Tuesday, Feb. 21

Today is Fat Tuesday. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent.

Slept late this morning, until around 8 a.m. I skipped my exercises after breakfast, because I had every intention of going for a bike ride this afternoon, since predictions were for a sunny, mild day, with temperature in the mid-60s.

But as the day wore on, I kept getting sidetracked. After lunch, Hubbie and I ran errands...to the newspaper office to leave the word search puzzle contest, and to the greeting card shop to get a card and a gift for a lady who is retiring...we have been invited to her retirement party next week. She works for the same agency that we did before we retired.

From there, we went to the WDCS for a few grocery items. And then we decided to swing back by the medical supplies store to look for some sort of table that Mother can use to craft and work jigsaw puzzles while sitting in the rocking chair. We found one that works great. It's a rolling table on a chrome leg that adjusts up and down.

It doesn't adjust low enough, though, so Mother has to sit on two pillows to raise her high enough to work comfortably at the table. The sales person let us bring it home to try. It is a rental table that he said he would sell to us for $75. These tables normally sell for $140. We'll take it. It's one of our birthday gifts to her.

When we got back, we saw that Sis's truck was in the driveway. I feared that something might be wrong and rushed to Mother's house to check on her. Everything is fine. She is just here for her regular monthly visit. She said she'd alerted me to the days she'd be here, but somehow I either didn't get the message, or failed to record it in my brain.

After a little while Sis and Mother came to our house, where they began working on a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle. The table worked nicely.

Later, I fixed a supper of fried potatoes, fried okra, small amounts of baked sweet potatoes and boiled cabbage from the freezer, leftover chicken and rice, cornbread, and biscuits. It was a strange combination of foods, but satisfying enough.

After supper, I fixed a batch of instant chocolate pudding for dessert later. Then we watched the 1999 movie, "Jane Eyre," based on a novel by Charlotte Bronte. After a cruel childhood, Jane Eyre becomes the governess of a child in the custody of a brooding master, Edward Rochester. Romance blooms, but he holds a terrible secret that he hopes to keep hidden from her.