by Judy Handley | Apr 20, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 181, Year 11: Drive to the Cape
Date: Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Cool, High on the Cape 55 degrees F
Location: Staying at Heather and Jed’s, East Falmouth, MA
We took our time leaving the condo this morning as I had received an email from Heather telling me that I would not need to drive to Rhode Island to pick up the bees this afternoon. She found someone who was willing to switch delivery dates with her. She will now get her bees in early May and we didn’t need to rush today. When we did finally leave the condo, we went to visit my niece Lynn at Lowell General Hospital. It was almost noon when we arrived and she was still in the Emergency Room waiting for a hospital bed to become available. She was much better, but the doctors are still not sure what caused the problem yesterday. So they are keeping her for a bit longer for observation. After our visit with Lynn, we started the drive to the Cape. When we got to Falmouth we drove on to Quissett Harbor. We had hoped to catch Rick and Weatherly, the owners of Quissett Harbor Boatyard. They weren’t there, so we’ll try again tomorrow. In January we reserved a mooring for this summer and have been making partial payments. A couple of days ago we decided to leave Windbird in Little River for the summer in the capable hands of our friend and Triton Yacht agent, John Schwab. He is hopeful that the boat will sell soon, so we won’t be needing the mooring here in Quissett Harbor. It is doubtful that we can get our money back, but it is worth a try. Anyway, it was almost 4 pm when we arrived here at Heather and Jed’s. Since we didn’t need to deal with bees, I had another project in mind. For Heather’s birthday last September, she got cedar Adirondack chairs that needed to be assembled and stained. She assembled two of them in the fall, but two more were not even unpacked. Today Mark helped me get them out of storage and he assembled one of them while I got them ready to clean and stain. The cleaning happened late in the day and I will let them dry until tomorrow afternoon when I will stain them.
Speaking of tomorrow afternoon, the reason for this trip to the Cape is so we can sign the contract for renting the apartment on Falmouth Harbor. We stopped across the harbor from The Studio (the name of the apartment complex where we will be living as of June 15) and took the photos posted here.
We are anxious to sign the contract to make this official. After we sign the contract tomorrow, we will return here so I can stain the lawn chairs. We will either head back to Lowell after 5:30 pm to avoid the worst of rush hour traffic on our way home or we will spend another night here and drive into Boston during rush hour on Friday morning. Mark’s appointment at Mass General on Friday is at 9:20 am which puts us driving into the city at the worst possible time. Making that morning drive is surely a test of one’s patience! But Friday is a short day at the hospital and we should be able to head out of the city before evening rush hour. I’d love to drive back down here to go to the Spohr Garden daffodil festival on Saturday, but I’m not sure we’ll have the energy for that. At the same time, it could be a busy weekend for showings of Lynn’s condo and we will need to be out there anyway. So we shall see where we end up for Saturday and Sunday.
by Judy Handley | Apr 19, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 180, Year 11: Busy Day
Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Much Cooler, High 62 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
It was a busy day. I left here at 10:15 am to go pick up my niece and head into Boston to try and sell her boxes and boxes of books. Even though the majority of the books were first editions and many were rare books, the downtown Boston used bookstore was not interested in any of them. The gentleman who went through the boxes did not think we would find a used bookstore that would buy them. We tried one more store, a little closer to home, and they bought a few but certainly not enough to make it worth continuing to try and find other places that might be interested. So Lynn decided to take the books to the Billerica Public Library and donate them. This is the town where she grew up and where her sister Candi lives, so it made sense to donate them there. I hauled the boxes out of the van and then Lynn hauled them into library on a dolly and somewhere in that process, she started feeling shaky. As soon as we were finished at the library, we headed out to get something to eat, but by this time, Lynn was visibly shaking and feeling very sleepy. I tried to get her to come home with me or let me take her to her sister’s house, but she insisted on going home. When I dropped her off, I could tell she was getting worse, so I called her sister Candi. Long story short, Lynn is in the hospital for observation tonight as the doctors try to figure out what is wrong. Thankfully Candi had the foresight to go check on her immediately after I called her. Hopefully it is nothing too serious. Lynn, we are thinking of you and hoping that whatever happened today was just a temporary glitch.
I rushed home after dropping Lynn off at her apartment in order to meet the realtor here at this condo. She was returning this afternoon to take photos and Mark had done a great job of doing the last tidying for the photos. The condo should be online tomorrow and hopefully a buyer will be found quickly. For the photos, the realtor wanted the kitchen counters to be completely cleared and they basically need to stay that way for subsequent showings. Living in a place while it is for sale is tricky business. You need to keep everything ready to show at a moment’s notice. The realtor promised that we will get a text at least an hour or two before a showing, but this means things really need to be kept ship shape until it sells. I’m already growing fond of the totally clear kitchen counters. Maybe this is something I can continue to do even after leaving here. Well, not totally clear, but certainly not crowded with ‘stuff’. Mark and I also took time for a nice walk up to the pond to check on the wildlife. It is nice to take time to appreciate common birds like Canadian geese and Mallard ducks. When you see them up close it is hard not to marvel at their beauty. And those beavers actually showed themselves to me this evening. I loved watching them ply the waters using their tails as rudders. Spectacular.
Tomorrow we leave here and head to Cape Cod. Heather and Jed are not home, but we are going down to stay at their place for a night or so. On Thursday we sign the contract for the apartment we will be renting. Tomorrow I will take Mark down and then I will head back to Rhode Island to pick bees up for Heather. The bees were supposed to arrive last week and Heather drove all the way there to find out the delivery had been postponed to this Wednesday. While I am driving to pick up the bees, Mark will work on getting the hive ready. We’ll also try to find time to commune with the Max and Mortimer, the guinea pigs. I’m sure they are missing the boys. We are a poor substitute, but we will try.
by Judy Handley | Apr 18, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 179, Year 11: Disappointing News
Date: Monday, April 18, 2016
Weather: Sunny, High 71 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
It was a beautiful sunny morning and then the phone rang. It was the owner of the apartment on the Falmouth Harbor that we have gotten so excited about moving into the first of June. That won’t be happening now. The current tenant is buying a condo next door and he will not be moving until June 15. I know it is only two weeks later than planned, but I hoped to be all settled in before school is out and Camp Oma begins. And school is out early this year, the last day being sometime during that same middle week of June. Camp Oma will be much scaled-down this year, only three days a week, but still it would have been so nice to get settled in earlier. And besides that, we are both so anxious to get us in a settled situation. We are so very lucky that my niece has let us live here, but we are literally living out of our suitcase. And June 15th is two whole months away. My first reaction when I got the phone call this morning was to look for another place, but I know that the apartment on the harbor is just the right place. Besides, both of the other two places we liked are rented already so we would have to start the searching process all over. If this condo sells quickly, we will have to move in with Heather and Jed for a few weeks and store furniture that we will be taking from here in a garage in the apartment complex where we will be moving. The owner felt terrible having to change the move-in date and he offered to store things for us if needed. So, disappointed as we are, life is still on track.
Heather, Jed, and boys headed south to Washington, DC, this morning to spend a few days of their spring vacation with Grammy Goldstone. Lucky them. Besides spending time with Grammy, it is going to be so nice and warm during their visit. I checked the weather and saw that it was 91 degrees there today. The rest of the week is not going to be that warm, but I know the boys will enjoy the warmth. Mark and I head to the Cape on Wednesday to do a little work in our storage unit and to sign the contract for the apartment on Thursday. And tomorrow my niece Lynn and I drive into Boston with a car full of her books in hopes of finding a buyer. Busy times.
by Judy Handley | Apr 17, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 178, Year 11: Signs of Spring
Date: Sunday, April 17, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny, High 70 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
It finally felt like spring today with a high temp of 70 and sunny skies. And obviously the flora and fauna loved it. Little green leaves popped out all over today and the turtles came out of hiding to sun themselves. These are true signs of spring and we are loving it.
The peppermint oil (Mentha x piperita) that we have been using in the infuser really seems to be helping Mark with the nausea. He was so nauseous when we got home from the hospital on Friday, but I immediately unpacked the newly arrived infuser and oil, plugged the infuser in, filled it with water and drops of peppermint, and started infusing our air. The nausea went away and it has stayed away. We are new to the idea of using essential oils but peppermint, a cross between watermint and spearmint, seems to be doing its job.
My niece Lynn and I continue to spend our afternoons sorting and packing her things. Today I packed up all of her photo albums that were occupying a bookshelf in the extra bedroom and took that empty shelf into the kitchen. Mark helped me carry it in and then I filled it with all of the appliances that were on the kitchen counter. The realtor wants the counters clear to show off the countertops for photos on Tuesday and for subsequent showings. But I must say I think it looks a bit strange to see a totally clear counter. To me it looks sterile, like no one lives here. But we are going to follow the program and we got the counter cleared while Lynn continued sorting through books on bookshelves in the living room. We now have ten big boxes of books tucked away in the back of our car ready for the trip to Boston on Tuesday. Lynn will return tomorrow to do more sorting and we might end up with another box or two.
Working with Lynn has reminded Mark and I that we have a lot of sorting and packing to do ourselves. Once we feel like we have the nausea under control, Mark and I are going to try to make a trip to Little River to pack up everything that is on the boat. We had originally thought that Mark would stay here and I would go alone, but at this point he thinks it would be easier on him to be with me. We’ll just have to freeze packets of food and take a big cooler with us. It will be hard to fit this trip in between his infusions, but we worked out a tentative plan today and we are going to give it a try. We will wait until the first week of May when his infusions move from Fridays to Wednesdays. We’ll leave Boston on a Wednesday afternoon right after the infusion and drive to Nyack to Ed and Lynne Kirwin’s. We haven’t informed them of this visit, but now they’ll know! Then on Thursday we will drive from Nyack to Little River. We will have to borrow Heather and Jed’s van for this trip and from Friday to Sunday we will pack up as much as we can in the van and start home on Monday. Before we can make this trip, however, we have to clear space in our storage unit to hold the bounty from the boat. Whether we like it or not, it looks like our future for the next few weeks is going to stay centered on sorting and packing. Our present plan might be too ambitious, but we shall see.
by Judy Handley | Apr 16, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 177, Year 11: Sorting, Sorting
Date: Saturday, April 16, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny, High 61 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
This afternoon was another four hour work session with my niece Lynn sorting, sorting, sorting through books and clothes she still has here in this condo. The realtor will come on Tuesday to take photos and get the condo officially on the market, so we are making a huge push to sort through as many things as possible before then. Today the focus was books and clothes. I went through her closet and sorted through clothes while Lynn went through huge plastic boxes of books that she is trying to sell and packed them into smaller cardboard boxes that we can actually carry out of the condo. The plastic boxes were way too heavy for us. She will return tomorrow for another work day and on Tuesday morning we will take the books into a bookshop in Boston that might buy them. She ended up with ten big cardboard boxes today and there are still more books to sort through. The job of whittling down Lynn’s belongings to a size she can accommodate in her new apartment seems endless, but I’m we are making great progress.
Mark had a good day. He got up at 7 am and had his double breakfast and then went back to bed until 10 am when he got up to take his chemo pills. He went back to bed, but got up after about half an hour. I then turned on the infuser with the peppermint oil in hopes of calming his nausea and giving him an energy boost. Last night I turned on the infuser on his bedside table when he went to bed. In about 20 minutes he woke up and was quite energized—too much so for bedtime. It could have been because he slept most of the day at the hospital or it could have been the peppermint oil. Obviously we have a lot to learn about using essential oils! We turned off the infuser and moved it out of the bedroom. He went back to bed and eventually went to sleep. When he got up this morning, I turned the infuser with the peppermint oil on in the living room. I ran it every other hour during the day, and Mark really felt like it gave him an energy boost and he had no nausea. He is still taking anti-nausea medications, but yesterday they weren’t doing the job. We are trying the peppermint oil to aid in the anti-nausea war and to hopefully avoid taking the Ritalin that the nurse practitioner prescribed. It does work to give him an energy boost, but I just hate having him take so many different medications. If the peppermint essential oil in the air continues to work, we’ll try some other oils.
Tomorrow will be a repeat of today with the exception that it will be a little warmer. It was delightfully warm by late afternoon today and tomorrow it should be warm much earlier in the day. It is hard to believe that it is really spring because it has been so cool. I, for one, am ready for some proof that spring is here in earnest.
by Judy Handley | Apr 15, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 176, Year 11: Exhausting Hospital Day
Date: Friday, April 15, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny Day—Frost on the Windshield Early AM
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
It was an exhausting day at the hospital. We left here at 5:45 am and returned at 7 pm. Mark slept through most of the day, but we did take a few walks within the hospital to visit the Healing Garden and the Atrium—spots of serenity in a huge hospital like Mass General. When we got home, Mark was feeling nauseous and could eat only a tiny bit of dinner before going bed. When we got home from the Cape last night, we had a couple of Amazon deliveries. One was an infuser and some peppermint oil. Mark thinks I have lost my mind, but credible sources say infusing the peppermint scent in the air can reduce nausea. I sure hope it works for Mark.
Earlier today I was certain we had made up our minds about our housing choice and it was the apartment on Falmouth Harbor. Then tonight we got an email from the owners of the rustic house in the woods with an offer that would be hard to refuse. But even though it would be a much better deal financially, both of us are still tending toward the apartment that feels like being in a boat on a dock. We really miss Windbird. We’ll have to name that apartment Landbird.
