2018 Life Logs, Day 298—Field Trip to Fuller Craft Museum

2018 Life Logs, Day 298—Field Trip to Fuller Craft Museum
Date: Thursday, October 25, 2018
Weather: Sunny; High 52, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was a beautiful fall day, a perfect day for the trip north to the Fuller Craft Museum—north of here and south of Boston. The Fuller is a small museum but the one thing that immediately struck me were the beautiful views of the outside from inside. The huge windows framed lovely outdoor scenes of fall. The exhibits inside were diverse and well done. I went with the Newcomers Teachers group and we had a one-hour tour with docents before we explored on our own. The first exhibit we visited displayed everyday Japanese kitchen tools. I loved what looked like little cookie cutters which are used to cut vegetables into creative shapes and a gorgeous bamboo water pitcher. There was an exhibit called ‘Tricks of the Trade’. One ceramic piece looked like a woven piece, another looked like cascading folds of material. There was a little house made of pencils and a circular saw made of pennies. In the permanent collection, there was a wooden ‘quilt’ called corners made of pieces of wood scavenged after Hurricane Sandy and a beautiful piece displaying animals created from fabric coated wire. My very favorite, however, was a fabric piece called ‘Melted.’ It depicts the melting Arctic and elicited an emotional reaction to what is happening to our world due to global warming. After exploring the museum, we went to lunch and had wonderful conversations with friends old and new. Afterwards, a subset of us headed to nearby Costco to do a little shopping before heading back to the Cape. Great day.

2018 Life Logs, Day 297—A Chill in the Air

2018 Life Logs, Day 297—A Chill in the Air
Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Weather: Mixed Weather with Some Rain; High 50, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The high today was 50 degrees F, but there was a chill in the air that just went right through you. Hopefully I’ll toughen up to the chill as I know it is only going to get colder. That doesn’t make me want to embrace it, but I’ll try.

Not a lot to report today—visit to the physical therapist for my knee, grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods in Hyannis, a stop at Home Depot to get an indoor and an outdoor thermometer, and then home via Heather’s to drop off some purchases I made for her. Tonight I chopped red cabbage to ferment. That’s about it. Tomorrow I go on a field trip with the Newcomers Teacher Group and make a stop at Costco on the way home from that affair. It is supposed to be just a tad cooler tomorrow, but with sunshine and no rain. Hopefully that will make it feel a little warmer.

2018 Life Logs, Day 296—Happy Birthday to Ed and Lynne Kirwin

2018 Life Logs, Day 296—Happy Birthday to Ed and Lynne Kirwin
Date: Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Weather: Sunny and Warmer; High 60, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I tried yesterday and today to make phone contact with my friends Ed and Lynne Kirwin just to see how things are going for them. When I finally got through to them this evening, I was gently reminded that yesterday was Lynne’s birthday and today was Ed’s. I had totally spaced on that, but evidently my inner self remembered. At least I will go with that since I really had been trying to reach them—I just didn’t know why. Ed and Lynne are true, dear friends, and I was so happy to hear that both of them had happy birthdays. Ed has two sons. One manages the apartment complex on the Hudson River where Ed and Lynne live and the other owns the complex but lives in Florida. He and his family flew up for the birthdays, so it has been a festive few days for them. Happy birthday to Ed and Lynne. And I know what my New Years’ resolution will be for 2019. It will be to be more thoughtful and remember my friends’ birthdays!

I heard the ding on my phone at 8:30 am this morning. It was a message from Heather telling me that Sam was still sick and would not going to school today. I volunteered to head over ASAP and stay with him for the morning. Then at 12:40 I picked up Jonah and Ollie from school since it was an Early Release day. Whatever I was going to do today will be continued tomorrow. Sam and I had a very nice morning together. We had a discussion about what we need to eat to keep ourselves healthy and somehow that morphed into making beef bone broth. Sam loves beef and I was trying to find a way to get him to eat vegetables. I explained that when you make bone broth, you put in lots of vegetables with the bones and cook it all day so that the vitamins and minerals from the vegetables end up in the broth. Then you remove the bones and veggies and make soup out of the broth. That appealed to Sam, so I went to the store to get the ingredients. He then did all of the work to get those veggies into the pot. He washed and chopped the veggies and put them in the pot to burble. Then he cut the stew meat and sautéed it to add to the broth later in the day to make beef stew for dinner. He knows his way around the kitchen and enjoys adding just the right amount of this spice and that to get the taste just right. By the end of the day, Sam was feeling much better. The hope is that no one else gets sick so that tomorrow all three boys will be going to school and I can take time to remember what it was I had planned to do today and yesterday. Must not have been very important since I can’t seem to remember!

2018 Life Logs, Day 295—A Day with Sam

2018 Life Logs, Day 295—A Day with Sam
Date: Monday, October 22, 2018
Weather: Sunny, but Not Warm; High 51, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

There was frost on the pumpkins this morning, but the day was sunny which took away some of the chill. And yes, Lynne, I realize summer is really over! We knew when Sam fell asleep on the couch before dinner last night that he wasn’t going to school today, so I volunteered to spend the day with him. Heather was in Boston and Jed had to attend a class that started early and went all day. I took Ollie and Jonah to school and picked them up. Heather and I passed each other as I drove to the school to pick-up Jonah and Ollie and she returned from Boston. She stayed with Sam while Ollie and I took Jonah to his Monday guitar lesson. While Jonah was in his lesson, Ollie and I drove to the near-by LL Bean store. Ollie was quite entertaining as he tried on ski helmets and goggles which he is sure he needs before the first snow. Then we headed back to get Jonah and drove to meet Heather, Jed, Sam, and our favorite realtor at a house for sale in East Falmouth. Heather saw that the price has been drastically reduced, priced to sell quick, and it seemed promising. We haven’t been looking for a house to purchase together, but this one had an in-law apartment and it seemed worth a look. After the house showing, everyone but Sam and I were off to Scouts—Jed and Jonah went in one direction and Heather and Ollie in another. Again, I stayed with Sam, and then when the gang got home and the boys went to bed, Heather, Jed, and I did a little debrief meeting sharing our views of the house. The price was right, but there were so many issues that we decided this was not a wise purchase at this time. I didn’t get home until 11 pm. Long day, but I can sleep in tomorrow morning. Then just after noon, I head back to the Goldstones. Tuesday is my set day to pick the boys up after school and once a month that means picking them up at 12:40 as there is an Early Release Day. We’ll spend some time finalizing plans for Halloween costumes and decorations. Sam felt good enough today to carve his pumpkin, so we now the boys have three jack-o-lanterns sitting in front of the house. That seems like enough holiday decoration for me, but we’ll see what the Goldpebbles think.

2018 Life Logs, Day 294—Celebrating Fall

2018 Life Logs, Day 294—Celebrating Fall
Date: Sunday, October 21, 2018
Weather: Rain Early, Then Partly Sunny and Chilly; High 48, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was spent celebrating the fall season. I went with Heather, Jed, Sam, Jonah, and Ollie to Highfield Hall to see an exhibit sponsored by the Studio Art Quilt Associates of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Here’s how Highfield advertised the exhibit: “We spend our lives moving from building to building, often focused on our destination, overlooking the beauty of the natural world that surrounds us. This exhibit requires that artists step outside, literally, to observe this natural environment and then share the textures, colors and patterns as well as the emotions it evokes using fiber as the medium to communicate their vision.” Highfield is a three-story mansion that was built in the Nineteenth Century and is now a center for the arts in Falmouth. Today we got to see the quilted pieces on the first floor plus a display of tapestries on the second floor. The quilted pieces depicted all sorts of things in nature. I loved the teasel (like a thistle) and Heather loved a piece depicting a hurricane. Ollie liked a piece depicting a classic car on a beach at sunset, while Sam relaxed in the ballroom enjoying a bright red and blue piece called Water Grasses. I was also taken with a depiction of an osprey nest. When we traveled to the second floor, Jonah found a three-dimensional tapestry called Boxes that he loved and Jed really liked one called Green Seaweed. The boys enjoyed the reading room on the second floor and the museum room on the first floor where they learned about the history of the mansion. Unfortunately, Sam was not feeling good and by the end of the visit it was apparent that he had a temperature and was achy all over. Looks like he has the flu for the second time since the beginning of the school year. I’ll be staying with him tomorrow as he certainly can’t go to school with a fever. When we got back to Heather and Jed’s, I had to run home to do a few things, but Heather worked with Jonah and Ollie to carve their pumpkins. Sam’s will have to wait until he is feeling better. I returned with a salad for dinner and Heather made a fall favorite for dinner, Afghan kaddo. There is an Afghan restaurant in Cambridge that serves this, but Heather’s is better. She bakes pumpkin baked with sugar and serves it covered with a spiced meat sauce and garlic and minted yogurt. Delicious. It was the perfect dinner on this very chilly fall day.

2018 Life Logs, Day 293—Soccer Times Three

2018 Life Logs, Day 293—Soccer Times Three
Date: Saturday, October 20, 2018
Weather: Rain Early, Then Sunny and Windy; High 62, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was definitely Soccer Saturday! Jonah and Sam both play on soccer travel teams which means they play some games at home and for others they travel around southern Massachusetts. Today they were playing their last games of the season, so I wanted to go to both—one in Falmouth and one a little more than hour north of here. Ollie plays on a Falmouth recreational team and his games are always on the field next to Falmouth Heights Beach. Today was not his last game, but since Heather couldn’t go because she was transporting Jonah and some other of his team members north for a practice session before the game, I wanted to go to Ollie’s game to cheer him on. It was in Falmouth at 1:30 pm. Jed is Ollie’s coach, so he was there as well, but only three team members showed up today. The father of one of the boys stood in as goalie and the game went on. Ollie made a goal and although he was very guarded about showing his elation, it was obvious that he was very proud of making that goal. I left Ollie’s game about 10 minutes early and started the drive north to the town of Rehobeth for Jonah’s game. Here on the Cape a few trees are starting to lose a few leaves, but we don’t get the blast of color that happens further north. Driving to Rehobeth there were splashes of color along the road which made for a delightful drive. Jonah’s team has won all but their first game this season, and today was no exception. Jonah was goalie for the first half, but he got his chance to score in the second. The minute that game was over, I headed back to Falmouth for Sam’s 5:30 pm game. The sun had already gone down behind the trees surrounding the field when I arrived and it was fully dusk by the end of the game. I let Ollie have my camera to get photos, but unfortunately the light level was just too low to get good pictures, but he tried. It was if the sun going down was a farewell salute to soccer for this fall season. Sam’s team lost and he was a very sad and mad. But we all went out to dinner afterwards, and he seemed to be in a much happier mood by the end of the evening.