Saturday, January 2, 2010

Saturday, January 2

I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning, and couldn't get back to sleep until around 5:30, and then I slept until 8:30. Hubbie was already up taking the ornaments off the Christmas tree in the living room. I joined him in that activity until we had all the ornaments wrapped in tissue and lovingly stored in a plastic tote.

We had breakfast after that, and then I did a treadmill session and weights exercises. Mother came over while I was doing that and worked on her jigsaw puzzle. While I was getting ready for the day, she and Hubbie put canned tomatoes and other veggies into the food processor to make tomato soup for lunch.

It was nearly 11 a.m. before I was ready for the day. During lunch, Mother and I watched the Tournament of Roses Parade that I'd recorded on DVR, while Hubbie took the Christmas ornaments off the tree in the sun room.

Then Mother went back to her jigsaw puzzle, and Hubbie and I watched our favorite college basketball team play. Unfortunately, they lost by one point.

By this time, it was getting too dark in the sun room to work at putting the Christmas ornaments away. There are lights out there, but they are subdued and not adequate enough for anything but getting in and out of the hot tub.

Supper was leftovers...chili mac, sauteed cabbage, and glazed carrots. Mother went home after that, and Hubbie and I settled in to watch our favorite college football team play their bowl game. I'd recorded the game for a while before we began watching it, so we could fast forward through the commercials. And yay! Our team won in a heart-stopping overtime.

Re: commercials: in the waiting room of the ophthalmologist's office, one lady complained of how many commercials there are during TV programs.

"Years ago," she said, "there were only a couple of commericials during a show....just time enough to go to the bathroom."

"That's right," said another lady. "But now there are so many commercials that you have time to go to your neighbor's bathroom."

Friday, January 1, 2010

New Year's Day

Happy New Year's Day to all! Hope everyone is having a great start to 2010 (will you be calling it two-thousand-and-ten, or twenty-ten? I think twenty-ten is easier to say).

We slept late, until around 8 a.m. Since I didn't know what time Niece and family would visit today, I skipped my treadmill session. As it turned out, they didn't come until late afternoon, after they'd had lunch and visited with Niece's in laws.

So we spent the day doing pretty much nothing, except getting lunch ready. Lunch was a pot of blackeyed peas cooked in both chicken and beef broths, with low-salt ham (a stand-in for hog jowl), onions, banana peppers, garlic, no salt seasonings, and paprika. We had the peas with cabbage sauteed in olive oil and seasonings, and red potato halves baked with margarine and Parmesan cheese, and restaurant yeast rolls. It was a very tasty "good luck" meal that hit the spot with all of us.

Niece said her family had a similar meal at her in law's home...blackeyed peas, cabbage, and deep fried hog jowl (not my favorite...and I'm pretty sure Niece didn't eat that either, since she doesn't like pork).

During the afternoon before Niece arrived, Hubbie and I watched the college football games following the Tournament of Roses Parade, while Mother snoozed in the other room. I recorded the parade on DVR, which we'll watch tomorrow, prior to our favorite college football team's game.

We had a nice visit with Niece. She brought a white ceramic Santa head ornament for our white Christmas tree, and a book and video store gift card for Mother. In exchange, we gave her family a big box of goodies...a jar of Mother's delicious strawberry preserves, a variety of homemade cookies, an Italian cream cheese ball and crackers, and five envelopes each of hot chocolate mixes in various flavors, and five envelopes of apple cider mixes in various flavors. We'd put the gift pack together yesterday.

All three of Niece's children are talented, and today Great-Niece entertained us by playing her keyboard, and Great-Nephew played both his guitar and fiddle. He is most noted for playing bluegrass music. Great-Niece taught herself to read music and play her keyboard. Younger Great-Nephew plays saxophone, but he didn't bring it with him today.

An interesting note is that Great-Niece has auditioned for a role in a movie re-make of True Grit. A call went out for dark-haired, blue-eyed girls between fourteen and sixteen years old to audition in our capital city, so Great-Niece went. 3,000 girls were pared down to 500, Great-Niece among them. She has now had a second call-back. It's a long shot that she'll be cast, but it's a good experience for her, anyway.

Niece and family weren't hungry for a meal when they arrived, but they did indulge in cheese and crackers, cookies, and slices of cake. They stayed until around 6 p.m. and then headed home, about two hours away.

After they left, we had a supper of deli turkey wraps, and then Mother went home. Hubbie and I vegged for the rest of the evening.

Tonight's movie was "The Point Men," a 2001 R-rated film, starring Christopher Lambert, Kerry Fox, and Vincent Regan. A team of terrorist assasins hunt down an Arab terrorist.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Thursday, December 31

Didn't wake up until 8 a.m. this morning. Hubbie was already downstairs, having risen a few minutes earlier. After breakfast, I did a treadmill session and resistance exercises. Mother came over while I was doing that and worked on her jigsaw puzzle.

As I was exercising, the cable TV guy came and reset the cable box. Hubbie asked about exchanging it for a DVR unit, but the cost per month was more than he wanted to pay, so for now we'll stick with the old unit.

After I was ready for the day, I did this and that around the house, including doing a few computer tasks upstairs and printing a copy of some materials for one of our scrapbook club members.

At 11 a.m., Hubbie went to the local restaurant to pick up yeast rolls for our New Years Day lunch tomorrow. Other than that, he spent most of his day reading one of the western novels I gave him for Christmas.

After lunch, I made another double batch of fruit salad, but I didn't notice until I'd mixed the sour cream into the fruit that Hubbie had gotten regular rather than light sour cream yesterday...even though I'd specifically reminded him to get the light variety. So unless Niece and her family eat a lot of it tomorrow, Hubbie will have plenty of the stuff to eat in the coming days, because Mother and I won't indulge.

Mother went on working on her jigsaw puzzle this afternoon, and I continued doing this and that, including washing and drying a couple of loads of laundry. The excitement never ends.

Around 4 p.m., Mother put sweet potatoes in the oven to bake, and carrots on stove to boil, while Hubbie and I went to the WDCS to get a deli chicken and a container of light sour cream. Back home, I seasoned the cooked carrots with margarine, honey, and ginger. They were good with the chicken and sweet potatoes, but the meal sure was orange. I didn't plan very well when I decided to have both sweet potatoes and carrots for supper!

After supper, I put together a single batch of fruit salad for Mother and me. The recipe calls for two cups of sour cream, but I dumped the whole carton into the fruit before discovering it was a 24 oz. container. So to correct my mistake, I added half the amount of the other ingredients. If we have nothing else to eat this coming week, we certainly won't run out of fruit salad.

Later, I cleared away the jigsaw puzzle so we could play a few games of Skibo, before Mother went home around 8:30 p.m. We played four games, with Hubbie and I each winning two. We were hoping Mother would win at least one, but it didn't happen. She didn't care.

She was a bit tired and wobbly tonight, so I walked her home. She'll no doubt hit the sack early and skip the ball dropping at midnight in Times Square. I don't know if we'll see it either, since we'll probably be in bed by that time. Last year, I stayed awake long enough to see the New Year in, but Hubbie was snoring. We'll see what happens this year. The excitement never ends.

On the walk to Mother's house, we noticed the "Blue Moon," which of course is a second full moon for the month. The term "Once in a Blue Moon" just means something that happens only once in a while. One website says that in every century, there are an average of 41 Blue Moons.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Wednesday, December 30

We were up at 6:30 this morning, so I could get ready to take Mother to her ophthalmologist appointment at 8 a.m.

Weather predictions last night were for possible light snow or sleet this morning, but fortunately nothing much happened. At the clinic, a decorated Christmas tree stood in front of a picture window, and shortly after Mother and I were seated in the waiting room, we looked out the window and saw snowflakes drifting down...very "Christmasy" on this fifth day after the big day.

A few minutes after 8 a.m., all the patients who'd had surgery yesterday were marched to exam rooms in the back. Mother's exam went smoothly, and we were out of the clinic around 8:30.

It spit slush on the way home...something between snow and sleet that turned into rain. Otherwise, the weather was winter-nippy, but not too bad, since there was no wind.

Mother went to work on a new jigsaw puzzle when we got home, and Hubbie and I ran errands...to a grocery store to get on-sale grapefruit (yuk, I don't like this fruit, but Hubbie and Mother do), potatoes, and sour cream to make more fruit salad. From there, we went to the bank, to the appliance store to pick up our upstairs TV, to the cable TV office to order another DVR for upstairs, and to the WDCS.

At the cable TV office, we were told that we would either have to take the DVR home and install it ourselves, or pay an installation fee to have someone come do it. Well, we protested, since the old cable box isn't working. It began giving us problems a couple of weeks ago, and then today, when we hooked the TV up, we found the cable box doesn't work at all anymore. It's our understanding that the cable company is responsible for maintaining or replacing non-working boxes, sans charge. So we'll see what happens.

It's been one thing after another with the upstairs TV...first it was thought that the problem with the unit was the remote control, and it took forever to get a new one, and then when that didn't help, the tech decided it was the TV's sensor. Today, after waiting forever for the new sensor to come in, he repaired the TV. And now it's the cable box.

We're glad, though, that the TV is still under warranty, because otherwise it would have cost us $147.99 in repair charges! Or else we would have ditched it for a new one.

We went to the WDCS to pick up a few groceries for when Niece and her family visit on Friday. Great-Niece emailed yesterday to see if we would be home for New Years, and of course, we will. We don't know if they will be here in time for lunch, or won't be here until after lunch to join us for dessert. And we don't know if they can stay for supper. So now we are prepared for however much time they can spend with us.

Back home, Hubbie and I made another batch of fruited popcorn, because he wanted a batch that tasted less like molasses and more like caramel. Then he popped two more batches of popcorn to bake in the oven for 15 minutes. He claims that baking popcorn crisps it, while simply air popping it makes some of the kernels taste like cardboard. I hadn't noticed that, but I'll take his word for it.

Later, he heated the popcorn again before we settled in to watch our favorite college basketball team play to a loss. Phooey. With the popcorn, we had glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice with pulp. This afternoon, I'd juiced a bag of oranges, because we found them too tough, membranous, and stringy to peel and eat in sections. The pulpy juice was sweet and good, though. Mother took the orange peel halves home to scrape for making zest.

For supper tonight, Mother boiled wheat rotini pasta to add to leftover chili. The chili, stored in the freezer, was leftover from last week. It came in handy tonight, when we didn't feel like cooking from scratch. We had the chili-mac with slaw and cottage cheese.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Tuesday, December 29

5:30 a.m. rolled around pretty fast this morning, but I hopped right out of bed when the alarm went off, so I could get ready to take Mother to the ophthalmologist's clinic for her second cataract surgery.

We arrived a few minutes before the appointed 6:50 a.m. hour, and the receptionist took Mother right back for preps.

The waiting room was frigid, as it was for her first surgery earlier this month. The nurses and receptionist shivered, despite commenting that they were wearing thermal underwear and several layers of clothing. The patients stay in their coats during surgery, and are provided with blankets for further warmth. I guess this is a clinic bent on keeping the environment cold enough to inhibit the growth of bacteria.

By 8 a.m., Mother was out of surgery. She was a bit more wobbly this time, and seemed not to feel as well. On the way home, she said her stomach had become queasy after taking her BP meds this morning. And the evil-tasting med she was given to relax her during surgery wasn't as effective today. So although she was in no pain during the procedure, she was more alertly aware of pressure in her eye as the doctor worked.

Back home, she was ready to have something to eat, and more than ready for her morning coffee. She had three pieces of toast, with margarine and pumpkin butter, and several cups of coffee. After that, she lay on the couch and napped for a few hours.

When she awoke around 2 p.m., I fixed her a bowl of Ramen noodle soup, with lots of crackers and cheese, and more coffee. She felt much better after that, and was ready to walk around the house a little.

Even though she ate a late lunch, she was still ready for supper at 5 p.m. We had leftover chicken noodle soup, with yeast rolls, and fruit salad for dessert. After that, Mother was ready to work on her jigsaw puzzle again. Together, we finished that puzzle by 7 p.m., and she chose another one to begin tomorrow.

She was alert and ready to go home by then, so I walked her to her house and made sure she was settled in, before coming back to my house.

I didn't accomplish anything much other than taking care of Mother's needs today, which is all I meant to do. While she slept, though, I did write a letter to my high school friend who sent me a Christmas card (I haven't seen this friend since we graduated). I also sent a note of congratulations to my widowed sister-in-law, who recently remarried. And I put away my Christmas movies and music CDs, as first step to getting my house back in order after the holidays. Most of this chore will be done after New Year's Day.

After supper, Hubbie and I watched the movie, "Eight Men Out," a 1988 PG movie starring John Cusack, Michael Lerner, Charlie Sheen, Christopher Lloyd, and others. This film is based on the 1919 sports scandal, when the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series. We got this movie DVD free with cereal box proofs. It's a good movie.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Monday, December 28

Got up late this morning, and then did a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast. Mother came over and worked on her jigsaw puzzle while I got ready for the day. Didn't accomplish much before lunch.



After lunch, Hubbie and I ran errands...to a grocery store to get cottage cheese, to the Post Office, to the greeting card store (needed to buy a couple of cards to satisfy my points accumulation for the year, so that I can get special discounts in 2010), and then to the doctor's office, so Hubbie could be examined for a hernia he has developed over the past several weeks.



As we suspected, Hubbie will need to see a surgeon, who will schedule a time for hernia surgery. Hubbie's doctor said that the surgeon is over-scheduled right now, because another surgeon left town to work somewhere else, and his replacement is seriously ill. So the surgeon's office is to call with an appointment date as soon as possible, but it could be a while.



From the doctor's office, we went to the cable TV office to pick up a couple of channel listings, to the health store for 8-grain cereal and multi vitamins, and to the WDCS for groceries and incidentals.



It was about 3:30 before we got back home. We didn't do much else for the rest of the afternoon. Supper was leftover veggies, rice, and gravy. Mother went home after supper, and Hubbie and I relaxed for the evening.



I will need to get up early tomorrow morning, since Mother is scheduled for her second cataract surgery at 6:50 a.m. She's very ready to get the surgery over with, so she can get a new pair of eyeglasses.



Tonight, Hubbie and I watched a movie..."The Caller," rated PG-13. This 2008 movie stars Frank Langella and Elliot Gould. An energy company whistleblower sends an anonymous email with a video-clip attachment of a burial ground at the firm's factory in South America. The corporation in New York begins hunting the whistleblower. Fearing for his life, the whistleblower disguises his voice and hires a private detective to follow and find out all he can about an unnamed man, who turns out to be himself. The plot is a little hard to follow, since the movie starts with scenes from 1940's France, before moving to modern-day New York, and then does not reveal the connection until the end of the movie.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Sunday, December 27

Got up late this morning, but still did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. After that, it was a usual Sunday of programming the DVR for movies and shows this week, and reading the Sunday newspaper.



Mother came over mid-morning to work on her jigsaw puzzle. For lunch, we had leftover beef roast with various veggies and fruit salad. After that, we relaxed and just watched TV, read, and worked the jigsaw puzzle. I did my usual part with the puzzle...put in the sky and trees.



Supper was leftover potato soup, with restaurant yeast rolls. After supper, Mother and I continued with the jigsaw puzzle, while Hubbie watched football.



Mother went home around 8 p.m., and Hubbie and I watched the movie "Transsiberian," starring Woody Harrelson and Ben Kingsley. In this R-rated movie, a couple on a trip from China to Russia meet a strange couple and become involved in deception and murder. It's a pretty good thriller.