Tuesday, Nov. 30

Up around 7:30 and did a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast. Mother was ready to come over this morning, though she's still suffering a bit of a tummy problem. Hubbie accompanied her to our house while I was getting ready for the day.

She finished her jigsaw puzzle, while I printed out some of my photos suitable to use in making Christmas greeting cards for Caring Hands, and rubber stamped a variety of greetings to use with the photos.

It was lunchtime by the time I finished, so I heated the remainder of the macaroni and cheese for Mother. Hubbie and I had sandwiches. After lunch, Hubbie and I strung the lights and garland on the Christmas tree in the sunroom, and then hung ornaments until we got tired....I have hundreds of them for this big tree that reflect our interests and activities. Miniature camping trailers and vehicles, fishing ornaments and fish, gardening tools, cameras, shih tzu dogs, travel souvenir ornaments (many of which are key chains), patriotic ornaments, a sudoku puzzle ornament, handmade ornaments, along with a hodgepodge of traditional snowmen, toy soldiers, angels, santas and the like.

I don't limit myself to manufactured ornaments. I find that most anything can become an ornament, like empty tea boxes from Harrods in London. They once held tea bags that Hubbie's daughter brought us from her trip to England. A friend gave us a tin of breath mints from her trip to Rome. They are on the tree unopened. A Korean figure refrigerator magnet, still in its cellophane package, brought to us by Hubbie's granddaughter following her trip to that country hangs on the tree. A snowman sticky pad from one of the kids is on the tree, as well as a note card featuring an old-fashioned printing press.

We'll finish decorating the tree tomorrow, as well as put out other holiday things, like the nativity set. It always takes us three days or so to get the house decorated. Every year, I comment that I think we're overdoing it, but Hubbie and Mother enjoy seeing it all and don't want anything left out.

Supper tonight was leftover spaghetti that I'd put in the freezer a couple of weeks ago. Had that with cottage cheese and yeast rolls left from Thanksgiving. It was good to have something besides Thanksgiving fare for a change.

Around 5:40, I went to the college library to meet my Literacy Council student. She was about fifteen minutes late and very apologetic, but at least she arrived. We had a good session. She speaks very little English, so we began at a very basic stage (in accordance with the teacher's manual I was given), learning the names of objects, like pen, pencil, book, table, and chair, as well as a few simple sentences, like "Hello, how are you, I'm fine, how are you, my name is...what's your name?" And "I'm a teacher, you're a student." And finally, "Goodbye, I'll see you next week."

The student brought her nine-year-old English-speaking daughter, who was very helpful in translating, and in writing down the words and sentences the student will need to practice until we meet again next Monday evening.

The student did very well, tonight, though she will need a lot of practice with words like chair, you're, and the phrase "see you." She has trouble with the word "you," which she wants to pronounce as "chew." She also has trouble with the "th" sound. But by the end of the session, she pronounced the words correctly most of the time. Hopefully, after practice, she'll have fewer problems with the sounds next week. We won't move on to the next lesson until she gets tonight's down pat.

The student is a very pleasant young woman, and I think I'll really enjoy working with her.

Back home, I found Hubbie had turned off the TV, because two programs were recording on DVR, which meant he couldn't change channels. I thought he'd want to watch a western I'd recorded for him, but I learned that he didn't really know how to operate the DVR. If I'd thought he didn't understand the functions, I'd have shown him how to do it before I left. I gave him a lesson when I got home.

Tonight, we watched the thriller movie "International," rated "R" and starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. I know we've seen this movie before, but Hubbie seemed not to remember it.