2026 Life Logs, Day 13: FIRC Meeting, Book Club, Board of Library Trustees
Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 43, Low Temp 41 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

I have had a long string of days with multiple meetings plus a few meetings-related projects that had to be done. Things slow down just a bit tomorrow and a bit more on Friday. Maybe by Saturday, I will just have the standout on the Green, which really isn’t a meeting. It is a time to talk with old and new friends, so that I can just enjoy. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll have the rest of the afternoon and evening to myself. I look forward to that, and maybe even a quiet Sunday before the action begins again.

Working backward through my day, tonight I had a Board of Library Trustees meeting where, as treasurer, I had to present the second quarter finance report. I can perform the common functions of Excel, but I truly struggle when putting together the reports. I need to have a serious tutoring session with someone who uses Excel to produce financial reports. In the meantime, I will continue to muddle through.

This afternoon I produced the report I presented tonight and that tool all afternoon. And going back just before working on the quarterly report, I hosted my book club. And before that, I attended a Falmouth Immigrant Rights Coalition (FIRC) business advisory meeting. I went just to support the team presenting, but I learned a think or two as well. It was another busy, but good day.

2026 Life Logs, Day 12: Adventure with Archie and Indivisible Falmouth Meeting
Date: Monday, January 12, 2026
Weather: Overcast, Some Rain; High 47, Low Temp 28 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

Archie is the name of the little cockapoo that I walked everyday for a few weeks in the fall for a friend who had foot surgery. He is a little white ball of fluff and scared to death of people. But we got to know each other and today he was spending the day with me and Shadow while his momma led a Newcomers/Encore field trip to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Everything was going just fine until 10 minutes before I had a doctor appointment and needed to leave for a bit. I carefully opened the door so the dogs could not escape, but to my dismay, somehow Archie bolted through my legs and out into the drive way he went. Shadow and I followed him and I grabbed some treats to try and get him to come to me. But nothing worked. Then, all of a sudden, he ran as fast as his little legs could go down the driveway and left on the street. I quickly put Shadow in the car as I was standing next to it, and I walked/ran after Archie. At the entrance to the driveway, I could see he turned left on the next street. I ran in pursuit. When I made the left turn, I could see him far ahead and a young woman with her dog were following him. As we were now both running after Archie, she yelled back to me asking if it was my dog. I said he was not, but that I was dog sitting. I then saw Archie slow down a tad and I thought he was getting ready to head left down a path into the woods leading back toward his house. I knew I could not catch him, but I asked the other woman if she would follow him while I ran back to my house to get my car and drive to Archie’s house. She agreed and off we both went. Archie lives on a dead-end street off of very busy Gifford Street, about 7-tenths of mile from my house. When I neared his street in my car, I saw the woman and her dog and she yelled that she had lost track of him. I thanked her and drove on to his house. Much to my relief, he was there sitting beside the back gate awaiting entry. I got him into my car, back to my house, and then off the hospital for my doctor appointment. I was 10 minutes late, but that didn’t seem to be a problem. Instead of checking-in, I wanted to say to the receptionist that I really didn’t need the appointment. It was a routine cardiac check up. I had just walked/run as fast as I could for about a half mile and wasn’t out of breath. I had just completed my version of a stress test and things seemed to be fine. But I just smiled and waited to see the doctor, who agreed with me when I told him my story. He still ran the tests, and then also agreed with my assessment. My heart looks to be just fine!

The other major event today was the January general meeting of Indivisible Falmouth. We had 75 people in attendance, up from 50-60 last month, and many were new members. I designed and executed the main activity for the meeting, and that went over really well. So, a happy ending for Archie’s adventure and a great Indivisible Falmouth meeting with 75 totally engaged people in attendance. It was a busy, but a good day!

2026 Life Logs, Day 11: Sunday Workday
Date: Sunday, January 11, 2026
Weather: Overcast, Some Rain; High 47, Low Temp 28 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

I took Shadow for a nice long walk through town this morning and played ball with him this afternoon. Otherwise, I have been sitting at my computer the entire day. It is almost midnight, so I am stopping work for today and will finish up the two projects I’m working on tomorrow.

Good news—Sam made it back to Groningen in the Netherlands with no travel hassles. He has a term paper due tomorrow and two finals this week, so I wish him luck. No time for jet lag!

2026 Life Logs, Day 10: Rally on the Falmouth Green, Sam Off to the Netherlands
Date: Saturday, January 10, 2026
Weather: Overcast, Warm for Winter, with Rain Late; High 49, Low Temp 38 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

It was a day of emotions. I spent part of my morning making a few new rally signs to share with others at our Saturday rally on the Green. Today’s rally was in honor of Renee Nicole Good. Indivisible groups all around the country were holding ‘ICE Out for Good’ rallies today in her honor. We had about 375 people and we hugged, we mourned, we sang, and we hope that each person left the rally more determined than when they came to get involved in this fight for our democracy, for our humanity. Unbeknownst to me ahead of time, the keynote speaker today was Heather. She texted me yesterday to ask if Indivisible Falmouth was having a moment of silence during our rally today for the young woman murdered by federal government agents in Minneapolis. I said that we were, and she said she would go with me. Soon after we arrived, I realized she was going to be a speaker. And speak she did. Heather spoke from her heart, without notes, making reference to the situations of people she had talked to on Green today; citizens of Falmouth who are deeply saddened by the state of affairs in our country, people whose families didn’t come because they don’t ‘look like Americans’ and are fearful of showing up in public, and others who are just desperate to figure out what they can do about the situation we are in.

I am always the ever and always proud mother of Heather and Justin and my five grandchildren, but this afternoon I was bursting with pride for Heather who serves on out town Select Board and said words today to help heal and inspire people and for Justin, who when we could find no one locally to do it, built a website for Indivisible Falmouth and then supported the Upper Cape immigrant population by getting all of the Immigrant Rights Coalition help documents for immigrants on it so they can easily access them. Both Heather and Justin are dedicated to public service.in one way or another. I have never been prouder.

Then a couple of hours after returning home from the rally, Heather and Sam dropped by so I could give Sam a farewell hug. His flight did leave on time at 7 pm, so hopefully he will be able to land early tomorrow morning in Amsterdam. They have been having cold weather and snow that has brought the airport to a standstill a few times over the past week. It warms up tomorrow, but today and tonight it is below freezing. We will all feel much better once we know he is on the ground in Amsterdam and starts the bus and train trek to Groningen.

2026 Life Logs, Day 09: Family Dinner, Ice Cream Cake, and Football
Date: Friday, January 9, 2026
Weather: Mixed, Some Sun, Some Clouds, Some Misty Rain; High 52, Low Temp 21 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

My day was dedicated to planning for an Indivisible Falmouth monthly meeting on Monday night, but my evening was dedicated to family. This is Sam’s last night at home before he returns to university life in the Netherlands. He wanted duck and mashed potatoes for dinner and wanted to watch the college football semi-final between the Indiana Hoosiers and the Oregon Ducks. So, we ate duck and watched ducks! He also loves Smitty’s ice cream cake, so I arranged to get one for him even though Smitty’s closed in October. Thank you, Smitty. Sam will not be here for his birthday on January 21, so we put candles on the cake and sang happy birthday.

And being the Goldstones, Heather was working a puzzle while watching the game and everyone played a new building game something like Jenga. But with this game, each person gets a pattern and races to see who can sucessful build their pattern in the shortest time. It was a fun evening, but the football game was very one-sided. The final score was 55 to 22. Ouch! The Hoosiers will play the U of Miami in the final next week. Sam will watch that from the Netherlands as his good friend Robert plays in the Miami marching band.

2026 Life Logs, Day 08: A Blur of Activity
Date: Thursday, January 8, 2026
Weather: Partly Sunny, Warmer; High 45, Low Temp 30 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

9:30 am–Indivisible Falmouth Steering Committee Zoom meeting
3 pm–Indivisible national weekly Thursday “What’s the Plan?” meeting on Zoom
7 pm–Falmouth Dems meeting in person
8 pm—Indivisible national Rapid Response meeting re Minnesota

And in between I played phone tag with the Director of Health at my sister’s assisted living facility, helped a friend who does bits for ads by videoing a session with him playing with Shadow, helped that same friend load his truck with firewood that has been stacked in my backyard for over a year, and went to visit my friend Midge who is now home from the hospital. And now I need to get on my exercise bike before heading to bed. All in a day.

2026 Life Logs, Day 07: ‘Fun’ Raising Meeting, Evening in Hyannis
Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Weather: Overcast and Rainy; High 39, Low Temp 30 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

My day started in North Falmouth at the Daily Brew attending an Indivisible Falmouth ‘Fun’ Raising. It has nothing to do with raising money. Rather we are just trying to figure out how to inject some fun or activities of interest into our weekly rallies on the Green. I then spent the afternoon working on more Christmas clean-up. I took the lights and decorations off the tree yesterday, but I got it out the door today. I still have a ton of bedding that has been laundered but not packed away. Slowly, I will get there.

Then tonight I volunteered to take Jonah and his friend Kaiden to winter soccer indoor practice in Hyannis. While they played futsal in the gym, I did a little food shopping. Then it was home and now to bed!

2026 Life Logs, Day 06: The Twelfth Day of Christmas
Date: Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High 39, Low Temp 34 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

On this twelfth day of Christmas, sadly the snowman Ziggy, Coco, and Justin built in the front yard on New Year’s morning fell over as the temperature rose above freezing. It was a visual reminder to me that the holiday season has ended. Since I have a tradition of taking down the Christmas tree on this day, that was a second visual reminder that it is time to store the memories and get on with the winter.

I had only one meeting today, but tomorrow I have meetings all morning spilling into the afternoon. Yep, life is getting back to normal, but before it disappears, I need to figure out how to bottle up all the positive holiday spirit and put it towards figuring out what we can do locally to fight the madness that is happening in this country. It continues to get worse with each passing day, so how do we effectively make it clear that enough is enough? I wish I had a magic wand, but since I don’t, we just have to figure out what we can use instead. If you have suggestions, please send them my way.

2026 Life Logs, Day 05: Back to ‘Real’ Life
Date: Monday, January 5, 2026
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 35, Low Temp 32 degrees F
Location: Back at Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

The holiday celebrations and time with family over the past two weeks were absolutely wonderful. But today, reality hit like a ton of bricks. I had an early morning Falmouth Immigrant Rights Coalition (FIRC) Zoom meeting that started the jolt to get me back to the real world. The ‘real’ world is not so easy to deal with these days. But one really positive thing that came out of the morning meeting was the deep appreciation for what my son Justin did for the group. He built and is the webmaster for Indivisible Falmouth’s website. And since FIRC has no website, Justin built a page on our Indivisible Falmouth site and got all of their documents in five different languages up and running. This morning the woman from LatinX expressed how important that is for local immigrants that are too scared to come forward to ask for help. Now they can go to the website and read and print any of the documents they need in their own language. So, a very BIG thank you to Justin.

I spent most of my day deflating inflatable mattresses, one queen, and two twins, and washing and drying all the sheets, blankets, and comforters. I also laundered the winter gear worn by Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco, so it can be packed away for their next winter visit.

This evening at 7 pm, I picked Ollie and Jonah up from a pond in East Falmouth where they had been playing ice hockey with friends. While we were in New Hampshire, Falmouth had really cold weather freezing some of the shallow ponds. So, today was the day to take advantage of the ice. Jonah went home from school with a friend who lives near one of the frozen ponds. So, he had been there all afternoon, but Jed had delivered Ollie later in the afternoon along with lights so they could skate in the dark. Unfortunately, the weather is turning warmer tonight, and we are supposed to get some rain. The kids will have to wait for another really cold spell to continue their fun on the ice. But they enjoyed this afternoon and evening, and I so enjoyed seeing them skating on the ice by the light of the lanterns when I picked them up.

Jed had a Board of Health meeting tonight, and Heather had a Select Board meeting. Plus, they both had to go to work today. So, they really got jolted back into the ‘real’ world. Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco made it home late this afternoon and are settling in. Ziggy and Coco don’t have to go back to school until Thursday, so they have two more days before they have to settle back into the ‘real’ world. And tomorrow is the twelfth day of Christmas when I take down my Christmas tree and turn off the outside lights. The joyful holiday time is over, but the memories will linger throughout the year.

2026 Life Logs, Day 04: Intervale to Mt. Washington to Lincoln to St. Paul’s in Concord
Date: Sunday, January 4, 2026
Weather: Overcast and Cold; High Temp from 0 to 20 degrees F
Location: Back at Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

After a whirlwind tour of parts of New Hampshire today, I am back home with my Shadow tonight. Heather and family got home mid-afternoon, but Justin, Jo, Ziggy, Coco, and I took the scenic route from Intervale to Boston Logan where they finally headed home to Puerto Rico at 10:15 tonight. They will arrive in San Juan around 3:30 am PR time (2:30 EST) where they will spend the rest of the night in a hotel before returning to Finca Maravilla tomorrow afternoon.

Today started with farewells at the Airbnb in Intervale at 10 am, the official check-out time.

Heather and family headed south to Cape Cod, but since the flight to PR had been delayed until after 9 pm tonight, I offered to take Justin and family on a whirlwind tour from Intervale northward through Crawford Notch to Mt Washington to ride the Cog Railway halfway up Mt. Washington (as far as it goes in the wintertime), to Franconia Notch and on to Lincoln to have lunch at the Gypsy Café, to St. Paul’s in Concord where Justin attended high school, and finally to Boston to have dinner at Helmand’s in Cambridge with a final drop off at Boston Logan.

It was not a clear day, so the views from the ride up Mt. Washington were not spectacular. Regardless, the ride was absolutely beautiful. When we reached the Mid-Mountain Waumbek Station at 3,800 feet the temperature was a little below zero, but not too windy, so it was just VERY cold but tolerable for a short time. There was free coffee and hot chocolate and a firepit where we could roast marshmallows. Ziggy used his new camera to take photos, and we all enjoyed the white-on-white beauty.


Once we decompressed from the ride, we continued driving northward for a bit before turning south to drive through Franconia Notch and make a stop in the town of Lincoln for lunch. We chose the Gypsy Café based on its name and it was a great choice.We arrived in Concord just before 4 pm to do a walking tour of St. Paul’s where Justin went to high school. A friend of mine who is on the staff there met us and took us inside many of the buildings. The students have not returned from winter break, so everything is locked up tight. But we got a VIP tour thanks to my friend Kate. The tour brought back many memories, and it was fun for Justin to go into the dining hall and find his name carved in one of the wooden panels for the class of ’95. We all enjoyed going into the beautiful library and then walking past the chapel. The St. Paul’s campus is so beautiful.

When we arrived in Cambridge, we had dinner at my favorite restaurant, Helmand’s. It features food from Afghanistan, and it has become a family tradition to eat there when in Boston. I then dropped JJZ&C at the airport at 7:45 pm. I headed home, hoping that the flight to Puerto Rico would not be further delayed. I got home safely and heard from Justin at 10:15 pm that they were on the plane. It will be 3:30 am Atlantic Standard Time when they arrive, but hopefully the memories of our family time together will make up for the lack of sleep. Their visit certainly started my new year out on a loving, positive note.