Thursday, December, 17

We were up about 8 a.m., and I did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. While I was getting ready for the day, Hubbie cut up and cleaned a pumpkin to be baked. We'd used the pumpkin in the outdoor fall display. We got nearly eight quarts of the pumpkin for the freezer, which we put in Ziplock bags. There were two pumpkins in the display, but one went south before we could get it cooked. We also baked several acorn squash for the freezer that we'd gotten on sale a few weeks ago.

While the pumpkins were baking, we watched a Scrooge movie musical, starring Kelsey Grammer. After lunch, while the squash baked, we watched "A Miracle on 34th Street." As we were watching this movie, a friend returned a phone call I'd made to her this morning. I wanted to know if she was going to be at work this afternoon, so I could drop a food gift by. She said she would be there, so we made a batch of spinach dip, which I put with snack crackers, and then Hubbie and I delivered the gift on our way to the WDCS (I guess we're destined to go there every day until Christmas).

When we got back home, we found that Mother had already gone to her own house, taking her fifth day of Christmas gift with her. Today's gift was a pair of lint rollers, which delighted her, because she uses a lot of these to remove cat hair.

Yesterday, we gave her a large can of beauty salon hair spray, which we'd picked up at a silent auction. She was excited by that gift, too, because she had just run out of her usual brand and was about to ask me to go get another can for her.

On Tuesday, we gave her a box of chocolate covered coffee beans. On Monday, her gift was a jigsaw puzzle, and on Sunday, it was a 2010 calendar featuring photos of exotic animals.

Later, I fixed a breakfast-for-supper meal of potato pancakes, eggs, biscuits and gravy. After that it was TV, as usual. Tonight, we watched the movie, "The Stone Angel," starring Ellen Burstyn. The family of a nearly 90-year-old woman wants to put her in a nursing home, but she refuses. She runs away from home to return to the town where she lived as a youth and young adult. Here she traces her unconventional life and her relationships as she moves in and out of lucidity. The movie is rated "R" for intimate scenes (though there's no full nudity), and mild language. Good movie.