enjoyed your virtual tour of the house that my dad built ;)  Like I said, Dome sweet home.  Home sweet dome.

And we are done with our concert. Bach double with orchestra, check!

I’m rereading this one in hard copy. These days it is odd to read a real book rather than on my kindle. It’s so annoying turning pages by hand…

I bought a sandwich in St Louis for $8. That same sandwich costs $10 in Atlanta. Win! Or not.
They just paged somebody named Carrie Leslie.

I was going to wait another day to post this, but I figured, why wait.  Besides tomorrow is supposed to be the foodie pen pals reveal.

I’m introducing a new feature on my blog: OATMEAL MADNESS.  Not like March Madness.  No brackets, no upsets, just lots of pictures of delicious oatmeal.

For the past month I’ve been on a no-cereal diet.  According to Mike (my trainer), cereal is the root of all evils in the world (paraphrasing) due to the processed sugars and whatnot in the ingredients.  I argued that I’d been eating cereal my whole life and surely it couldn’t be the most awful of all foods, but he started ranting about bloating and xanthum gum and gesturing wildly at his (very flat) stomach (that’s where the bloating might occur, I guess?) and turning red, steam coming out of his ears (mild exaggeration, but he was definitely on a soapbox) so I promised I’d try to give it up.

This led to another problem though.  I don’t mind cooking.  That is, I don’t mind cooking after I’m awake.  And to be awake, well, that takes a cup of coffee (or two).  I’ll cook for lunch, dinner, afternoon snack, late night, whatever.  Just not in the morning.  Mike says, oh, make a couple of eggs, it only takes five minutes.  Make oatmeal, it only takes five to ten minutes.  NO.  TOO EARLY.  (Regardless of time, it’s too early.)  But…what about that phenomena that is so famous across the blog world…

OVERNIGHT OATS.

So I tried it.  Oats.  Water or milk or yogurt.  Protein powder.  In a container, overnight.  Then in the morning, stir, and add fruit.  (Or “nut butter”).

This, I realized, was something I could get on board with.  It’s sort of like cereal, but less crunchy.  And less processed, so Mike is happy.

Which brings us to where we are today.  Pictures of my oatmeal.  My blog friend Rose suggested it, and I will do anything she suggests since she is an amazing athlete and blogger.  (I’m totally sucking up to her, another thing real bloggers do.)

I hate that I embraced a blogger trend.  (See here for the last time I embraced a blogger trend…oh and linking to old unrelated posts is also an excellent blogger trend, you’re welcome!) But I’m told it is an old thing to do.  Overnight oats are actually known as Mueslix in other countries, like in Europe.  And nothing is cooler than Europe.  Yes, I’m aware Europe isn’t a country. *correction, my sister texted me to say that MUESLI is what I meant, not mueslix, mueslix being an evil cereal from Kellogg’s*

You can also put them in a jar of “nut butter”.  People call these Overnight Oats in a Jar, or OOIAJ.  I find this to be fairly tasty but I invariably end up spilling on myself.  It’s probably more “nut butter” than one needs.

You can also try steel cut oats, but those just don’t get as soft overnight.  I tried, because someone compared them to Grapenuts, which I like.  I tried soaking them for 48 hours and it still wasn’t enough for me.

Oh, and I don’t have a microwave, so don’t tell me to microwave anything.  Plus, that will kill you, the radiation.  (Says the girl who is always on the phone.)

So, I am not as good of a blogger as some people, and I believe it took 8 days to get 6 pictures of oatmeal.  I forgot one morning (blogger FAIL) and then yesterday I ended up just doing a smoothie, so I didn’t photograph it.  Also I do not have super creative bowls and utensils and placemats.  Oh well!

Here we go!  ARE YOU READY TO BE INSPIRED TO BE HEALTHY AND AWESOME LIKE I AM??????

*drum roll*

*disclaimer, I did not take these pictures outside in my backyard, nor did I use any sort of light box.  just my normal pink, point and shoot camera.*

Oh, yeah, OVERNIGHT OATS IN A JAR. Steel cut overnight (two days actually) with protein powder, milk, and some blackberries.  CHEWY.

Steel cut that I cooked before, left overnight, added blueberries.

Same batch of steel cut cooked.  Blueberries, blackberries, dollop of peanut butter (hiding under there!).

Still the same steel cut.  Texture not as good with these, you can see after a couple days they are a bit more liquidy.  With strawberries.

Rolled oats, greek yogurt, a bit of “nut butter” and blackberries.  This was insanely delicious.  For oats.  Not actually delicious, mind you, because there is so much food out there that is more delicious than oatmeal.

Same base, but with chocolate peanut butter (super healthy, right?) and banana.  Lesson learned:  be sure to fully mix your protein powder before adding fruit.  Dry protein powder does not taste good.  Some of this actually came back up. And a banana, could be healthier.  Bananas:  the most fattening of all fruits.

There you have it.  6 days of oatmeal.

I have lost 4 pounds since giving up cereal.  Is it related?  I don’t know.

I hope you enjoy my new feature OATMEAL MADNESS!  Please comment on how brilliant and amazing I am in the comments.  Also if anybody can design a logo (the more crudely drawn the better, SARAH) for this feature I would be delighted and repay you in kind by offering you various overnight oats recipes.

Leslie and I are the stars of Presbyterian College’s website right now!

I’d probably feel a little better about the upcoming performance if my shoulder weren’t a disaster right now.  Anybody reading my blog is probably better able to observe the train wreck of injuries I’ve been bringing upon myself (or not, I’m just a take responsibility type of person) but this is not good.  I’ll make it through the Bach, no problem, because I can power through.  I’m just a little worried.  It was hurting a bit during the long run on Sunday, and then yesterday at the gym something happened—I don’t even know what—and all of a sudden it hurt again.  Then it was fine unless I was teaching last night.  I was reaching towards a student’s music with my right arm, and suddenly I gasped in pain.

And from that point on the pain stayed with me.  And is still about the same.  I’m icing it, and hoping for the best.  I really need to practice, but I’m thinking that is just not going to happen today.  Or running.

At least I’m playing second violin.

This week seems to be going just about as well as last week.  Bright side, I have lost 3 or 4 pounds this month!

Yesterday Chris bought a Super Nintendo and Final Fantasy 2.  He had had a bad day, and needed a pick me up. (We both did.)  Since he had recently played the Music of Final Fantasy with the Symphony, it was on his mind.  He’s been playing it all night, and then got up several hours before me and has been playing.  Should I tell you people that?  I think it’s hilarious.  SUPER NINTENDO.   We own a Nintendo, a Nintendo 64 and now a Super Nintendo.  And that’s it.  We do not have any more recent game systems.  (We had a Wii but it got stolen last year.)

I was out with a group of friends (and Chris) last night—all guys who grew up in the late 70’s/80’s and they got into an intense discussion involving the history of video games and video game systems.  It was a bit much for me, but hilarious.  They referenced systems I’d never heard of, not that I’m a video game expert.  (Chris IS a video game expert.)  They sang the title themes, and looked up games on the internet.

I guess what I’m trying to say, it was another case of “Men are different.”