Monday, March 5

Slept late this morning, until around 8 a.m. I delayed my exercises for a while until after I went to Mother's house to see if she wanted to take a shower. She didn't.

Sis was there, but said she had to leave before noon. I came back home and did a short session of stair stepping, resistance bands, and weights exercises.

Mother and Sis came over as I was finishing. We visited until around 11:30, when Sis decided she needed to head home. She was reluctant to leave, but she had to content herself with knowing she'll be back in a couple of weeks. I know she'd love to spend more time with Mother, but she has obligations at home.

After lunch, I spent time reviewing the lesson for my ESL student. I met her at 2:30. Before we started our session, I stopped by the library desk to check on when the college will be closed for spring break. It'll be the week of March 19, but I was told the library will be open, though it will close at 4:30 that Monday. So my student and I can meet, though we'll need to end our session a few minutes earlier than usual.

Today, we worked on listening comprehension. I read several story paragraphs to her, which she then repeated back to me. It wasn't necessary for her to repeat it word-for-word, but only to get the sense of it. She did very well.

For one paragraph, she was to answer "how/how/when" questions. As usual, she bogged down here. Question sentences seem to stump her. The light bulb just hasn't gone off, yet. But it will eventually.

She learned the difference in "play" and "go" with games and sports: "They play cards/They go camping." They play basketball/They go swimming."

She also learned the sentence structure of "have to", plus a simple form of a verb.
"I have to eat dinner after supper." "We have to work tomorrow."

We ended the session with her reading a story from her workbook and answering the questions related to the story.

Today, in our conversation, she noted that her husband will celebrate his 60th birthday later this month. When I commented that that is also my sister's age, and that she is ten years my junior, the student said she, too, has a sister, who is thirteen years younger.

The better we become acquainted, the more we find we have in common. For instance, she said her husband is in extremely good health and takes no medications. My husband also takes no meds. She, however, suffers from hypertension, as do I. We decided that we women are bigger worry-warts than our husbands, which might be a woman's lot in life.

Back home, Mother was working on a jigsaw puzzle I'd given her for her birthday. Hubbie had heated leftovers from yesterday for our supper, and after we'd eaten, he accompanied Mother to her house.

I turned the TV off at 6 p.m., and we read our novels until 7 p.m. Back to TV, we watched the 2010 movie, "The Town," a crime thriller, starring Ben Affleck. A longtime thief (Affleck) and his cohorts go from one heist to another, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. The thieves become more emboldened, Affleck's character falls in love, and an FBI agent is relentlessly on their trail.