by Judy Handley | Dec 1, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 335: A Little Work, A Little Play
Date: Sunday, December 1, 2019
Weather: Overcast, Icy Rain; High 45, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Yikes! I can’t believe it is December 1st . . . only 31 days until January 1, 2020. I have obviously been sticking my head in the sand, refusing to believe that the holiday season and the cold weather of winter are upon us. But the tiny little balls of ice falling from the sky and landing on the front stoop when I took Shadow out after dinner brought home the fact that winter is coming whether or not I want to acknowledge it. And flipping the calendar to final month of the year tells me the holidays are upon us. But I spent my day ignoring that. I planted garlic, played with Shadow, spent a couple of hours doing a spreadsheet for the Newcomers Holiday Luncheon, and cooked dinner. So a little work, a little play, and another day vanished right before my eyes. Somehow as I get older and move a bit slower, time goes by much faster.
by Judy Handley | Nov 30, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 334: One Tired Little Puppy
Date: Saturday, November 30, 2019
Weather: Sunny; High 43, Low 23 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I wrote last night about how much fun Heather, Sam, Jonah, Ollie, and I had on our impromptu walk to the bogs with Shadow. But that fun came at a price for Shadow. He hardly ate any dinner last night, slept all evening, got up this morning just long enough to eat a little, and then went back to sleep until early afternoon. By this time, he had a little more energy and ate most of his lunch. And he had plenty of energy when I took him outside, so I decided that I could take him with me to see the Goldstones play soccer in a community game. 
This means everyone can play, parents and children. The problem was that Shadow was quite insistent that he should be able to play as well. 
There was no way I was going to be able to hold him back, so I let him say hello to the boys and then we left. I took him home and then went back into town to do some shopping and came home to do more cooking. That was about it for my day. I did do some research into how much exercise a puppy should get and it is only 5 minutes for each month of age twice a day until the pup is fully grown. Shadow is two and half months old so should only get 12-15 minutes of moderate exercise twice a day. He has been walking about a half mile with me each day, but the wild run on the bogs yesterday was just too much for him. He loved it and certainly has the energy to do it, but evidently too much exercise while a puppy is growing can cause joint and bone problems when they are older. So, hard as it will be for the Goldpebbles, we’ll have to slow down and go by the guidelines from now on.
by Judy Handley | Nov 30, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 333: Unplanned Fun
Date: Friday, November 29, 2019
Weather: Sunny; High 47, Low 25 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The highlight of today was totally unplanned and so much fun. Shadow and I drove over to Heather and Jed’s to pick up the portable exercise pen the boys had erected in their backyard for Thanksgiving Day. The thought was that Shadow could be in the fenced area while the boys were playing soccer. But it was too cold and rainy for soccer and we didn’t need the exercise pen. And since there is snow in the forecast for Sunday night, I thought I should get it in out of the weather. When we arrived, Heather asked if we would like to take walk. Jed was in Hyannis and she had been trying to get the boys to go on a walk with her with no luck. But when we said Shadow would like to go for a walk, we suddenly had very willing boys.
Walks with boys and a puppy are really runs, but I managed to keep up. I can even jog a bit these days with the knee replacement. So, we walked and ran down to the bogs, around bogs, through the bogs, and then back home. Everyone had a great time.
My other reason for going out was to go get my mail at the post office on the way home. I am the appointed person to whom Newcomers are to send their reservations for the Newcomers Holiday Luncheon. The registration deadline is Sunday and I wanted to make sure I picked up last minute reservations to add to the spreadsheet. Then Shadow and I returned home and I launched into a flurry of cooking. I wanted to make a homemade puppy chow and a Tuscan stew for myself. I got both done and fed Shadow his first homemade food, but I am wondering if that was a mistake. He loved it, but he has been very unsettled tonight. I sure hope this doesn’t continue through the night.
One of my goals getting a puppy was to make sure I am out and about multiple times a day and that certainly seems to be working. Every morning when we go for our early morning walk down to the dock. Each day we have been watching the twenty or so swans float about. This morning I was shocked to see that the water was so high that there was no island across from the dock. There is a new moon, but I have never seen the water this high. And there were Canadian geese instead of swans this morning. Interesting. I think I will find these morning walks most informative.
by Judy Handley | Nov 28, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs, Cape Cod, USA |
2019 Life Logs, Day 332: Happy Thanksgiving Day
Date: Thursday, November 28, 2019
Weather: Rainy Day; High 55, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Here’s hoping you had a Happy Thanksgiving Day! I went to Heather and Jed’s in the early afternoon and other guests arrived at 3:30. We talked, ate oysters and other appetizers, and watched Jed put together a fabulous mushroom wellington to add to the feast as a vegetarian alternative.
The dinner was fabulous with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, roasted veggies, Brussels sprouts slaw, cranberry salad, and the mushroom wellington. And for dessert we had a choice of chocolate pie, pumpkin pie, apple-cranberry pie, or pumpkin cheesecake. I still feel like a stuffed turkey! 
Everyone enjoyed the dinner, especially Ollie who decided he needed a whole turkey drumstick. 
And just a bit ago, I got an email from my daughter-in-law Jo in Puerto Rico sharing their Thanksgiving bounty with me. It is so hard to be apart from family and friends on special holidays, but photos sent across the miles really help.
by Judy Handley | Nov 28, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 331: A Day with Grandkids and Shadow
Date: Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Weather: Mostly Cloudy with Some Rain; High 60, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It’s late and I have to get the puppy to bed, so this will be short even though there were so many highlights today. Nothing earth shattering, just a fun day with grandkids who had no school. I had a huge list of things I wanted to do today, so I went to the Goldstones and offered a minimal babysitting fee for any grandson who was willing to come spend an hour with Shadow and help me with my chores. I got three volunteers, but I explained that it would be just one boy at a time. Three hours turned into the rest of the day, but I think everyone had fun, especially the puppy. 
Sam came home with me first and played with Shadow while I unloaded my car. Earlier in the morning I had gone to the lumber yard and the hardware store and had supplies that needed to be put away. Sam and Shadow romped inside the exercise pen I put together yesterday and when it was time for Sam to leave, I had him disassemble the pen and pack it in the car. When he got home, he re-erected the exercise pen in their backyard so Shadow will have a safe place to play tomorrow. 
I then picked up Jonah and Ollie, delivered Jonah to my house to puppy sit while Ollie went with me to the laundromat where he had a great math lesson figuring out how many quarters were going to be needed, the grocery store for more Thanksgiving essentials forgotten yesterday, and to Michael’s to buy a few things. We were gone almost three hours, so Heather had picked Jonah up when she came over to borrow some seating for tomorrow. 
Ollie then had his play time with Shadow. Heather returned with Jonah to borrow a coat rack for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner guests. They went home and a little later I took Ollie home and came home to make the traditional cranberry salad among other things. I quickly realized that I had forgotten to get the cranberry mold from Heather, so she returned with all three boys with the mold and everyone had one more romp with Shadow.
I have spent the entire evening doing the cooking for tomorrow that I thought I would get done today, and now to bed. There will be the six of us at Heather and Jed’s tomorrow plus four friends for a late afternoon dinner, so at least we have tomorrow morning to finish the preparations. Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.
by Judy Handley | Nov 26, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 330: Thanksgiving Food Shopping
Date: Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Weather: Sunny Day; High 61, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
There was a special holiday Farmers Market today, so late morning I headed to town to go to the Market and to finish up my food shopping for Thanksgiving. Heather and Jed ordered the turkey and Jed picked it up at the Farmers Market today. I bought butternut squash, cranberries, and Brussels sprouts to add to the dinner, garlic to plant, and green tomatoes and turnips just because they were there. I will make fried green tomatoes, but not for Thanksgiving. I then headed to other stores to buy items, none of which were all available at the same store. Oysters from the fish market, sparkling wine from another market for a Thanksgiving toast, other some items from the grocery. Then there was a stop at the Vet’s office, a stop at the hardware store, and a stop to get my hair trimmed. Three hours later I returned home and spent a great deal of the afternoon playing outside with Shadow. I put together his outside exercise pen and actually ate lunch outside while Shadow played in the pen. Then we went for our first long walk through the neighborhood. Tonight, I talked with my friend Lynne Kirwin who is flying to New Zealand for the winter on Friday. We talked about the 10 inches of snow and cold weather she has been experiencing in Michigan and she promised not to rub reports of lovely weather in New Zealand once she arrives there and cold weather hits here. It was beautiful here today with a high temp in the low 60’s. But if the forecast is correct, it won’t be this warm again in the next ten days, and maybe not until spring. I also talked to Heather and to Jonah tonight. Jonah and Ollie have recently taken an interest in playing the piano. Last week I arrived at the Goldstones and got to hear Ollie composing a beautiful song on the piano. This evening Jonah figured out how to play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. He recorded this on his tablet and spent quite a bit of time talking to me on the phone while trying to figure out how to send me the recording. He doesn’t have email or messaging capability on his tablet, so he had to send it to Heather’s phone via Blue Tooth and was trying to share it with me that way. We had technical difficulties, so I will have to see the recording when I visit tomorrow, but it was fun being on the phone with Jonah while he was trying to figure this out. Heather was in the middle of a “bountiful crisis”. Jed had brought home lots of veggies from the Farmers Market and they got a Misfits Market organic fruit and veggie delivery this week as well, so she had way more produce than she had room to store. Misfits delivers certified organic produce to your door for less than grocery store prices. It is called Misfits because it is produce that doesn’t meet the appearance test needed for supermarkets, but it is still tastes great. Hopefully Heather was able to figure out ways to store al of the produce. Tomorrow morning, I have an 8 am appointment with my primary care physician to follow up on reflux issues and then I will spend the rest of the day getting a head start on preparing all the food I bought today ready for Thanksgiving dinner.
