by Judy Handley | Mar 26, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 85: A Working Day with My Sister
Date: Saturday, March 26, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Very Windy; High 66, Low 33 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Niece Jennifer, Mooresville, North Carolina
Well, it does look like spring here, but tonight the temp will dip to 33 degrees. And today the wind was blowing a steady 20 mph with higher gusts. Last night I made my green tea so that I would have cold tea to drink today and this morning I got up and made my green smoothie. I packed salad makings for lunch along with the leftover salmon and my niece Jennifer and I headed out. Feels like home. (By the way, Jennifer’s husband, Bill, is out of town this weekend, so I am not just leaving him out of my logs. He is not here.)
Our first stop this morning was Big Lots to buy two outdoor chairs, a low table, garden soil, and a large flower pot for my sister’s little concrete patio.
We went to Walmart to buy pansies to plant and gold ink pens to write in a family history book. Then we went to my sister’s apartment where I spent most of my day organizing. She moved from Nashville to Mooresville last June, but has still not gotten things arranged in her apartment to her liking. She had framed family pictures tucked away in about ten different places. I gathered them all together and put them on a bottom shelf of a living room credenza. Then I gathered all of her photo albums which, like the framed photos, were scattered in different places. Those filled the bottom two shelves of a living room display case. That was enough organizing for today, so then we started recording things in a family history book. It is really neat book that has more than two hundred prompt questions with spaces for answers. We didn’t get very far as both my sister Patsy and my niece Jennifer needed a nap. I spent their naptime typing those prompt questions into my computer. I cannot handwrite my sister’s answers fast enough, but I can type them and then transfer them to the book at a later time.
Dinner tonight was at the Olive Garden. The food was good, but the portions were huge. Nobody needs to eat that much food! And we had competition tonight as it was prom night here. None of us could figure out why they are having their high school prom in March, but they are. Tomorrow morning, I head out early to meet a friend that I have not seen for almost twenty years. Patsy Decker is the mother of one of Justin’s best middle school buddies from our time on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and we have kept in contact over the years. She now lives in Chapel Hill, so we are going to meet for breakfast at a halfway point. Patsy volunteered to be a beta reader for my book, and she has already finished her read. Meeting in person she can give me the edited manuscript and face-to-face feedback. Plus, I get to see her after so many years. It is a win-win. The last time we were together was at Heather and Jed’s wedding in 2003. Mark, Heather, Jed, and I had sailed up to Boothbay, Maine, for the wedding, but then Heather and Jed left for their honeymoon and I had to get back to work and couldn’t sail home with Mark. Patsy is a sailor and volunteered to be crew. I can’t wait to see her tomorrow. And after we part, I will drive back to Mooresville and a little further south back toward Charlotte to my nephew Tommy’s home in Huntersville. I will be staying there for the next two nights but driving back to Mooresville on Monday to be with my sister.
I heard from Meghan and Sheri this morning that Shadow is doing great. They even sent a photo of him herding their goats.
I wrote back asking if he actually herded the goats or chased them. Meghan admitted that it was a bit of both, but things are working out great. That is a relief for me. I miss my little guy, but it looks like he is probably having a great time and Meghan and Sheri are surviving.
by Judy Handley | Mar 25, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 84: Spring in North Carolina
Date: Friday, March 25, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 66, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Niece Jennifer, Mooresville, North Carolina
It is spring here in North Carolina. When I opened the curtains in my motel room this morning, I was greeted with cherry blossoms.
It is not all that much warmer here than in Falmouth on a good day, but it is obviously more consistently warm as the plant life has definitely awakened. We drove a little north to shop for shoes for my sister in the morning and in the afternoon we drove a little south to have a late lunch with my sister’s sister-in-law named Judy and one of her daughters and a grandson. I keep in touch with the ‘other’ Judy but have not seen her for a few years. My how the time flies.
After returning from lunch, I went to my sister’s apartment, and we just sat and visited. Then I moved into my niece’s home for tonight and tomorrow night. I fixed a quick dinner and my niece and I returned to my sister’s to have dinner together. Tomorrow I will spend the day with my sister and help her with some apartment organization and we will go out to dinner.
I can’t believe how much I miss my Shadow. I am sure he is having a great time with Meghan and Sheri, but I do worry about how they are faring. I am very grateful to Peter and Karen Baranowski for checking on the cottage after the electrical outage yesterday. Evidently it did not screw up my automatic light timers, so seedlings and fish are doing fine. I’m already looking forward to coming home on Tuesday. I think I have become a homebody.
by Judy Handley | Mar 24, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 83: Made It
Date: Thursday, March 24, 2022
Weather: Rain in the NE, Partly Sunny in Charlotte Area ; High 68, Low 43 degrees F
Location: Fairfield Inn, Mooresville, North Carolina
Today was a bit of an obstacle course, but I made it to Mooresville, North Carolina, just north of Charlotte and saw my sister for the first time in almost three years. Even with the obstacles, the trip was worth it.
The short story is that I traveled from Falmouth to Sagamore to Boston to Newark to Charlotte and finally to Mooresville, just north of Charlotte. The long story including the obstacles went something like this. When I took Shadow out at 7 am, it was raining so hard I had to put his raincoat on him. I had loaded the car last night as I knew it was going to be raining, and I was ever so glad that I did. I left East Falmouth and drove to Meghan and Sheri’s to drop off Shadow. From there I drove over the Sagamore Bridge to the Park ‘n Ride to catch the 10:05 Logan Airport Express bus. As I prepared to board, the driver told me the bus had broken down and everyone onboard was waiting for the next bus, not an express. But even with that obstacle, we all got to the airport on time. The first leg of my flight was from Boston to Newark. We boarded but were delayed 15 minutes and I panicked as I only had 40 minutes between flights in Newark. But somehow, we left 15 minutes late and arrived 10 minutes earlier than the original arrival time. When I got off the plane, I saw the boarding area for the next flight was right there. The boarding area was overflowing with people, but I checked the board and confirmed that I still had a few minutes, so I grabbed some sushi for lunch. Then I went back to the boarding area. No one was there. I started to panic again, but I checked my phone and saw the boarding area had just been changed. Then I got a text from Eversource telling me the electricity in my neighborhood was out due to a downed tree. I hoped the outage would not affect the timers I had set for the plants and the aquarium. I will ask Heather or Jed to check that over the weekend. But back to the Newark airport, we finally boarded 15 minutes late and then waited and waited. The pilot explained that the original plane “was broken”, his words, not mine, and changing to a different plane was taking time. I couldn’t believe I had confronted a broken-down bus and a “broken plane” in the same day. We finally took off and had a bumpy ride, especially as we descended into Charlotte, but I did make it. I got into my rental car and drove north to Mooresville to have dinner at my niece’s home with my sister. I then took my sister back to her assisted living facility and got my first ‘tour’ of her new home. She wanted to show me all around the building, but because it was late, I suggested we continue the tour tomorrow morning. So that we will.
by Judy Handley | Mar 23, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 82: Almost Ready for Take Off
Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 45, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I loved traveling around the world in my own ‘home’. As Mark and I sailed around the world, we never had to pack a bag. We just got ourselves to shore, explored, and went ‘home’ for dinner. I don’t love packing for a trip and I don’t look forward to taking my dog and all his paraphernalia to the dog sitters, driving to a Park ‘n Ride to get on a bus that will take me an airport to get on a plane, getting off that plane in another city and getting on another one, negotiating the destination airport to get to the rental car agency, and then driving to a motel to check-in for the night before I get to see my sister. Unfortunately, in order to use the credit from a previously cancelled flight, I have to fly United, and they have no straight through flights from Boston to Charlotte. I know once I get there, all will be fine, but tomorrow just doesn’t sound like fun.
The good news is that I am packed, and Shadow’s things are packed. I finally got a timer to work that will turn the grow lights off and on each day for my garden seedlings. And I have ‘vacation feeder’ for the aquarium. Did I forget anything? If so, I’ll just have to do without!
by Judy Handley | Mar 22, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 81: Boston Field Trip with Newcomers Group
Date: Tuesday, March 22, 2022
Weather: Sunny, Windy; High 52, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Great tour of the State House and the Museum of African American History in Boston today. The Falmouth Newcomer’s Teacher Group believes that field trips are not just for school children. 
We admired the beauty of the State House, stood under the flag of the Town of Falmouth in the Hall of Flags, and visited the House and Senate Chambers. Then we moved on to the Museum of African American History, had a great 30-minute talk about the history of the Abiel Smith School, which is now the museum, and the African American Meeting House.
We ended our tour with lunch at Ma Maison, a French restaurant on Cambridge Street.
And I was delighted when I got home and found that the daffodils outside my front door have opened fully.
]
Now I am panicked. I leave on Thursday morning for a trip to North Carolina to visit my sister and I am NOT ready. Tomorrow is going to be one busy day.
We went to Walmart to buy pansies to plant and gold ink pens to write in a family history book. Then we went to my sister’s apartment where I spent most of my day organizing. She moved from Nashville to Mooresville last June, but has still not gotten things arranged in her apartment to her liking. She had framed family pictures tucked away in about ten different places. I gathered them all together and put them on a bottom shelf of a living room credenza. Then I gathered all of her photo albums which, like the framed photos, were scattered in different places. Those filled the bottom two shelves of a living room display case. That was enough organizing for today, so then we started recording things in a family history book. It is really neat book that has more than two hundred prompt questions with spaces for answers. We didn’t get very far as both my sister Patsy and my niece Jennifer needed a nap. I spent their naptime typing those prompt questions into my computer. I cannot handwrite my sister’s answers fast enough, but I can type them and then transfer them to the book at a later time.
I wrote back asking if he actually herded the goats or chased them. Meghan admitted that it was a bit of both, but things are working out great. That is a relief for me. I miss my little guy, but it looks like he is probably having a great time and Meghan and Sheri are surviving. 
