Thursday, Nov. 21

Up around 7:30, and did stair stepping, resistance bands, and weights exercises after breakfast. Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house around 9:30, and she diced veggies for making Autumn stew later. I delayed going upstairs t get ready for the day until she completed this task.

By the time I was dressed it was close to noon. Hubbie did the honors of making us grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Afterward, Mother diced apples and cubed pork loin, and I finished the recipe for the stew.

When the stew was simmering on the stove, Mother went to her jigsaw puzzle, and Hubbie and I ran a couple of errands. We went by the local newspaper office to drop off this week's word search puzzle contest, and then we stopped by the greeting card shop. I'd printed an online coupon that entitled me to a free gift with any purchase. Browsed the store for a while, but decided there was nothing I wanted. So we returned home.

Later, I cooked a batch of noodles to go with the stew, and put the stew and noodles in a slow cooker to be taken to the soup/chili event at the college library.

Around 3 p.m., I put a serving of the stew in a bowl for Mother's supper, and then Hubbie accompanied her home.

Hubbie and I changed clothes and headed out to the college around 3:45, so we could arrive to help set up for the event.

Everything was ready by 5 p.m., so Hubbie and I began sampling the chilies and soups. I sampled a mild chili that the cook said was made with fresh veggies from her garden. It was delicious. I also tried a Mediterranean chili that had whole black olives in it. This wasn't my favorite...it was too greasy. Next I tried a cream of chicken soup that was good. Finally, I took a serving of my Autumn stew.

My stew wasn't up to my usual standard, mainly because the noodles broke down, thanks to the slow cooker somehow being accidentally dialed up to a point where it boiled for several minutes before I discovered it. But it was still tasty. It didn't win the soup category, though.

I also donated three dozen sugar cookies, but most did not sell in the bake sale. I'm not sure why. Maybe because folks didn't know how good they are. I think I should have broken some up for sampling.

My rum cake sold for $20 in the silent auction, though. Hubbie bid on it a couple of times, but lost the bid to a lady, who said she loves rum cake, but would never try to make one. There was a friendly bidding war going on for the cake. The wife of the head librarian was one who hoped to win the bid.

I managed to win a couple of bids in the silent auction...on a cookbook, and a meal at the local Italian restaurant. I also bought a pound cake, a package of cheesecake bars, and some brownies at the bake sale.

So, by the time I baked cookies and a rum cake, made stew, won bids on silent auction items, bought bake sale items, paid $6 for the two of us to sample the soups and chilies, and helped clean up afterward, I think I did my part for the fundraiser.

This is the way it always is in small town organizations, though. Members are expected to pay a membership fee, provide food and goods to fundraiser events, and then buy the goods, and pay to eat. It would be simpler and easier to just donate money, but it wouldn't be as much fun.

At the fundraiser was one of the college professors, who is of Indian origin. He asked what was in my stew, and when I told him it contained pork, he politely said he does not eat pork.

I was amused when, at the silent auction, he hesitated to bid against a young college student for a stack of collector comic books. He didn't want to steal the bid from the young man. I assured him that the whole point of the auction was to attempt to bid an item up, so that the library would make more money.

I told him that if the young man wanted the comics badly enough, he'd outbid him. And that's what happened. Bidding wars are part of the fun of silent auctions. But the professor said that if he won the bid, he would give the comics to the young man. It must have something to do with his religious beliefs not to arbitrarily take something that someone else wants.

We were back home around 7:30, and finished the evening watching a couple of one-hour shows on TV.