Wintry Day

We awoke to a wintry mix of sleet and freezing rain this morning, followed by a snow shower this afternoon. The ground and roads were too warm for any accumulation, but ice formed on the bushes and daffodils. These photos show a white daffodil and a yellow daffodil bending their heads low under the weight of ice. Small icicle droplets formed on the bushes in front of the house, and a male American goldfinch (that recently acquired his brilliant yellow feathers), and two females, hungrily extract thistle seeds from a bird feeder as snow falls around them.

Wednesday, March 11

After several very warm days, it was hard to face the cold today. I didn't have to get up early and go to water aerobics, but after breakfast, a treadmill session, and getting ready for the day, Hubbie and I did run errands, which meant getting out into the chilly air.

Off and on, it sleeted a little and rained a little, and a few snowflakes fell, but though winter weather, including possible snow, is predicted for our part of the state tonight and tomorrow, nothing much happened today. In fact, later in the afternoon the sun peeked through for a while.

We fear that if the temps drop much, flowering plants will be affected. Right now, the Bradford pear trees are in glorious white bloom, pink magnolias have put on showy flowers, and most yards feature brilliant yellow forsythia bushes.

All these trees and bushes were lovely to see on our trip around town this morning, which took us first to a grocery store to pick up heads of cabbage at three pounds for a dollar, and green onions at three bunches for a dollar.

From there, we went to the art gallery to leave off a donation in memory of our friend who recently died of breast cancer, and to talk with the gallery director about an idea I have for a fundraiser...a mother/daughter afternoon tea and children's fashion show at a local popular downtown restaurant the weekend before Mother's Day. The director loves the idea and is going to pursue it with the council board.

Then we went to the post office, a hardware store, and an appliance store. I meant to stop at the store that has a sale every weekend to see if I could use a $10 coupon (when you spend $25), but I forgot to take the coupon with me.

By this time, it was noon, so we came back home and had a salad lunch and then went back to town this afternoon. Since we were going to be out, Hubbie decided to fill the van with gas first. Then we stopped by the WDCS for a few grocery items. Here, we found that the price of heads of cabbage was, drat it, four pounds for a dollar!

On we went to the store that has a sale every weekened, where Hubbie dropped me off, while he went to a specialty store to pick up parts for our vacuum cleaner. I was interested in advertised ladies knit polo shirts for the summer, but the ones the store carries have cap sleeves, and my upper arms need a little more cover than that. I didn't find anything else I wanted, but I did run across a windbreaker shirt that I thought Mother might like, so I picked up one in size medium.

Mother tried it on here at home, but felt she needed a large. She's a petite, short lady, but she's pear-shaped, so it's difficult to find blouses or jackets that fit both in the shoulders and across the hips. So she opts for items that fit her hips, which in this case meant a size large.

She went back to the store with me to try on the larger size. At first she wasn't pleased with the way the shirt looked, until she decided to release the drawstring waist so that shirt flowed down over her hips. After that, we agreed that it suited her.

The windbreaker also has sleeves that have metal rings above the elbow for drawing the sleeves up. Mother will remove the rings and put elastic in the wrists of the sleeves. The shirt is bright blue and features a gathered yoke back, a zipper front and a wide collar. It looks nice on her, and will look even better with adjustments.

It was about 3:30 before we got back home. We didn't do anything of consequence for the rest of the afternoon. Supper was stuffed bell peppers, baked potatoes, and whole kernel corn. Later, Hubbie and I spent our quiet hour reading novels, and then we watched TV. I kept one eye on the movie, "Surviving the Game," while I ordered several Duo card games online, and otherwise played on my laptop.

"Surviving the Game," is an R-rated movie, starring Rutger Hauer, Ice-T, Charles S. Dutton, Gary Busey, and F. Murray Abraham. This 1994 movie is about a down-on-his-luck man (Ice-T), who becomes the quarry of a weird hunting party, the members of which pay thousands of dollars to hunt human prey. A guy movie with a disturbing premise.

Tuesday, March 10

Soon-to-be fifteen-year-old Shih Tzu gave us a scare at 3:30 this morning, when she wailed in pain. Hubbie and I both leaped out of bed and ran into the bathroom, where she seemed soundly asleep in her favorite spot between the toilet and the wall.



Hubbie coaxed-pulled her out to the middle of the floor, and we tried to get her to stand up, but she just flopped down on her belly, as though she was unconscious. So I sat on the floor and petted and rubbed her until she roused. Then Hubbie brought her downstairs and I encouraged her to drink some water.



Soon she was standing there, wagging her tail. Hubbie took her outdoors for a few minutes, after which she sort of just wandered around, as if wondering what we were doing downstairs in the middle of the night. Finally, she sighed and laid down.



Hubbie and I stayed downstairs with her...he trying to nap in his recliner, and I dozing on the couch. At noon, she ate a normal lunch and has been her old self all day. So we don't know what her problem was. Maybe she caught a claw in her long hair and couldn't get it out. Maybe her arthritis flared when she tried to change positions. Whatever it was, she went so soundly back to sleep that she seemed unconscious.



We were a little bleary-eyed when it was time to get up this morning, of course. But Hubbie needed to get ready to go help the Master Gardeners clean a bed at the Extension Services office at 9 a.m., and Mother and I had haircut appointments at 10:30, so we forced ourselves to the breakfast table around 8 a.m. And then I headed to the treadmill, while Hubbie took care of Shih Tzu's usual morning routine.



Before Mother and I went to the beauty shop, I went outside to snap photos of the daffodils (shown in the previous blog). It was a nice, warm, overcast morning for doing that. Predictions, of course, are that it'll get sharply cooler and rainy for the rest of the week.



Three of the four ladies at the beauty shop are going to Weight Watchers now, and a couple of them are showing a loss. They've asked us to share favorite low-calorie recipes with them, which we will do.



After lunch, I took Mother to the WDCS to look for a hand vacuum. She used the gift card that Son and Daughter-in-Law gave her to buy it. Then we shopped for a few grocery items, including salad veggies for lunches. I need to make up for the not-so-diet-friendly meals I indulged in last week, like fried chicken, and a catfish dinner, plus cupcakes during Mother's birthday weekend.



Hubbie spent the afternoon working in the yard, but once we had shopped, Mother and I sort of loafed the rest of the afternoon.



At 5 p.m., I attended an arts council meeting. When I got home, we had beef hash with eggs fried in butter Pam and light margarine, and wheat toast. I usually eat egg substitute rather than regular eggs, but leftover hash just cries out for "real" eggs.


I went to a community theater board meeting at 7:30. I took along a couple of puzzles for the lady at whose home we meet, in exchange for two she sent home with me last month. We worked them this past weekend, so I took those back to her tonight, too. But she said she didn't want them back, so I kept them and chose a couple of more of hers to bring to Mother. We'll probably work them during Easter week.

Daffodils

The daffodils this year are profuse and gorgeous. In the photos above, the first shot is of a single white bloom with an orange center, which is growing in a bed of solid yellow and solid white ones along the fence row in our backyard; the second shot is bunches of blooms along the fence; the third shot shows a white teapot full of small yellow daffodils (often called jonquils here in the south) that Hubbie picked along the road near the west side of our house; and the fourth shot is of bunches of the flowers growing along the bank of a stream, below a log cabin that is near the college lake, where Mother and I walk.

Monday, March 9

Boy, I sure will be glad when we adjust to Daylight Savings Time. Again, we slept until 8:30 this morning. After breakfast, I did a treadmill session, and then Mother came over and put color in my hair for tomorrow's appointment to get haircuts.

While I was getting ready for the day, Mother peeled and boiled potatoes for tonight's beef hash. Then I spent the rest of the morning doing household chores and planning the week's menu.

After lunch, Mother and I went for a walk at the college lake, and Hubbie worked in the yard. It was a glorious day for both. We've so enjoyed the warm weather of the past few days and dread the predicted cold, wet, and possibly snowy days coming up later in the week.

Back home, nothing exciting happened beyond doing more household tasks.

After supper, Hubbie and I spent our quiet hour in separate activities...he went back out to work in the yard, and I spent time at my office computer. Later, we watched "Dancing with the Stars."

Mother and Snoops

Mother commented today that she is great at muti-tasking.

"I can fall asleep while watching TV and working a crossword puzzle," she said.

While she was multi-tasking recently, her cat, Snoops, quietly and deftly plucked Mother's pencil out of her hand. When Mother awoke, Snoops was on the floor chewing the lead point off of it.

Snoops has also plucked a pen out of her hand. How she does this without waking Mother is a mystery to me.

Sunday, March 8

Wow! Daylight Savings Time really messed Hubbie and me up this morning! We didn't get up until nearly 9 a.m. (which before DST would have been 8 a.m.) Son and Daughter-in-Law had already been up an hour or so, and had been over to visit Mother at her house. Daughter-in-Law was having a breakfast of cottage cheese and grapes when we came downstairs.

Son hadn't had breakfast yet, so I fixed him and Hubbie a combination of eggs and egg substitute, scrambled with onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and shredded Monterey Jack cheese, and served with toast and strawberry preserves, and fresh oranges. I had cold cereal and oranges.

After that, Mother, Daughter-in-Law, and I started a new jigsaw puzzle. This was a very unusual puzzle made of cork. The edges are scalloped, and many of the pieces are in the shapes of animals and other objects, like umbrellas and stars. Usually, we begin a puzzle by putting the border together first, but we soon found that to be too difficult, so we began with the middle of the design. It is a fishing village motif, with colorful shops, so it was easy to complete individual parts of the puzzle, and then work the border in as we went along.

For lunch, I sliced part of the beef roast and heated it, along with the leftover mashed potatoes, and asparagus in the oven. I also put a dish of spinach in the oven. About 1 p.m., we had hot roast beef sandwiches and potatoes with gravy over all, along with the veggies. Mother and Daugther-in-Law ate at the dining room table, while Hubbie, Son, and I ate in the den, so we could watch our favorite college basketball team in SEC play. Unfortunately, the team took a loss again.

After the game, I joined Mother and Daughter-in-Law in working the puzzle. After a while, Son joined us, too, and soon we had the puzzle completed.

Son and Daughter-in-Law headed home after that. Mother went home, too. Hubbie and I went with her, so Hubbie could mount a hanger on her porch to hang the wind chime on, and to set a wall clock forward that Mother couldn't reach.

Then Mother agreed to go for a walk with me down the road on the west side of our property. I was amazed at how many new homes have been or are being built along the mile that we walked. At one house, a couple of dogs came rushing out to greet us. They barked a bit, but didn't seem menacing. In fact, they followed along behind us, with one of them nudging its nose into our hands, begging to be petted. But since we didn't want it to follow us very far, we tried to ignore it.

It was warm and windy during our walk, which provided resistance going, but was at our backs coming home. After our walk, we relaxed for a while and read the Sunday newspaper, and I programmed the DVR for next week's shows.

About 6 p.m., we had a supper of raisin bran cereal, with toast and muscadine jelly, and more fresh oranges, and then settled in to watch TV.

Note: Mother's cat, Snoops, who is normally skttish with strangers, was immediately drawn to Daughter-in-Law, who, wouldn't you know it, is allergic to cats.

Also, Daughter-in-Law is suffering from Rheumatoid arthritis, and it flared up this weekend, so she was unable to rest last night. Mother said that when she visited her this morning, she noticed how swollen Daughter-in-Law's face and right hand were. Hubbie's daughter suffers from this painful disease, too. Rheumatoid arthritis is a progressive disease that can ultimately cause joint destruction and disability. People can enjoy long periods without symptoms, but the disease is chronic and incurable.