by Judy Handley | Jan 8, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 08: A Blur of Activity
Date: Thursday, January 8, 2026
Weather: Partly Sunny, Warmer; High 45, Low Temp 30 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
9:30 am–Indivisible Falmouth Steering Committee Zoom meeting
3 pm–Indivisible national weekly Thursday “What’s the Plan?” meeting on Zoom
7 pm–Falmouth Dems meeting in person
8 pm—Indivisible national Rapid Response meeting re Minnesota
And in between I played phone tag with the Director of Health at my sister’s assisted living facility, helped a friend who does bits for ads by videoing a session with him playing with Shadow, helped that same friend load his truck with firewood that has been stacked in my backyard for over a year, and went to visit my friend Midge who is now home from the hospital. And now I need to get on my exercise bike before heading to bed. All in a day.
by Judy Handley | Jan 7, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 07: ‘Fun’ Raising Meeting, Evening in Hyannis
Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Weather: Overcast and Rainy; High 39, Low Temp 30 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
My day started in North Falmouth at the Daily Brew attending an Indivisible Falmouth ‘Fun’ Raising. It has nothing to do with raising money. Rather we are just trying to figure out how to inject some fun or activities of interest into our weekly rallies on the Green. I then spent the afternoon working on more Christmas clean-up. I took the lights and decorations off the tree yesterday, but I got it out the door today. I still have a ton of bedding that has been laundered but not packed away. Slowly, I will get there.
Then tonight I volunteered to take Jonah and his friend Kaiden to winter soccer indoor practice in Hyannis. While they played futsal in the gym, I did a little food shopping. Then it was home and now to bed!
by Judy Handley | Jan 6, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 06: The Twelfth Day of Christmas
Date: Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High 39, Low Temp 34 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
On this twelfth day of Christmas, sadly the snowman Ziggy, Coco, and Justin built in the front yard on New Year’s morning fell over as the temperature rose above freezing. It was a visual reminder to me that the holiday season has ended. Since I have a tradition of taking down the Christmas tree on this day, that was a second visual reminder that it is time to store the memories and get on with the winter.
I had only one meeting today, but tomorrow I have meetings all morning spilling into the afternoon. Yep, life is getting back to normal, but before it disappears, I need to figure out how to bottle up all the positive holiday spirit and put it towards figuring out what we can do locally to fight the madness that is happening in this country. It continues to get worse with each passing day, so how do we effectively make it clear that enough is enough? I wish I had a magic wand, but since I don’t, we just have to figure out what we can use instead. If you have suggestions, please send them my way.
by Judy Handley | Jan 5, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 05: Back to ‘Real’ Life
Date: Monday, January 5, 2026
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 35, Low Temp 32 degrees F
Location: Back at Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
The holiday celebrations and time with family over the past two weeks were absolutely wonderful. But today, reality hit like a ton of bricks. I had an early morning Falmouth Immigrant Rights Coalition (FIRC) Zoom meeting that started the jolt to get me back to the real world. The ‘real’ world is not so easy to deal with these days. But one really positive thing that came out of the morning meeting was the deep appreciation for what my son Justin did for the group. He built and is the webmaster for Indivisible Falmouth’s website. And since FIRC has no website, Justin built a page on our Indivisible Falmouth site and got all of their documents in five different languages up and running. This morning the woman from LatinX expressed how important that is for local immigrants that are too scared to come forward to ask for help. Now they can go to the website and read and print any of the documents they need in their own language. So, a very BIG thank you to Justin.
I spent most of my day deflating inflatable mattresses, one queen, and two twins, and washing and drying all the sheets, blankets, and comforters. I also laundered the winter gear worn by Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco, so it can be packed away for their next winter visit.
This evening at 7 pm, I picked Ollie and Jonah up from a pond in East Falmouth where they had been playing ice hockey with friends. While we were in New Hampshire, Falmouth had really cold weather freezing some of the shallow ponds. So, today was the day to take advantage of the ice. Jonah went home from school with a friend who lives near one of the frozen ponds. So, he had been there all afternoon, but Jed had delivered Ollie later in the afternoon along with lights so they could skate in the dark. Unfortunately, the weather is turning warmer tonight, and we are supposed to get some rain. The kids will have to wait for another really cold spell to continue their fun on the ice. But they enjoyed this afternoon and evening, and I so enjoyed seeing them skating on the ice by the light of the lanterns when I picked them up.
Jed had a Board of Health meeting tonight, and Heather had a Select Board meeting. Plus, they both had to go to work today. So, they really got jolted back into the ‘real’ world. Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco made it home late this afternoon and are settling in. Ziggy and Coco don’t have to go back to school until Thursday, so they have two more days before they have to settle back into the ‘real’ world. And tomorrow is the twelfth day of Christmas when I take down my Christmas tree and turn off the outside lights. The joyful holiday time is over, but the memories will linger throughout the year.
by Judy Handley | Jan 3, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 03: Family Snowboarding and a North Conway Explore
Date: Saturday, January 3, 2026
Weather: Overcast, Cold, and Windy; High Temp 22, Low Temp 10 degrees F
Location: With My Family in Intervale, NH
During the morning when the rest of the family was snowboarding, I stayed home and caught up on writing my logs for the past three days. When I checked the weather for the day, I saw that at 11 am this morning, it was 19 degrees F. But with the wind chill factored in, it felt like 0 F. I worried that it might be too cold for the snowboarders and skiers, but not so. They returned in the early afternoon, all happy with their morning on the mountain. It was then that I learned that Justin wore Jed’s banana costume all morning on the slopes and became Attitash ‘famous’ as Mr. Banana!
Sam was leaving to drive home, so he and the other kids decided we were going out to lunch in North Conway so Sam could be with us. We scratched the idea of doing the Conway Scenic Rail trip so we could spend the last little bit of time with Sam. And when he headed home, the rest of us would do a little exploration of the shops downtown. Ollie found a place called The Moat and it was a great choice.
The portions were huge and everyone loved their choice, so it was a win. When lunch was over, we all said farewell to Sam and then drove downtown. Fun shops and another bookstore where Coco managed to find even more books to buy. Her carry on is going to be quite heavy headed home.
Earlier today there was some concern that Justin and family will not be able to fly home tomorrow. We learned that the US had abducted Maduro in Venezuela and taken him temporarily to Puerto Rico. So, all flights to and from San Juan were put on hold. But from what we can tell, the hold on flights has been lifted. That is good news. But just when you think the totally out of control regime in this country can’t come up with one more thing more outrageous than the last, they do. I am going to focus on enjoying every minute with my family and not concentrate on this last, most outrageous move until Justin and family are home safely.
Tomorrow morning, I head to Boston with Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco and Heather, Jed, Jonah, and Ollie head home to Falmouth. The trip to Boston is going to be an all day affair. We will take the scenic route and leave here, drive north and west to Crawford Notch, on to the Mt. Washington Hotel area where we might take the Cog Railway half-way up Mt. Washington. Then to Franconia Notch where we turn and head south to Concord. Justin wants to stop in Concord and do a little tour of St. Paul’s where he went to high school as Ziggy and Coco have never been there. Finally, we will head to Boston. Their flight is supposed to leave at 7:30 pm. PR is an hour ahead of us, so they will arrive in San Juan after midnight and spend the night there before heading home on Monday morning. At least, this is the plan. We’ll see what really happens. Stay tuned.
by Judy Handley | Jan 2, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 02: Family Snowboarding at Attitash and Oma Roadrunner
Date: Friday, January 2, 2026
Weather: Sunny and Cold; High Temp 16, Low Temp 9 degrees F in Intervale, NH
Location: With My Family in Intervale, NH
Today was a family snowboarding day at Attitash Mountain Resort for everyone but me.
Skiing is something I tried once in 1991 and said never again. It is just not my thing. So, I was happy to volunteer to run errands today. But even that turned into an adventure! Sam has only has a few days more at home and one of his best friends flew in from Montana after Sam left on New Year’s Day. So, he is driving home early to be with Ethan. But when Sam got here yesterday, his back passenger tire was so low it couldn’t be driven. I offered to work on the tire issue today while I was out food shopping.
After delivering Justin and crew to the mountain, I headed home to call AAA to come pump up the tire so I could drive it to a tire place to see if it could be patched. I also called the 3 places that could check the tire and repair it and found only one who said they ‘might’ be able to work me in. The woman wouldn’t set the appointment time until AAA came to make sure the tire would hold air. Also, when we got to Attitash, we realized one of the lunch bags had been left at home, so I volunteered to drive that back at 12:30. The AAA guy was supposed to arrive at 10:40, but he didn’t get here until after 11:30. He pumped up the tire and it seemed to be holding, so I called the tire place and they wanted me there at 1:00 pm. That started the adventure of getting the lunch bag to Attitash by 12:30, which required a rather long walk on solid ice from the overflow parking area and back to the car, and then driving home to change cars and drive the 20-minutes to Conway to the tire place. I made it by 1:10, but then the wait started. I was to be back to Attitash by 3:30. But the wait for the tire was almost 2 hours, so it was 3 pm before I could head north, stop at the store, drop the groceries off at home, change cars, and get back to Attitash. I felt like I was in a marathon! I was a little late picking up the crew at the mountain, but they didn’t mind hanging out in the ski lodge. It just made for a whirlwind of an afternoon for me.
Tonight, all is well. We had food for dinner, Sam’s tire is fixed, and everyone had a really good time on the mountain today.
The afternoon was challenging as it got icy, so tomorrow might just be a half day of snowboarding with maybe a ride on the Conway Scenic Railway in the afternoon. Ot maybe we’ll just chill.
