Tuesday, Dec. 18

Up around 7:30, and did stair stepping, resistance bands, and weights exercises after breakfast. Later, Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house, where she chopped green onions, and cubed chicken, for a recipe of Chinese Chicken Soup. Hubbie shredded cabbage for it.

I put the recipe together and let it simmer. While it cooked, Hubbie and I made a batch of fruited popcorn. He popped the corn, and cut up the candied cherries and nuts, and I made the caramel sauce for it.

After we finished in the kitchen, I gave Mother another one of her twelve days of Christmas gifts...some scratch off cards, for which she garnered a measly $2. But she had so much fun with them that it was worth the price to get them for her.

After that, she worked on her jigsaw puzzle, and I got ready for the day. Around 11 a.m., I was ready to deliver the soup to our beauty shop, and the popcorn to the Caring Hands office.

While I was at the beauty shop, I picked up a certificate for a haircut for Mother, as one her twelve days of Christmas gifts. It has been a little more difficult this year selecting twelve items, since Mother's needs and wants are fewer.

Back home, we had a lunch of soups and sandwiches. Just before 1 p.m., our new washer and dryer were delivered, via a very large truck. Since we had several loads of laundry, I didn't waste a lot of time after they were installed learning to use the appliances, which are computerized.

The washer reads the laundry load and fills the machine to the appropriate level. In doing this, it locks and unlocks the top two or three times, and then finally fills. The recommendation for this washer is to use high efficiency detergent. When the delivery guy mentioned this to Hubbie, he worried that the dry detergent we've used for many years might not work in this machine, but when he checked, he saw the "EH" symbol on the box. Whew! Glad we don't have to use another brand.

They are beautiful machines, but my one complaint is how awfully loud the dryer buzzer is. It startled all of us, and the cats, the first time we heard it. However, the good thing about the dryer is that it doesn't buzz until the load is completely dry. With the old dryer, I had to pull the laundry out and feel it, and if it was still damp, I ran the dryer again.

After the machines were delivered, Hubbie spent a couple hours running errands...Christmas shopping, I suspect...and Mother and I watched the 1977 production of "The Nutcracker" ballet, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Later, we had a supper of leftovers...cornbread dressing, half a baked potato, and coleslaw for Mother, and barbecue pork sandwiches, coleslaw, and chips, for Hubbie and me. Afterward, Hubbie accompanied Mother to her house, and then he and I watched sappy Hallmark Christmas shows for the rest of the evening.