Saturday, Jan. 28

What a great day we had today! Eighteen of us gathered for lunch, including Son and Daughter-in-Law, Daughter, two granddaughters, a granddaughter's male friend and his son, a niece, and seven great-grandchildren.

Lunch, of course, was four kinds of soup: chicken noodle, 11-bean, potato, and split pea, and a choice of sandwich makings: ham and cheese (American, baby Swiss, and muenster), chicken salad, and pimento cheese, with a choice of breads: wheat rounds, white, wheat bread, or hoagies, as well as crackers. Dessert choices were chocolate cupcakes, peach cobbler, sweetened sliced strawberries (locally grown and frozen last spring), and ice cream.

This was a birthday gathering, and I was excited to receive a gift card to my favorite hobby store from Son and Daughter-in-Law. I shop at that store every time I'm in a town that has one. It's my favorite store.

I was also delighted with a gift Daughter gave me...a little bear that plays "Wind Beneath my Wings." That happens to be one of my favorite tunes. I set the bear on the fireplace insert, where it seemed to delight the kids, who, every time they passed it, squeezed it's paw to play the tune. Even Mother was enchanted by it, and squeezed the paw whenever she passed by it.

My very thoughtful kids always seem to know exactly the right things to give me.

The gifts I gave paled by comparison...gift baskets containing homemade chai tea, cans of dark chocolate cookie straws, and colorful mugs. I gave a granddaughter a framed photo of Great-Granddaughter that I snapped last summer while at camp. Great-grandchildren with birthdays received their favorite gifts...cash. Each of the ladies present chose tubes of hand cream from a popular intimate apparel shop...using $10 coupons and buying it on sale, I had accumulated quite a few tubes of it.

While family was here, Son also fixed the fluorescent light fixture in my office, after he and Hubbie went to a home improvement store to buy necessary supplies. Hubbie estimates that Son saved us about one hundred dollars by doing this job for us. I consider that another birthday gift. He also helped Hubbie hoist the large, wooden nativity scene into the storeroom closet. Thank you, Son!

Thanks to Granddaughter's friend, too, who helped Hubbie put the large, boxed Christmas tree over the rafters in the garage. We take advantage of strong guys whenever they're available.

After enjoying an afternoon visiting, some of the family headed home. Daughter and Niece stayed a while longer, and joined us for a repeat-of-lunch supper, before leaving around 5:30. Around the same time, Hubbie accompanied Mother to her house.

Then we watched our favorite college basketball team play to a nail-biter loss. This was a noon game that I'd recorded on DVR.

Then we watched a Lifetime Movie Network feature called, "Caught in the Act." A Tennessee housewife discovers she has a knack for detective work, when she investigates her own husband's infidelity.