Sunday, March 10

Overslept this morning, until nearly 9 a.m., thanks to the time change. Skipped my exercises, as usual on Sunday. Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house after breakfast. She, of course, had risen at her usual 7 a.m. hour this morning, so it was apparent she would be ready for something to eat by noon. But since Hubbie and I didn't eat breakfast until 9:30, we wouldn't be ready for lunch so soon.

There was a thunderstorm warning for our county, so I postponed starting the lunch meal for a while until I was sure it had passed, because I don't work in the kitchen if there is lightning. As it happened, all we got was a lot of rain, but no severe storms.

So we prepared a beef roast for the slow cooker that would be ready around 2 p.m. Mother cut the onions for it, Hubbie peeled the potatoes, and I did the rest...browned the meat, and added garlic, paprika, no-salt seasoning, pepper, oregano, thyme, and rosemary (dried herbs from the garden), and both beef and chicken broths. Today, I tried a suggestion I found in a periodical and also added a banana peel to the roast to help tenderize it.

After that, Mother started a new jigsaw puzzle. Because it was noon by now, I gave her a cup of coffee and a couple of fig bars as a snack to tide her over until the roast was done.

Hubbie (who is battling a head cold) and I spent the time until the roast cooked reading the Sunday newspaper and our novels. The novel I'm reading right now could be catagorized as a romance, but not in the sense of the typical women's romantic fiction...this one has a more fully developed plot and characters, as well as a lot of emotional insight. I'm enjoying it, and I think Granddaughter would enjoy it, too.

The roast was done at 2 p.m., and it was very tasty. The meat, while not falling apart tender, was certainly more tender than roasts we've had in the past, so I guess the banana peel worked.

After lunch, we watched a movie I borrowed from the college..."The Artist." We'd seen this 2011 Academy Award winning film before, but it was fun to watch a second time. A silent film star meets a young dancer, and then the "talkies" come along and kill the silent film star's career. Adding to that blow, the stock market crashes. This subtitled movie is presented in black and white, with only background music for sound. It's a really great movie.

Following the movie, Hubbie accompanied Mother to her house, and then we watched the 2006, "Gridiron Gang," a DVD borrowed from the public library. Based on the true story of Sean Porter and the Camp Kilpatrick Mustangs, juveniles in a detention center learn to redirect their lives under the leadership of a counselor, who turns them into a formidable football team. We're fans of sports dramas, and this is a good one.