Monday, Dec. 13

Up around 7:30 and did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. Once I was ready for the day, I spent time at my office computer writing captions for photos I snapped at the graham cracker cookie Christmas house workshop. And then I e-mailed them to the photo editor of our regional edition of the state newspaper.

Mother came over mid-morning and baked the pumpkins we'd used in the outdoor decoration during October and November. These are not really pie pumpkins, but we've found that they're good when baked, pureed, and packaged for the freezer.

After lunch, Hubbie and I spent an hour or so running errands...to the bank, to the newspaper office to pick up a couple of editions of our local newspaper which features a photo of Granddaughter and Great-Granddaughter at the cookie Christmas house workshop, to the greeting card shop to buy a retirement card, to the store that has a sale every weekend to search for a sparkly blouse to wear with a new jacket Friday night (no luck), to the other store that has a sale every weekend (no luck there, either), and finally to the WDCS to shop for both Mother and ourselves.

Back home, I made a big pot of vegetable soup...Mother helped chop veggies for it. Supper tonight was hamburgers/turkey burgers, with sauteed potatoes.

Afterward, I headed to the college library to meet my student. The library was really chilly tonight. According to one of the librarians, a thermostat is on the blink at the front of library, but the back of the building, among the stacks downstairs, was warmer, so she directed there.

A student occupied the table there, but she said she was nearly done working, and we should go ahead with our lessons. I explained that my student is trying to learn English, and she joked that she's trying to learn to write it.

Tonight we worked on plurals, as in "This is a child. These are children." The student has a problem pronouncing housewives, just as she's had trouble pronouncing "driver." We worked on those two words tonight. She did well with other plurals.

We also began learning the subtle differences in sounds, such as the "a" in man, compared with the "e" in men. This lesson is very difficult for her, because she says the words sound the same to her. So we will be spending more time with this, until she trains her ear to hear the difference.

When I walked in the door at home, Hubbie announced that we are expecting a twenty-fourth great-grandchild. His granddaughter is expecting a baby next July.

We spent the evening watching TV, as usual. And since it was such a frigid night, we hopped in the hot tub for the first time this season.