by Judy Handley | Dec 31, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 366: Garden Clean Up on New Year’s Eve
Date: Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny; Temp 49, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
On New Year’s Day, sometime between 1986 and 1988, Mark and I went to pick Justin up from an overnight at his friend Warren Decker’s house. Warren’s mother, Patsy, was out in her garden planting garlic. This was on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where winters are mild, but we had moved there from West Virginia, and gardening at that time of year seemed strange to me. But these days here on the Cape, planting garlic and doing a little garden clean up on New Years Eve no longer seems strange. We haven’t had a really cold New Year’s Eve since 2017. But the year before and after 2017, the temps were back to mild. I’m listing my Falmouth weather recordings since 2016 here in case you are curious.
2024 Mostly Sunny; Temp 49, Low 41 degrees F
2023 Weather: Partly Sunny; High 39, Low 31 F
2022 Overcast and Rainy: High 56, Low 46 degrees F
2021 Mostly Cloudy, Some Sunshine in PM; High Temp 45, Low Temp 43 degrees F
2020 Rainy Morning, Then Overcast; High 50, Low 29 Degrees
2019 Dreary and Misty; High 38, Low 28 degrees F
2018 RAIN, High 53, Low 38 degrees F
2017 Sunny and Cold; High 22, Low 7 degrees F
2016 Partly Sunny; High 50, Low 30 degrees F
I ran some errands and stopped at Heather and Jed’s around lunch time. Jed was at the boat trying to get it covered before winter truly sets in, but everyone else was at home and inside. When I mentioned that I had been working outside doing a little gardening, the “Oh, I haven’t planted my garlic yet” light bulb went off in Heather’s head, so she grabbed some garlic and went out to the planting boxes on the deck. I then realized that I hadn’t planted garlic either. November is the time most people plant it here, but this was a busy November with a lot of traveling and no time for garlic. So, I went home and planted my garlic as well. And as I did, I thought of Patsy Decker all those years ago planting garlic on New Year’s Day.
Other than the little bit of garden work I did today, I spent a lot of time thinking about the many things I want to accomplish in 2025. Before I go to bed tonight, I’ll pare down that list and write my to do list of big 2025 projects before I go to bed. But this is different from making a resolution. I don’t make resolutions any longer because I have one that I will need to work on every day of my life. On New Year’s Eve in 2016, I was in New Hampshire with my friends Detta and Tom Porat. Detta and I stayed up until midnight trying to solve the world’s problems. Then, just after midnight, I turned on my computer to write my log. I opened an email from Heather, Jed, and the boys sharing a wish for the new year: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” (Mahatma Gandhi) That is a lifelong resolution and I’m sticking with it.
by Judy Handley | Dec 30, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 365: Day Trip to New Hampshire
Date: Monday, December 30, 2024
Weather: Pouring Rain Early, Then Drizzle; Temp 53, Low 39 degrees F in Falmouth
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Today I drove to the Portsmouth, New Hampshire area, to have a nice, long, relaxed lunch with friend Peppe Christianson. She will fly home to the West Coast on New Year’s Day and our get together on my way home from Maine last Friday was just not long enough. Today we had planned to have lunch and then go for a seaside walk, but somehow we managed to spent four hours talking and having lunch, leaving no time for a walk. We met at the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel on New Castle Island near Portsmouth. The Wentworth was a Gilded Age grand hotel that survived until 1982 before its doors were finally shut. Then in the mid 1990’s it was listed as one of America’s most endangered old hotels. The notoriety around that listing saved it, or at least the part of it that was left, and it was totally restored. It is a lovely place to meet, eat, and talk away the afternoon. Peppe treated me to lunch, which was delicious. Thank you, Peppe. I look forward to our next meeting.
Tonight, I talked to my son Justin. I knew Coco was sick on Christmas Day, but tonight I found out that everyone in the family now has whatever Coco has. She still has a bit of a fever but is feeling a bit better. Hopefully by New Year’s Day the whole gang will be better. And after I had a late dinner, I talked to another close friend, Lynne Kirwin, in New Zealand. We managed to talk away the rest of the evening. It is New Year’s Eve there, so we finally had to hang up so she could join a few friends to celebrate. Happy New Year to Lynne.
by Judy Handley | Dec 29, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 364: Dinner with HJSO minus Jonah
Date: Sunday, December 29, 2024
Weather: Overcast with Mist; Temp 53, Low 50 degrees F in Falmouth
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
This morning I visited with my 91 year old friend Olga Mitchell. Olga, Shadow, and I are walking partners, but Olga fell on Christmas Eve and is out of walking commission until she sees a doctor. But we enjoyed a “sitting” morning, eating some of her Czech Christmas bread and drinking coffee. I sure hope she is back in “walking” mode soon.
After coming home and playing ball outside with Shadow, I did a little garden clean up. The weather was so warm that it felt like spring. Of course, that is not the case, but the reprieve from colder weather gave me a chance to do some things that did not get done this fall. Then tonight, Heather, Jed, Sam, and Ollie came over for dinner. Jonah is spending the night with his friend Kaiden, so he was missing in action. We had beef stew and salad with chocolate pudding pie for dessert. The boys bought Shadow a stuffed lobster for Christmas in Boothbay and they brought it over for him tonight. He loved it.
The Goldstones are not going to Vermont for New Year’s as planned. The weather is way too warm for skiing, so the group of Heather’s friends from high school days at St. Paul’s have decided not to gather this year. Tomorrow, I am headed back to New Hampshire to spend some more time with my friend Peppe tomorrow, but I will be back tomorrow evening to spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day here at home.
by Judy Handley | Dec 28, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 363: Just a Normal Day
Date: Saturday, December 28, 2024
Weather: Overcast with Some Rain; Temp 49, Low 43 degrees F in Falmouth
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
After all of the travel and holiday festivities of the past month, today was just a normal day. I spent the majority of the day food shopping and then doing some cooking as my refrigerator was bare. I just got a text from Jed saying they just got home. They spent the morning playing on the frozen pond at the farm in Maine and didn’t head home until mid-afternoon. So, all is well here. We are headed into a few days of warmer weather and rain.
by Judy Handley | Dec 27, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 361: From Maine to New Hampshire to Home on Cape Cod
Date: Friday, December 27, 2024
Weather: Sunny; Temp 30, Low 33 degrees F in Falmouth
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Today I drove from Boothbay, Maine, to Exeter, New Hampshire, to visit with Peppe Christianson. Peppe, who lives on an island near Seattle, Washington, is visiting with her sister who is undergoing cancer treatment. Peppe just lost her husband Bob in November, so I really wanted to visit with her to give her hug, even though we knew the visit would be too short. We met for lunch and then I traveled on. I got home at 4:30 pm, just in time to play outside with Shadow in the light of the setting sun. As always, it feels great to be home, but I did have a wonderful holiday in Maine. I have spent my evening writing a Facebook post covering Thanksgiving to Christmas. I’m copying that here as my holiday summary.
Happy Holidays to all! My holiday began at Thanksgiving, so this is going to be a long post. I flew to Puerto Rico to spend Thanksgiving with my son Justin and his family and after Thanksgiving, we went to get a Christmas tree and decorate it so I could be a part of their Christmas festivities. When I returned from Puerto Rico, I decorated my tree and watched as Heather and family decorated theirs. Then there was the Falmouth Christmas Parade.
Fast forward to today. I just returned from a Christmas and Chanukah holiday that began last Sunday in Cambridge. Along with my daughter Heather, her family, and members of Jed’s family, we celebrated Solstice and welcomed the Yule at the Midwinter Revels at Harvard’s historic Sanders Theatre. After the matinee performance, we did last minute Christmas shopping in Harvard Square and had a wonderful Indian dinner at The Maharaja. On Monday, it was off to Boothbay, Maine, for Christmas at the Goldstone/Welch family farm. The next day, Christmas Eve, we awoke to a world of white with snow still coming down as we listened to A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols service from King’s College in Cambridge, England, a long-time family tradition. There was a late afternoon walk down to the water which was just spectacular and then the traditional Goldstone oyster stew for dinner. On Christmas morning, it was fitting that the youngest member of the family, Ollie, was the first upstairs on Christmas morning. And as we checked out our stockings, we listened to John Stegeman’s reading of The Night Before Christmas on WCAI in Woods Hole. John was Heather’s advisor when she first came to Woods Hole in the late 1990’s as part of the Woods Hole/MIT Joint Program and now Jed works in John’s lab at WHOI. Over the many years, John has become a close family friend and on children’s stories on the radio. What a special Christmas morning treat.
We opened presents for hours, enjoyed Heather’s traditional monkey bread, went caroling down at the farmhouse, and ended our Christmas Day with the lighting of the first menorah candle of Chanukah before dinner. Four of five times in the last century, Christmas Day and the first night of Chanukah have happened on the same day.
On Boxing Day evening, Heather, Toby’s (Jed’s brother) significant other, Stephanie, and I went to see the light display at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. There was an “enchanting” forest with bigger than life wooden trolls that live there year-round. And for the holiday display, there were mushrooms, wild animals, and shooting stars, fields of flowers, marine and freshwater animals, birds, and more … all made of thousands of Christmas lights. And now I am back at home in Falmouth. What a wonderful month-long holiday I have enjoyed. However you celebrate, I hope your holiday was as wonderful as mine.
by Judy Handley | Dec 26, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 360: Quiet Boxing Day and an Evening of Gardens Aglow
Date: Thursday, December 26, 2024
Weather: Partly Sunny; Temp 31, Low 13 degrees F
Location: At Home at Marti Goldstone’s, Dover Road, Boothbay, ME
Things were quiet today. We got a demonstration of the Xbox steering wheel and Heather gave it a go. Not easy. We walked down to the farmhouse to visit John and Becky, Jed’s aunt and uncle. Ollie also got to sled down to the farmhouse and then Jed went sledding with him.
Tonight, Heather, Stephanie, and I went to see the Gardens Aglow at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.
Two of their popular trolls were lit up, Lilja and Roskva, and there was an “enchanting” forest with mushrooms, wild animals, and stars; and there were fields of flowers, marine and freshwater animals, birds, and more.
I heard Jed’s Uncle Johnnie say this afternoon that he has heard that there are seven miles of strings of lights, and I believe that. It was really quite spectacular. I have been to Gardens Aglow at Heritage Gardens in Sandwich and to Nights of a Thousand Candles at Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina. Heritage is lovely but doesn’t even compete. Brookgreen is a sculpture garden featuring American artists and their holiday lights, all white, are also truly spectacular. But this one rivels it. They are “same, same, but different” and both equally beautiful. Tonight’s Gardens Aglow included lights of every color. I loved going with Stephanie and Heather because they both enjoyed it with abandon, swinging in swings, walking rope ladders, and playing instruments in the forest. It is definitely good for the soul to stay young at heart and we did just that tonight.
