Ash Wednesday

Felt icky when I got up at 6:30 this morning....lightheaded and a tummy ache. Hubbie had gotten up at 4 a.m. with tummy troubles. So I surmised that we both had a mild case of food- borne illness, probably from something we ate at lunch yesterday at the restaurant. We ate from the food bar, whereas our friend ordered from the menu. Hubbie and I had eaten several of the same items, but of course, I couldn't identify the exact culprit.

At any rate, since I continued to have tummy problems for a while, I didn't go to water aerobics. The problem finally corrected itself, but I felt sort of blah for the rest of the morning.

Mother came over mid-morning, bringing tuna salad for lunch, since this is Ash Wednesday. I wasn't sure I'd be up for tuna at lunch time, but I was. Since Hubbie and I like our tuna salad on toast, I put bread into the toaster. Our toaster, though, requires two tries to get the toast just right. Too bad I was busy heating coffee in the microwave for Mother and forgot the toast. So I burned the first batch and had to start over.

After lunch, I met my hair cut appointment at 1 p.m. I felt okay by this time. Back home, I saw that our computer tech guys were here installing our flat screen TV surround sound system. Now I have another remote control to learn to use, making four remotes altogether...one for the TV, one for the new surround system and DVD player, one for the other DVD/VCR combo, and one to access the cable guide. Lots of functions for my feeble brain to absorb, but with practice, I'll get it. The clarity of the surround sound system, combined with the HD feature of the TV is really nice.

Naturally, we experimented with watching various channels on TV for part of the afternoon. The Winter Olympics in HD is spectacular. The picture resolution on non-HD channels seems better, too.

By suppertime, I was plenty ready for spaghetti, with salad, cottage cheese, and Parmesan toast made from leftover whole wheat hamburger buns. The spaghetti sauce is meatless, in keeping with Ash Wednesday. A very satisfying meal.

Yesterday, we bought bananas on sale for 39 cents a pound, so today Mother made banana pudding, cooking the pudding from scratch, because I am allergic to the yellow dye in packaged vanilla pudding mix. Hubbie and I had this for a snack later in the evening.

Mother went home after supper (forgetting to take a helping of banana pudding with her...so Hubbie took some to her later). We watched TV until 8 p.m., when our favorite college basketball team played. Since the game wasn't on TV, we listened to it on the surround sound radio, as our team played to a much-needed win. Yay!

Funny: I felt chilled this afternoon, and decided to heat a cup of cranberry juice in the microwave. But the toaster and microwave were not my friends today, so as the juice heated, I got distracted by something else and forgot it. Later, as I was preparing Parmesan toast for supper, I noticed the cup in the microwave.

"Did someone heat a cup of coffee and forget it?" I asked. "No, wait," I said right away. "That's my cranberry juice."

Hubbie cracked up laughing, as I set the microwave timer to re-heat the juice. When it was hot, I took the cup out. Noticing that it was 4 p.m., though, I decided not to spoil my supper by drinking it.

After supper, I poured the cooled juice back into the bottle. Around 8 p.m., Hubbie fixed popcorn for us to munch on as we listened to the game. "Would you like that cup of hot cranberry juice now?" he asked. Yes, I would. So he heated it for me.

He didn't forget to take it out of the microwave.