by Judy Handley | Dec 13, 2016 | Life After Windbird 2016 |
Life After Windbird, Day 123: Quick Note
Date: Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Rain Early; High Temp 44, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
Just a quick note to say all is well. The day was filled with more cooking, shopping online and in real stores, and visiting this evening with nephew Tommy. In the midst of all this some malware took over my computer and thankfully Heather and Jed were able to help me figure out what to do temporarily. I use two different browsers and can now only access one of them. I’ll deal with that tomorrow. But despite that issue, Tommy, Patsy, Joe, and I had a great evening together.
by Judy Handley | Dec 12, 2016 | Life After Windbird 2016 |
Life After Windbird, Day 122: Special Visit
Date: Monday, December 12, 2016
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Rain Early; High Temp 50, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
The highlight of today was dinner this evening with my niece Janet, who lives nearby, and my nephew Tommy who flew in from Charlotte, NC, today. He is here on business, but the timing of his visit was perfect. Patsy and I spent part of our day doing more cooking and Joe and I ran errands in the afternoon. Tommy is staying at Janet’s tonight, but she is leaving on a business trip tomorrow. So he will return here tomorrow evening. Tommy brings laughter and happiness wherever he goes, so it is great that he could be here this week while I am visiting. He and Janet finished decorating the Christmas tree
and hung a 45-year-old Christmas decoration Janet made for her parents when she was a little girl.
For dinner, we had our Martin Family special—salmon cakes and greens and beans with mashed potatoes. The greens were kale cooked in the turkey broth I made on Sunday, not creasy greens cooked in bacon fat, and the beans were Patsy’s special spicy pintos. Janet and I don’t do dairy these days, so the mashed potatoes were made with unsweetened almond milk and everyone thought they were delicious.
I did a ton of Christmas shopping on Amazon tonight while watching the Patriots-Ravens game. And I even had a bit of time to help Patsy order a set of bedspreads for her guest room with twin beds. The bedspread on Amazon that met Patsy’s size and likability requirements had only two left in stock, so we ordered both. We will still do some shopping around in the stores here, and can make a final decision once the bedspreads arrive from Amazon. They make it so easy to return things if you don’t want them. What did I ever do without Amazon?
by Judy Handley | Dec 11, 2016 | Life After Windbird 2016 |
Life After Windbird, Day 121: Cook ‘til You Drop
Date: Sunday, December 11, 2016
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds, Rain Tonight; High Temp 55, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
Today was a kitchen day. Joe has a Zojirushi breadmaker that makes an absolutely delicious meatloaf, so at Joe’s request I made a meatloaf for dinner tonight. I made a huge batch of turkey bone broth using my special magic mineral broth recipe which is really an all-day affair, and cooked some parts of dinner for tomorrow night and Tuesday night. Patsy and I also had to make a supermarket run. So, the day was focused on food and we cooked ‘til we dropped. My nephew Tommy from Charlotte is flying in tomorrow on business, but we will get to see him tomorrow evening and Tuesday evening. We wanted to have as much of the meals prepared as possible so we can do more visiting and less cooking while he is here. And now I have turkey bone broth to make another of Joe’s favorites—a turkey and green bean soup. Joe watched football all day and Patsy worked on decorating the Christmas tree.
That was our day here in Mt. Juliet.
by Judy Handley | Dec 10, 2016 | Life After Windbird 2016 |
Life After Windbird, Day 120: Great Day in Nashville
Date: Saturday, December 10, 2016
Weather: Partly Sunny; High Temp 42, Low 25 degrees F
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
My niece Janet and I headed into downtown Nashville this morning. The second oldest church in Nashville is the First Presbyterian and they give space to the group Janet volunteers for on Saturday mornings. We spent our morning selling copies of Nashville’s award-winning street paper, The Contributor. The program gives economic opportunity to the homeless and those suffering from poverty. These people come in and buy the newspapers at 75 cents a copy and then go out on the street and sell them for $2. They get to keep the profits and they use this money to pull themselves out of poverty. There are wonderful success stories, and I truly enjoyed meeting the men and women who take advantage of this program. They are obviously serious about their newspaper sales, and at the same time, there exude joy through their seriousness. I left there feeling better about the world than I have in weeks.
Janet and I had a barbecue lunch on Broadway Street that houses Nashville’s honkytonk bars. And then we headed to the Tennessee Performing Arts Center to meet up with Patsy, Joe, and Monica. Somehow Google Maps on Janet’s phone had us walking in the wrong direction, but looking at the map we finally realized the mistake. I got Google Maps up on my phone and we headed back the way we came, all the way through town, and finally arrived at the Center to see Nashville’s Nutcracker. The Nashville Symphony played the music and the dancers from the Nashville Ballet were fantastic. It was a beautiful Nutcracker presentation. We then drove back to Mt. Juliet for dinner and headed home. It was a good day here in Nashville . . . despite the cold.
by Judy Handley | Dec 9, 2016 | Life After Windbird 2016 |
Life After Windbird, Day 119: Arrival in Nashville
Date: Friday, December 9, 2016
Weather: Partly Sunny; High Temp 36, Low 21 degrees F
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
I did arrive at Nashville International last night just before mid-night and arrived at my sister’s about 12:30 am. Patsy is a night owl, so she was up waiting for me. Joe had gone to bed and we had our reunion this morning. Joe made his famous Nancy Jane eggs for me for breakfast and Patsy and I did a little online Christmas window shopping. Technically, I guess you would call that monitor shopping. Then Patsy and I took off to do real time food shopping. I wanted to go to Whole Foods which is just south of Nashville. With no traffic, it takes about 30 minutes to get there. And as long as we were in the area, we stopped at Costco as well. I won’t go into all the details, but we had some ‘interesting’ experiences. The first one was when we returned to the car after shopping at Whole Foods. The front driver’s door was wide open and I was the culprit. When we arrived, I had recommended that we get bags out of the trunk. So I evidently went to the driver’s side of the car, opened the door, and popped the trunk. But then after going back to get the bags, I forgot to shut the door. Luckily people are honest and nothing was taken from inside the car. Then we went to Costco and things got even more interesting. When we got in line to check-out, Patsy headed to the bathroom, giving me her credit card just in case she didn’t get back before check-out. The lines were long and it took quite a while to get to the register. Still no Patsy. Then there were issues because I had Patsy’s credit card but my Costco card. It took an incredibly long time to check out and still there was no Patsy. I moved the buggy out of the check-out area and waited. Still no Patsy. At this point, I got worried that something had happened. I drove the cart down to the bathrooms, and there was no Patsy. Yikes! I had gotten a call from Joe a few minutes prior but the phone said it was from Patsy. She had left her phone at home, so I couldn’t call her. I finally looked out toward the exit to the store and spotted her. She was as baffled as me. She had come back from the bathroom quickly and couldn’t find me in line. I have no idea how we didn’t see each other, but it happened. She was sure something bad had happened to me and I thought something bad had happened to here. The whole mix-up extended our short shopping trip into a long shopping trip sending us home in the midst of Friday afternoon rush hour traffic with an accident on the road. But we made it and I have the ingredients to make my morning smoothie and some turkey bone broth. Now I just have to find time to make those things.
Tomorrow morning my niece Janet will pick me up by 9 am and I will accompany her on her weekly Saturday morning visit with some of Nashville’s homeless population. She distributes a newspaper that homeless people purchase and sell for a profit. She loves this project and her ‘clients’ and really wants me to meet them. While we are doing that, her partner Monica will pick up Patsy and Joe and we will all meet downtown for the afternoon performance of The Nutcracker. Hopefully, we’ll all have our own cell phones so we can find each other if we get lost!
by Judy Handley | Dec 8, 2016 | Life After Windbird 2016 |
Life After Windbird, Day 118: A Little Delay, but On the Way Soon
Date: Thursday, December 8, 2016
Weather: Partly Sunny; High Temp 47, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Harpoon I.P.A. in Terminal A, Logan Airport, Boston, MA
I’m sitting at the Harpoon I.P.A. bar in Terminal A at Logan Airport. While I was on the bus from Cape Cod to Logan, I got an email from Southwest alerting me that my flight would be three hours delayed. Three hours!!! When I got here, I went to the desk and they explained that there were “technical difficulties” and that the only way to get to Nashville tonight was to wait for a plane to come from San Antonio which hadn’t even taken off yet. Okay. Not much you can do but relax into an evening of reading (and drinking beer) at the airport. But first things first, I needed to find something to eat. I decided to head to the gate and look in that area for something. Bad idea. First, it is a VERY LONG way from security check-in to the Gate 18 from where I will depart. There was an escalator down, two long automated runways, and one escalator back up. And when I got there, there was nothing but fast food restaurants, a bar with no food, and a wine bar with food and no beer. So, I headed all the way back and found a place where I could get a salad, chili, and beer. I read my way through dinner and beer, and now I am back near the gate from which I hope to depart at 9:20 pm. The only thing here is a Harpoon I.P.A bar—not a lover of IPA or Harpoon—but the bartender found something for me that works. I still have an hour and a half plus a little to departure, but I can read my way through that time and the flight. I feel terrible that my niece Janet will have to come to airport so late to pick me up, but she insists. I know I’d do the same for her, but it is still no fun. Just thankful she is all in for doing so. Can’t wait to see my sister and brother-in-law and have a week of visiting with them.
