by Judy Handley | Feb 16, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 47: Support Staff
Date: Sunday, February 16, 2020
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds; High 42 degrees, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
When you are getting a house ready to put on the market and moving, there’s nothing you need more than a support staff. So that is what I am trying to be for Heather and Jed. Their next door neighbors, the Keefe’s, are also pitching in by having Jonah and Ollie spend more time than normal at their house. Ollie and Jonah spent the night there last night, went to hockey practice with Joey this morning, and spent the remainder of the day there until I went to get them at 5 pm to take them back to my house. Earlier in the day, I went to water plants for friends that are out of town and then picked Sam up when he returned from his camping and ski/snowboarding weekend. He had a great time and was very grateful that one of the Scout masters worked extra hard to keep the wood stove burning in their cabin on Friday night when the temps were below zero. It was so warm last night that he slept in only his sleeping bag liner. He did a couple of Black Diamond trails yesterday and was very proud of that fact. I took him home to shower, went to get lunch for all of us, and then took Sam to my house to be with Shadow while I went back to Heather and Jed’s to pack up a few more things. I had offered to fix dinner for all of us, but the boys and I had go ahead and eat without H & J. They arrived closer to 8 pm as they really wanted to finish the painting in the upstairs bedrooms, hallway, and stairwell. Heather got two coats of paint on in the boys’ room, walls and ceiling, and one coat on in their bedroom and the hall and stairwell. They are using No VOC paint, but still they decided to take me up on my offer to sleep at my house tonight instead of uncovering their bed to sleep there. It would just have to be covered again tomorrow. Right now, everyone is fast asleep except for me, so I think I’ll turn in as well. Heather and Jed plan to be up and out of here by 7:30 to put in another long day of painting and taking things to their storage unit. I’ll take care of the Goldpebbles until I take them to their People Training for Good Dogs class at 12:30. I’ll have lots to report on tomorrow night.
by Judy Handley | Feb 16, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 46: People Training Class and Helping with the Goldstone Move
Date: Saturday, February 15, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Still Cold; High 30 degrees, Low 29 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Jonah, Ollie, and I had a good night’s sleep, not waking up until almost 8 am. We had breakfast, and before we knew it, it was time for me to take them home so I could go to “people training” class with Shadow. The one-on-one classes are two and half hours long—lots of lecture and lots of hands on practice. Today we worked on what is called the Leadership Exercise which is basically a version of follow the leader. My job is to show Shadow that I am worth following. This also requires that Shadow learns to sit on command which is something I was not able to get him to do until after last week’s class. Then we worked on the ‘heel’ command using the leash. That was extremely effective. So I think my training is working. On Monday I take Sam, Jonah, and Ollie with me to class so they can learn to better handle Shadow.
After class, Shadow and I went home to have lunch and then we went to Heather and Jed’s to see if there was anything we could do to help with moving preparations. Getting their current house ready to put on the market is the current challenge. The boys played next door at the Keefe’s all day and were invited to spend the night tonight. So, I didn’t get to have them for a second night. But since there is no school this week, I’m hoping all three boys can spend tomorrow night with me. Heather had hoped to paint their bedroom today, but instead the day was spent moving things to a storage unit to make painting easier. Tomorrow will be painting day for the upstairs bedrooms and stairwell and then the Monday holiday will be spent painting downstairs. I’m hoping to spend part of tomorrow helping to get the downstairs ready to be painted. I was amazed at how much they were able to accomplish today. Sure hope tomorrow and Monday are as productive.
by Judy Handley | Feb 15, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 45: Happy Valentine’s Day
Date: Friday, February 14, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and COLD; High 28 degrees, Low 11 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Here’s hoping everyone had a Happy Valentine’s Day. I had a date tonight with two delightful young men named Jonah and Oliver, and we had a lovely evening together. Their bedroom is going to be painted over the weekend–ceiling, walls, and trim–so they are staying here for a couple of nights. I will take them home to play during the day so I can help with the packing and painting, but it is just easier to have them stay with me at night. Heather and Jed won’t be moving until the end of March, but they have to get their current home ready to put on the market. Since this will be a working weekend, we all took time tonight to play and celebrate Valentine’s Day. Heather and Jed went out to dinner and Jonah, Ollie, and I had our favorite dinner of calamari followed by artichokes. Then we watched The Wizard of Oz. Jonah had seen the original movie, but Ollie had not. Jonah watched the first half and then read for a bit, but Ollie, Shadow, and I were in for the long haul. All of us attended a local production of this story last year, but Ollie really enjoyed seeing the movie and making comparisons with the play. The reason Sam isn’t with us this weekend is that he camping and skiing/snowboarding with his Scout troop. They are skiing/snowboarding in New Hampshire tomorrow and the overnight temperature there is forecast to be -4 degrees F. Yikes! The Scouts will be in a building with a woodstove, but if no one gets up to stoke the fire, they will be without heat. He is using the good to -40 sleeping bag that belonged to Mark before I met him. Mark lived in Laramie, Wyoming in the late 1960’s and enjoyed winter camping using that bag. It was a good one, but it is more than 50 years old and has lost a few feathers over the years. Sure hope it keeps him warm enough tonight.
I had planned to spend the day at Heather and Jed’s doing prep work for the weekend painting, but Jed texted early this morning that he was going to be home sick in bed today. He has a terrible cold and needed the rest, so I let him know that I would not come over until the afternoon so he could sleep peacefully. Shadow and I went over after lunch and Jed was feeling much better, but headed back to bed after we discussed the best use of my time. I made some headway, but there’s tons of work to be done. Shadow and I have another “people” training class tomorrow morning, so I will drop the boys off around 10 am, go to my class, and then come back to help out in the afternoon. Either tomorrow or Sunday, Heather and Jed will arrange for the rental of storage unit, and we will start moving things into that which will make the painting much easier. But they still have to live in the house for another month, so deciding what has to stay and what can go is challenging.
We actually had snow flurries here this morning and the temperature dropped so that it felt like winter. Tomorrow will be cold as well, but then things warm up a bit starting on Sunday. Whether or not we are going to get any extended period of winter weather this year is still to be determined.
by Judy Handley | Feb 13, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 44: Recycling, Writing, and Local Politics
Date: Thursday, February 13, 2020
Weather: Rain All Day; High 45 degrees, Low 29 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I think I must have been asleep when I wrote last night’s log. First, I forgot to change the date and then I wrote over and over that Coco and Ollie are 8 years old. As soon as my head hit the pillow last night, I realized my mistake. I know they are only 7, but since I never trust my memory of ages (Once we made Mark a year older for an entire year until his mother intervened and made the correction.), I must have done a quick math check thinking they were born in 2012 and it is now 2020, so they are 8. Wrong. They haven’t yet had their birthdays in 2020. Not sure how I made that mistake, but apologies.
Until this morning, I considered myself knowledgeable in terms of recycling, but a Newcomers program this morning showed me just how much I don’t know. Unfortunately I didn’t learn as much as hoped as it was hard to follow the speaker. She was very enthusiastic and obviously knew what she was talking about, but she talked fast and the Powerpoint presentation progressed too quickly for me to absorb the information. It would have been helpful to have a handout to follow along. What I did learn was that I need to learn more. I had no idea that if you put a plastic bottle in the recycling bin you need to either screw the lid on or throw the lid in the trash. Small pieces of recyclable plastic simply don’t go through the machines and can gum up the works. So, no lids in your recycle bin unless they are screwed onto the container. I often buy mushrooms that come in black plastic containers that have the recycle logo on it. Black plastic cannot be recycled. Period. So, you can’t go by the recycle logo. I never bag my recyclables in plastic bags, but many people do. That is an absolute no-no. No plastic bags of any type should ever go into your recycle bin. They can be taken to a vendor, like your local grocery store, that has a bin designated for plastic bags, but never in your town recycling system. Once I do a little more research, I’ll report other details. So much to learn.
After the Newcomers meeting, I came home to be with Shadow and do a little writing. Shadow has had digestive issues all week and has needed a little more attention than usual. It started on Monday evening with no appetite. On Tuesday, he had borderline diarrhea and very little appetite. That continued yesterday. He did eat dinner, but not breakfast or lunch. And that pattern continued today. He certainly has no lack of energy, but still I am worried. I will take him to the vet in the morning to check things out. But in the meantime, I am trying to give him as much attention as possible. I took him for a walk and then he slept while I did a little writing for my Memoir Class. This class has finally given me the incentive to start writing my story of sailing around the world. Yeah! Once I had completed my homework, I did leave Shadow and went to the class. I did not stay in town to attend a political meeting tonight to meet candidates for the State Senate from this district, but I am watching it on Falmouth Community Television right now as I write. I’ve never paid attention to local races, but now I realize that we all need to pay close attention to all elections and get to know the candidates.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and after our visit to the veterinarian, Shadow and I will spend our day at Heather and Jed’s helping to get the house ready to be painted inside this weekend. Sam is away this weekend skiing/snowboarding with Scouts and Jed is taking Ollie and Jonah snowboarding on Saturday while Heather stays home and paints. Helping to get ready for that will be my Valentine’s gift to the Goldstones. And I will do my laundry and can the chicken broth I made this week while I am there. So it is a win-win for all. Since I will be gone most of tomorrow, this evening when I got home I took a Valentine’s gift to Shirley and Doris next door. They love biscotti, so I took them dark chocolate biscotti and got a rose for each of them. They were so appreciative. Happy Valentine’s Day to all!
by Judy Handley | Feb 12, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 43: Art and Music and Coco and Ollie
Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 44 degrees, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Girl Talk is a British magazine for girls 7 to 12 and my granddaughter Coco, who is 7, gets the magazine sent to Puerto Rico by her British grandparents. A couple of weeks ago my daughter-in-law Jo posted a photo of Coco on Facebook describing it as “Coco delighting in texture, movement, color.” The photo is Coco swirling around in a long emerald green dress. It is a bit blurred making it look like a painting. It is perfect vision of Coco who has always been interested in drawing and painting. When she read about a slogan art contest in one of her issues of Girl Talk, she submitted a drawing and it will be in the February issue. At age 7, Coco is going to be published artist! That was special news to receive today.
The day seemed to be determined to focus on art and music and 7 year-olds. I decided to drive up near Boston to pick up the violin that I took in for repairs for Ollie. I made a couple of other stops, so naturally it took longer than I anticipated. When I got home it was almost time to take Ollie to violin lessons. And then it was time to run home and have a quick dinner before Ollie’s second grade school concert. 
On the way home from his violin lesson he told me that he thought I would know and really enjoy one of their songs. In his special 7 year-old way, he proudly announced that the song was Count on Me by Bruno Mars. He didn’t tell me that one of the other songs was their music teacher’s rendition of one of my favorite children’s books, Caps for Sale. Mr. Charles read parts of the story interspersed with the children singing the repetitive lines and with each child getting a chance to keep the beat on a xylophone. It was a fun concert.
It was most sunny today, but I think we are expecting rain tomorrow. But that’s okay. I have a Newcomers General Meeting in the morning and a Memoir Writing Class in the afternoon. Between the two, I need to do some writing, so the rainy day will give me no excuse to go outside and do something else.
by Judy Handley | Feb 11, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 42: Lunch & Learn with Bourne Newcomers and Friends
Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High 49 degrees, Low 33 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Any day that I get to make my presentation about the Voyage of Windbird is a great day for me. 
I love reliving the almost six years that Mark and I spent sailing around the world. Today’s presentation was given to the Bourne Newcomers and Neighbors Lunch & Learn group. Bourne is the town just on the other side of the Cape Cod Canal and many of the people there are sailors. It was a great group of people and another well received presentation. Good friend Olivia White helped the Bourne group launch their Newcomers organization about four years ago and they invited her to come to the presentation today. She just got home from a two week visit to friends and family in Texas late last night. Always the supportive person, she was up and raring to go this morning.
It was another rainy day, but I did take Shadow for a short walk this morning before heading to Bourne. He got soaked to the bone yesterday when we walked in the rain, so this morning I put the little coat on him that was given to him by Heather’s neighbor, Melissa Keefe. I need to work on the Velcro fasteners, but it did keep Shadow from getting quite so wet. When I got home, later than expected, we mostly spent time together inside before heading over to Heather and Jed’s to pick Ollie up to take him to his Tuesday tennis lesson. Then even though it was dark when we got home, we took another walk. The rain had subsided and a flashlight gave us the light we needed. Then when we got back inside, Shadow sat with me while we watched the New Hampshire Primary results. Tomorrow it looks like we get a break in the rain before it returns on Thursday, so hopefully we’ll get in a couple of long walks. `
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