by Judy Handley | Mar 31, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 90: Reading, Readying
Date: Thursday, March 31, 2022
Weather: Cloudy, Windy, A Little Rain Early; High 59, Low 50 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Sometimes you get sucked into a book and you just can’t put it down. On my way home from North Carolina, I started reading a book recommended by Patsy Decker when I met her for breakfast on Sunday. She recommended it because it is partly about the Galapagos, and she knows how much I loved my time there. This is a Jodi Picoult book entitled Wish You Were Here. I say it is partly about the Galapagos because it is also about Covid and about relationships. It was just so much fun to relive Isabela Island in the Galapagos through someone else’s experiences. Last night I got to a point in the book where I really didn’t want to stop reading, but I forced myself to put the book down and go to bed. Then today I made a trip to the laundromat which gave me an excuse to start reading again. When I got home from the laundromat, I put the cleaning aside and just kept read. I finally got to a point where the book took an unexpected turn, and I was able to put it down. But it was too late in the day to do all the cleaning I had planned. You make plans and then life happens. Detta will just have to overlook the dirt. But at least she’ll have clean sheets!
by Judy Handley | Mar 30, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 89: Walking, Editing
Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Cold Early; High 46, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
2022 Life Logs, Day 89: Walking, Editing
Date: Tuesday, March 30, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Cold Early; High 46, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was mostly sunny, but the wind continued to come from the northern quadrant until mid-afternoon making it feel colder than the thermometer read. The good news is that the wind is now coming from the south and tomorrow should be a little warmer. I’m confident that I am not the only person who is clearly tired of the cold weather. I would like it to feel just a little more like spring.
This morning my friend Olga Mitchel and I took Shadow for a walk in Beebee Woods.
We walked to a pond named Punch Bowl. It is a beautiful spot, and we had a lovely walk. When I returned home, I started reading through The Voyage of Windbird manuscript that another friend, Patsy Decker, read to make editing suggestions. I embraced her suggestions and couldn’t wait to start making the changes in a copy of the Beta Reader ‘edition’ of the manuscript. Each time I have edited, I keep a copy of the old. I am on the fourth ‘edition’ and have no idea how many more ‘editions’ I will go through until it is time to say enough and start looking for a publisher. Today I only got through the first seven chapters as Chapter 8 requires some major rewriting. I have to change gears tomorrow, so it will probably be Monday before I get back at it. But I want to say a big THANK YOU to Patsy. She is a fantastic editor.
Tomorrow is ‘get ready for company’ day. Good friend Detta Porat from New Hampshire is arriving on Friday afternoon and I’m using that excuse to get long overdue house cleaning done.
by Judy Handley | Mar 29, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 88: No Place Like Home
Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Weather: Shockingly Cold; High 39, Low 25 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The comfort of home, no matter how grand or modest the home, is hard to beat. For me, there’s just no place like home. No matter how short or long the trip, I’m always happy to get home. The exception to that was when Mark and I were sailing around the world. We missed family and friends, but we had our ‘home’ with us.
Due to the fact that my day began at 5:30 am, this will be a short log. The trip home went without a hitch, but I am running out of speed. I flew from Charlotte to Newark and then Newark to Boston. It was cool while I was in Charlotte, but I was not prepared for the blast of freezing air when I exited the airport to catch the bus back to the Sagamore Park ‘n Ride. It felt shockingly cold, but at least it was sunny. I was at Meghan and Sheri’s to pick up my Shadow by 2:30 pm. I think he had a great time, but he was certainly glad to see me. And when he got home, he basically collapsed. I think we will both sleep in tomorrow!
by Judy Handley | Mar 28, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 87: Wonderful Day with My Sister Patsy
Date: Monday, March 28, 2022
Weather: Freezing Overnight, Sunny Day; High 65, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Nephew Tommy’s Family, Huntersville, North Carolina
My sister Patsy is my only living sibling out of seven.
My parents first child was born in 1925 and died shortly after birth. The second child was born in 1926 and died at the age of three of whooping cough. The third child was my sister Margie born in 1928. She died in 2005 of Alzheimer’s. The fourth child was my brother Bennie who died in 1964 when he was only 33 years old. Then came my sister Patsy in 1933. She will be 89 in July and I am so thankful to still have her with me. The last of the seven children was my brother Dickie, the father of Tommy whose home I am in tonight. Dickie was born in 1935 and died in 2010 of a heart attack. Then there was me, the afterthought, born in 1947. Today I got to spend a few hours with my sister alone and it was a very special time. She is beginning to have memory issues and is very frail physically, but today she was ‘on’ and we truly enjoyed our time together. I laughed until I cried when I was asking her questions for a personal history project. The question was about her favorite movie of all time. She went way back to 1953 and came up with “Three Sailors and A Girl” starring Jane Powell and Gordon McCrae. She added to that “Two Girls and a Sailor” as her second favorite movie. I don’t know why I thought it was so funny, but I truly lost it!
I returned to my nephew Tommy’s tonight and will head to the airport at 6 am. It has been a special and unexpected treat to get to see all of Tommy and Marilou’s children while here, as well as Izzie, their dog and sixth child.
Tonight, when I came upstairs to write my log, Tommy and Marilou’s sixteen-year-old daughter Olivia came out of her bedroom to hug me and tell me how much she loves me and has missed seeing me. I was so impressed that a teenager would take the time to express such feelings. It was another truly special time today. Although at first I was a bit taken aback by my sister’s decline since I last saw her, I have enjoyed every minute of this visit. As I learned today, looks can be deceiving. She is actually doing better than I thought. Parting truly is such sorry, but I am ready to head home. Hopefully by 4 pm tomorrow I will be picking up Shadow and going to check-in with the Heather, Jed, Sam, Jonah, and Ollie. I have missed them so much.
by Judy Handley | Mar 27, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 86: Mooresville to Asheboro to Huntersville
Date: Sunday, March 27, 2022
Weather: Frost Overnite, Sunny Day; High 61, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Nephew Tommy’s Family, Huntersville, North Carolina
Some days are so full of life that it is hard to muster the energy to write about them and this was one of those days. I started the day by ‘checking out’ of my niece Jennifer’s home and drive north and east to Asheboro to meet long time friend Patsy Decker. We met for breakfast and caught up on news from our families. Patsy gave me back the copy of The Voyage of Windbird marked with her edits and comments. It was just so wonderful to see Patsy after so many years and I am so appreciative that she took the time to be a beta reader. Can’t wait to have the time to read what she had to say.
I left Asheboro at 12:20 pm and drove back toward Charlotte to ‘check in’ to my nephew Tommy’s home in Huntersville. I haven’t seen Tommy, his wife Marilou, and their five children since July of 2019. Their oldest son, Josh, is now married to Erica and they live in Ashville. I had no idea they were going to be here today and was totally delighted to see them, as well as their son Ryan who lives in Myrtle Beach. Yesterday was his 28th birthday and he was here this weekend to celebrate. Then there was Cory, Madeline and her significant other, Cole, and their youngest, Olivia, who is still in high school. My niece Jennifer drove down with my sister Patsy and we had a wonderful afternoon of family visiting topped with a delicious dinner.
Tommy and Marilou lived in a different house the last time I saw them, so I also got a tour of the new house which includes “Big T’s Tavern” attached to the garage
and an introduction to their Bernese Mountain Dog, Izzie. Fantastic day.
by Judy Handley | Mar 26, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 85: A Working Day with My Sister
Date: Saturday, March 26, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Very Windy; High 66, Low 33 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Niece Jennifer, Mooresville, North Carolina
Well, it does look like spring here, but tonight the temp will dip to 33 degrees. And today the wind was blowing a steady 20 mph with higher gusts. Last night I made my green tea so that I would have cold tea to drink today and this morning I got up and made my green smoothie. I packed salad makings for lunch along with the leftover salmon and my niece Jennifer and I headed out. Feels like home. (By the way, Jennifer’s husband, Bill, is out of town this weekend, so I am not just leaving him out of my logs. He is not here.)
Our first stop this morning was Big Lots to buy two outdoor chairs, a low table, garden soil, and a large flower pot for my sister’s little concrete patio.
We went to Walmart to buy pansies to plant and gold ink pens to write in a family history book. Then we went to my sister’s apartment where I spent most of my day organizing. She moved from Nashville to Mooresville last June, but has still not gotten things arranged in her apartment to her liking. She had framed family pictures tucked away in about ten different places. I gathered them all together and put them on a bottom shelf of a living room credenza. Then I gathered all of her photo albums which, like the framed photos, were scattered in different places. Those filled the bottom two shelves of a living room display case. That was enough organizing for today, so then we started recording things in a family history book. It is really neat book that has more than two hundred prompt questions with spaces for answers. We didn’t get very far as both my sister Patsy and my niece Jennifer needed a nap. I spent their naptime typing those prompt questions into my computer. I cannot handwrite my sister’s answers fast enough, but I can type them and then transfer them to the book at a later time.
Dinner tonight was at the Olive Garden. The food was good, but the portions were huge. Nobody needs to eat that much food! And we had competition tonight as it was prom night here. None of us could figure out why they are having their high school prom in March, but they are. Tomorrow morning, I head out early to meet a friend that I have not seen for almost twenty years. Patsy Decker is the mother of one of Justin’s best middle school buddies from our time on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and we have kept in contact over the years. She now lives in Chapel Hill, so we are going to meet for breakfast at a halfway point. Patsy volunteered to be a beta reader for my book, and she has already finished her read. Meeting in person she can give me the edited manuscript and face-to-face feedback. Plus, I get to see her after so many years. It is a win-win. The last time we were together was at Heather and Jed’s wedding in 2003. Mark, Heather, Jed, and I had sailed up to Boothbay, Maine, for the wedding, but then Heather and Jed left for their honeymoon and I had to get back to work and couldn’t sail home with Mark. Patsy is a sailor and volunteered to be crew. I can’t wait to see her tomorrow. And after we part, I will drive back to Mooresville and a little further south back toward Charlotte to my nephew Tommy’s home in Huntersville. I will be staying there for the next two nights but driving back to Mooresville on Monday to be with my sister.
I heard from Meghan and Sheri this morning that Shadow is doing great. They even sent a photo of him herding their goats.
I wrote back asking if he actually herded the goats or chased them. Meghan admitted that it was a bit of both, but things are working out great. That is a relief for me. I miss my little guy, but it looks like he is probably having a great time and Meghan and Sheri are surviving.
