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.
2019 Life Logs, Day 333: Unplanned Fun
2019 Life Logs, Day 333: Unplanned Fun
Date: Friday, November 29, 2019
Weather: Sunny; High 47, Low 25 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The highlight of today was totally unplanned and so much fun. Shadow and I drove over to Heather and Jed’s to pick up the portable exercise pen the boys had erected in their backyard for Thanksgiving Day. The thought was that Shadow could be in the fenced area while the boys were playing soccer. But it was too cold and rainy for soccer and we didn’t need the exercise pen. And since there is snow in the forecast for Sunday night, I thought I should get it in out of the weather. When we arrived, Heather asked if we would like to take walk. Jed was in Hyannis and she had been trying to get the boys to go on a walk with her with no luck. But when we said Shadow would like to go for a walk, we suddenly had very willing boys.
Walks with boys and a puppy are really runs, but I managed to keep up. I can even jog a bit these days with the knee replacement. So, we walked and ran down to the bogs, around bogs, through the bogs, and then back home. Everyone had a great time.
My other reason for going out was to go get my mail at the post office on the way home. I am the appointed person to whom Newcomers are to send their reservations for the Newcomers Holiday Luncheon. The registration deadline is Sunday and I wanted to make sure I picked up last minute reservations to add to the spreadsheet. Then Shadow and I returned home and I launched into a flurry of cooking. I wanted to make a homemade puppy chow and a Tuscan stew for myself. I got both done and fed Shadow his first homemade food, but I am wondering if that was a mistake. He loved it, but he has been very unsettled tonight. I sure hope this doesn’t continue through the night.
One of my goals getting a puppy was to make sure I am out and about multiple times a day and that certainly seems to be working. Every morning when we go for our early morning walk down to the dock. Each day we have been watching the twenty or so swans float about. This morning I was shocked to see that the water was so high that there was no island across from the dock. There is a new moon, but I have never seen the water this high. And there were Canadian geese instead of swans this morning. Interesting. I think I will find these morning walks most informative.
2019 Life Logs, Day 332: Happy Thanksgiving Day
2019 Life Logs, Day 332: Happy Thanksgiving Day
Date: Thursday, November 28, 2019
Weather: Rainy Day; High 55, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Here’s hoping you had a Happy Thanksgiving Day! I went to Heather and Jed’s in the early afternoon and other guests arrived at 3:30. We talked, ate oysters and other appetizers, and watched Jed put together a fabulous mushroom wellington to add to the feast as a vegetarian alternative.
The dinner was fabulous with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, roasted veggies, Brussels sprouts slaw, cranberry salad, and the mushroom wellington. And for dessert we had a choice of chocolate pie, pumpkin pie, apple-cranberry pie, or pumpkin cheesecake. I still feel like a stuffed turkey! 
Everyone enjoyed the dinner, especially Ollie who decided he needed a whole turkey drumstick. 
And just a bit ago, I got an email from my daughter-in-law Jo in Puerto Rico sharing their Thanksgiving bounty with me. It is so hard to be apart from family and friends on special holidays, but photos sent across the miles really help.
2019 Life Logs, Day 331: A Day with Grandkids and Shadow
2019 Life Logs, Day 331: A Day with Grandkids and Shadow
Date: Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Weather: Mostly Cloudy with Some Rain; High 60, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It’s late and I have to get the puppy to bed, so this will be short even though there were so many highlights today. Nothing earth shattering, just a fun day with grandkids who had no school. I had a huge list of things I wanted to do today, so I went to the Goldstones and offered a minimal babysitting fee for any grandson who was willing to come spend an hour with Shadow and help me with my chores. I got three volunteers, but I explained that it would be just one boy at a time. Three hours turned into the rest of the day, but I think everyone had fun, especially the puppy. 
Sam came home with me first and played with Shadow while I unloaded my car. Earlier in the morning I had gone to the lumber yard and the hardware store and had supplies that needed to be put away. Sam and Shadow romped inside the exercise pen I put together yesterday and when it was time for Sam to leave, I had him disassemble the pen and pack it in the car. When he got home, he re-erected the exercise pen in their backyard so Shadow will have a safe place to play tomorrow. 
I then picked up Jonah and Ollie, delivered Jonah to my house to puppy sit while Ollie went with me to the laundromat where he had a great math lesson figuring out how many quarters were going to be needed, the grocery store for more Thanksgiving essentials forgotten yesterday, and to Michael’s to buy a few things. We were gone almost three hours, so Heather had picked Jonah up when she came over to borrow some seating for tomorrow. 
Ollie then had his play time with Shadow. Heather returned with Jonah to borrow a coat rack for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner guests. They went home and a little later I took Ollie home and came home to make the traditional cranberry salad among other things. I quickly realized that I had forgotten to get the cranberry mold from Heather, so she returned with all three boys with the mold and everyone had one more romp with Shadow.
I have spent the entire evening doing the cooking for tomorrow that I thought I would get done today, and now to bed. There will be the six of us at Heather and Jed’s tomorrow plus four friends for a late afternoon dinner, so at least we have tomorrow morning to finish the preparations. Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.
2019 Life Logs, Day 330: Thanksgiving Food Shopping
2019 Life Logs, Day 330: Thanksgiving Food Shopping
Date: Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Weather: Sunny Day; High 61, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
There was a special holiday Farmers Market today, so late morning I headed to town to go to the Market and to finish up my food shopping for Thanksgiving. Heather and Jed ordered the turkey and Jed picked it up at the Farmers Market today. I bought butternut squash, cranberries, and Brussels sprouts to add to the dinner, garlic to plant, and green tomatoes and turnips just because they were there. I will make fried green tomatoes, but not for Thanksgiving. I then headed to other stores to buy items, none of which were all available at the same store. Oysters from the fish market, sparkling wine from another market for a Thanksgiving toast, other some items from the grocery. Then there was a stop at the Vet’s office, a stop at the hardware store, and a stop to get my hair trimmed. Three hours later I returned home and spent a great deal of the afternoon playing outside with Shadow. I put together his outside exercise pen and actually ate lunch outside while Shadow played in the pen. Then we went for our first long walk through the neighborhood. Tonight, I talked with my friend Lynne Kirwin who is flying to New Zealand for the winter on Friday. We talked about the 10 inches of snow and cold weather she has been experiencing in Michigan and she promised not to rub reports of lovely weather in New Zealand once she arrives there and cold weather hits here. It was beautiful here today with a high temp in the low 60’s. But if the forecast is correct, it won’t be this warm again in the next ten days, and maybe not until spring. I also talked to Heather and to Jonah tonight. Jonah and Ollie have recently taken an interest in playing the piano. Last week I arrived at the Goldstones and got to hear Ollie composing a beautiful song on the piano. This evening Jonah figured out how to play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. He recorded this on his tablet and spent quite a bit of time talking to me on the phone while trying to figure out how to send me the recording. He doesn’t have email or messaging capability on his tablet, so he had to send it to Heather’s phone via Blue Tooth and was trying to share it with me that way. We had technical difficulties, so I will have to see the recording when I visit tomorrow, but it was fun being on the phone with Jonah while he was trying to figure this out. Heather was in the middle of a “bountiful crisis”. Jed had brought home lots of veggies from the Farmers Market and they got a Misfits Market organic fruit and veggie delivery this week as well, so she had way more produce than she had room to store. Misfits delivers certified organic produce to your door for less than grocery store prices. It is called Misfits because it is produce that doesn’t meet the appearance test needed for supermarkets, but it is still tastes great. Hopefully Heather was able to figure out ways to store al of the produce. Tomorrow morning, I have an 8 am appointment with my primary care physician to follow up on reflux issues and then I will spend the rest of the day getting a head start on preparing all the food I bought today ready for Thanksgiving dinner.
2019 Life Logs, Day 329: Focus on Shadow, 7th Grade Art Show, Mah Jongg
2019 Life Logs, Day 329: Focus on Shadow, 7th Grade Art Show, Mah Jongg
Date: Monday, November 25, 2019
Weather: Sunny Day; High 56, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was a bit of a whirlwind. The morning started with the ‘new normal’ schedule—up at 6 am to take Shadow outside, back to bed for a couple of hours, and then a morning of reading about puppy training. 
I will continue that project tomorrow as a new friend from Newcomers was coming over to meet Shadow and bring me a puppy stroller. I had no idea there was such a thing, but just as young mothers put their babies in stroller so they can go jogging, old puppy mommas can put puppies in the stroller for long walks.
It will be months before Shadow will be able to take long walks with me, so I’ll give the stroller a try. After the friend left, I rearranged the living/dining area of the cottage to make room for a card table for tonight’s Mah Jongg lesson. We rotate between homes, and tonight was my turn.
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Then I headed out to see Sam’s art work in the 7th Grade Art Show at Lawrence Middle School. I was especially impressed with the results of a group project, a Christmas tree made out of plastic water bottles.
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And Sam’s ‘ugly mug’ was spectacularly ugly. I cut my time at the show a little short as I needed to get home to get ready for the mah jongg class. Our teacher’s name is Jackie, and she promised not to help me tonight as I have won all the games we played to date. It worked. I didn’t win any of the games tonight, but I did feel like I am starting to understand the game a little better. I let Shadow join us and she was a very good puppy.
2019 Life Logs, Days 328: Thinking About the Holidays
2019 Life Logs, Day 328: Thinking About the Holidays
Date: Sunday, November 24, 2019
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High 60, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today started with a Skype video call with Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco. It was delightful to see them and catch up on what is happening in their lives. And they got to meet Shadow. He was playing with the big fuzzy ball that Jonah gave him.
It is almost as big as him, and the kids enjoyed seeing him at play. At some point in the conversation, Coco was talking about having only two and a half weeks of school after Thanksgiving and that gave me a little jolt. I have been so preoccupied with thinking about getting a puppy and then getting one, that I honestly have not thought about the holidays. So, I spent some of today doing that and then went grocery shopping. And who greeted me at the door of the store but Ollie. He was dressed in his Cub Scout uniform and was passing out donation flyers to shoppers.
The flyer was a list of what could be bought while in the store and then given to the Scouts to be donated to the Falmouth Service Center. As Heather noted on her Facebook page, this is one of her favorite days of the year. Watching the young Scouts working so hard to get donations for people who wouldn’t have a turkey for Thanksgiving without their help. Jonah was taking a bathroom break when I arrived, but he returned just as I entered the store. Heather was with Ollie and Jonah and Jed was with Sam at the Service Center receiving and storing all of the donations. Sam said there were so many frozen turkeys donated that the freezers were overflowing. How wonderful! Heather and gang come over for dinner this evening and the boys got their puppy time. Unfortunately, Shadow had been quiet most of the day, so he was a wild one while they were here. But the boys are learning to deal with him when he has too much energy. They take him outside. Of course, it was dark by this time and one boy would run around the perimeter of the house with a flashlight and another would follow with Shadow leading him on his leash. When the boy have too much energy, we often tell them to go outside and run laps around the house. So they are using that same strategy. Fun to watch!
2019 Life Logs, Day 327: Saturday at Home
2019 Life Logs, Day 327: Saturday at Home
Date: Saturday, November 23, 2019
Weather: Sunny Day; High 48, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a lovely, sunny day at home with Shadow. I did go out in the morning to go to Heather’s to continue to help with the ‘clean out the basement’ project by picking up some items to give away—some lumber and large outdoor Christmas ornaments to donate to the Newcomers Holiday Parade float and an old sail from Windbird and some bottom paint to give to Sam Patterson and Bruce Woodin for L’Escargot. Bruce came to pick up the sail and paint and to meet Shadow.
We sat and talked and he and Shadow had a good time playing together. Jane arrived just as Bruce was leaving and she stayed for tea and to get her play time with the puppy. I spent some time reading while cuddling Shadow and that was my day. Heather spent her day in Boston at WGBH helping moderate TedX Talks and Jed took the boys to New Haven to see the Yale-Harvard football game. I read that the game was delayed by a climate change protest during the half-time. Hundreds of students and alumni entered the field to demand “that both universities clear their combined, $71 billion endowments of investments in corporations tied to oil, gas and coal. They also protested the schools’ holdings in Puerto Rico debt, seen as exploitation of a poor, besieged nation.” The 40-minute delay in the game caused the game to end as dark was descending. I’ll be most interested in hearing about this event first hand from Jed and the boys.
2019 Life Logs, Day 326: Presentation Planning and Dining-in with Friends
2019 Life Logs, Day 326: Presentation Planning and Dining-in with Friends
Date: Friday, November 22, 2019
Weather: Overcast with Some Sprinkles; High 60, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I spent my morning hosting two women from the Bourne Newcomers & Friends Club going over a possible presentation for their February Lunch and meeting. By the time they left it was afternoon and time to play with Shadow. He was such a good puppy during the visit. He slept through most of it and then came in and quietly joined us. So, he needed to be rewarded with some outside play before his first appointment with the veterinarian. That went smoothly as well, at least on his part. I forgot to take the records from the breeder and will have to make a return visit, but Shadow was very cooperative. By the time we got home from that visit, it was time to get ready to go out for the evening. I was going to dinner at Bruce and Jane Woodin’s with our Dining-in Group and Shadow was going to spend the evening with the Goldstones again. I had a wonderful dinner and visit with friends and Shadow loves his visits with Heather, Jed, and the boys. Sam was not home tonight, but Molly and Joey from next door came over to meet Shadow and he had a great time. It was a good day, but I’m looking forward to a quiet Saturday with nothing on the schedule.
2019 Life Logs, Day 325: A Day at Home with Shadow
2019 Life Logs, Day 325: A Day at Home with Shadow
Date: Thursday, November 21, 2019
Weather: Beautiful Day; High 52, Low 33 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Since I was away from home for so many hours yesterday, I decided to just stay home today and play with Shadow. It was a good decision and we had a great day. Shadow woke me up at 6:45, earlier than yesterday, and we played, I read, and we walked around the yard under a deep blue sky with bright sunshine. Late morning, we took a nap and then repeated all of the above. At 5 pm, I packed the puppy travel bag and delivered Shadow to Heather and Jed’s where he was to spend the evening while I went out to dinner with my Women in Newcomers (WIN) group. I really enjoyed the dinner tonight, met some new people and reconnected with others that I have known for a couple of years. And Goldstones reported that they had a great evening with the puppy and I’m sure Shadow enjoyed his evening of activity with them. It was a win/win for all.
2019 Life Logs, Day 324: Busy Day
2019 Life Logs, Day 324: Busy Day
Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High 51, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
In between watching today’s Impeachment Hearing proceedings and tonight’s Democratic Presidential Debate, I had a busy day. My day started at 7:15 am when Shadow gently woke me up. He slept through the night, so no middle of the night trips outside to go potty for the second night in a row. Yahoo! I spent the morning with the puppy, then things got busy. At 11:30, the Baranowski’s picked me up and we went to the MIT Club of Cape Cod Luncheon as the guests of another friend, Karen Epstein.
Heather was the guest speaker and she very skillfully addressed a critical issue in our country—the fact that our basic knowledge of scientific truths is under attack and how we prevail. In fact, I believe we can extend that to say that our knowledge of all truths is under attack. There is no clear path forward, but Heather laid out some positive steps to get us started.
Attending the luncheon meant I had to be away from Shadow for three hours. And I wasn’t home long until it was time to leave again, this time to take Ollie to his violin lesson. So Shadow was left alone for too many hours today. Tomorrow night and Friday night, I have dinner engagements.
After today, I was feeling very guilty about leaving the puppy, but Heather and boys invited Shadow to their house on both evenings so he doesn’t have to be alone. And hopefully it will be fun for everyone.