2018 Life Logs, Day 192—You Gotta Be Smarter Than the . . .
Date: Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Weather: Mostly Cloudy and Cooler; High 74, Low 58 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Mark Handley could do almost anything he set his mind to, but unfortunately, I don’t share that ability. I seem to always have difficulty following directions for assembling things. In the past this happened, Mark would always come back with the snarky retort, “You gotta be smarter than the (whatever it was I was having trouble doing).” Well, this afternoon I needed to be smarter than the cedar sandbox I was trying to assemble for Ollie and Coco to play in next week.
The picture only, Chinese directions didn’t help me figure it out. And tonight, I needed to be smarter than my knee brace that I have managed to get tangled. For most of my adult life, I had Mark to help me figure these things out. Without him, I just struggle and will have to find someone else to help. Sometimes Sam can help me figure out how to assemble things, so maybe I’ll request his help tomorrow. In the meantime, I can’t use the knee brace and the sandbox remains only half put together. No disaster, just frustrating.
Our morning at the beach for swim lessons went well today. Sam swims from jetty to jetty each day, and after only three days, he has improved tremendously. Evidently Ollie’s swim teacher noticed this as she came over to invite Sam to join her junior life saver class. There are five girls in that class, all much older than Sam, and they do have to swim much further than Sam would be comfortable doing, but I think he felt a bit of pride in just being asked. Ollie’s swim skills are also improving with each day. Today the instructor, Jackie, started the lesson with a run on the beach. Ollie loves to run, so he led the way. Then during his lesson, he actually swam for a short distance on his own and he looked very confident in doing it. Jackie, the instructor, also had him doing the backstroke. So, swim lessons are going well despite the windy conditions. It was not as rough today, but it was still windy and without the sun, it felt a little chilly. Ollie needed three towels to warm up after his lesson!
This afternoon Sam had a friend over to play and when Jonah got home, we all watched the end of the World Cup semi-final match between England and Croatia. Jed picked Jonah up this afternoon and had a special interest in coming home to watch the soccer game. He was hoping England would win as he will be in England on Sunday for the final game. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The final game will be between Croatia and France.
Gardening is going well.
I have been eating lettuce and arugula out of my raised beds for a couple of weeks now, but tonight I picked what I would call my first real harvest.
I now have radishes, cucumbers, zucchini, Swiss Chard, and kale. If I didn’t need eggs, I wouldn’t have to go to the Farmer’s Market tomorrow. Guess I need to get some chickens!
