Friday, Jan. 7

Up around 7:30, but skipped my exercises today. Mother and Sis came over mid-morning, and Sis mentioned that she wanted a new hairstyle for her birthday. This was in response to my asking her yesterday what she'd like, because I hadn't come up with any ideas on my own.

I promptly called Mother's and my beauty shop and luckily was able to get an appointment with my hairdresser at 10:30 a.m. So off we went right away to meet the appointment. The new style is very becoming, and I took pictures of her as soon as we got back home and uploaded them to my social network site. She immediately got lots of compliments from family and friends.

After a soup lunch, we all piled in the van and traveled to another town to visit a wildlife preserve, where there is a flock of gorgeous trumpeter swans. The swans arrive at the lake around Thanksgiving, and migrate north around Valentine's Day. So for the past few years, we have taken advantage of the first sunny, relatively mild day after the holidays to go visit the swans and take pictures.

Today was beautiful and sunny, though windy and a bit nippy. But we were prepared with coats and hats. Others who stopped by minus hats and coats didn't linger, but we stayed for quite a while. Mother got chilled after a few minutes, though, and went back to sit in the van.

Back home later, I mixed a quadruple batch of whole wheat pancake batter, using what was left of a quart of soy eggnog. Around 4:30, Hubbie did the honors of cooking the pancakes, while I microwaved turkey bacon, and the heated pancake syrup and the dinner plates.

The pancakes were very good. The eggnog added a pleasant extra flavor to them. Of course, there were lots of pancakes left, which Mother placed individually between sheets of waxed paper to keep them from sticking together, and then put them in Ziplock freezer bags. There are enough pancakes for several meals.

Later, we played several games of Duo, with Hubbie winning three, Sis winning two, and Mother and I each winning one. Mother and Sis went to Mother's house after that, and Hubbie and I watched one-hour shows on TV.