Wednesday, Jan. 15

Up at 7:30, after sleeping through the night without waking at 4:30. Did stair stepping, resistance bands, and weights exercises after breakfast. Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house around 9:30.

Hubbie began vacuuming the downstairs rooms, but received a call from his dermatologist's office saying that there was an opening this morning at 11:15, if he chose to go on in instead of waiting for his February appointment. He opted to do so, and hurried to shower and dress.

Hubbie has been having trouble with recurring rash on his face, and general itchy skin. He has been using the same shampoo/body wash as Mother, and applying hydrocordisone. We also purchased a humidifier recently. So for the past few days, his symptoms have eased. He hated to go to the doctor, since his skin condition has cleared up. But I felt the doctor could possibly give him more information on how to avoid future flareups.

While he was gone, Mother and I put together meatloaf...she diced onions and bell pepper, and I gathered all the other ingredients. I seasoned the meat with pepper, no salt seasoning, paprika, garlic powder, oregano, and basil, and then she added oatmeal, egg substitute, and tomato sauce.

I put the meatloaf in the refrigerator until time to cook it later. Then Mother went to her jigsaw puzzle, and I scoured the kitchen in anticipation of hosting the scrapbook club tomorrow.

At 11:30, I heated vegetable soup left from last night's supper, and served a bowl of it to Mother, along with crackers and peanut butter, and a Little Cutie for dessert. I waited a while to have my lunch, thinking Hubbie would return presently. When he still wasn't here by 12:30, I went ahead and ate.

He returned a few minutes later. The dermatologist did not name his condition (which is probably dermatitis), but suggested ways to alleviate it...bathe every other day, use moisturizer, wash his clothes in All, apply hydrocortisone, and use bath soup without lanolin and alcohol. A humidifier is also helpful.

I had already suggested getting a humidifier, and changing his shampoo/body wash. I also suggested he not soap and scrub his whole body every time he showers, particularly in the winter, when he is not sweating from yard work.

After lunch, I finally went upstairs to shower and dress. Downstairs, I put a folding table in the living room, and searched out materials Mother and I will need for making scrapbook pages tomorrow. My goal is to do pages featuring the two newest great-grandchildren. First, though, I had to order prints from the WDCS. It would have been good if I'd thought to do this earlier in the week, but I didn't.

Later, Hubbie scrubbed potatoes for the oven, and then went in search of green beans I'd cooked and put in the freezer last summer. He's the one who put them away, but for some reason, when he puts anything away, he's unable to record an image in his mind of where he puts it. So he spends a lot of time searching for things he puts away. He finally located the beans in the freezer unit of Mother's refrigerator. I'm not sure why he stored them there to begin with.

The meatloaf, baked potatoes, and green beans, served with hot buttered slices of Sis's homemade bread was really good. Afterward, Mother opted to stay at our house to supposedly watch TV...though she dozed most of the time.

Around 8 p.m., I decided to whip up some instant chocolate pudding for a snack. Around 8:30, Mother roused, and I served the pudding with whipped topping. Afterward, she promptly nodded off again. It was after 10 p.m., before she was ready to be escorted home.