Recipe Swappin' Saturdays: Sugary Treats

The theme for this week was Sugary Treats, so pull out your favorite sugary treat recipe. Post it on your blog and link up. For my Sugary Treat this week, I decided to try a new recipe. Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. And, can I just say that these cookies are delicious?! Hubby loved them so much that they were gone by the next morning. I'll definitely be making them again soon.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: 25 -30 cookies depending on size of cookie




Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon CALUMET Baking Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 bag of chocolate chips (the smaller sized bag)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
   
2. Mix flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
   
3. Beat butter, sugars and peanut butter in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy.
   
4. Add egg and vanilla; mix well.
   
5. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing until well blended after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips.
6. Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of dough, 2 inches apart, onto ungreased baking sheets.
7. Bake 10 to 12 min. or until lightly browned.
   
8. Cool 1 min.; remove from baking sheets to wire racks. Cool completely.

Now for the Recipe Swap Party.

Here are the rules:

1. Add the permalink to the specific blog post with a sugary treat recipe, not your general blog address.
2. Link back to the party from your post so that your readers can join in the fun!

The theme for next week is Afternoon Snacks!

Chit Chat: Let it Snow!

Colorado has been getting dumped on all day. The white fluffy stuff hasn't let up since late last night, and it is expected to keep coming down until mid-day tomorrow. I love snow. Before Baby Boy was born, a good snow meant waking up at oh-dark-thirty, grabbing our ski equipment and getting on the road (before I-70 became a parking lot) to ski.

Now that we have Baby Boy, a good snow causes me to about whether his day care will close early, and wonder how early I need to leave work to make sure I pick him up on time. Now, snow means canceled meetings and uncompleted tasks.

Today I got a call at 11:30 a.m. announcing that Baby Boy's daycare was closing at 1 p.m. I left early thinking the roads must be really bad, and I don't want to be late. As I was driving, I discovered, the roads were mostly clear, with a bit of slushiness on the side streets. Now in my book, a wet road isn't a good reason to cancel school. Not at a time when positions are being scrutinized. Not at at time when companies are trying to figure out ways to cut costs. Not ever.

So, I did a little digging around...the school district in our community did not close today, not a single other daycare in our community closed today, and many of the childcare facilities in the town I work in were still open as of 4 p.m. today.

So now, I am looking for an alternative for my daycare. This is not the first time an unnecessary snow closing has happened, and they take many other non-holiday days off. I can't keep using my very limited vacation time frivolously.

In the meantime, check out Baby Boy playing in the snow for the first time!

How to...Make Sure Your Photos Aren't Being Illegally Used

As a blogger, you work hard to find that perfect image to illustrate your post each day. Does the thought of someone ripping off the photo that you took of your kids infuriate you? How do you protect yourself?

For starters, you can put a watermark on all your images. This will help prevent people from ripping your images off.

The second thing you can do is a "reverse image look up." TinEye, is online software that will let you upload a photo to see if it is being used elsewhere. You can also look up images by giving it a url to one of your images. This tool is still in beta, so there are a few kinks to be worked out.

Give it a whirl: TinEye.com