by Judy Handley | Apr 1, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 92: Reboot
Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Weather: Overcast, Rain Late; High 41 degrees, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It is late, so this will be short. I spent my morning editing a piece for my writing class and in the afternoon I tuned in to Heather’s webinar. She did a phenomenal job. My one big takeaway was that the states that moved early and quickly to control the coronavirus are also the same states that have aggressive climate change policies. Interesting. I had intended to head over to H & J’s new house to do a cleaning project afterwards, but one thing and then another happened and then it was too late to go. So, with a little time before dinner, I made a call to my sister-in-law that lives in Boynton Beach on the East Coast of Florida. Sue is in her 80’s and I just wanted to check in to see how she and Brad are doing. They have had three friends die of the coronavirus. They last saw these friends on March 1 when they attended a show together. But thankfully Sue and Brad are doing fine. I was relieved to hear that. I then had to get creative to fix dinner as the refrigerator is almost empty of fresh veggies. But salmon cakes made from canned salmon and canned artichoke hearts dipped in an egg mixture and corn meal and then fried turned into a great dinner along with a fermented red cabbage salad. I used one egg mixed with water for the artichoke hearts and used what was left to make the salmon cakes. I enjoyed my dinner and then I spent the rest of the evening having technical difficulties. I lost my wifi connection on my computer and on my phone but not on my television. I tried everything I could think of, but nothing worked. And I couldn’t Google solutions as I had no internet. I sent a “Help ASAP” text to Jed and another to Justin and soon got a call from Justin. He led me through many of the things I had already tried and a few more that I never would have known how to do, but still no internet. I had not thought to reboot the router system since I still had a television connection, but as Justin and I gave up and said goodnight, he suggested that I try a reboot. I did and it worked. Thank you, Justin. I should have tried that to begin with. I have to admit that losing the internet connection for just a couple of hours had me in a panic, more so than usual. In these times of not seeing friends in person or attending any activities, I have become totally dependent on the internet to make connections. The Zoom classes and social meetings are wonderful and I panicked thinking that maybe my computer had an issue that couldn’t be resolved. But all is well as this first day of April comes to an end.
by Judy Handley | Mar 31, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 91: Climate Change in the Era of COVID-19
Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Sunshine Late Day; High 40 degrees, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 pm, Heather is hosting a webinar on Climate Change in the Era of COVID-19. The intended audience ranges from middle and high school students to scientists to the general public. If you would like to attend, just Google Woods Hole Research Center Spring Webinars, click on Spring 2020 Webinar Series—Woods Hole Research Center, scroll down and click on Register.
Climate Change in the Era of COVID-19
Heather Goldstone, Chief Communications Officer
with opening remarks by Phil Duffy, President & Executive Director
The novel coronavirus pandemic has been compared to climate change at warp speed. Heather Goldstone will introduce what we know about the causes and increasingly apparent impacts of climate change, and explore connections between the COVID-19 and climate crises – including the need to ensure that pandemic response policies also advance climate preparedness.
REGISTER
My early morning emails brought more good news from Puerto Rico. One of Justin and Jo’s nanny goats had twins and both were girls—Opal and Pearl. In the last few days they have welcomed a new foal named Barnaby, baby bunnies, and now kid goats. A true celebration of spring in these otherwise dark times. I made some cleaning progress at Heather and Jed’s new house today while Heather, Jed, and boys worked and schooled at home. I had some ‘technical difficulties’ with hooking up a hose to start cleaning the front entrance to the house, but in the late afternoon Jed arrived with Ollie and Jonah and solved my leaky hose hook-up. Hopefully I can complete that project tomorrow. I also took advantage of the washer and dryer at the new house today and did my first laundry in a machine since the first week of March. I have been doing great at keeping up with the essentials by washing them in a 5 gallon bucket in the bathtub, but it was great to have the use of a washing machine and dryer to do jeans and winter sweaters. Hopefully those sweaters can be stored away until next year. When I got home, I spent some time preparing for my Thursday Memoir Writing Class on Zoom. And then I just kicked back, relaxed, and caught up on the daily news—not relaxing. On to tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Mar 30, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 90: Chipping Away
Date: Monday, March 30, 2020
Weather: Overcast and Misty; High 44 degrees, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today a children’s song about chipping away layers of fossil rock kept creeping into my head. “Chip, chip away those layers of clay. Knock, knock, knock to the fossil rock.” I arrived at Heather and Jed’s new house around noon to install shelving liners in the kitchen. Then mid-afternoon after hours of working and schooling at home, the Goldstones arrived. Heather started chipping away at the stubbornly attached wallpaper on the walls of the master bedroom while Sam and Jonah were upstairs removing the carpeting tack strips with hammers and crowbars. Jed was unloading a van full of bins from the old basement to the new. And Ollie and I were taking down curtains, putting them in the washer while going back to wash the windows, putting the curtains in the dryer and then putting the curtains back up. We are all working as fast and as hard as we can, yet it is a little overwhelming to think about how much more needs to be done. But we shall persist until the move is complete.
by Judy Handley | Mar 29, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 89: Working Sunday
Date: Sunday, March 29, 2020
Weather: Overcast and Rainy; High 47 degrees, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I’m sure the weather could be worse, and our work today was inside, but it was surely a most dreary, cool, rainy day. It didn’t help that Shadow got me up at 2 am and again at 5 am to go out in the rain. But at least after the 5 am get up and go outside affair, we then slept in until 9 am. Then it was time to get up and get ready to go to Heather and Jed’s new house to clean the basement and the garage. Those are the jobs I volunteered to do along with Jed and the boys. We started by working on the basement while Heather attacked the wallpaper in the master bedroom. She and Jed have given in on getting rid of the carpet in their bedroom and will do that later when carpet installation is once again allowed. But she really wants to get that wallpaper replaced with fresh paint. She has stripped wallpaper before, but this stuff is really stuck in many places. She has to get back to fulltime work at home starting tomorrow morning, so I will try my hand at wallpaper removal tomorrow. I also offered to pick the boys up tomorrow morning and take them with me to the new house to continue working. Yesterday they started stripping the carpeting out of their new bedrooms and evidently Sam and Jonah figured out how to remove those wooden tack strips that hold the carpeting in place. They can work on that tomorrow while I help Ollie turn cutting pieces of Con-Tact Shelf Liner into a math lesson. Hopefully we can get all of the kitchen shelves covered so we can begin moving the non-essentials from the old house to the new. The basement is ready to start ‘accepting’ deliveries and with a little more work tomorrow, the garage will be ready as well. The plan is to move Jed’s wood shop into the double car garage, along with all of the sports equipment. Hopefully there will be room left for a car or maybe two. And hopefully we’ll get periods of dry weather during the week so we don’t have to move things in the rain. Progress is being made, but there is plenty of work to keep us all busy full-time. And then, of course, Heather and Jed are working full time from home and the boys are supposed to be completing school activities at home. Those Goldpebbles are going to have to get creative and turn all their help with moving into school assignments. That’s my challenge to them!
by Judy Handley | Mar 28, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 88: Making Adjustments
Date: Saturday, March 28, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Rain Late; High 45 degrees, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
This morning Heather and I talked and we decided to make some adjustments in our stay-at-home and stay apart policy. For the past 16 days, both of our households have been on our version of a lockdown. Since we are now past that 14-15 day Covid incubation period and none of us has any symptoms, this morning we decided to treat our two households as one. We will proceed with as much caution as possible even though we will now be together in the same house sometimes. There will still be no hugging or kissing—elbow bumps only! But I will now be able to help them with their move. Since they closed on Thursday, they can now move into the new house. And if things go as expected, they have one month to get out of their current home as the closing on that house is the end of April. They had devised a work schedule to get workers in both homes to do various projects, but that went out the window when our Governor put this state on a non-essential work order this past Tuesday. Painters and carpet layers are non-essential, so Heather and Jed are going to have to do the work themselves or just put it off until later. Today they started working on a new plan. Heather, with a little help from Sam, started ripping carpeting out of the boys’ upstairs bedrooms in the new house and they ordered wood flooring that they will put down themselves. They are going to leave the current carpeting in the master bedroom downstairs and the bonus room above the garage and replace it later. Today Jed worked on cleaning the carpeting that is staying and I offered my services driving back and forth delivering things from our current end of town to the new house. And in between trips, I contributed a bit to cleaning efforts in the new house. Tomorrow I have offered to clean the basement and garage with the help of the boys so we can start moving things in. The move would have been a lot easier if they could hire the work done, but we will get the essentials done and some things will just have to wait until life is back to normal. Thankfully the old house and new house are both perfectly livable as is. You just always want to paint and replace flooring before you move into a new house, but doing that while working full time from home while also trying to home school three boys certainly limits the amount of time and energy you have. It is not the perfect situation, but hopefully the excitement of moving into the perfect new home will prevail.
Justin sent photos today of their horse Hopi and her new baby Barnaby. So precious. And then he sent a text with a photo of baby bunnies born today. There is certainly a lot of depressing news coming our way these days, but new birth is always uplifting. Ziggy and Coco must be so excited to have a new foal and baby bunnies. So a new house for my grandchildren here and newborn friends for my grandchildren in Puerto Rico makes me a very happy Oma.
