Day 252, Year 7: Tuesday without the Grandkids
Date: Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Weather: Still Sunny and Hot-We love it!
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts

How lonely. I’m having withdrawal. Mark and I stayed on Windbird all day
except for one little trip to town to pick up the car, so we didn’t see Sam,
Jonah, and Oliver. And we miss them. But somehow we managed to keep
ourselves busy all day despite the absence of the little ones. I got up and
had a very relaxed beginning to my morning. By the time Mark got up, I was
off to shore to fill my laundry buckets with water. I left them in the
dinghy and let the laundry soak while I came back onboard and continued my
cleaning projects. Mark spent his energy replacing the inboard/outboard
switch on our aft head. The old one was totally frozen, so we couldn’t use
it. We are now legal with the head going into our holding tank. Let’s just
hope the pump out boat comes by on Thursday.

Doing laundry requires multiple trips to the town dock for water but it felt
good to be doing it by hand. The real problem here is that when I do this,
I am dumping soapy water directly into the pond without going through water
treatment. I’ll have to get Heather to evaluate which is best for the
environment-using a washing machine and dryer or washing my own and hanging
it on the life lines to dry. One thing I know for sure is that I prefer my
sheets done by hand and then dried on the life lines. I can’t wait to crawl
into bed tonight to the feel of freshly laundered sheets dried in the sun.

Our trip to town in the late afternoon was to pick up our car. We took the
trolley into town to get the car, but the repairs aren’t done. They simply
checked out the problems and put the car back together so we can drive it
until rebuilt parts arrive. Hopefully Friday will be the real repair day.
A rebuilt pump for our power steering system will cost $250. A new one is
much more expensive, so the time delay is an economic necessity.

Tomorrow morning I go to visit with my friend Claire Wiklund and then I will
pick up the boys from school and take them home for naps. If both big boys
take naps, I can then hold Oliver while Heather works. I’ll get my Oma hit,
Oliver will get a nap, and Heather will get some work done. Sounds like a
plan.