by Judy Handley | Jan 28, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 28—Indoor Soccer and Loving Vincent
Date: Sunday, January 28, 2018
Weather: Sunny, Warmer and Windy; High 51, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
This afternoon I went to see Jonah play soccer and like last week, he scored three goals and his team won. It is such a joy to watch him play because he puts his heart and soul into and gets so excited when his team makes a goal. Jed was the coach today, but after the game I offered to take Jonah home, pick up Sam, and bring him back for his game at 4pm while Jed went to do the weekly grocery shopping. I got to watch Sam play half his game and got to see him make a goal before I had to leave. Good job, Sam and Jonah!
Then I was off to have an early dinner with a friend from Newcomers before we both went to the Cotuit Center for the Arts to see the most unusual film I have ever seen, “Loving Vincent.”
“Loving Vincent”, as in Vincent van Gogh, advertises itself as the first-ever fully painted feature film. In the tradition of van Gogh’s bold impressionistic brushstrokes, what you see on the screen is an account of the final weeks of his life with beautiful renderings of the French countryside and characters portraying his real-life acquaintances. Visually, the entire film looks like an animated van Gogh painting. His sunflowers,
his wheatfield with crows,
his starry, starry night,
and so many other of his most famous works are woven throughout and it was not until half-way though the film that I realized that the painted, animated characters were not straight out of his paintings, but were the painted faces of real actors. It was when I saw Eleanor Tomlinson, Dezmelda from Masterpiece Theater’s Poldark series, as one of the painted characters that I could wrap my head around how this was done.
It was a visual treat and a very powerful film. I’ve certainly never seen anything like it before. And it was fun to meet up with friend Olga Mitchell and friends and to attend with Margaret Souza.
by Judy Handley | Jan 27, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 27—Updating the Refrigerator Photos
Date: Saturday, January 27, 2018
Weather: Sunny, Warmer and Windy; High 51, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
How, you might ask, could one spend the entire day updating the five photos of grandkids that are posted on the refrigerator. I am here to tell you that this is possible, because I just spent the day doing just that. But, of course, in wading through all of the photos I took in 2017, none of which I have properly organized, I kept getting lost just enjoying looking at the year in review. So, it took a very long time to choose the best photo of each grandchild to add to my refrigerator collection. In 2015, I hung a 5 x 7 photo of each grandchild from a book shelf in the main salon on Windbird. Those photos were from 2014. I kept intending to get those updated, but here it is 2018 and I just got the job done today. I had photos from 2016 in a folder ready to print, but that never got done . . . until today. So, I now have 2014, 2016, and 2017 printed and in the magnetic frames decorating the front of my refrigerator. On another day, I will have to go back and do 2012, 2013, and 2015. But I am happy for now. Getting close-up shots of the grandkids gets harder as they get older. They simply do not want to pose for a picture without making monkey faces. I have lots of action shots, but those don’t work for the close-up portraits. I also chose photos from the two family gatherings we had this year to put frame collage-style. I ordered those through CVS online just like I did the photos of the grandchildren, but I must have checked the wrong box as they are coming snail mail instead of instant pick-up. A bit of success today . . . one more photo job done and another half-way there.
The weather was much warmer today making it feel almost spring-like even though it was very windy. I had planned to take off mid-afternoon to go see The Shape of Water and had thought about going to a Jim Croce film in Woods Hole tonight, but neither of those things happened. I’ll go see The Shape of Water one afternoon next week. Tomorrow Sam and Jonah have afternoon soccer games that I will attend, and then I am going to see the art film, Loving Vincent (van Gogh), at the Cotuit Center for the Arts. I’m going with friends, so I won’t back out of that.
by Judy Handley | Jan 26, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 26—Focus on Photos
Date: Friday, January 26, 2018
Weather: Sunny and Chilly; High 34, Low 24 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
I promised myself I would focus on photos today, and I did. The living room and hall walls in this apartment are bare. They have been waiting for me to choose photos from around the world to decorate them, so today I got started. I ordered three canvas wall prints, my two favorites of Windbird,
01 Windbird Flying Flags of Countries Visited During Circumnavigation
SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA
They will all arrive on February 8. In the meantime, I will choose other photos, but I won’t order until I see what I think of the ones ordered today. I made progress. And I went to the gym to exercise. This is all good.
by Judy Handley | Jan 25, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 25—Focus on Food
Date: Thursday, January 25, 2018
Weather: Sunny but Cool; High 32, Low 18 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Why is it so hard these days to figure out what to eat in order to stay healthy? I don’t have a complete answer to that question, but I struggle with it on a daily basis. Because I am constantly seeking the most up-to-date information, I am constantly learning new things. Most recently I have been searching out ways of fighting osteoarthritis and am two days into an elimination diet to see if eliminating certain foods from my diet will help with the pain in my left knee. This diet requires that I eat no dairy, no wheat, no soy, no corn, no eggs, no sugar, no nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, or peppers), no food additives, preservatives, or dyes, no coffee, no alcohol. Okay, I drew the line at no alcohol, but I am eliminating everything else. While doing this you have to eat as close to100 per cent organic as possible and focus on eating lots of colorful vegetables (minus the red tomatoes and colorful peppers). One day into this experiment, I got a call from a niece who is experiencing a bout of extremely high blood pressure. Her doctor put her on a low dose of medication and told her to exercise and eat a healthy diet to see if that will help her lose weight, and in turn, bring down the high blood pressure numbers. They will meet again in four weeks, and if my niece has been successful in adjusting her diet and exercising, the doctor will consider removing the medication. My niece, knowing I put a huge amount of effort into eating a heathy diet, called me asking me for advice on what to eat. I had some basic suggestions, but today, in searching for specifics for her, I came across information on lectins in our diet and how they (lectins) are helping to make us fat. Lectins are found in those same nightshade plants that I have had to eliminate for the arthritis diet. Hmmm . . . Foods that are high in lectins appear to be related to leaky gut syndrome and having a leaky gut can cause the pain of arthritis to be more severe and if you are already quite overweight, it can make it almost impossible to lose that weight. I’ll not bore you with the details, but I’ll check back in with you in two weeks to let you know if this elimination diet has helped me. If not, then I need to add something called a pre (not pro) biotic. Eating should not be so difficult!
I went to the gym this morning, came home and canned the new batch of chicken mineral broth, and started a long-term project of choosing photos from around the world to put on the walls in my apartment. That should be a fun project. I’ll share my choices when they are made.
by Judy Handley | Jan 24, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 24—Big Berkey Water Filter
Date: Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Weather: Sunny; High 44, Low 19 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Today I made a little progress toward my goals for the week. I feel like I am inching forward like a snail, but I am inching forward. I did get my new water filtering system up and running and I emptied two big plastic bins into my father’s old antique dresser. It looks much nicer than the plastic bins sitting in my hallway. And then I went to Heather’s to get my canner and I stayed with the boys until Jed got home from work. Heather had to leave to go to an evening Pub Radio Night. So it was a good day. Since I live in an apartment I decided to go with the same free standing water filter that Justin and Jo have in Puerto Rico. It is all stainless steel, no plastic, and requires no electricity. In addition, it is more effective than any other water filters I compared it to. It does take up a bit of counter space, but clean water for drinking and cooking is a top priority. So I gladly give up the space.
Ahh, the weather. Tomorrow and Friday will be back down in the 30’, Saturday, Sunday, Monday warmer in the 40’s, Tuesday back in the 30’s with a chance of snow, Wednesday cold, then Thursday and Friday back in the 40’s. Tonight and tomorrow night we have nighttime lows in the teens, as well as next Tuesday, but the rest of the days the low will be in the 20’s or low 30’s. Cold, but not too bad for now. It is winter on Cape Cod.
by Judy Handley | Jan 23, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 23—Tai Chi to National Town Hall on Facebook
Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Weather: Stormy with Lots of Rain; High 51, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Wow! I just finished watching The Medicare for All National Town Hall live on Facebook from Washington, DC, moderated by Bernie Sanders. As he said tonight and has maintained for y64 ears, “It’s time to make health care a right.” But what I was most impressed with tonight was that using Facebook as the vehicle for this town meeting, there were no commercials, no corporate institutions making demands on what could and what could not be presented. There were three panels, each representing different groups, one medical, one business, and one international. It was an impressive hour and 45 minutes and I applaud Senator Sanders for continuing to bring information to the American public.
My day started with a phone call from Justin and then Tai Chi class. When I explained to Justin that I had to get off the phone to go to Tai Chi, he responded by saying that I seem to spend a lot of time going to the gym. Tai Chi is not the same as exercise at the gym, but it is true that I dedicate a portion of each day to exercise. The addition of Tai Chi is simply adding a piece of calm to my life and it adds learning something new. There are 64 moves in the type of Tai Chi practiced by the group I attend, and I am only on move number 3. It will take a couple of years to learn all 64 moves and then you spend the rest of your life trying to master those moves.
Justin is still playing catch-up trying to complete business projects that were started before Maria hit. He was already paid for some of those projects, so most of the work he is doing now is not bringing in new money. But completing those jobs is what will keep his business afloat. He is working long, long hours, but hopefully he will soon finish off the old jobs and start working on the new. And at least there are jobs. But I know working 18 hours a day is no fun. Jo’s sister and her family are visiting this week from England, so hopefully Justin will be able to take a break and enjoy time with the family.
We had lots of rain here today. Heather was in Boston, but I sent a text offering to go pick up Sam at the bus stop after school. He has to walk about a half mile from there to home and it was pouring. Heather got back to me saying that she was sure Sam would appreciate that, so I picked up Sam and couple of other kids from neighborhood and drove them home. The heavens decided to literally dump on us just about the time their bus arrived, so I was glad that I had made the offer. I had to go to the grocery store anyway, so as long as I was out and about, picking the kids up was no problem. And the bonus was that I got to see Sam’s new drum set that he got for his birthday and he gave me a private concert.
As Heather said over the weekend, there is probably a teenage basement band in the making.
I made chicken mineral bone broth today which is all day affair. I totally forgot to pick up the canner and jars when I was at Heather’s this afternoon, so I will have to get those things tomorrow. But the broth is made and will be fine in the refrigerator for a day or so. Tomorrow I hope to finally get my new water filtering system up and running. That was a goal for today, but I just didn’t get there. Thankfully there is always tomorrow!
