by Judy Handley | May 15, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 135: The Problem is Time … Not Enough
Date: Monday, May 15, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 64 Low 54 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Time, time, time. In my life, it seems like there is never enough of it! We are down to the line with boat work as the boat goes in the water on Tuesday, May 30th. Or maybe the 31st. Whichever, it is coming soon and Heather leaves town next week and doesn’t return until the night before the boat goes in. So, all of the cleaning and painting has to be done before she leaves town. I was in meetings all day today with just a break for lunch, so there was not enough time to drive to the boat to check to see how the teak looked after yesterday’s cleaning.
At 5:30 pm, I drove straight from my last meeting to pick up Jonah and Sam to take them to Harwich for soccer practice. Heather and Jed were headed to the boat when I arrived. So, when I returned with the boys at 9 pm, I got the full report from Heather. The teak results were mixed. It was obvious that where we were able to really scrub with the brushes we had, it looks good. But in the corners and other hard to reach areas, it needs a little touch up. I wish there was time to do another full cleaning, but there just isn’t. I will see what I can do to spot clean and hope that does the trick. We used Oxy Clean dissolved in warm water as our cleaning solution rather than harsher chemicals due to Jed’s allergies. You just put a cup of Oxy in a gallon of warm water in a garden sprayer and spray away. Then scrub. Spray some more and rinse, rinse, rinse. The Oxy seemed to work great, at least where we agitated the surface adequately. In my research, I read that oxygenated bleach is a good teak cleaner. When I asked Heather if she knew what oxygenated bleach was, she immediately replied, “Oxy Clean.” Who knew? Certainly not me. Technically it is a natural plant derivative product called sodium percarbonate.
Tomorrow and Wednesday are days as busy as today, and Thursday is only a little better. I think I might have time to breathe on Friday. In the meanwhile, can someone lend me some time?
by Judy Handley | May 14, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 134: Happy Mother’s Day
Date: Sunday, May 14, 2023
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 61 Low 45 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers I know, especially to Heather and Jo, the mothers of my grandchildren. I hope all of you had a wonderful day. For Heather and me this was not your typical Mother’s Day. It was our choice to work all day on the boat and to ban Jed and the boys from coming. We knew we needed to work as fast as possible to reach our goal for the day. Jed was on kid transport today, so all Heather and I had to think about was getting the last bits of the teak sanded, getting all of the teak cleaned which is an involved process, and then get the top sides of the boat cleaned. I honestly didn’t think it was possible, but we did it! To me that felt like the best Mother’s Day gift ever.
Heather and I left the boat a little before 6:30 pm, and then the whole family met at Shipwrecked on Falmouth Heights Beach for dinner at 8 pm. I just spent the last hour talking to Justin. So, my Mother’s Day is complete, and now it is time to get to bed as I have meetings tomorrow starting at 9 am.
by Judy Handley | May 13, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 133: Boat Work, Kanegsberg’s Visit, and Soccer
Date: Saturday, May 13, 2023
Weather: Sunny, Warm; High 763 Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a full day of sanding on the boat, greeting good friends, Alan and Helaine Kanegsberg, who drove down from Dedham to help out with some boat work, and then taking Ollie to his soccer game which was won 12-4. Thank you, thank you, Alan and Helaine, for your help. Alan worked some sort of magic that got the autopilot working. Fantastic.
After the soccer game that was in West Wareham, the boys were jubilant. Ollie and I celebrated by stopping at Somerset Creamery for our first ice cream cone of the season. Shadow was alone for ten hours today and I felt terrible. He did fine, but there is going to be another week of intense boat work mixed with Encore meetings. Christina Brodie and I are the Co-Presidents Elect and we have time set aside on the first three days of the week to meet with other Board members. So Shadow will have some more long days. I thought ahead, however, and have someone from Upper Cape Pet Services to walk with him on those days when I am away all day.
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and Heather and I have decided that what we want for Mother’s Day is the whole day to work on the boat with no interruptions. Jed will stay home with the boys and do any driving to soccer games while I sand and Heather finishes preparing the bottom of the boat for its first base coat. We hit a snag today because the existing waterline just didn’t seem right. Ollie and I stopped at Home Depot on our way home and bought a laser line level to help with that issue tomorrow.
So far, the weather has been cooperating. Heather only has next weekend here before she goes to Colorado on a work-related trip. She will be gone all of the next weekend, Memorial Day Weekend. The boat goes in the water on May 29, so that is the reason for the push to get everything done this week.
by Judy Handley | May 12, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 132: More Boat Work, Computer Set-up, an Encore Meeting
Date: Friday, May 12, 2023
Weather: Partly Sunny, Warm; High 76, Low 57 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I’m starting feel like a broken record. My days are filled with boat work, computer set-up, and meetings associated with Encore. I intended to spend 2 hours sanding the teak this morning, but that got reduced to an hour and a half. I had to stop at 10:30 am to get to an Encore organizational meeting. That lasted until 12:30 and I had to then hurry home to meet with Art Gilbert for an hour or two to get my computer into working order. It should have been simple, but it was not. At 5:30 we were still at it. At that point, I made a decision about how I wanted to transfer files. It wasn’t the perfect decision, but it was one I could live with. We set it up and left the computers doing their thing. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Art Gilbert. He refused to let me compensate him. What a wonderful gift he shares with friends helping them with their computer issues. I am deeply grateful.
I left immediately, made a stop at the hardware store just minutes before they closed, and then went to the boat and sanded until 7:30. I treated myself to sushi for dinner and am now shutting down and heading to bed. It is going to be a full weekend of more boat work so I am going to need all the energy I can muster.
by Judy Handley | May 11, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 131: Boat Work
Date: Thursday, May 11, 2023
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Sprinkles Late PM; High 69, Low 52 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I am writing this log on my new computer, but I set aside computer work to do boat work today. Since there was a showing of the cottage this afternoon, I took Shadow with me. He stayed in the car while I sanded, sanded, and sanded some more. And there is still more to do. But tomorrow I will divide my time between boat, computer, and Encore work. Hopefully by Saturday, the teak on the boat will be ready to be cleaned with a teak cleaner.
I left the boat at 3:15 this afternoon to head to Lawrence School to pick up Jonah after a field trip day on Cuttyhunk Island. I dropped him at home while I went to Staples to buy a mouse and the adapter I need to connect it to my computer. I got the mouse, but no adapter. I took Jonah to his bass lesson and when I returned Jed was home. Thankfully he was able to find one that belongs to Sam that I can use until I can get one from Amazon and he was able to use a handsaw to cut a sanding block to the width I need to do some final sanding tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be boat work early, Encore interviews mid-day, meeting with computer ‘helper’ at 1 pm, back to boat at 3 pm . Hopefully after my meeting with Art Gilbert, the Newcomers techy guru, I will have a handle on using and transferring data to my new computer. And hopefully the boat sanding will be completed. I think that is a stretch, but it is my hope. Wish me luck.
by Judy Handley | May 10, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 130: Working on Getting Connected
Date: Wednesday, May10, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 63, Low 54 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The saga continues. I had a very busy day and did not get to start working on my new computer until tonight. Oh my, the things one takes for granted until you don’t. The new computer has a touch pad and a touch screen. But it does not have two ‘old fashioned’ USB ports. So, I can’t have my current hard drives connected to download files and use my ‘old fashioned’ mouse at the same time. I will go to Staples first thing in the morning to see if there is a mouse that can plug into the newer USB C ports. Or maybe I can get a USB C hub that has two or three regular USB connectors I can plug into. I literally don’t know how to cut and paste using the touch pad. Once I can use a mouse with a hard drive connected to the new computer, I can start copying My Documents from the old computer onto a hard drive and then saving the files and folders on the new computer. But I need my mouse to do this. I have the techy ‘king’ of Newcomers coming on Friday afternoon to help me transfer files, get apps on the new computer, etc, etc. But until then I will limp along.
This morning I attended my first Encore Board meeting. Those of us who will be the new officers for 2023-24 were invited to observe. That took longer than I expected as, along with the other co-president elect, Christina Brodie, we started our “Getting to Know You” interviews with other Board members. I left downtown around noon, dropped a huge load of bedding at the laundromat, headed home to grab a bite to eat and let Shadow out, went back to the laundromat to put the bedding in the dryer, and got back to Sullivan Tire for a 1 pm appointment to change the oil, rotate the tires, and install a new driver’s side brake light. Whew! Then it was back to the laundromat to pick up the laundry, go back home to walk with Shadow, and then come back to town to pick Ollie up and take him to his saxophone lesson. By the way, the reason I had to wash all the bedding is that Shadow threw up on the bed. Since I got home from North Carolina, his stomach has just not been settled. I do think it is better today. I sure hope so as these trips to the laundromat are killing me.
This day would have been so much easier if I were already living at the new house in town. I look forward to that. By the time I did finally get home, I needed time to just do nothing, so I watched the latest episode of Ted Lasso before attacking the computer issues. Tomorrow, I work on the boat all day, so the computer work just has to wait until Friday. But it is coming along.
