Saturday, Nov. 16

Woke up early, around 6 a.m. Squeezed my eyes shut trying to go back to sleep, but no dice. I stayed in bed, though, until Hubbie woke up around 7:30.

Eventually, this morning, I did stair stepping, resistance bands, and weights exercises. Around 9:30, Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house, and I gathered veggies for her to dice for Dragon Soup.

Meanwhile, Hubbie cut up a pumpkin to be baked. The pumpkin was so large that we had to bake it in two batches.

For the soup, I blanched a couple of packages of grape tomatoes from last year's garden, and when they had cooled, Mother popped them out of their peels.

I sauteed the diced veggies...carrots, celery, onions, banana pepper, and bell pepper...in olive oil, then added cans of chicken broth, beef broth, and the tomatoes, and various spices (no-salt seasoning, pepper, paprika, chili powder, garlic powder, Rosemary, basil, oregano, and a little sugar), then let the mixture simmer until the veggies were cooked. Later, I added a couple of containers of veggies, rice, gravies, etc., that I'd gathered in the freezer. This is a wonderfully warming and satisfying soup, served with cornbread or muffins.

Once the soup was simmering, I went upstairs to get ready for the day. Back downstairs, the first batch of pumpkin was cooked, so I set it out to cool.

By now it was lunchtime. Mother opted for a sandwich made with a slice of salmon loaf, spread with tartar sauce, and Hubbie and I chose PB&J sandwiches. For dessert, we had the last of a sack of apples, with the remainder of the caramel dip.

After lunch, Hubbie made a run to the WDCS for a beef roast and quart size freezer bags. When he returned, he peeled the pumpkin, and then went in search of Mother's meat grinder. He found it right away, and we set to work grinding the pumpkin into pulp.

I put the pumpkin in a sieve to allow the moisture to drip out, and then Mother and I bagged it in two-cup portions, enough for one pie. From the two batches of pumpkin, we got six bags for the freezer, a savings of about $12 over canned pumpkin.

Once the pumpkin was cooked and prepared, I put a pan of buttered and salted pumpkin seeds in the oven to bake on low heat for about 40 minutes. They are pretty tasty.

For the rest of the afternoon, Mother worked on her jigsaw puzzle, I continued working on a photo book for Mother, and Hubbie read today's newspaper.

Later, after supper, Hubbie accompanied Mother to her house, where she changed clothes to go with us to a community orchestra concert, scheduled for 8 p.m. The orchestra is made up of college and high school students, as well as folks from the community. It was a free concert.

They performed fairly well...only a few clunkers along the way. At the beginning of one symphony, there was a loud crash. Sounded like a music stand fell. If anyone (like Hubbie) had drifted off up to this point, they were certainly startled awake.

We didn't know anyone in the orchestra, but we did know several people in the audience. One lady, a friend Mother and I visit from time-to-time (along with another lady) stopped to talk with us after the concert. She seemed in good spirits tonight.

I've worried about her, because she suffered depression and anxiety recently after a medical problem. Right now, she's looking forward to traveling to another town to spend Thanksgiving with her family. While there, she will be attending a program at her grandson's school...the first she's been able to attend.

This lady has only one grandchild. When I told her that we've recently welcomed two new great-grandchildren, she said, "Oh, hush, I don't want to hear about it." I think she would have liked to have more than one grandchild, but for a long time, she thought she wouldn't even have one.

The concert ended around 9:30, and we were back home before 10 p.m. Watched one TV show and the evening news, then headed to bed.