Friday, Dec. 19

Up around 8 a.m., and did stair stepping, resistance bands, and weights exercises after breakfast. Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house around 9 a.m.

Before I went upstairs to get ready for the day, we decided to make a couple of batches of fruited popcorn...one for Hubbie's daughter, and one for Hubbie. Mother helped by cutting up candied cherries. Hubbie popped the popcorn, and I made sauce for it. This baked popcorn treat is popular, though it's not my favorite, so I don't eat it.

When we finished with this project, I finally showered and dressed. It was near noon by now, and when I got back downstairs, Hubbie had already prepared lunch...Ramen noodle soup for Mother and pimento cheese sandwiches for the two of us.

After lunch, Mother sorted beans for a couple of batches of 11-bean soup to take with us to a Christmas party at Hubbie's daughter's house on Sunday. Later, I washed the beans and put them in water to soak.

Mother went to her jigsaw puzzle then, Hubbie did this and that, and I read newspapers and played on my tablet until around 2 p.m., when I changed into festive clothes to attend a "Cup of Cheer" gathering at 3 p.m.

Before I left the house, I asked Hubbie to put potatoes in the oven to bake around 3:30, and then go to the WDCS to get a rotisserie chicken for our supper.

The party was held at the home of a water aerobics friend, who lives in our neighborhood. It was a come-and-go event, so I was only gone for about 45 minutes. This lady, and her sister, who live next door to each other, obviously put a lot of work into preparing for the party.

There were several tables laden with food, all of it prepared by these two ladies. I tried to limit myself to mostly veggies and fruit, with a few small items of dessert, because I didn't want to ruin my appetite for supper.

Several ladies, including myself, brought hostess gifts. My gift was a jar of my homemade crab apple jelly.

I stayed long enough to visit with the hostesses and a few other ladies, before leaving. Outside, the husbands were directing traffic. One of them asked where Hubbie was. Of course, Hubbie didn't go with me, because he thought it was a gathering for ladies only. But as it happened, several husbands were there, and the hostess's husband suggested that next year I bring Hubbie.

Hubbie was not yet home when I returned, but he arrived just after 4:30. Supper was on the table by 5 p.m. Afterward, Hubbie accompanied Mother to her house, and then at 7 p.m., we headed out to the college for a basketball game.

We didn't get far down the road, though, before the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. All sorts of warning lights came on, including the one that came on the other day when I had to pull of the road. We came right back home, of course, parked the van, and drove the truck to the college.

We got to the college minutes before the game started. Fortunately, there weren't many people there, since the school is out on Christmas vacation. So we were able to sit in those comfortable reserved seats.

Unfortunately, our team lost badly. We didn't expect to win against the superior opponents, but we had hoped to score a little better. Oh well, maybe they'll do better on Dec. 30.

Back home afterward, we watched our favorite state college basketball team, as they won by a large margin. I'd recorded the game on DVR.

It was pretty late by the time we headed to bed.