by Judy Handley | Mar 31, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 90—Considering a Move
Date: Saturday, March 31, 2018
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 51, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
It was a beautiful, sunny day and the high temperature was 51, but for whatever reason, it felt really chilly to me all day. Maybe I am ‘frozen’ because I am considering a move. Just the thought of having to pack everything up makes me catatonic. Regardless, I am considering it. This morning Bruce and Jane Woodin met me at the prospective property to give me their opinion. We couldn’t get into the house but they could look in the windows. Their general thinking is that the location is great and if I can rent it, I should do that as I will save a considerable amount of money each month. It is tiny and there are issues, but probably nothing I can’t work around. So I’ll first see if the owner is interested in renting with an option to buy instead of selling it immediately, and if so, I’ll then make a decision.
I somehow managed to spend the rest of my day doing laundry and shopping for groceries, household items, clothes, things for an Easter Egg hunt, etc. The Goldstones are out of town tonight, but they will return tomorrow and I invited them over for Easter Sunday dinner and an Easter egg hunt. That means I’ll spend tomorrow getting ready for that. It is always nice to have an excuse for house cleaning as I seem to only get that done when people are coming to visit!
by Judy Handley | Mar 30, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 89—Easter and Passover Traditions
Date: Friday, March 30, 2018
Weather: Overcast and Foggy; High Temp 51, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus over 2,000 years ago while Passover celebrates the ancient Jews leaving Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. Both are determined by the spring equinox which occurred on March 20th this year. Equinox means ‘equal night’ in Latin, so ten days ago we experienced day and night of equal length all over the world. This year, the first night of Passover was today, Good Friday, and Easter will be on the second day of Passover this Sunday, April 1, which is also April Fool’s Day. Easter and April Fool’s Day occur on the same day about three or four times each century. The next time this will occur is in 2029, then 2040, and then not again until 2108. So make good with your Easter April Fool’s jokes!
But back to Easter and Passover. Easter is all about Jesus and Passover is all about Moses. Both of these men inspired people to strive for kindness, respect, and for justice for all people. I’m all in for that, so I enjoyed spending the day celebrating both traditions with the Goldstones. Since the Goldpebbles did not have school today but Heather and Jed needed to go to work, I went over this morning to be with the boys. I took things needed for coloring Easter eggs with natural dyes—red cabbage for blue eggs, turmeric for yellow eggs, beets for pink to red eggs, onion skins for marbled brownish eggs.
I enjoyed the morning with the boys as we hypothesized what color eggs we would get from the various natural dyes. The red cabbage was the real surprise. The boys were certain we would get pink, red, or purple eggs, but actually you get blue eggs from red cabbage dye.
The dye is ruby red, but the egg that emerges is definitely blue. So cool.
Heather and Jed both got home early in the afternoon, so I headed home for a couple of hours to work on Ziggy’s book. Then I returned for a Passover Seder. This is a Jewish ritual feast marking the beginning of Passover. The Seder is a feast that includes reading from the Haggadah, drinking wine, telling stories, singing, and eating special foods. When I arrived I was greeting by Ollie in the front yard playing hockey with Jonah, Jed, and Ollie’s stuffed panda that he got for his birthday.
Panda was also invited to join us for the Seder which was so cute.
I really appreciate being included in the Goldstone Seder tradition and the food tonight was spectacular. Heather made a roasted chicken with lemon, scallions, and green olives accompanied by spicy carrots and salad. Thank you, Goldstones!
by Judy Handley | Mar 29, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 88—Out and About All Day
Date: Thursday, March 29, 2018
Weather: Mostly Cloudy and Warmer; High Temp 59, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
My hope to have the time today to finish up Ziggy’s book just didn’t happen as I ended up being out and about all day and into the evening. I had a late morning coffee date with friend Midge Frieswyk to discuss education issues, something we both enjoy discussing. I came home long enough to eat lunch and then I was on to visit with other friends, Karen and Peter Baranowski. Karen has a relative that might want to sell or rent a property that Karen thought I might be interested in. So, I went to see the that. I left there and drove to Hyannis to do a little shopping, but as I am finding more and more, I should have stayed home and shopped on Amazon. The stores had nothing I was looking for and Barnes and Nobles was the most disappointing. I thought I could go there and look for books like I do at the library. But an employee has to do the searching for you, and I found it to be a very frustrating experience. I’ll stick to the library and Amazon from now on. I made a couple of other stops on the way home and didn’t get here until 7:30 pm. I spent my evening on the phone to family while making natural egg dyes. I will be spending tomorrow morning with the Goldpebbles as they do not have school. And if they are interested, we will color Easter eggs with the natural dyes. I got my incentive for this from my daughter-in-law Jo’s Facebook post for tomorrow’s Soul Food Friday at Finca Maravilla. Thanks, Jo!
by Judy Handley | Mar 28, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 87—A Day on My Computer
Date: Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 47, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
I made up for all that gardening exercise yesterday by sitting still all day today. I’ll hit a balance here soon, but I needed to sit still today and work on getting the book Ziggy wrote published on Shutterfly. I’m not quite done, but I made good progress. Then in the early evening I went to the Goldstones to be with Sam while everyone else was out and about. Heather was on the air fundraising. Jed and Ollie went to Kindergarten Curriculum night at East Falmouth. And Jonah was with Sam and I for a few minutes before taking off for soccer practice. I have to be out and about tomorrow, but hopefully I can find the time to the finish Ziggy’s book. That’s the goal for tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Mar 27, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 86—Harder Than I Thought
Date: Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Still Windy; High Temp 43, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
My goal for today was to plant 3 rhubarb crowns and then prepare an area at Heather and Jed’s to plant the 15 raspberry canes I got as a birthday present. With the help of Sam, Jonah, and Ollie, the beds for the rhubarb crowns were prepared yesterday and got those planted first thing this afternoon. But in order to plant the raspberries, I needed to remove the sod from a 30-foot long x 2-foot wide area. No problem, right? Wrong. As my body is telling me, I overdid it a bit this afternoon as I can hardly move tonight. I’m sure a good night’s rest will repair things, but I am anxious to test that belief. And the reason for the hurry in getting things planted is no longer there. I had seen a weather report showing rain for the next couple of days. I wanted the new plants to benefit from that rain, but now it looks like the only rain might come mid-day on Friday.
Tomorrow I am going to do some jobs here at home and then at 4 pm I pick Sam up and head to the Goldstones. Heather is on the air from 4 to 7 pm and Jed and Ollie go to Kindergarten Curriculum Night at 6 pm. So I’ll hang out with Sam and Jonah until either Heather or Jed gets home. Busy times for the Goldstones.
by Judy Handley | Mar 26, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 85—Making Spring Happen
Date: Monday, March 26, 2018
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Very Windy; High Temp 39, Low 29 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
As I write this it is 34 degrees outside and Weather Underground tells me it feels like 27 degrees F. The high today was 39 degrees, but with the wind, I am pretty sure it never felt warmer than 32. Freezing!!! But I decided to ignore that and proceeded to do things to make spring happen. And I invited the Goldpebbles to join me.
I went to the gym this morning for the first time in three weeks and it felt so good to get back into my routine. I came home and made miracle mineral chicken broth with bones of the chicken I roasted for dinner last night. After that had burbled for a couple of hours, I turned it off and headed to Heather and Jed’s. As I explained in last night’s log, I had asked Heather and family to give me raspberries and rhubarb to plant for my birthday, so this afternoon I went to Heather’s and started preparing places to plant these things. When Sam got home from school, he offered to come out and help me. He is now big enough to carry bags of gardening soil and to dig planting areas.
I left him doing that and went to pick up Ollie and Jonah. And when they got home, they wanted to help as well.
So we worked together to make spring happen despite the cold and wind. I will return to complete the planting tomorrow. Hopefully the wind will be gone and the temperature will be a bit warmer. Spring must be here somewhere!
