After almost 6 years of traveling, we sailed into Woods Hole on Cape Cod. We continued living aboard for the next five years and I wrote about that, adding ‘and Beyond’ to the title of the blog. Then shortly before Mark’s death in 2016, we sold our beloved Windbird and my travel logs became land logs. At this point, I had written a daily account for each and every day for 11 years. I fully intended to end the blog at that point, but when I wrote that news in a log, I got many responses saying that I really needed to keep posting. At the same time, I realized that I couldn’t stop writing. Summarizing each day had become a permanent part of my life and I will probably continue writing until I can no longer. These postings reflect the ordinary, and sometimes the extraordinary, days in my life and I would like to invite you to join me on my journey.
2020 Life Logs, Day 60: Leap Day
2020 Life Logs, Day 60: Leap Day
Date: Saturday, February 29, 2020
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Windy; High 37 degrees, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Every four years we get an extra day tacked onto the short 28-day month of February. This is due to a miscalculation in the former Julian calendar first implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Evidently, he miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes. Leap forward to 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII introduced his version of a calendar. All of Europe was still using the Julian calendar and it took another almost 200 years to get to our current Gregorian calendar. On Wednesday, September 2, 1752, much of the world leaped forward to Thursday, September 14, and henceforth the majority of the countries in the world starting using the new Gregorian calendar as their official civil calendar. But we still have to add an extra day every four years to keep our calendar in tune with the solar year. I hope you enjoyed your extra day in 2020.
This morning I went to the District Science Fair. This year only one of the Goldpebbles had an entry and it was Sam. 
He and his good friend Robert did an experiment to determine the favorite color of fish, specifically zebra fish. They thought that zebrafish would prefer green light over white, yellow, and light. The machine they used couldn’t record yellow light preferences, but from their visual observations, this was definitely the color they went to and were most active in. This is not backed by other research, but over and over they found the same results. Their results lead to further research. As goes scientific research. I was not successful in getting Sam to pose for me in front of their poster, but Robert was busy explaining their project to their science teacher while I was there. From the Science Fair, I took Shadow for a walk on Falmouth Heights Beach and then joined the Goldstones for lunch at the British Beer Company just across the street from the beach. Then the Goldpebbles and I left Heather and Jed at home to paint the play room while we were off to a People Training for Good Dogs class with Shadow. Then home to watch the results of the South Carolina Primary. It was a busy Leap Day.
No word today from the Mount Kilimanjaro climbers. I started reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead last night and continued early this morning. It didn’t take long to understand why Oprah’s review said, “Kept me up at night, had my heart in my throat, almost afraid to turn the next page.” Whitehead has a way with words that puts you right in the moment, and the moments in a slave’s life are not comfortable moments. I’ve only just started the book, but if it continues as it has started, I think this should be required reading for all American History students. You can never really walk in the footsteps of others, but Whitehead certainly puts you right in the moment.
2020 Life Logs, Day 59: Mt. Kilimanjaro
2020 Life Logs, Day 59: Mt. Kilimanjaro
Date: Friday, February 28, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Still Windy; High 37 degrees, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
No, I’m not planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, but I recently met someone who is doing the final ascent to the summit tonight. When I got an email this morning announcing that, it piqued my curiosity and I decided to do a little reading about Kilimanjaro climbs. When I made my Voyage of Windbird presentation to the Bourne Newcomers Lunch and Learn Group, Donna Pascarella, the woman in charge of the event, invited her husband and brother to come. The three of them are leaving in September from Chicago to boat down the Mississippi to the Ohio to the Tennessee River and finally through a waterway that will bring them out into the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile, Alabama, and then on down to the Keys. The brother is the one climbing Kilimanjaro with his youngest son. After the presentation, I asked Donna to keep me posted on the Kilimanjaro climb, so this week she has been forwarding texts sent by her brother. I didn’t really expect to get the day by day account, but I have found it very interesting. What surprised me most was that I knew almost nothing about this mountain. I thought maybe it was the highest peak in Africa, but I didn’t know in what country. Google told me, “Renowned as the highest peak in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro boats exclusive jaw-dropping sceneries, treacherous trails, and the infamous Barranco wall.” The piece I was reading went on to say that there are seven different routes to the top. I did not ask which route Donna’s brother was taking, but when he mentioned in a text earlier in the week that they had successfully climbed the Barranco wall, I looked that up. That narrowed the possibilities to four of routes and from my reading it seems the Lemosho route would be the safest bet for a successful climb to the top and it is also supposed to have the most beautiful path. I’ll be interested to find out which route they did take. And I’ll be sure and let you know if they made the summit.
I spent a good deal of today finishing the ‘just for fun’ book I have been reading so that I can do the reading for my next book club meeting. I have ten days to read The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. On the back of the book, the first review written by Oprah says it kept her up at night reading. If I am going to finish it in time for the book club meeting, I think I will need to read into the nights as well. I’ll start tonight.
Every Friday I get an email from one of my health gurus, Dr. Mark Hyman, listing his five best picks of the week. Today one of those was a research report that outlines some preliminary suggestions for dosage levels of ‘nutraceuticals’, defined as pharmaceutical alternatives that I will just call supplements, that in the words of the research summary, “ . . . might be expected to be worthwhile for controlling RNA viruses.” RNA viruses include the flu and coronavirus. I am going to copy the list of these supplements as well as a link to the research report. It can’t hurt to have this information on hand. Some of the things on the list are things many people already take to avoid colds—zinc and elderberry. Copy this link to see the whole research paper or just look at the list of suggested supplements below.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033062020300372?utm_source=Mark%27s+Picks&utm_campaign=836e435ca8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_29_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3eb7466668-836e435ca8-124384525&mc_cid=836e435ca8&mc_eid=18b3097ac1
Ferulic acid 500-1,000 mg
Lipoic acid 1,200-1,800 mg (in place of ferulic acid)
Spirulina 15 g (or 100 mg PCB)
N-Acetylcysteine 1,200–1,800 mg
Selenium 50-100 mcg
Glucosamine 3,000 mg or more
Zinc 30-50 mg
Yeast Beta-Glucan 250-500 mg
Elderberry 600–1,500 mg
2020 Life Logs, Day 58: A Day That Started with a Bang
2020 Life Logs, Day 58: A Day That Started with a Bang
Date: Thursday, February 27, 2020
Weather: Overcast, Early AM Rain, and WINDY; High 49 degrees, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Shadow and I got up at 6 am for a puppy potty break and then came back inside and went back to bed. The next thing I heard was a huge bang at about 8:30. I got up and looked out the window to the front yard and saw nothing and then walked to the back side of the house to look out, but still saw nothing. So, I laid back down even though Shadow was still on full alert. I didn’t go to sleep until after 1 am last night, so going back to sleep for another half an hour sounded like a good idea. As soon as I got settled down, however, there was another bang and then another accompanied by barks from Shadow. Obviously, it was time to get up. I looked out all of the windows, but still saw nothing. Before I hopped into the shower, I heard one more bang, so this time, I opened the front door to look out. Oops! There was the problem. The beautiful Anderson all glass storm door that opens and closes so easily was swinging in the wind and banging back against the front of the house. I’m surprised the glass didn’t break, but the door is not without damage. At first I couldn’t get it to close, but with some coaxing, I was successful. The rod that goes through the closing mechanism at the base of the door is slightly bent causing some friction. I must not have made sure it was fully closed when Shadow and I came back inside at 6 am and the strong wind caught it just right making it fly open. I hate that I didn’t figure this out after the first bang, but hopefully the rod can be straightened and it will open and close smoothly once again.
Today’s wind was blowing in colder weather and made it feel even colder that the thermometer indicated. I had to bundle up for my walks with Shadow and was reminded that I have been spoiled by the warmer than normal winter. It will stay cold until Sunday, but then it warms up again. I like that! I spent most of my time inside today staying warm and writing in preparation for my afternoon Memoir Writing class. Jerry Lanson, an Associate Professor of Journalism at Emerson College and a Falmouth Newcomers member, is offering the class as a Newcomers activity. How lucky we are to have him. He organizes the class in a way that makes sharing our writing a very positive experience. We are an eclectic group with some people who have lots of writing experience to those who are just beginning. Today Jerry asked me to share my experience in writing a blog for the last 14 plus years and I got great feedback from him and from the other members of the group. As I told them, I write every day, but I still don’t think of myself as a writer. I want to become one and possibly write a book about some of my life experiences, but I need some direction. And this class is giving me that. Thanks to Jerry Lanson and every member of that class for their positive feedback and encouragement.
2020 Life Logs, Day 57: Writing About Writing
2020 Life Logs, Day 57: Writing About Writing
Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Weather: Overcast with Drizzle; High 48 degrees, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I have been writing this blog since Tuesday, October 18, 2005. That was more than 14 years ago, some 5,241 days. The actual number of blogs posted is 4,828. The difference in the number of days and number of blogs is the result of sometimes combining the blogs from multiple days into one posting and the fact that when we flew home to visit with family during the six years of our circumnavigation, I did not write blog posts. I wish I had, as the details of those visits are not documented. And try as I can, I just don’t have the same recall of events that I didn’t write about. The reason I was focusing on this today is that tomorrow I have a Memoir Class and have been asked to talk a bit about the challenges and rewards of writing a blog over such a long period of time. The reason for taking this class was to give me the incentive to start writing stories that will eventually be incorporated into a book about sailing around the world. Given that task of answering questions about blog writing helped me focus on just how important that writing process has been in my life. It also pointed out to me that I have neglected updating the homepage of the blog for over three years. I updated the homepage just before Mark died and I have simply been unable to change it since then. But I did it today. I changed the photo from one of Mark and me to just one of me. And I wrote a new narrative explaining how the blog has gone from a travel log to a life log. Making the changes required Justin’s help. As I wrote in the narrative, the posting of my logs into the blog has always seemed like magic to me and Justin has always made that happen. I’m still not sure I fully understand the process. Today he created a video to teach me how to deal with the technical end of the blog and then we had a Skype video call where he could see what was happening on my computer. Thank you, thank you, Justin. I’m hoping that by the time I go to class tomorrow, I will have a chapter for my book on the importance of the blog in my life. Other than this focus on writing, Shadow and I ran a few errands and took a couple of long walks. I visited briefly with Shirley and Doris next door, delivering their mail from the Post Office. I took Ollie to his after-school violin lesson and then went to play Mah Jongg. I am a slow learner, but I truly enjoy my Wednesday nights playing this not-so-easy to learn game with a great group of women.
2020 Life Logs, Day 56: Time
2020 Life Logs, Day 56: Time
Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Weather: Rainy and Overcast; High 48 degrees, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Just where does the time go? I got up early this morning and I was anxious to get so much accomplished. None of that happened and the day is over. I started by sending emails to some friends and ended up spending a great deal of morning talking on the phone to my friend Linda Stuart. If you read this blog, you might remember that I flew to Florida for a few days in January to visit with Linda and Mike. They have been taking a break from their biking trip around the world, but they head back Europe on Sunday. Instead of flying they are taking a repositioning cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona, Spain. When they fly with their bikes, the bikes have to be broken down and boxed. But on the cruise ship, they can take their bikes aboard, keep them in their room, and when they disembark, they will be ready to ride. They have never done a cruise before, but if this works, they will probably hop on another repositioning cruise in November and return to Florida for the winter months. They are watching the spread of the corona virus carefully and have already changed their route through Italy to avoid regions with current virus cases and will keep watching and adjusting as they travel. Here’s hoping they have a wonderful spring, summer, and fall biking through Europe.
Tonight I watched the Democratic debate. At first I was just totally disgusted with the infighting. I have been an Elizabeth Warren supporter as I certainly love having her as my Senator. But tonight I was torn. Pete Buttegieg was so centered, so unflappable, and so smart. And I thought Tom Steyer made some very important points. Bernie was Bernie, which is reassuring. He never changes his story and I really admire that. I’m just unsure that he can win the race against Trump. But I loved his ending statement quoting Nelson Mandela. I think Bernie said. “Everything is impossible until it happens.” I believe the actual quote from Mandela was, “It always seems impossible until it is done.” Either way, it is great motto and oh so true. Can’t wait to see what the voters decide in South Carolina and then on Super Tuesday.
2020 Life Logs, Day 55: Free and Easy Day
2020 Life Logs, Day 55: Free and Easy Day
Date: Monday, February 24, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High 52 degrees, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Windbird sailed through Indonesia as part of an organized rally. We did that because the rally organizers arranged all the Customs paperwork which can be very complicated in that country. Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world, consisting of five major islands and 30 smaller island groups. There are actually 17,508 islands in Indonesia and the country is 3,000 miles from east to west and a little more than a 1,000 miles from north to south and each province has different rules for visiting boats. So it is complicated, thus the rally. The rally coordinators were a couple and the woman organized the activities on the various islands. We could choose to participate or not, but sometimes when we did participate, she would come on the radio in the morning and declare particular days as “free and easy.” This meant we had no organized activities and could whatever we wanted. I have adopted that term for days when I basically check out and do nothing of consequence and today was one of those days. Shadow and I slept in, went for a long walk, played ball outside in the sunshine and relative warmth, drove into town to run a couple of errands, and took another walk. During the evening, I did try to salvage my reputation of always being busy by spending some time writing. But I even did that in a “free and easy” way. I hereby declare today as a great day!
2020 Life Logs, Day 54: Together We Have It All
2020 Life Logs, Day 54: Together We Have It All
Date: Sunday, February 23, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High 49 degrees, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Years ago, one of my nieces gave everyone in the family a pillow that says, “My family puts the FUN in Dysfunctional.” That pretty much sums up my family. The Martins are a fun-loving bunch with its share of issues, but we stick together. Last week while Heather and Jed were working fast and furiously to get the house ready for the painter, they were listening to music when the song ‘Together We Have It All’ popped up. The chorus says, “We may not have it altogether, but together we have it all.” All Heather could think about while listening to the song was my family and how truly those words apply. It does take a village to get the job done. While they were in Maine skiing/snowboarding the inside of the house was painted top to bottom, with the exception of three rooms. Only one of those needs painted, but the downstairs bathroom needs to be totally redone. So early this morning, Heather, Jed, and Sam headed home to put the house back together while Jonah and Ollie stayed with me. I had an afternoon group class with People Training for Good Dogs, but after that was over, I took Shadow home so he could nap and I went back to Heather’s to help. All together, we mostly got today’s jobs done. We packed up more things in the den to go to storage and moved new things in. Heather’s goal is to make the house look bigger by storing away as much as possible. It is looking great and as soon as the den, playroom, and downstairs bathroom are done . . . and the basement and garage . . . the house can go on the market. Heather is in DC for three days this week, so a lot of the work will have to wait until the weekend. But together, we will get it done.
2020 Life Logs, Day 53: Goldstones Return from Maine
2020 Life Logs, Day 53: Goldstones Return from Maine
Date: Saturday, February 22, 2020
Weather: Sunny and Warmer; High 41 degrees, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It’s late and I am the only one still awake. Heather, Jed, and boys returned from their skiing/snowboarding few days in Maine, but they couldn’t go home tonight as the painters were still frantically working to finish up when they returned this evening. I anticipated that and had invited them here for dinner and to spend the night once. They all had a wonderful time in Maine. Heather actually did some downhill skiing with a little coaching from Jed’s Aunt Carol and she really enjoyed it. She has always been a cross country skier, but with snowboarding boys, she might find herself doing more downhill. We had a nice dinner together where I got hear some of the stories from the week and then we watched a Harry Potter movie. Jed went on back to the bedroom to read and hopefully go to bed early as he feels like he is getting sick again. He was barely over a bad cold when they left, and it is rearing its ugly head once again. Heather is excited to go home in the morning and put the house back together. She went over later this evening to feed the guinea pigs and said the paint job looked great. Maybe by the end of next weekend their house will be ready to put on the market.
I spent a couple of hours of my day in my last private class with People Training for Good Dogs. I have learned a lot but still need lots of practice. The Goldpebbles have at least one more private class and I will start attending the weekly group lessons starting tomorrow. Shadow is still very much an exuberant puppy, but he is definitely responding to corrections and love the praise he gets when he responds. He is still having tummy issues, but during the training today, Melissa had some suggestions that I am trying. He was worse this morning, but better tonight. Hopefully the ‘better’ will continue.
2020 Life Logs, Day 52: Sunshine and Snowflakes
2020 Life Logs, Day 52: Sunshine and Snowflakes
Date: Friday, February 21, 2020
Weather: Partly Sunny and Cold; High 29 degrees, Low 23 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Sunshine and snowflakes falling from the sky make a beautiful combination. You just don’t get to see it very often. But this morning the sun was trying to break through a thin layer of clouds that were dumping big, beautiful snowflakes. Over a period of a couple of hours, there were enough to give us a very thin and fleeting blanket of snow. And it was below freezing, so it was not only beautiful, it actually felt like a winter day. Shadow and I braved the cold to go for a long walk and then we played outside in the yard for quite a while.
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We had a couple of snowy days just after I got Shadow and he loved it. Today was no different. There was not enough snow to romp in, but he used his nose like snowplow making furrows in the blanket of snow to mark his track. And in doing so, he ate as much snow as he possibly could. It is such a delight I
Today was Midge Frieswyk’s birthday. There are five of us who go out to lunch for birthdays, but two friends are out of town. 
So today it was just Midge, Olivia White, and myself. We went to Bleu, a restaurant with French bistro fare in Mashpee Commons, and had a fabulous lunch. We weren’t planning to get dessert, but when I saw a dessert named Madame Feufeu, I insisted we order it just because I loved the name. I didn’t realize the chef’s name is Fredrik Feufeu. I was thinking of Little Rabbit FooFoo! But whether Feufeu or FooFoo, the dessert was wonderful. Happy birthday, Midge.
When I returned home, I took a couple of hours to do nothing and then launched into writing a new intro to my website. I have not updated it since Mark died, so it is way past due. Shadow and I just got back from Heather and Jed’s. While they are gone, I go over morning and night to feed the guinea pigs and to check on the painting progress. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all of the trim in the whole house has at least one coat of fresh paint, plus the kitchen ceiling and walls. This morning I was not sure the job was going to be done by the time the Goldstones get home tomorrow evening, but tonight things are looking good. The report from Maine tonight is that Heather actually did some downhill skiing today. She is cross country skier and doesn’t love downhill, but it sounded like she had fun. Jed hit a tree today, but both tree and Jed are fine despite the fact that Ollie’s text said it was a BIG tree! And everyone was having so much fun that they continued skiing into the evening. Life is good.
2020 Life Logs, Day 51: Another Run Around Day
2020 Life Logs, Day 51: Another Run Around Day
Date: Thursday, February 20, 2020
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 33 degrees, Low 17 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
February 02, 2020, was a very special palindrome day as the date read the same forwards and backwards in all date formats—UK, USA, and ISO. Today’s date was not a palindrome, but as I wrote 02/20/2020, I enjoyed writing all those 2’s and 0’s again. What I didn’t enjoy about today was that it ended up being another run around day. I had only one thing on my calendar and that was to go to a doctor appointment at 12:40 to review the results of a recent bone density scan, so I hoped for an easy-going day. But then I read my emails and saw that I had left my Mah Jongg card behind last night at Judy Pooley’s home. She is leaving on Saturday morning, going to South Carolina for a couple of weeks, so I had to go to her house to pick up the card. It’s not far, but it delayed my morning walk with Shadow. When I got home, I did take a nice, long walk with Shadow and then it was time to head out for the doctor appointment. My primary care physician has changed locations since my last visit. I thought I knew his new location, but when I got there, it was not the right place. So, I had to make a call, put the address in Google Maps, and backtrack a bit. I had all sorts of paperwork that I had filled out due to the move and when I gave that to the receptionist, I got a bit of a lecture about not sending it in ahead of time. Did I not get the return envelope with the forms? No, I did not. And I had called at the time to find out where to send it and was told to just bring it with me. Oh, well. We got through that confusion and then I was given more forms to fill out, each requiring me to write today’s date. That’s when I fell in love with all the 2’s and 0’s. When all of this was done, I was informed that I arrived an hour and 40 minutes early for my appointment. That is not what my calendar said, but regardless, I had to wait. I had not been sent a reminder because I hadn’t turned in the forms. Ugh! I decided to drive the 20 minutes back to Falmouth to run a few errands and then returned for the appointment. But with the driving back and forth, it was late afternoon when I got home. I took another long walk with Shadow, visited with Shirley and Doris next door for a bit, and then came home and gave Shadow a much needed bath. I have been hesitant to do this for days because I know he is not feeling great, but the time had come. I am taking him back to the doctor tomorrow morning to see if we can figure out why he is just not interested in eating. Something is just not right. I then have a luncheon with two friends to celebrate a birthday. By tomorrow afternoon, I’ll finally get the time I need to catch up on returning emails and just relaxing. Maybe.