Tuesday, Feb. 12

Woke up at 6:30 this morning, although, since I didn't need to go to the pool, I could have slept later. Instead, I laid there wide awake until Hubbie woke up at 7:30.

Did stair stepping, resistance bands, and weights exercises after breakfast, and then got ready to go to an educational luncheon at the hospital conference room at noon. Since a cardiologist was scheduled to speak about women and heart disease (because February is American heart month), and because Valentine's Day is Thursday, I decided to wear a red jacket over a black turtleneck shirt and black pants. For jewelry, I wore a couple of heart pendants given me by Hubbie.

Around 10:30, Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house, and at 11:30, we headed to the hospital, where I found I was not alone in my choice of colors...lots of women were dressed in red and black.

Lunch today was braised chicken seasoned with parsley, green beans, oven fried potatoes, and mixed fresh fruits. Hubbie commented that the meal was good, though he would have liked to have bread and a dessert with it. I pointed out that the potatoes constituted the carbohydrate, the meat the protein, the green beans the vegetable, and the fruit the dessert. So it was a heart-healthy, balanced meal.

Funny: as Hubbie was attempting to spear a grape with his fork, it shot off his plate and landed in his spoon. He then ate the grape off the spoon. I asked him if he planned to do that with all his grapes (though I doubted if he could do it again, even if he tried).

The cardiologist who spoke gave a lot of good information, though he tended to drone a little bit...enough that Mother, Hubbie, and the guy right behind Hubbie nodded off at one point.

One thing the cardiologist touched on was the ejection fraction, which is how well the heart is pumping. He stated that the EF of a healthy heart is 60%. I found this to be interesting, because when the tech at my cardiologist's office called a few days ago to report the results of my tests, she mentioned that my heart is pumping at 60%, "which is good," she said. Until today, I wondered if 60% was something that could be improved upon, but apparently not.

The luncheon lasted until shortly after 1 p.m., and we were back home by 1:30. Mother really enjoyed the outing. It has been a while since she's been out of the house, beyond walking back and forth between our houses.

We didn't do anything productive this afternoon. Mother opted to work on her jigsaw puzzle, while Hubbie and I watched the Westminster Dog Show, which I'd recorded on DVR last night.

Around 4:30, I began preparing supper...goulash made with macaroni in a sauce of leftover homemade tomato soup mixed with some of the leftover beans and ham. Mother decided she'd had enough for lunch, and she didn't need supper. She chose to go home instead. Hubbie accompanied her.

Hubbie and I waited until 6 p.m. to eat. Served the goulash with coleslaw. Later, we watched a couple of one-hour shows, and then the State of the Union address.

Note: wondering if we will get any of the predicted snow for our part of the state tonight. Our county is not in the winter weather advisory. But a few weeks ago, we weren't in the advisory area, either, and we got snow anyway, which caused all sorts of traffic problems, since it came as a big old surprise in the middle of a busy weekday morning.