by Judy Handley | Feb 26, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 57: Writing About Writing
Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Weather: Overcast with Drizzle; High 48 degrees, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I have been writing this blog since Tuesday, October 18, 2005. That was more than 14 years ago, some 5,241 days. The actual number of blogs posted is 4,828. The difference in the number of days and number of blogs is the result of sometimes combining the blogs from multiple days into one posting and the fact that when we flew home to visit with family during the six years of our circumnavigation, I did not write blog posts. I wish I had, as the details of those visits are not documented. And try as I can, I just don’t have the same recall of events that I didn’t write about. The reason I was focusing on this today is that tomorrow I have a Memoir Class and have been asked to talk a bit about the challenges and rewards of writing a blog over such a long period of time. The reason for taking this class was to give me the incentive to start writing stories that will eventually be incorporated into a book about sailing around the world. Given that task of answering questions about blog writing helped me focus on just how important that writing process has been in my life. It also pointed out to me that I have neglected updating the homepage of the blog for over three years. I updated the homepage just before Mark died and I have simply been unable to change it since then. But I did it today. I changed the photo from one of Mark and me to just one of me. And I wrote a new narrative explaining how the blog has gone from a travel log to a life log. Making the changes required Justin’s help. As I wrote in the narrative, the posting of my logs into the blog has always seemed like magic to me and Justin has always made that happen. I’m still not sure I fully understand the process. Today he created a video to teach me how to deal with the technical end of the blog and then we had a Skype video call where he could see what was happening on my computer. Thank you, thank you, Justin. I’m hoping that by the time I go to class tomorrow, I will have a chapter for my book on the importance of the blog in my life. Other than this focus on writing, Shadow and I ran a few errands and took a couple of long walks. I visited briefly with Shirley and Doris next door, delivering their mail from the Post Office. I took Ollie to his after-school violin lesson and then went to play Mah Jongg. I am a slow learner, but I truly enjoy my Wednesday nights playing this not-so-easy to learn game with a great group of women.
by Judy Handley | Feb 25, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 56: Time
Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Weather: Rainy and Overcast; High 48 degrees, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Just where does the time go? I got up early this morning and I was anxious to get so much accomplished. None of that happened and the day is over. I started by sending emails to some friends and ended up spending a great deal of morning talking on the phone to my friend Linda Stuart. If you read this blog, you might remember that I flew to Florida for a few days in January to visit with Linda and Mike. They have been taking a break from their biking trip around the world, but they head back Europe on Sunday. Instead of flying they are taking a repositioning cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona, Spain. When they fly with their bikes, the bikes have to be broken down and boxed. But on the cruise ship, they can take their bikes aboard, keep them in their room, and when they disembark, they will be ready to ride. They have never done a cruise before, but if this works, they will probably hop on another repositioning cruise in November and return to Florida for the winter months. They are watching the spread of the corona virus carefully and have already changed their route through Italy to avoid regions with current virus cases and will keep watching and adjusting as they travel. Here’s hoping they have a wonderful spring, summer, and fall biking through Europe.
Tonight I watched the Democratic debate. At first I was just totally disgusted with the infighting. I have been an Elizabeth Warren supporter as I certainly love having her as my Senator. But tonight I was torn. Pete Buttegieg was so centered, so unflappable, and so smart. And I thought Tom Steyer made some very important points. Bernie was Bernie, which is reassuring. He never changes his story and I really admire that. I’m just unsure that he can win the race against Trump. But I loved his ending statement quoting Nelson Mandela. I think Bernie said. “Everything is impossible until it happens.” I believe the actual quote from Mandela was, “It always seems impossible until it is done.” Either way, it is great motto and oh so true. Can’t wait to see what the voters decide in South Carolina and then on Super Tuesday.
by Judy Handley | Feb 24, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 55: Free and Easy Day
Date: Monday, February 24, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High 52 degrees, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Windbird sailed through Indonesia as part of an organized rally. We did that because the rally organizers arranged all the Customs paperwork which can be very complicated in that country. Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world, consisting of five major islands and 30 smaller island groups. There are actually 17,508 islands in Indonesia and the country is 3,000 miles from east to west and a little more than a 1,000 miles from north to south and each province has different rules for visiting boats. So it is complicated, thus the rally. The rally coordinators were a couple and the woman organized the activities on the various islands. We could choose to participate or not, but sometimes when we did participate, she would come on the radio in the morning and declare particular days as “free and easy.” This meant we had no organized activities and could whatever we wanted. I have adopted that term for days when I basically check out and do nothing of consequence and today was one of those days. Shadow and I slept in, went for a long walk, played ball outside in the sunshine and relative warmth, drove into town to run a couple of errands, and took another walk. During the evening, I did try to salvage my reputation of always being busy by spending some time writing. But I even did that in a “free and easy” way. I hereby declare today as a great day!
by Judy Handley | Feb 23, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 54: Together We Have It All
Date: Sunday, February 23, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High 49 degrees, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Years ago, one of my nieces gave everyone in the family a pillow that says, “My family puts the FUN in Dysfunctional.” That pretty much sums up my family. The Martins are a fun-loving bunch with its share of issues, but we stick together. Last week while Heather and Jed were working fast and furiously to get the house ready for the painter, they were listening to music when the song ‘Together We Have It All’ popped up. The chorus says, “We may not have it altogether, but together we have it all.” All Heather could think about while listening to the song was my family and how truly those words apply. It does take a village to get the job done. While they were in Maine skiing/snowboarding the inside of the house was painted top to bottom, with the exception of three rooms. Only one of those needs painted, but the downstairs bathroom needs to be totally redone. So early this morning, Heather, Jed, and Sam headed home to put the house back together while Jonah and Ollie stayed with me. I had an afternoon group class with People Training for Good Dogs, but after that was over, I took Shadow home so he could nap and I went back to Heather’s to help. All together, we mostly got today’s jobs done. We packed up more things in the den to go to storage and moved new things in. Heather’s goal is to make the house look bigger by storing away as much as possible. It is looking great and as soon as the den, playroom, and downstairs bathroom are done . . . and the basement and garage . . . the house can go on the market. Heather is in DC for three days this week, so a lot of the work will have to wait until the weekend. But together, we will get it done.
by Judy Handley | Feb 22, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 53: Goldstones Return from Maine
Date: Saturday, February 22, 2020
Weather: Sunny and Warmer; High 41 degrees, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It’s late and I am the only one still awake. Heather, Jed, and boys returned from their skiing/snowboarding few days in Maine, but they couldn’t go home tonight as the painters were still frantically working to finish up when they returned this evening. I anticipated that and had invited them here for dinner and to spend the night once. They all had a wonderful time in Maine. Heather actually did some downhill skiing with a little coaching from Jed’s Aunt Carol and she really enjoyed it. She has always been a cross country skier, but with snowboarding boys, she might find herself doing more downhill. We had a nice dinner together where I got hear some of the stories from the week and then we watched a Harry Potter movie. Jed went on back to the bedroom to read and hopefully go to bed early as he feels like he is getting sick again. He was barely over a bad cold when they left, and it is rearing its ugly head once again. Heather is excited to go home in the morning and put the house back together. She went over later this evening to feed the guinea pigs and said the paint job looked great. Maybe by the end of next weekend their house will be ready to put on the market.
I spent a couple of hours of my day in my last private class with People Training for Good Dogs. I have learned a lot but still need lots of practice. The Goldpebbles have at least one more private class and I will start attending the weekly group lessons starting tomorrow. Shadow is still very much an exuberant puppy, but he is definitely responding to corrections and love the praise he gets when he responds. He is still having tummy issues, but during the training today, Melissa had some suggestions that I am trying. He was worse this morning, but better tonight. Hopefully the ‘better’ will continue.
