Entertaining--it's not for the old and forgetful

There will only be five of us for dinner tonight, but I've already thrown out the vegetables and run the dishwasher twice. I changed my meat choice, so now I have two kinds of potatoes. As I recall, my son-in-law doesn't like his food to "touch," which means mixed anything usually is put on his plate, but just moved around. I left my Christmas dishes in the box this year, and am using my good china, and my grandmother's dessert dishes, but I'm leaving Mom's goblets in the case. Too much work to wash. The first table cloth I pulled out didn't fit the table--I'd forgotten; which means it will never be used again and I think I've had it 30 years. I bought a special bread at Panera's this morning, but left it on the counter when I got a coffee refill, and had to go back to get it. But, I did have to clean a bit, and that's always a good thing, and a good reason to entertain.

I whipped up the potatoes (to reheat later) with my little Sunbeam mixer, which was a wedding gift, so it's 51 years old. The cord is stiff, it falls out of its connection, it trips the outlet switch, and the beaters fall out about every 45 seconds. But how many more years will I be making cakes or whipping potatoes, so I don't replace it. Besides, at this stage, it would be like kicking out a member of the family.

I'm not a coupon user, but in the fall I had one for a free cone at Graeter's Ice Cream, so we went in, and while there "bought" a book of coupons to support cancer research, figuring we'd use it. We haven't. So I looked at it yesterday. $2 off an ice cream pie. Hmm. That sounded good until I looked it up. $26, so with the coupon plus the tax, you'd still have a dessert that is at least $2.50 a serving. That's more than making an entire (box) cake with (store bought) icing. So I looked through the book and see that with a $15 purchase, you get a free pint of ice cream (which I think is about $4.00); so it would make more sense to buy the pie and get the free pint (black raspberry chocolate is awesome). Or skip the whole thing and make dessert at home as a reminder that companies don't stay in business to give away their products with coupons. They do it because it is profitable. That's a very difficult concept for the American consumer. I AM the Columbus anti-coupon queen, even when I've paid for the coupons.

Have a blessed and holy day celebrating our Savior's birth.