by Judy Handley | Mar 5, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 64—Last Minute Scramble
Date: Monday, March 5, 2018
Weather: Mixed Sun, Clouds, Rain, Wind; High 41, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
This was a bit of a crazy birthday. I went to the gym and then came home to get everything on my computer backed up on the new hard drive I bought. I had wanted to do more file organization, but I ran out of time and just backed up what I’ve got. In focusing on that I lost track of time and was late for a birthday lunch with Olivia. When I got there, I was delighted to see that Olivia had also invited another friend, Midge Frieswyk. We had a very nice lunch at a Thai restaurant on Main Street. Thank you, Olivia and Midge. And while there, Peter and Karen Baranowski walked by. We waved them down and they came in to say hello. We are all part of a Newcomers Dining In group and it was great to see everyone on my birthday. I then headed home to get ready for my trip, but I was taking my time as I thought I had all day tomorrow. I went out to do some shopping for the trip and then on to Sam and Jonah’s Scout ceremony.
It was a very special night for Sam as he is crossing over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. Next door neighbor, Brian Keefe, is the Pack Leader, and he made sure the Arrow of Light crossing over ceremony for Sam was a special one.
Brought tears to my eyes and Sam took it all so seriously.
But while on the way to the ceremony, I got a text from Delta suggesting that I change my flight due to the storm headed this way. Evidently it is going to hit earlier than I thought, so once the ceremony was over, I hurried home and spent the rest of the evening dealing with flight changes. I won’t go into detail, but the bottom line is that I am flying out of Boston tomorrow morning at 9 am. I threw things in the suitcase, packed another suitcase of things I am taking to Justin and Jo, and hope I have what I need. I have money, my snorkel gear, and a couple of bathing suits, so I know I’ll be alright!
I have no idea how often I will be able to communicate via email and text while I am gone, so if you don’t hear much from me in the next two weeks, just know I am having a great time. I should arrive in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, by 5 pm tomorrow. I made a reservation in a hotel on the water and I will hopefully connect with Sam and Dawn of Windbird on Wednesday as planned. And thank you to so many of you who sent birthday wishes my way today. There is no time to respond, but I really did love hearing from you.
by Judy Handley | Mar 4, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 63—Birthdays
Date: Sunday, March 4, 2018
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High 41, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
If my mother were still alive, she would be celebrating her 110th birthday today. My brother-in-law Joe in Nashville celebrated 83 years of life today. Happy birthday, Joe! Tomorrow I celebrate 71 years, on Tuesday my dear friend Alan Kanegsberg celebrates his birthday, and tonight the Oscars celebrate 90 years. One of the early Oscar presenters tonight was Eve Saint Marie, who at 94 years presented so eloquently. So, I deem this a time to celebrate growing older with grace, vitality, and a passion for what you love. Happy birthday to all of us.
Because of the weather, today’s Scout Blue and Gold Ceremony was postponed until 6:30 tomorrow evening. It is a special one for Sam as he moves up from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. Heather had planned a birthday dinner for me tomorrow night, so we switched things up and had my birthday dinner tonight. We had my favorite, artichokes,
and Heather made some great gluten-free chocolate cupcakes. The boys decorated them with Lego creations representing each of us.
My Lego figure had long blonde hair—looked more like 17 than 71. Loved it! Heather had to leave after dinner to drive to Boston as she has an early morning work assignment there. So I really appreciate her efforts with such a busy schedule. And to top it all off, my birthday wishes were granted. When asked what I wanted, I said I wanted raspberry plants. I have such fond memories of Heather and Justin going out to the raspberry bushes to ‘pick’ breakfast when they were young. So raspberry plants have been ordered that will be planted on the Goldstone ‘farm’ to continue the tradition. I also got rhubarb plants. Heather knows my love of strawberry-rhubarb pie—the only dessert other than chocolate that I love.
We are still living with the aftermath of the storm. Trees still down, but most roads open; still lots of people without electricity; still no AT&T cell service so I am receiving only emails—cannot send or receive phone calls or texts. I doubt that this will get resolved by the time I leave on Wednesday, so if you want to contact me, please email.
by Judy Handley | Mar 3, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 62—W-i-n-d-y
Date: Saturday, March 3, 2018
Weather: Still Windy; High 42, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Wow! I knew the wind gusts were strong, but my weather-watching brother-in-law in Florida read that gusts to 92 MPH were recorded in Woods Hole. And I got an email from a friend saying there were recorded gusts as high as 82 MPH in East Falmouth where Heather lives. Since it is always gustier on the harbor than in East Falmouth, I have a feeling that some of those gusts that literally shook the apartment late yesterday afternoon were stronger than I suspected. It continued to be windy all day today and into the evening, and I think the forecast is for windy weather until Tuesday. I still have power and Heather and Jed got power back mid-afternoon. But there are many people who are being told that their power will not be back for two to four days. I have no phone service with AT&T, but I don’t know if that is a local issue. When I went online to try and figure out the problem, I see that people all over the country are having outages. If anyone has a clue as to what is going on, please let me know. In the meantime, it appears that I can receive short texts, but I can’t send texts or make or receive phone calls. I’ll have to go to the AT&T store tomorrow and find out what’s going on.
My day went like this. I got up, exercised, and headed to the high school for the annual Science Fair. Both Sam and Jonah had entries that I wanted to see. But getting there was not as easy as usual. There were trees down everywhere causing detours. I persisted and made it and enjoyed seeing Sam’s underwater rover built to hold an underwater camera.
He did this project with a friend and I think they really enjoyed doing it. Jonah’s class did engineering projects at school. His was a building made of paper, straws, pipe cleaners, and fasteners sitting on plastic tubes allowing it to be pulled forward on the rollers and let go like a sling shot . . . and the structure had to stay intact.
Jonah’s passed the test. And some of the high school projects were fantastic. After the Science Fair, I spent my afternoon doing a bit of this and that. I completed making granola that I will take to Justin and family in Puerto Rico and I started the packing process. Then I headed to the Goldstones to spend the evening with Sam, Jonah, and Ollie and I am still there as I write this log. Heather and Jed went to a Falmouth Education Foundation gala tonight. FEF supports innovative projects in Falmouth Public Schools that enhance teaching and learning and the annual gala is one way they raise money. So it is a nice night out for Heather and Jed while supporting a good cause. And I enjoyed an evening with the boys. I had planned to take them out to dinner, but when I got here, they really just wanted to stay home. So Sam dove right in and helped me fix a taco dinner. He took care of doing the taco meat with absolutely no help from me. And while Sam and I were in the kitchen, Jonah took my camera and got pictures of Heather and Jed all dressed up for the gala.
When did they get so grown up?
by Judy Handley | Mar 2, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 61—Rrrroar
Date: Friday, March 2, 2018
Weather: STORMY; High 47, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
The lion is here. The wind has been roaring all day and the rain has been pelting. I know we had 50 mph gusts early in the day as I watched my grill fly the 30 feet from one end of the deck to the other without hesitation. The last time that happened we had gusts of 50-70, so I’m thinking the grill only moves with 50 mile per hour winds. Thanks to all of you who sent texts or called to check on me. I am fine. At this point, we have not lost electricity or cable, and even though the windows rattled a few times, all is safe. Mary Ellen and Lee called around 5 pm and that seemed to be the height of the storm. While talking to them, I was hearing all sorts of strange sounds on the north side of the apartment. When we ended our conversation, I opened the door long enough to take a photo of the harbor to send to them. Here are a couple of views showing the rough waters.
What a contrast from yesterday when I saw the first flowers of this year in front of Heather’s house.
Yesterday the weather was a lamb, but today it was most certainly a lion.
by Judy Handley | Mar 1, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 60—Here Comes the Lion
Date: Thursday, March 1, 2018
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 57, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
A full moon rose tonight as we brace for March coming in like a lion. A massive nor’easter is headed this way. It will hit sometime between now and morning and continue into early Saturday. It’s going to be too warm for us to get snow here on the Cape, but we are supposed to get very high winds and lots of rain. Tomorrow sounds like a good day to hibernate, so I decided that I should head off-Cape today on the shopping expedition I had planned for tomorrow. I needed some food items from Costco and Whole Foods and also stopped at REI for a windbreaker for spring biking. On the way home, I stopped in Sandwich for a doctor appointment to check out the problem with my eyes and then swung by Hyannis to pick up my new glasses. Last week I returned the new pair that I believe started my eye issues and ordered a new pair with titanium frames and simple lenses with no anti-reflective coating. The doctor appointment confirmed that my symptoms do appear to be caused by an allergic reaction. The suggestions were Cortisone 10 to stop the eyelid itching, antihistamine eye drops, plus Benadryl at night to further calm down the allergy symptoms. I’m going to skip the Benadryl for a day or two and see how it goes. I’ll add it Sunday night if things aren’t better. But what a hassle and why was I allergic to eye glasses?
by Judy Handley | Feb 28, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 59—Aftermath of Earlier Computer Issues
Date: Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Weather: Sunny; High 50, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
As part of getting ready for my upcoming trip, I had to finally face the aftermath of the computer issues I had the first of February. At that time, I started finding photo and document files in the recycle bin and after days of trying to figure out what was happening, it turned out to be a Google Cloud issue. I fought with the problem for two weeks and when finally everything on my computer was uploaded to the ‘cloud’ I moved on to other things knowing I would have to come back to this at some point. Well, that point is now. I don’t want to leave without backing everything up on a new hard drive, but I don’t want to backup files and folders with things missing. My last backup was in August, so things before that date are on hard drives even if they aren’t on my computer. But it is the time period from August to now that I am dealing with. I got the missing Travel Logs on to my computer today and will continue to work on this until I feel confident that I have recovered as much as possible. Then I’ll back it up and continue my photo organization when I get back from Puerto Rico.
That is how I spent most of my day, but I did go to a class at the gym and I went to Corner Cycle to pick up bike. I took my bike in last week for a tune-up that was included in the purchase. I also ordered panniers (bags to carry things in) and I got the call yesterday afternoon that the bike was ready and that the panniers had arrived. My bike looks like I am ready for some serious travel.
Actually, I just wanted the panniers to carry beach paraphernalia for myself and the Goldpebbles and for bike trip picnics. Obviously, I’m looking forward to summer!
