A mini-Marathon Baking Session & an Interesting Work Day

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, I was baking.

My mother-in-law just got home from a hospital stay and I wanted to take her some goodies.

I made blueberry muffins, banana bread and chocolate cookies.

I had it all boxed up and out the door before 8:00 a.m. Most of it was still warm when DH delivered it to her.



I've had these cute little boxes for quite a while. We did a food show at work and the vendors gave them to me when they left. Rather than pack up everything, they usually just give it to us --full cases of stuff! It's a unique fringe benefit.

I made up labels way back when, then put the labels and the boxes together in plastic bags and promptly forgot about them...for a few years! LOL. I am glad I found them because they make nice boxes for giveaways...the recipient does not have to worry about returning anything.


My MIL called right after she got them and was thrilled to death. So all the baking at 4:00 a.m. was worth it!

Most of you know I work in a hotel. I do a bit of everything - sales, human resources, administrative tasks--it's a small-town-major brand hotel - we all do whatever we have to do to keep everything rolling along.

Today was pretty interesting day for me. I was MOD (Manger-on-Duty; I am every weekday morning) so I was there about 6:45 a.m. to unlock everything and get the day rolling. I did some admin. reports from 7 - 7:30 A.M, then I did payroll. After payroll, I did callbacks from my phone messages and I made two group room blocks (Sales duties). Then an ex-employee called and wanted her job back (Human Resource duties). I am not the person who makes that decision, but she thought I was.

At 11:00 a.m. I met with two ladies to go over the final details for their 60th class reunion (Banquet Sales duties). Wow, 60 years! Those ladies looked great. They must have been close to 80 years old. Are people looking better these days or am I just getting old and thinking they are?

Just as I was finishing up with the class reunion ladies, a big rainstorm began. OMG, it was raining so hard that the poor ladies could not even walk out to their cars. I got them a cup of coffee and had them sit down in the lobby to wait until it was safe to walk outside.

Just then (about 11:30 a.m.) the power went out. Oh, no! We had a service club luncheon to serve at noon. . . what a bad time to lose power! A power outage is not a good thing at a hotel...so many things need to be reset (gas ovens, computers, elevator, etc. etc.) Thank goodness our maintenance department handles all that, because I would not have the vaguest idea what to do.

Luckily our chefs are on the ball and had all the food for the buffet cooked and waiting in the warming ovens. The banquet setup man was quick to get candles for all the tables. We put two on each table and six down the buffet line. It was still too dark for people to see what they were eating, so I got a flashlight and stood there as everyone went through the line and lit up every bowl of food as they walked down the buffet line and explained what each dish was--there were nine different dishes for me to illuminate.

All that before 12:30 P.M.! My job is rarely boring! It sure beats being a window washer on a skyscraper-have you noticed how many rescues they have made lately for window washers?