by Judy Handley | Mar 21, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 81: Happy 12th Birthday to Ollie
Date: Thursday, March 21, 2024
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High Temp 40, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA
Happy Birthday to Oliver Preston Goldstone! Ollie and Simon Ackerman were born on the same day twelve years ago in adjacent rooms at Falmouth Hospital. And now they live in the same neighborhood and can walk to school together.
This morning, Simon’s mom, Kate, took a great photo of the boys carrying their saxophones to school and this evening we had a family dinner at the Goldstones to celebrate. I went over to take Simon and Ollie to soccer practice at 5 pm, but they had both decided to skip practice. So, I took Ollie to Falmouth Pet Center to talk with Doug, the owner, about adding more fish to Ollie’s aquarium. Doug is always willing to share information and answer Ollie’s many questions. At Doug’s suggestion, Ollie is going to add the new fish after he has given the aquarium a good maintenance cleaning this weekend.
The Goldstone boys always get to dictate what we have for dinner on their birthdays.
Tonight, it was homemade sushi and chocolate cake. When I arrived for dinner, Heather and Jed were both busy making rolls.
Very impressive! There was sushi grade tuna and salmon, calamari, scallions, avocado, and cucumber. The rolls were beautiful, delicious, and cost about half what it would have cost as take-out.
Sam had to leave by 7 pm to go to soccer practice. He got to eat, but he missed the opening of presents and cake. I gave Ollie a subscription to Mark Rober’s Crunch Labs which are build-it-yourself engineering kits you receive each month.
Mark Rober was a NASA engineer who is now a YouTuber and just so much fun. He started Crunch Labs to get kids to think, play, and build like an engineer. Heather recommended this purchase and Ollie was delighted. Evidently both of Ollie’s grandmothers think alike as Grammy Marti sent him a similar kit from a different company. Jed gave Ollie a huge box of gray Legos. I asked why just gray, and Heather explained that she is forever being recruited to sort through the hundreds of Legos for gray bricks to build ships. But the biggest present of all was that a decision was finally made tonight on the lawn tractor to purchase. This is something he has wanted since he was two and it was his combined Christmas and birthday gift from Santa and mom and dad.
Lighting the birthday candles on the cake was quite the affair tonight. Ollie started lighting the candles with a grill lighter, but every time he lit a candle, Jonah would run through the dining room and blow it out. Jonah finally grabbed the lighter and hid it, so Ollie went to get a grill lighter that looked more like a mini blow torch. 
That did the trick and we finally got to sing Happy Birthday. 
And before I left, I shared the Welcome to Crunch Labs video that I received after subscribing where you learn how to make the best paper airplane ever. When I left, Ollie was adjusting the wings and the trim to make the plane do loops. He was one happy 12 year old tonight.
The rest of my day was spent in Hyannis getting an eye exam and ordering new glasses and then heading on to Costco to get a few items I needed. Tomorrow the only thing I have on my to do list is to go to my PT evaluation. Finally, I get to start PT post back surgery.
by Judy Handley | Mar 20, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 80: Happy Spring!
Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny Turning Cloudy PM; High Temp 49, Low 29 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA
Spring arrived last night at 11:06 pm, the earliest spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere in 128 years. It continues to be windy making it feel colder than the thermometer says, but when the sun was shining earlier in the day, at least it was a down vest, not a winter coat day. I spent this first full day of spring at morning long Encore general meeting and then spent my afternoon indoors catching up on things I had put aside to get ready for the meeting. But I did spend a big chunk of time outside enjoying the sunshine while playing ball with Shadow. I was enjoying being outside so much that I wore him out. He finally ignored the tennis ball and just plopped down on the ground. I took that as my cue to bring him back inside!
by Judy Handley | Mar 19, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 79: Tuesday Work-a-Day
Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Easterly Wind; High Temp 45, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA
Today was just a repeat of yesterday with the exception of taking Ollie to his saxophone lesson this afternoon. He was very sad because yesterday their male kitty, Mel, somehow got out the front door and ran away. When I talked to Ollie about his birthday coming up on Thursday, today he said all he wants is Mel to come home.
They put food in the garage and left one of the doors open part way so he could come in if he wanted. And Heather and Ollie were going to put up posters around the neighborhood. When I got a text from Heather later this evening saying they found Mel in the garage under Sam’s car, I immediately broke out in tears of joy. He is very scared and smells funny, but he is all in one piece. Now Ollie can get on with the birthday planning.
by Judy Handley | Mar 18, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 78: Monday Work-a-Day
Date: Monday, March 18, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Northerly Wind; High Temp 47, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA
There was sunshine today, but every time I went outside, I was freezing. The temperature wasn’t much different from yesterday, but that northerly wind makes it feel much colder. But, after all, it is not quite officially spring. Winter can have one more day, then I seriously want warmer weather! Just kidding. I know spring is a long, fickle slog, not erupting into summer until July.
I don’t have much to report today. I am in charge of the joint (Encore plus Newcomers) general meeting on Wednesday, so I spent much of my day getting the agenda finalized. This required checking in with a number of people and then putting together a PowerPoint presentation to match the agenda. I also spent some time researching what to get Ollie for his birthday. It is on Thursday, and I am behind the times this year. And I also did a little digging to see what I might be able to do to help out with Heather’s campaign for Select Board. That was it for my day.
by Judy Handley | Mar 17, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 77: Happy St. Patrick’s Day
Date: Sunday, March 17, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 52, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA
Ollie and I spent the entire day together just enjoying life and doing a little gardening. After a late breakfast, I went to the hardware store to buy garden soil for my new planter. On Cape Cod, St. Patrick’s Day if the traditional day to plant peas, so Ollie restrung the pea and bean tower,
carried the bags of garden oil from the car to the front of the house, and then planted the seeds.
We stopped for lunch, and he helped me get something done that I have been working on for two weeks. I got the growing flats ready days ago, but I had not planted the seeds. We took the flats outside where Ollie meticulously put the tiny seeds in each cell and then brought them back inside. I still need to get the grow lights up, but I have a few days as the light is not needed until the little plants emerge.
Heather left early this morning to take Sam and his friend Sebastian to a soccer game west of Boston and then she drove them into Boston to the Gardens to watch the Falmouth High School girl’s hockey team play in the State semi-finals. Jonah took the student bus from the high school to the game. They were not going to get home until after 6 pm, so Ollie spent the day with me. Jed stopped by early in the day to check-in and we decided on a plan for dinner. I picked up the meat at Wicked & Wood while I was out getting the garden soil and later in the day, he dropped off the red cabbage so that I could fix coleslaw. And we gathered at their house once everyone was home. Heather and Jed added mac and cheese for our version of a quick and easy St. Patrick’s Day dinner.
by Judy Handley | Mar 16, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 76: Science Fair, Mingle & Mix, Ollie Overnight
Date: Saturday, March 16, 2024
Weather: Mostly to Partly Cloudy; High Temp 52, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA
The day began in the Falmouth High School gymnasium where I went to see the STEAM Fair entries. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. When you add the A to make it STEAM, you are adding art ranging from visual arts, language arts and physical arts to music. The annual event where students presented science experiments used to be called science fairs but have now been extended to include more. For instance, this year Sam did not enter a science experiment. Members of his physics class built marble runs and entered those as an active display.
Jonah and Ollie both did science experiments. Ollie’s was titled Food Dye Filtration. His goal was to determine which select mediums did the best job of filtering out Red 40 dye.
The title of Jonah’s experiment was Food Dye Hyperactivity in Zebrafish. He found that food dye does affect the level of activity in Zebrafish, similar to the way it produces hyperactivity in people. He won a second place in the high school division and received a $250 check.
The top first place prize was a $3,000 college scholarship. When Heather and Justin were entering science fairs, there was no monetary prize. I think it is wonderful that today’s students get the incentive that hopefully encourages them to keep entering year after year.
In the early evening, I went to an Encore Mingle & Mix affair. This is a two hour get together in a host home where everyone brings an appetizer or dessert and their drink of choice. It is a great opportunity to make new friends. I left right at 7 pm so I could go pick up Ollie. Heather and Jed were at the Falmouth Education Foundation fund raiser where the high school jazz band provided the music. That meant Jonah was there as well. Sam was at an away soccer game, so Ollie had asked me if he could come over to my house for dinner and an overnight. He loves chili, so I made that ahead of time. I picked him up and we came home to eat and then watch another Star Wars movie. We have watched all of the major ones, so last night we watched Solo. It is about Hans Solo as a young man. I really enjoy learning the background history of the various Star Wars characters. And I love having the special time with one grandchild at a time.
This morning, Simon’s mom, Kate, took a great photo of the boys carrying their saxophones to school and this evening we had a family dinner at the Goldstones to celebrate. I went over to take Simon and Ollie to soccer practice at 5 pm, but they had both decided to skip practice. So, I took Ollie to Falmouth Pet Center to talk with Doug, the owner, about adding more fish to Ollie’s aquarium. Doug is always willing to share information and answer Ollie’s many questions. At Doug’s suggestion, Ollie is going to add the new fish after he has given the aquarium a good maintenance cleaning this weekend.
Tonight, it was homemade sushi and chocolate cake. When I arrived for dinner, Heather and Jed were both busy making rolls.
Very impressive! There was sushi grade tuna and salmon, calamari, scallions, avocado, and cucumber. The rolls were beautiful, delicious, and cost about half what it would have cost as take-out.
Mark Rober was a NASA engineer who is now a YouTuber and just so much fun. He started Crunch Labs to get kids to think, play, and build like an engineer. Heather recommended this purchase and Ollie was delighted. Evidently both of Ollie’s grandmothers think alike as Grammy Marti sent him a similar kit from a different company. Jed gave Ollie a huge box of gray Legos. I asked why just gray, and Heather explained that she is forever being recruited to sort through the hundreds of Legos for gray bricks to build ships. But the biggest present of all was that a decision was finally made tonight on the lawn tractor to purchase. This is something he has wanted since he was two and it was his combined Christmas and birthday gift from Santa and mom and dad.
That did the trick and we finally got to sing Happy Birthday. 
And before I left, I shared the Welcome to Crunch Labs video that I received after subscribing where you learn how to make the best paper airplane ever. When I left, Ollie was adjusting the wings and the trim to make the plane do loops. He was one happy 12 year old tonight.
