by Judy Handley | Jan 13, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 13: Friday the 13th
Date: Friday, January 13, 2017
Weather: Cooling Down; High 52, Low 17 degrees
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
The daytime temperature today was not much different from yesterday, but it is going to be almost 30 degrees cooler tonight and 20 degrees cooler tomorrow during the day. Winter is back for a day or so and then it will warm up again. Certainly, weather you can’t depend on.
Today was a typical Friday the 13th. I had planned to spend the day catching up on life, but I got a call from Heather this morning needing some Oma ‘help’. Sam developed a stomach virus during the night and wasn’t able to go to school. She had planned to stay home with him, but she got a call from WGBH in Boston this morning needing her to come up with a noonday story. WGBH is her employer and they are a major radio and television presence in Boston. This morning the Boston Globe newspaper broke a story about climate change that shows that the temperature in the Northeast is rising faster than all areas of the country except Alaska. Since Heather is the WGBH Science Editor, they needed her to do a story to compete with the breaking news in the Boston Globe. Thus, she had to go to work and I stayed with Sam. He was feeling much better by the end of the day, but we found out that ten kids in his class were absent today. Evidently, they all contracted the same thing at the same time. Sure hope it doesn’t spread through the family this weekend.
Tomorrow I have an 8:30 appointment with the plumber to continue work on the toilet in the main bathroom that is leaking water and not flushing properly. Then I’ll go to the gym for a Zumba class and on to Heather and Jed’s to help with the building of chicken run. Heather really wants to get egg-laying chickens, but because of the hawk population here, you have to first build a run that can be covered with chicken wire to protect the chickens from the hawks. Tomorrow night I will stay with the boys for the evening while Heather and Jed go out to dinner and a movie. Heather really wants to see Hidden Figures and tomorrow night is their chance. On Sunday I am driving to Boston to be part of a “Save our Healthcare” rally. This Sunday has been designated as a national day of rallies to support health care, so our Massachusetts Senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, are organizing the Boston event at the historic Faneuil Hall. My niece Lynn will meet me there. We’ll probably freeze as it is supposed to be very cold on Sunday, but we’ll stay as long as we can. The point is to let Washington know that we support healthcare reform, but we don’t support going back to what we had before the Affordable Care Act. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’ll come home Sunday night and return to Boston on Monday to have lunch with my other niece, Candi, and then travel on to New Hampshire. On Monday night I’ll be staying with Alan and Helaine Kanegsberg and attending a Concord Yacht Club meeting. On Tuesday I’ll travel from Concord to the seacoast to have dinner with good friends, Detta, Leslie, and Cheryl. And then I’ll return home on Wednesday. Lots of travel and visiting in the plans for the next few days.
by Judy Handley | Jan 12, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 12: Windbird’s Top 10 Sailing Destinations
Date: Thursday, January 12, 2017
Weather: Wonderfully Warm for January; High 54, Low 45 degrees
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
What a wonderful day! The weather was very uncharacteristic for January, sunny with a high in the 50’s. It was glorious. I presented Windbird’s Top 10 Sailing Destinations at the Falmouth Newcomers meeting and that went well.
I had time this afternoon to catch up on the blogs of good friends and found that yesterday Windbird arrived in Fernandina Beach in Florida after a great off-shore passage from Charleston, SC, and that my biking friends, Mike and Linda, arrived in the Galapagos for a cruise through the islands. So I’m sitting here tonight feeling good about life.
I want to thank Jane Woodin for inviting me to speak to the Falmouth Newscomers Club today. Preparing for the presentation gave me the incentive to focus on the circumnavigation and make decisions about what is most important to share with others. The process has given me renewed energy to actually write that book I have been threatening to write for the past six years. Thank you, Jane! Jane was not there today as she is in New York City this week visiting with a friend. But Bruce was there to make sure that the technology worked for the presentation and good friend Olivia White introduced me. 
The group was obviously engaged in the presentation and afterwards so many came up to thank me. What a gracious group of people.
Since I finally forced myself to answer the question everyone asks about our sail around the world—What was our favorite place?—I figure I should share that with you. I had to remove New Zealand, Australia, India, and South Africa from the line-up as it would have taken the entire time allowed to present each of those. So I focused mostly on the smaller island destinations. Here’s Windbird’s ‘Trip Advisor’ for your next cruise around the world.
#10 Kingdom of Tonga—Meeting a New King and Incredible Blow Holes
# 9 Vanuatu—Volcanic Fireworks and a History Lesson
# 8 New Caledonia—Beautiful Beaches
# 7 Fiji—Friendliest People and Great Snorkeling
# 6 Thailand’s Magical Phang Nga Bay—Limestone Karsts and Long Tails
# 5 Indonesia—Komodo Dragons, Bali Fantasy, Borneo Orangutans
# 4 French Polynesia—Beautiful People
# 3 Galapagos Islands, Ecuador—All About the Wildlife
# 2 Chagos—Indian Ocean Robinson Crusoe Experience
# 1 Madagascar—A Land Like No Other
I’m already second guessing my choices, so if I redid this list tonight I might change one or two of my choices. And if I had to include New Zealand, Australia, India, and South Africa, that might change a few things as well. So if I ever come up with the top 20, things might shift a bit, but the top seven would probably stay.
by Judy Handley | Jan 11, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 11: Presentation Prep and Plumbing
Date: Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Weather: Continued Warmth—Snow is Gone; High 48, Low 39 degrees
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
This will be short and sweet as I am going to get to bed a little earlier than usual so I can be up and at ‘em early tomorrow morning. I have tomorrow morning’s presentation ready to go. It is not completed to my satisfaction, but only I (and now you) will know that. But ready or not, I look forward to the presentation. Preparing for it has reminded me of what a beautiful world we live in.
I talked with the owner of these apartments yesterday and mentioned again that none of the plumbing in the main bathroom works quite right. He promised to send a plumber today. He did, and we spent more than an hour trying to fix things, but tonight two out three things are still not working. So much for plumbers!
It has warmed up enough that the snow is gone. It is going to be in the 50’s tomorrow and I will do a little happy dance to celebrate the warm weather. But it’s going to be in the 20’s for a high on Saturday, so the happy dance won’t last long.
by Judy Handley | Jan 10, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 10: Kitchen, Computer, and President’s Farewell
Date: Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Weather: Warm and Drippy; High 41, Low 40 degrees
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
I spent my day in the kitchen and on my computer. Some things never change! I canned 14 pints of chicken mineral broth and ‘almost’ finished that PowerPoint presentation I will make on Thursday, ready or not.
I called Bruce Woodin late in the day to see if I could stop by his house to try out my computer with the projector that will be used for the presentation on Thursday. And that led to an invitation to dinner. Jane left for NYC today to spend a few days with a good friend and Bruce was taking advantage of Jane’s absence to fix a wild game roast given to him by a friend. Jane is not a lover of wild game, but I am, so it was a perfect match. Dinner was a success but the computer to projector match for the presentation was not. The little Asus that I use as a computer is more like a tablet and doesn’t have ports for sending video out. But I brought the projector home to check out connections with my Toshiba computer and that looks like a match. I will try things out in the morning, but the Toshiba seems to have the right the port, so all should be fine.
I just finished watching President Obama’s farewell remarks. It made me so proud to watch him. He is a brilliant man and has been a classy, caring, and effective President. I shed more than one tear as he spoke his words of farewell. But I think his message is clear. Our democracy is in our hands. We, each of us, no matter what our political preference, has to get or stay involved. I’m planning to attend a ‘Save Our Healthcare’ rally on Sunday at Faneuil Hall in Boston hosted by Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey. Like President Obama said tonight, if anyone has a better plan for Obama Care that keeps all the good parts of that plan, then he’ll support it and so will I. But until there is that plan, I’ll actively support keeping what we have.
by Judy Handley | Jan 9, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 9: Last Day of Deep Chill . . . for now
Date: Monday, January 9, 2017
Weather: Still Chilly, but Warming Overnight; High 17, Low 19 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
The temperature overnight is forecast to be warmer than the high temp today, so it looks like the chill is lifting. We should have four days with temps in the 40’s, maybe even the 50’s, before we dip back to the 30’s. We are supposed to have rain during this warm-up, so most of the snow will go. I love looking at the snow, but a couple of days is enough for me. But it will be back. It appears that we are going to have to get used to this up and down weather as it just keeps coming.
Not much to report today—went to an early morning class at the gym, worked on the presentation I will make on Thursday, repacked the kayak so it fits in a plastic box so I can stack other things on top, got all of the Christmas decorations put away, and had my Monday ‘game night’ with Ollie while the rest of the Goldstones attend Scout meetings. Tomorrow I will pressure can the latest batch of chicken mineral broth and put the final touches on that Thursday presentation. It has taken longer than I anticipated, but that is because I have so easily gotten side-tracked. I have really enjoyed the look-back and am using this opportunity to get started on writing about the Voyage of Windbird. And tomorrow is an early release day for Sam and Jonah. Not sure if Heather and Jed need childcare support, but I’ll be on stand-by just in case.
by Judy Handley | Jan 8, 2017 | 2017 Life Logs |
2017 Life Logs, Day 8: After the Storm
Date: Sunday, January 8, 2017
Weather: Snow Over Night, Sunny Day; High 21, Low 10 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
The snow did resume last night after a short break, but by daylight, the snow ended and it was a bright, beautiful, sunny—but cold–day.
I laughed when I looked out and saw the wind had blown the snow off the deck, leaving only footprints.
I’m not sure what the official accumulation reports say, but I would say that we had 3 inches of snow on Friday and another 8-10 inches yesterday and overnight.
We had quite a bit of wind overnight, so snow was blown to bare spots in some places and drifts of 2-3 feet in other others.
I think it would be fair to say that we had at least a foot of snow, but not the high end of 18 inches predicted. Whatever, it was plenty of white stuff and today was a great day for outside snow play. I went to Heather and Jed’s for the afternoon and helped Heather with some organization projects while Jed took the boys sledding on the hill by the library down the street.
Tomorrow is an up and early to the gym morning. I’ll then finish up that presentation I have been working on and head back to Heather and Jed’s for an “Ollie and Me” game night while the rest of the Goldstones go to Scouts and Jed to Health Board. Tonight is our coldest night of the winter to date, but after tomorrow, things start warming up a bit. The temp tonight is forecast to be 10 degrees and the temp on Wednesday will be almost 50 degrees. Hard to follow these ups and downs, but I sure like the ups more than the downs.
