Tuesday, January 5

Slept well last night, but got up late, anyway, on this frigid morning. After breakfast, I did a treadmill session and resistance exercises. Once I was ready for the day, I did routine household chores until lunch. Mother opted to stay home this morning, but she came over after lunch to take apart and put away the jigsaw puzzles.

Hubbie and I had leftovers for lunch....a pork chop sandwich for him, and homemade tomato soup for me...and then we traveled to a nearby town to our favorite electronics store to get a new telephone with answering machine. We learned that our old phone's answering machine wasn't working when I got a letter from the nurse at my cardiac doctor's office, setting an appointment for me. At the bottom of the letter, she noted that our answering machine was full. But when I checked it, I discovered it just didn't work at all.

We found an inexpensive phone very similar to the old one, so it was simple to set up after we got back home.

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing this and that, before having a breakfast-for-supper meal of Ziplock bag omelets, with hash browns and bran muffins. I made the muffins after we got back from the electronics store. Later, Hubbie peeled potatoes and shredded them in the food processor. Mother cooked onions, bell peppers, and mushrooms, and added the mixture, plus shredded cheese, to egg substitute for her and me, and regular eggs for Hubbie. It was a very satisfying meal on this cold winter evening.

Mother went home after supper, but returned within minutes, because she couldn't get the door to her house open. Hubbie went to check on it and got it open, then walked Mother home. The extreme cold probably caused the problem.

Mother can't win for losing this week. Sometime during Sunday night, someone apparently traveled too fast around that curve near her house, skidded on the snow-slicked road, fishtailed, and knocked over her mailbox and post. Hubbie tried to set the post and box back up, but it's wobbly, so he'll have to wait til the weather gets better to repair it. In the meantime, he has asked our mail carrier to leave Mother's mail in our box. During inclement weather, the mail carrier does this anyway, since he knows Mother is elderly.

This evening, we watched our favorite college basketball team play to an unfortunate loss.

Sad news: the obituaries in tonight's local newspaper announced the death of one of the Master Gardeners. This very nice lady was only 55 years old. We've known for a few months that she was terminally ill with cancer. She and her family went to Florida to stay during her illness, and we hadn't heard anything about her since they left. But just yesterday, I thought about her, and wondered aloud how she was doing.

Final arrangements for the funeral are not complete, but the services will be here, so I'm sure Hubbie and I will attend.