August 27, 2005
We rode up to the mountains this morning, and had lunch at the Dillard House. Granny was pretty excited to be in the car going somewhere - anywhere, I think. She's getting cabin fever, a wee bit. not much I can do about it except encourage her to work those pitiful arms so she can drive again. She actually cooked most of my breakfast this morning - I have to be honest, it made me nervous. When I think about the anxiety of her operating a skillet, I know that I am not ready for her to operate a 2 ton automobile....
The mountains are Mother's favorite getaway, except maybe for the beach.
Alesia had never been to the mountains and liked it. Mom liked the food at Dillard House [despite the wait] and ate a good lunch - first time in months I've seen her enjoy her food. She had country fried steak and ten different vegetables she didn't fix, plus homemade bisquits and sweet tea - what else is there to life? We had enough leftovers we brought them home and had them for dinner.
We stopped on the way home and got silver queen corn, peaches, tomatoes, etc. at a roadside produce stand. Alesia found some yellow tomatoes and was very excited.
They are widening the road all the way up from before Clayton into Dillard - it's ugly seeing all the earth displaced, but I'm sure it will be a good move for business.
I gave Alesia a fairly serious lecture tonight about the importance of learning new English words every day - the ones in her school lessons - so she won't fall behind. Here's where my knowledge of French and Italian finally came in handy. I told her how I wasn't a good student in high school and didn't keep up with my French, and made a lot of C's particularly the second year - idiotic, since I have a facility for languages and if I'd just made and effort I could speak French fluently now. [Or at least know enough to tell them where to head in, and take a bath, and don't smoke in my face, etc.] In college I did better because I studied my Italian every single day. It's important to keep up every day and not wait until the last moment. Language is cumulative.
Last week I had to spend hours on her homework with her several nights. It was draining - we'd be slaving away until 10 p.m. I told her THIS week she will be expected to have done her homework when I get home. She gets home just after 4 and I don't usually get home until 6:30. That should give her time to also get a snack, ride her bike, relax some. I will check over homework and answer questions, but then hopefully after dinner and her bath we will have time to watch a movie.
