Thursday, June 26

Up at 7 a.m., and did stair stepping, resistance band, and weights exercises after breakfast. While I got ready for the day, Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house, and then he ran a couple of errands before meeting a 10 a.m. dental appointment.

Mother went to her puzzle, but as soon as she heard me rattling around in the kitchen, she joined me. All I was doing was preparing to make boxed macaroni and cheese, for Mother to have with her supper tonight.

Mother wanted to help, of course, so after I boiled the macaroni, I gathered the other ingredients and let her put the dish together. She put a helping of it on a microwave dish, along with a helping of tilapia from the freezer (leftover from another meal), and a helping of stirfry veggies. Slices of rye bread completed the meal, which she had this evening, while Hubbie and I attended a Master Gardner potluck supper/meeting/program.

Hubbie returned around 11:30, and did the honors of making grilled cheese sandwiches for us. After lunch, Mother and I worked in the kitchen again. This time, we made chicken spaghetti to take as Hubbie's and my contribution to the potluck supper.

This recipe calls for cans of condensed cream of mushroom soup, which I don't use, so I made a homemade batch. Mother sliced the mushrooms, and diced onions, for it. After I made the soup, I cooked spaghetti, while Mother diced bell pepper, onions, and celery, and cubed cooked chicken. I sauteed the veggies, then added them, along with the soup, chicken, and chicken broth to the cooked spaghetti. I put the mixture in a baking dish, and Mother topped it with Parmesan cheese. Then I put the dish in the refrigerator until later.

Mother went back to her puzzle, and I relaxed, played on my tablet, and read newspapers, until time to put the spaghetti dish in the oven, and change for the Master Gardener event.

Mother was ready to go home around 4 p.m., so Hubbie accompanied her. By 5:45, we were ready to leave for the meeting.

About 20 of us showed up. The MG president urged us to go ahead and eat, which we were all enthusiastically ready to do. There was an array of dishes, of course, most of which, for a change, I was able to sample.

Besides my chicken spaghetti, half of which was eaten, there was lasagna, broiled fresh tomatoes topped with Parmesan cheese, deep fried yellow and zucchini squash, a bean salad, and a dish of cornbread dressing. Plenty of desserts, too, including cheesecake, a peach and strawberry cobbler, spice cake, and mini chocolate cupcakes.

The meeting was short, thank goodness, so the speaker was on by 7 p.m. She is a woman who, with her husband, moved to our state from Oregon a few years ago, because of our state's long growing season.

But then she found that she was having difficulty growing things organically. This led her to research her compost materials and fertilizers, which, she found, were loaded with pesticides that were killing her plants.

She provided the members quite a bit of written materials regarding this subject. I think Sis will be interested in it, so I'll make copies for her.

I enjoyed this speaker, except for the fact that she has a distracting habit of beginning sentences, then shooting off in another direction without quite completing thoughts. I was amused, though, when she illustrated a point about looking for the most obvious reason for problems with plants by telling us that a veterinarian once told her that when he was in school, his instructor advised, "If you hear hoof beats, don't assume it's a zebra."

We were back home around 8 p.m., and I went to Mother's house to take her a serving of the cheesecake dessert, and put drops in her eyes.

Then Hubbie and I finished the evening watching "As Time Goes By."