Wednesday, Jan. 19

Up at 7:30 this morning, and did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. Mother came over mid-morning and put together a pot of chili to simmer while I was getting ready for the day.

Later, Hubbie and I ran errands...to the bank, to the pharmacy and grocery store, and to the WDCS. Snow is predicted for our part of the state tomorrow, so naturally everyone was out replenishing milk and bread. We picked up those things, too, but we also got several other grocery items.

While we were at the grocery store/pharmacy, I met the Caring Hands Hospice director, who said she'd be sending an e-mail about our group meeting at the independence living center to work residents on making neck warmers. Someone is sewing the tubes for these warmers, and we are to fill them with rice and stitch the ends of the tubes closed. These can be heated in the microwave and used to help relieve pain wherever they are applied.

She also asked that I check our calendar for a possible day the first week of February for a Valentine card-making session.

We got back home around 12:30, and had a lunch of leftover autumn stew with noodles. Then Hubbie and I went to the college located just down the road from us to see a photography exhibit in the college library. The photographer calls the exhibit his Excavation series, in which he collected and arranged litter-type objects, like food containers and rusted electronics, into compositions. Even a couple of dead birds were included.

The exhibit evokes thoughts of our throw-away society, and how it impacts living creatures, including ourselves. The photographer states that he hopes his photographs will "arouse an awareness of the havoc our lifestyles impose on the environment."

At the exhibit, we met a woman who is an artist and instructor at the college. She serves with me on the visual arts committee of the local arts council. She commented about how thought-provoking the exhibit is.

A non-traditional student with her (a lady we worked with years ago before retiring) said she didn't get anything from the exhibit and wondered why anyone would bother photographing trash. She especially disliked the photos that included dead birds. She obviously missed the point altogether.

From there, we went to the art gallery to pick up Styrofoam quart containers to use when we make 11-bean soup for the gallery's Souper Saturday fundraising event. I want to get the soup made and into the freezer soon, so we can cross that off our list of things to do.

While there, we viewed an artist's show. The images are screen prints on wood, and feature faceless young women in various fashions against floral backgrounds. She leaves the women faceless, she says, so that the viewer can create his or her own vision of beauty. Also on exhibit are her Barbie doll tailored dresses made from the pages of magazines and hung from a tree limb. These are very interesting.

Back home, I helped Mother finish the jigsaw puzzle we've been working on forever. After that, we made a batch of hand cream, which filled three jars. The instructions for the hand cream say the recipe makes enough to fill four average size jars, but I guess like everything else, the amounts in Vaseline, baby lotion, and vitamin E cream jars (the ingredients needed to make the hand cream) is less than in the past.

Later, we enjoyed the chili for supper on this cool night. Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie and I watched TV, including our favorite college basketball team, as they played to a disappointing loss in overtime.

Funny: (or maybe not so funny): this afternoon, Hubbie casually asked what Monday's date is. I didn't know offhand. So he checked the calendar. It's January 24, our 30th wedding anniversary.

"When did you say you would meet your student for a two-hour session?" he asked.

Oops, on Monday, I realized. I hastened to call my student to change the date to Tuesday night. I reached her husband, who said he'd pass the message to his wife. I explained to my husband that when I scheduled my student for Monday, I was looking at the day, not the date. He understood. Whew!