by Judy Handley | Apr 11, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 101: Book Club, Power Issues, and Garden Work
Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 62, Low 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
My work on Heather and Jed’s boat to remove old varnish has been put on hold while we figure out how to get reliable power to the boat to run a heat gun. I made calls today and found that I can get my Honda 2000i generator serviced, but not until next week at the earliest. I will take it to the dealer where I bought it in Wareham tomorrow afternoon and hope, by some miracle, they can get to it sooner than expected. In the meantime, I am turning my attention to disassembling the raised beds and the drip irrigation system in the front yard. Karen and Peter have offered to come help me do the garden work tomorrow morning, so I did as much prep work for that as I could late this afternoon. My goal is to move the raised bed boards that are not rotten and as much of the organic soil as possible to the house in town where I will be living as of July 1.
My book group met at 11 am this morning. All but one of us met in person. But one member has a very nasty cold and met with us via Zoom. It was the first time all of us have been together for months and we spent more time catching up on life than discussing the book of the month. That was fine with me because I read only half of the book before setting it aside. It was too much like a textbook to be enjoyable, so I made a conscience decision to just stop reading it.
by Judy Handley | Apr 10, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 100: Thrown Off Course, Again
Date: Monday, April 10, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 55, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I’d like to be focusing on removing old varnish from the boat, but I keep getting thrown off course. I had one successful day on the boat, but that day ended early as I lost electricity to run the heat gun. I’m not sure why it worked for a couple of hours and then it just went away. I thought maybe it was my heat gun, so I bought a new one. I went back the next day, but no go. So now we are exploring using my old Honda generator. So that saga will continue.
I was truly thrown off course in early February when I found out that the cottage was going to be sold. Thankfully I was told that I could continue to live here until I could find a new place to rent and that the cottage wouldn’t be put on the market until I moved out. I did find a place that I will move to the first of July, so I started working on getting ready to move. Then last week I was told that landscapers would be coming soon and that I needed to decide what I want to do about the raised beds gardens I put in the front yard. That threw me for another loop. Then today I was told that there will be an open house for realtors on Sunday. And that threw me off course, again. If you have ever lived in a home that has to be shown to interested buyers while you are living in it, you know what a hassle that can be. But I need to quickly get ready for that. Just when I want to be focusing on the boat, I need to be focusing on the yard and the inside of the house and the basement at the same time. It is a lot. Hopefully I do a better job of dealing with all of this tomorrow as today I got almost nothing done.
My day started with the septic tank inspector’s early arrival. I was told to expect him yesterday and that I didn’t need to be home as they knew where the tanks for the cottage and Shirley’s home were located. But this morning the inspector was knocking on my door asking if I knew the location of Shirley’s septic tank. I could direct him to mine, but I had no idea where Shirley’s was. So, then he asked if I had access to Shirley’s house. I do, so you can see where this was heading. I basically spent the first hour and a half of my day dealing with all that, and then I was told about Sunday’s open house.
On Mondays, I now pick Sam up at 3 pm and head to Harwich for his rowing practice. He rows for two hours and during that time I go get dinner for him to eat as we drive to soccer practice. I dropped him off in Dennis for soccer practice and headed home. He was getting a ride home with a friend. I took Shadow with me, and we had a nice long walk while Sam was rowing. By the time Shadow and I got home, it was almost dark, so we headed inside to have dinner and relax before we launch into another day. I’m just hoping there will be no more surprises in my life tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Apr 9, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 99: Easter Sunday
Date: Sunday, April 9, 2023
Weather: Sunny (still felt a bit chilly); High 48, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
To me, Easter Sunday is a day to celebrate spring. There is always a bit of Easter bunny fun fun thrown in, but it is mostly a time for me to focus on the new plant and animal life that emerges at this time of year. I invited Heather and family over for dinner this evening to help me in that celebration. I got to hear a little about their evening at Gillette Stadium yesterday where Ollie’s soccer team played a scrimmage on the field
before the Boston Revs took over. And the boys were very excited that the Revs won 4-0. Today they spent their day cleaning up the backyard. I heard from Justin and Jo and they were also celebrating spring today, but their version was a quiet day at Steps Beach,
one of my favorites. Happy spring!
by Judy Handley | Apr 8, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 98: Soccer Saturday
Date: Saturday, April 8, 2023
Weather: Sunny (but felt chilly); High 47, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
This was truly a soccer Saturday. I went to Ollie’s 10 am game in Mashpee,
drove straight home to take Shadow out for a pee break and have one myself, and then I drove into Falmouth to pick up Jonah. When I got to Heather and Jed’s, I discovered that I had left my phone at home when I made the quick pit stop. There was no time to go back to get it, so we used Jonah’s phone for directions as I had no idea where I was going. I took him to his game in Somerset, north of Fall River, which is a little more than hour’s drive. I watched the game, then at 3 pm Jonah and I headed 45 minutes north to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough so he could meet up with the whole family. Ollie’s team was playing a scrimmage on the field at Gillette Stadium before a Boston Revs soccer game tonight. Once I dropped Jonah off, I headed home. I volunteered to do the stint with Jonah today so the Goldstones could drive home together after the game tonight. If Heather or Jed had taken him, they would have had two cars.
When I got home, I took Shadow for a walk and then headed to the grocery store to do Easter dinner shopping as I am hosting the Goldstones tomorrow night. I hope they took photos of Ollie playing on the big stadium field. If so, I’ll share those tomorrow night. And since I didn’t have my phone, I have no photos of Jonah’s game. I did a lot of driving today, but I enjoyed it. Then watched more episodes of Ted Lasso tonight.
by Judy Handley | Apr 7, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 97: Happy 14th Birthday to Ziggy
Date: Friday, April 7, 2023
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 57, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Fourteen years ago today, Ziggy Milo Handley entered this world in Sante Fe, New Mexico,
02 Oma Holds Ten Day Old Ziggy
I feel so blessed to be able to be able to watch as my grandchildren grow up.
And tonight, I was invited to a Seder with my Cape Cod grandchildren.
Wednesday night was Passover, but having a Seder on a school night was more than could be handled this year with everyone’s busy schedules. Tonight was perfect and now we launch into a busy weekend.
by Judy Handley | Apr 6, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 96: A Pink Full Moon
Date: Thursday, April 6, 2023
Weather: Rain early, then Mostly Cloudy; High 53, Low 45 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The full moon in April is called the Pink Moon, not because of its color, but because April is the month when pink creeping phlox blooms—not in New England, but a little further south. The moon was full early this morning, which meant we should have been able to see the full moon last night. But it was too cloudy. Tonight, the clouds have disappeared for a bit and the Pink Moon is bright and beautiful.
Late this morning when I went to the boat to continue the removal of old varnish, I was surprised to see a big truck in the driveway in front of the boat and then I saw that the removal of layers of old bottom paint were being removed by soda blasting.
I thought that was happening tomorrow, but I was wrong. The young man doing the ‘blasting’ was almost finished with the port side of the bottom, so I am assuming he finished today, and I can return tomorrow. Jed and I took the chance to look at the mast which also needs old paint removed. The hardest part of that job is removing the lines and hardware from the mast … a job for another day.
This afternoon I met with Lynda Onthank whose home I will be renting beginning in July. The new roofing is on the house and the landscaping in front of the house is completed with new grass planted and beginning to grow. This time we met about gardening. I have decided to move the three raised beds I have here to there. She just had three pine trees removed from the area where the fenced garden will be located. She had the stumps of those trees chipped and mixed in with the soil. Eventually those pine chips will degrade, but this year we are going to move aside some of that soil and use the raised beds and organic soil from here for this year. Her landscaper was there this afternoon and that was his recommendation. Bucket by bucket, I’ll move the garden soil.
