by Judy Handley | Jul 11, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 192: Rainy Day
Date: Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Weather: Overcast with Rain until Mid-Afternoon; High 80, 66 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
In our weekly planning meeting yesterday, the Goldpebbles unanimously wanted a day at home today. We didn’t know at the time that it was going to be a rainy day, but that worked out great. Due to the rain, we didn’t even go to swim lessons this morning, so it was really a complete day at home. I told the boys we would stay at home as long as there was no fighting or fussing. In the event that conflict should arrive, my punishment was taking them to the beach. Usually the beach is a reward, but around here you can use it as a punishment! But I didn’t need to threaten punishment. The boys got along great and had a wonderful time building with Legos. We made a list of chores that needed to be done around the house and interspersed work and play. For instance, the guinea pig cage needed to be cleaned. The boys dove in and decided to also give the guinea pigs a bath. This turned the cage cleaning into a fun adventure. We had such a good time that I’m looking forward to more days just hanging out at home.
by Judy Handley | Jul 10, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 191: Happy Birthday to My Sister Patsy
Date: Monday, July 10, 2017
Weather: Sunny; High 80, 66 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Happy Birthday to my sister Patsy! She is in those “eighty something” years and going strong. While we were in West Virginia recently, we did a memorial service for Mark and a family member snapped this photo of Patsy and me. We were both a bit sad, but it is so wonderful so know that your sister has your back . . . always. I love this photo because it shows our bond.
Happy Birthday, Sis!
Today was a wonderful summer day here with beautiful Cape Cod weather. I started the day with Bruce Woodin finishing the varnishing project on Pooh.
We are now ready for launch as soon as we have enough people to help out at high tide. It looks like it might be Saturday before we can accomplish that, but we’ll see. I left the Woodin’s and headed to Falmouth Heights Beach. Heather had taken the boys to swim lessons and when I arrived, she handed them over to me so she could head to work. We stayed at the beach for a bit and then headed to my place for lunch and for our weekly planning meeting. The boys seem to be enjoying making decisions about what they will be doing during the week and the overwhelming vote for tomorrow was to head home after swim lessons and just play. Fair enough. But they also made the decision to go to Wood Neck beach and marsh this afternoon to meet up with Leo and his mother Jean who live in the neighborhood. The tide was going out and we rode Lazy River and played in the marsh. Joey from next door and his grandmother were also at Wood Neck, so the five boys had what Ollie called a “boy party”. Jean and I walked with them all the way back into the marsh where we found young horseshoe crabs smaller than the palm of my hand and beautiful egrets flying about. And along the way, the boys found green crabs. Wood Neck is beautiful marsh but since I was walking in the water, I didn’t bring my camera with me to capture the beauty. But trust me, at near low tide, the beauty of Wood Neck is hard to beat. And just watching the five little boys romp through the marsh with abandon was also a beautiful sight. Next time I’ll take the Go-Pro in its underwater housing and try to capture the beauty.
by Judy Handley | Jul 9, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 190: Like a Cat Chasing Its Tail
Date: Sunday, July 09, 2017
Weather: Clear Day with a Bit of Wind; High 78, Low 63 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Sometimes I feel like a cat chasing its tail. I’m on the move all the time but I can’t seem to find the time to do half the things I want to do. But one thing is for sure, I do keep busy! This morning I headed to the Woodin’s to sand and put the first coat of Epifanes Clear Varnish on the Pooh’s teak. Bruce has been putting on coats of Epifanes Rapid Clear which doesn’t require sanding between coats, but for the final coats you want something a little more durable. The Clear Varnish makes a great finished product, but it does require sanding between coats and you can only do a coat every 24-hours. Heather came this morning to help and the three of us got coat number one on. Tomorrow morning Heather will take the boys to the beach for swim lessons while I work with Bruce to get coat number two on. And that might have to be our last coat until fall because Bruce and Jane have out of town company arriving at noon tomorrow. But two coats will hold it until the sailing season is over. We will launch on Friday or Saturday and hopefully start enjoying sails out of the West Falmouth Harbor. We are all looking forward to that.
I brought home a big wooden oar that Bruce keeps in the boat ‘just in case’ there is no wind and the motor fails. He hasn’t used it for years, but it was looking a little beat up. So I attacked it with the heat gun to remove any varnish still on it and have started putting on coats of Rapid Clear. When I finished that, I hopped in the shower, had lunch, and then headed to Heather’s to transplant some kale and marigolds I have been growing in pots on the deck. I invited Ollie to help deliver the plants to garden in his little John Deere tractor and he proudly did so.
Heather was adding supers to her two bee hives today and the bees were very busy in the lavender in the bee garden.
I can’t wait to taste that lavender honey. I did my transplanting in the garden and then Heather and gang were headed to a friend’s house for a birthday dinner for one of Sam’s friends. I stuck around and worked on folding laundry while I was waiting for the sprinkler to do its job in the garden. On the way home, I did my grocery shopping for the week, and by the time I got home it was almost 7 pm. Tonight, I fixed dinner and made chili that I hope Ollie and Sam will eat for lunch a couple of days this week. Jonah won’t touch it, so I’ll have to figure out something else for him. Fixing healthy food that kids will eat is not an easy task. But I keep trying.
I’ll hopefully get to the beach by 10:30 in the morning so Heather can head on to work. The boys and I will stay at the beach until we get hungry for lunch and then head here to eat and do our planning for the rest of the week. All of the museums on the Free Fun Friday list for this week are in the Boston area and I don’t think we want to brave the traffic. So we will focus on visiting different beaches in the afternoons this week, maybe do a little biking, and plan a rainy day activity for Friday in case the forecast is correct. Somehow by chasing my tail, we do move forward.
Here’s a photo of the beautiful blue hydrangeas here at The Studio. They were just too beautiful to ignore with the evening sun shining on them when I got home this evening.
by Judy Handley | Jul 8, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 189: Mega Birthday for Jonah
Date: Saturday, July 08, 2017
Weather: Sunny and Beautiful; High 82, Low 63 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Jonah had a wonderful birthday in West Virginia with family, but naturally he wanted to also celebrate with his friends. So today we headed to the Adventure Park at Heritage with five of Jonah’s closest friends, his brother Sam, Heather and Jed, and two other parents. This made for a mega birthday for Jonah. Ollie and I went along as the official photographers and everyone had a fabulous time. You have to be seven years-old to do any of the courses, even with a parent, so Ollie has a couple of years to go. I had planned to take him to play in Hidden Hollow in the adjacent Heritage Gardens, but once he heard there was a path we could walk through the Adventure Park, he decided we would stay and watch the action. The seven kids and four adults above us, climbed and zipped through the tree tops as we photographed their actions.
All of us were exhausted at the end of the three hours, but all were beaming with the accomplishments. Lillie and Molly were the two girls, and Luke, Nick, Mason, and Sam were the four boys. Lillie, Molly, and Nick are classmates at East Falmouth Elementary, Mason is a friend from soccer, and Luke has been Jonah’s best friend since pre-school. It was a great mix of kids and the staff at the Adventure Park were super helpful. Every child had a positive experience, some of it challenging, but all successful. Afterwards there was pizza and ice cream cake. What a fantastic day.
When we got home, it was time for more adventure on the water slide Grammy Marti got Jonah for his birthday. I stayed for a bit, but checked out early to come home and relax. In the morning, I head back to Bruce and Jane Woodin’s to sand and do more varnish work on Pooh. Bruce got two coats of varnish on today and we’ll get the first of the final coats on tomorrow morning. Another coat on Monday and maybe another on Tuesday, and then we are ready to launch. I’m looking forward to a sail on Pooh. Life is good.
by Judy Handley | Jul 7, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 188: Thinking of Mark
Date: Friday, July 07, 2017
Weather: Overcast with Torrential Rain in Afternoon; High 73, Low 63 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Today would have been Mark’s 75th birthday, so naturally I missed him more than ever. But it really helps to have wonderful friends and family who took the time to send happy thoughts my way today. Thank you. Heather and boys really wanted to get either the dinghy or the kayak in the water today in Mark’s honor, but the early afternoon torrential rain continued as a drizzly rain into the evening. Lots of water, but not good weather for being out on the water. Hopefully on Sunday we’ll be able to do our water tribute to Granddad. We were going to help Bruce and Jane Woodin launch their little sailboat on Sunday, but the weather has delayed that launch as well. More time is needed to varnish, so the launch will happen either mid-week or next weekend.
My day was filled with a Free Fun Friday museum tour with the Goldpebbles. We chose to visit The Hall at Patriot Place, a museum showcasing the New England Patriots.
There were lots of interactive learning experiences and all three boys really enjoyed it. They loved the larger than life videos playing from place to place and they really got into various math challenges. It was a great choice for a rainy Friday. By the time we got back to Falmouth around 2:00 pm, we were greeted with a lake of water on Route 28. We had to detour to get to my place as there was a ‘lake’ was on Route 28 right at Falmouth Heights Road. Two cars were in water so deep that it came half way up their doors. The cars had been abandoned and I’m assuming the people inside the cars had to crawl out of the windows.
Heather, Jed, and boys had dinner at my place this evening and after they left, I opened a package I received today. It was a camera from my nephew Barry. He heard me say at the family gathering in West Virginia that my beloved Canon PowerShot was ‘shot’. The problem is the zoom lens and I know from a prior problem like this that when the lens starts misbehaving, it is not worth it try and get it repaired. So receiving Barry’s old Canon PowerShot was very much appreciated.
I can’t wait to try it out at Jonah’s birthday party tomorrow. Thank you, Barry!
by Judy Handley | Jul 6, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 187: From Boat Work to Bumper Boats
Date: Thursday, July 06, 2017
Weather: Sunny; High 73, Low 64 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Today included everything from boat work to bumper boats. I started my day by driving to Bruce and Jane Woodins to tape and varnish the bright work on Pooh, their 17’ sailboat. In exchange for my work, Heather and Jed and myself plus kids will have boat privileges this summer. Bruce worked with me which allowed me to get to the beach to meet the kids by 10:20. Heather and Jed were both there and swim lessons were in full swing. When I arrived, Heather and Jed headed to work and after lessons and time to play on the beach, the boys and I headed to my place for showers and lunch. Then we were off to play mini-golf and ride in the bumper boats just north of here in Cataumet. All three boys really enjoyed the boats. On the way home, we stopped at Bruce and Jane’s to check on the varnishing process. Bruce was applying coat number two and the teak is looking good. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, but we are hopeful that the weather will clear so we can get another coat on late tomorrow afternoon. If that works, we will apply the final coat on Saturday and launch the boat on Sunday. But there are lots of activities between now and then, foremost being Jonah’s birthday party on Saturday late morning and early afternoon. And before that the Goldpebbles and myself are headed to The Hall at Patriot Place, a New England Patriots museum, tomorrow morning. Never a dull moment around here. But there was a very nice sunset tonight over the band shell across the Harbor and the Falmouth Band was playing. I got to enjoy the music of the evening right from my own living room.
