Monday, Jan. 2

Today is the anniversary of my brother's birthday. He would have been 68 today.

The new year is getting off to a rocky start. Yesterday, Hubbie learned that his ex-wife fell out in front of her car at a dollar store parking lot on Sunday, and was whisked to the ER. Doctors determined she'd had a sudden drop in blood pressure, but haven't determined the cause.

Then this morning, Daughter-in-Law called to tell me that my ex-husband suffered a heart attack yesterday. Tests show that he has blocked arteries and an aneurysm on his heart. He is now awaiting open heart surgery.

This afternoon's local newspaper brought the obituary of a lady we've known for years. She was only 56, but she had suffered many physical problems over the years. At one point years ago, she was so anorexic that we thought she would surely perish. But she got help for that and became healthier. Several months ago, though, we learned she was a closet alcoholic. Her latest physical problems were related to cirrhosis of the liver.

This lady always confused Mother and me, and whenever she saw me at the greeting card shop where she worked, she called me by Mother's name. Mother and I were members of an Extension Homemaker's club that she started, and her husband and I served together for several years on the community theater board.

This morning, we got up around 7:30, and after breakfast, I did a treadmill session and resistance exercises. Once I was ready for the day, I went to Mother's house to help her take a shower. It's still a struggle for her to get onto the new bench seat, but it's a lot better than the shower seat she used the last time.

Naturally, Mother's space heater decided to bite the dust today. It had been full of lint, and Hubbie had it blown out, but today when I turned it on, it worked for a couple of minutes, made a ghastly noise, and then shut down.

Following her shower, she wanted to use her old, thin towels to dry off, because she wanted to "save the news ones" I bought her for Christmas. I would hear none of it. I got the towels for her, because she commented at my house how nice and fluffy the towels are, so I'm determined that she's going to use her new ones!

While she was dressing, she said that her bath scales had quit working, too. So after lunch, as part of Hubbie's and my errand running, we bought a new space heater and bathroom scales for her.

Our errands included a trip to the grocery store/pharmacy to pick up a prescription, and a plain chocolate cake mix. Then we went to the WDCS for everything else. On the way home, I stopped by the Catholic Church office, which was closed...guess the staff is taking an extra day for New Year's. So I'll try again Wednesday.

Back home, we relaxed for an hour or so, until time for me to prepare supper. It was an easy meal of leftover pork roast and trimmings from yesterday. Since a bitter cold wind blew all day, it was too uncomfortable for Mother to walk to our house, so I sent a microwave dish of food to her.

Later, we watched TV, including a 2010 Lifetime Movie Network feature called, "Second Chances," about a woman journalist who gets backlash when she interviews a serial killer of young women, but fails to turn him over to police. Consequently, another woman is killed. She loses her job, and now she is a professor of media ethics. But one of her students can't forget her past.

After that, we watched a 2010 movie called, "Fair Game," starring Naomi Watts and Sean Pean. A woman CIA operative's cover is blown after her husband writes an editorial criticizing the Bush administration.