by Judy Handley | Jan 16, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 16: On the Basis of Sex
Date: Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Weather: Overcast with Two Moments of Sunshine; High 40, Low 17 degrees F .
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Friend Karen Baranowski and I went to see On the Basis of Sex this afternoon. This is the film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It hasn’t gotten stellar reviews, but we both still wanted to see it and make up our own minds about its worth. People I have talked to that saw both the RBG documentary and the film, really liked the documentary better. But I thoroughly enjoyed both. To me, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a true American icon and I think it is wonderful that she is being recognized for what she has done while she is still working to make the right decisions for our country. She is a living legend and I thought the film did a great job showing that, while at the same time, revealing some of her struggles without taking anything from her greatness. I guess I am an easy audience, as I give this film a 5 out of 5. Otherwise, it was a typical January day—some sunshine early, then overcast, windy and cold, then a peak of sunshine, then overcast and chilly. So goes winter.
by Judy Handley | Jan 15, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 15: Morning In, Afternoon and Evening Out
Date: Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 36, Low 23 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Things were changed up a bit today. I started out exercising and watching the opening of the William Barr Senate hearings. Then I got a call from Jane Woodin who was headed to my neck of the woods for an appointment and wanted to stop by to visit for a bit. We had a chance to catch up on my visit to Tennessee and Jane’s past week in New York City. She had a fabulous time, going to five Broadway shows and visiting museums. Jane had to leave for her appointment, but we promised to continue the conversation tonight as I was invited to dinner. After Jane left, I continued a frustrating battle I started late yesterday with Spirit Airlines. Yesterday I was not able to log-in as a member as they were updating the website. And today I just couldn’t get in. I was trying to make reservations for Justin’s trip here the end of February to stay with me post knee surgery. I called and got help, but even with help, I could only log in as a Spirit member on my tablet (which I never use), not on my computer. I had to leave to pick Jonah and Ollie up from school before I made the reservation, so that is first on the list for tomorrow morning. I took advantage of my time at Heather and Jed’s to do a little laundry as the boys spent their after-school time next door. Molly and Joey, the neighbor kids, just got a new puppy named Clipper and Ollie has decided he would like to move in next door.
As he told me this afternoon, he has wanted a puppy ever since he was born. I don’t think that is going to happen as Jed is set against it, but Ollie will keep trying. I have been considering getting a puppy in the spring. Maybe that will help fill the need.
This evening I went to Bruce and Jane’s for dinner. I took a Salad to go with their pork tenderloin cooked just-right, broccoli, and mashed potatoes with cauliflower which was absolutely delicious. Good dinner, good conversation, good friends. Life is good.
by Judy Handley | Jan 14, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 14: Same, Same
Date: Monday, January 14, 2019
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 34, Low 20 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Same, same. Exercise, puzzle, computer work, weather that the forecast says is sunny but looks mostly cloudy to me, trip into town to do some food shopping, stop for a quick visit with Heather to talk about Sam’s upcoming birthday this weekend, then home to cook a great Indian dinner. I made veggie curry and chicken Tikki Masala from scratch. No more using the tasty sauces you can buy at the store as they are made with canola oil. I don’t eat anything with canola as it is a processed, not cold pressed like olive oil. And actually, homemade sauce was better than store bought. Plans were solidified today for Justin to fly up from Puerto Rico to spend the first few days with me when I get home from knee replacement surgery. He had done a lot of research on recovery time and decided that he will come for the first four to five days when I get home from the hospital and then pass the support on to Heather. Hopefully by the time he leaves, I will be just fine on my own with Heather’s support for food shopping and cooking. I’ll have in-home physical therapy for a couple of weeks and then should be able to drive myself to therapy. That’s the plan. Let’s hope all goes well.
by Judy Handley | Jan 13, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 13: Sunday Indoor Soccer
Date: Sunday, January 13, 2019
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High 30, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Not a lot to report today. I continued yesterday’s work—exercising that knee and organizing photos on my computer. And then mid-afternoon, I drove downtown to the Community Center for a of hours of indoor soccer. Jonah’s team played at 3:00 and won their game. He scored all 6 goals for his team. He is a fast little player that takes every opportunity to make a shot. Sam’s team played at 4 pm and Sam played a really good game. I needed to leave 10 minutes before the end of the game and the score was 0-0, but after I left the other team finally scored. So, no win, but a good game. Tomorrow morning I’m going to go to my pilates class at the gym and see how my knee does with that. It is really hard to gauge just how hard to push. But one thing I know for sure, if you don’t use it, you lose it. So, I’ll give it a try.
by Judy Handley | Jan 12, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 12: A Little of This, A Little of That
Date: Saturday, January 12, 2019
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 31, Low 15 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I made progress toward my goal for today, finalizing the organization of two plus years of photos, but I added other activities out of desperation. Doing just the one thing all day long seemed untenable, so I did a little of this and a little of that. I have a very specific way of filing photos that I have kept up since 2005, but somehow since Mark’s death, I have only done half of the process. I am now going back through the folders and getting them saved in the appropriate places. Very tedious. I only completed 4 months out of 28 today, but I’ll call that progress. I increased the exercises I did today over yesterday, and my knee withstood that just fine. So, after sitting at the computer for a couple of hours, I went for a mile-long walk and made that just fine. I’m back to hobbling tonight, but hopefully after a night’s rest, the knee will be ready for another day. During another break from sitting at the computer, I put snow stakes in the drive-way. I had to search YouTube to find out how to put stakes in frozen ground. It is amazing that you can figure out how to do almost anything on YouTube. As per directions, I found a very long screwdriver and drove it into the ground with a mallet, pulled it out, and then stuck a stake in. It worked great. The only problem was that I had bought only 10 stakes. I’ve never done this before and had no idea how many I would need. Now I know I need at least 20 more. But since there is no snow in the 10-day forecast, I will buy more tomorrow and put a few in each day. I also walked down to the dock to check on things. There are so many ducks and geese in the area and they seem to be enjoying the almost freezing water. Silly birds!
by Judy Handley | Jan 11, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 11: Do What You Wanna Do
Date: Friday, January 11, 2019
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 31, Low 16 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The Isley Brothers had a hit in 1969 called “It’s Your Thing” and the words went, “It’s your thing, do what you wanna do.” As I literally did very little today, I heard those words in the background. But doing very little was just want I wanted to do, so I did it. I spent an hour working on the impossible 1,000 piece puzzle that I don’t think I will ever be able to complete. I tried doing a little exercise, very carefully watching not to move my knee in just the wrong way. I totally avoided exercising while I was traveling, so I need to get back into it slowly. What I did today worked okay, but still it did aggravate my knee. On Wednesday, the knee surgeon said to keep exercising, so I will add a bit each day. After exercising, I turned on my computer. I get a lot of emails from my ‘foodie experts’ and I hadn’t read any of them since I left for Maine before Christmas. So I caught up on those today and watched a couple of health-related videos. There were two suggestions for the new year, both very easy to do, that I will add to my daily routine. One was to breathe consciously, which really just means to take time breathe deeply every day. The suggestion was to take ten very deep breaths in and out before you get out of bed in the morning. Then get up and hydrate deeply. The suggestion here was to drink a half to a full quart of room temperature water, which can be flavored, as soon as you get up. And if you think of things for which you are grateful while breathing and drinking, you will have the first three of seven suggestions for a healthier year done in the first five minutes of your day. After listening to the health-related videos, I then made chili and vegetable soup. And that was it. I didn’t mention it in yesterday’s log, but I attended an afternoon Technology Tips class yesterday afternoon. The topic was ways to back up your photos and data that you store on your computer and I was reminded that there is a very long list of things that I need to do to get my photos in order. So I will get back to that tomorrow. What I have to do will certainly take more than one day, but if I focus on just that all day tomorrow, I should make good progress.
