| 7/29/2010 |
Ipswich, MA |
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Tuesday night I got back from my trip to Fort Myers. It was a good visit; Dad clearly recognized me and appreciated my visit, even if he can't really communicate any more. I spent about 4 hours a day at the nursing home with him, including eating lunch with him. Luckily, the nursing home food is really pretty good!
It was also good to spend time with Monta. She enjoyed having someone to enjoy an evening martini with her! On Sunday afternoon, I took her to Olive Garden for a nice late lunch/early dinner.
My travel both directions went pretty smooth. I flew on Jet Blue for the first time and was really impressed. Very comfortable flights, I was able to check my bag without fees, and everything ran smoothly and on time. The only glitch was my trip back from the airport on Tuesday. Traffic was so bad in Boston that the shuttle bus trip took forever! Luckily, our host Dick was able to come pick me up since Chris had race team practice.
Wednesday, I immediately jumped into the weekly chores. In the morning I took the grrlz for a walk and made a trip to the liquor store to resupply beer. In the afternoon, I made a trip to the Land of Retail and bought groceries and other supplies. On the way home, I did something I've been meaning to do for a long time -- count the number of speed limit changes between the Land of Retail and Ipswich. In the 11 miles, there are 18 (!) speed limit changes with speeds ranging between 20 and 50 mph. Fourteen of those changes are on one road -- Route 1A between Beverly and Ipswich.
Today was laundry day, and I ran a bunch of errands for Chris. This afternoon, I've just been trying to catch up on stuff around the house. Tonight we're hoping the weather will hold so that we can go to the weekly picnic concert at Castle Hill. [Heather] |
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| 8/1/2010 |
Ipswich, MA |
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We lucked out and had another beautiful evening for the Thursday picnic concert at Castle Hill. We had an easy supper of cheese and crackers, hummus and pita, along with some nice prosecco. We had planned to have White Farms ice cream for dessert, but there was a long line at the truck all evening long. We listened to a Beatles tribute band who seemed to be pretty good, but the sound in our location was bad. Since we were both pretty tired, we left during the second set and had our ice cream at home.
Friday was the second regatta of the year for the Ipswich kids. It made a long day for Chris -- he had to be at the Yacht Club at 7:45 a.m. to tow boats over to Annisquam, and he called for me to pick him up at 7 p.m. The Ipswich kids did pretty well, and everyone seemed to have a good time.
On Saturday, I worked at Castle Hill from 9 until 2. It was another very busy day and the time went by quickly. A little before noon, Chris headed out to sail the International 14 with Adam, one of the IJS instructors. It was the first time he's had the boat out since we got to MA. It was a little breezy and he and Adam spent a lot of time in the water. By the time he got home, he was one tired puppy! After some good fish tacos for dinner, we both crashed early.
Today we're having an easy, relaxing day. This morning Chris made pancakes which we ate with fresh strawberries and blueberries. Continuing with our fresh food theme, we headed up the road to Rowley for the Sunday morning farmer's market where we bought way too much delicious looking fresh produce. I spent the rest of the morning planning the week's menu around our purchases. We sampled some delicious local peaches with our lunch. We also bought local corn, beets, garlic, garlic scape pesto, Japanese eggplant, nectarines, middle eastern zucchini, purple bell peppers, jalapenos, mole peppers, and a beautiful bunch of large scallions. We'll eat well this week! [Heather] |
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| 8/6/2010 |
Ipswich, MA |
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We've thoroughly enjoyed all our fresh produce this week, making shrimp and scallion kebabs with garlic scape pesto, chicken with eggplant, purple peppers, and kalamata olives, grilled corn, roasted beet salad, and steak fajitas with grilled onions, chiles, and peppers. Yum!
In addition to the usual chores this week, I worked at Castle Hill on Thursday. The weather was really iffy, so Chris and I stayed in contact by cell phone to decide if we were going to try to go to the picnic concert. Three p.m. was our deadline to order supper from the Ipswich Fish Market, and as that deadline came near the skies opened up. Decision made.... We stayed home and made a frittata with sausage, potatoes, and peppers.
Today Chris is off at the Wingersheek Chowder Cup regatta. The weather is nice, but fairly breezy. His racers usually do pretty well in those conditions, but the Chowder Cup rules don't allow spinnakers and trapeze. Not being able to hike out on a trapeze makes it more difficult to cope with the breezy conditions.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day -- clear and not as hot. We're hoping to go up to Castle Hill to take both the landscape tour and the house tour. [Heather] |
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| 8/10/2010 |
Ipswich, MA |
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We had a beautiful day on Saturday for our tours at Castle Hill. The weather was clear, dry, and fairly cool. We took the landscape tour first with Candace. It was very interesting and we had a nice walk all over the grounds for about 1 3/4 hours.
Next we took the noon house tour with Becky. She is one of the two lead guides, along with Marty. Her tour was particularly interesting because she grew up in the area and has family who worked on the estate. Best of all, she had us stay behind at the end of the tour and took us up to the roof. What a spectacular view!
Sunday afternoon, Chris took his racers and the boats down to Marblehead to register for Junior Olympics and get set up. The set up took so long that he took them out for pizza before returning home.
Monday and Tuesday he left very early each morning to collect kids and head off to Marblehead. Last night, he got home about 8:30 p.m. One of his teams, Danielle and Andrea, did great. They finished the first day fourth overall -- a remarkable achievement against the very stiff competition from hard-core racers.
Chris is on his way home, so I don't know the final results yet. The grrlz are really hoping that he'll have some time off tomorrow so we can all go for a good walk. They're getting pretty grumpy about being stuck with a boring mom and no wheels! [Heather] |
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| 8/18/2010 |
Ipswich, MA |
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Once again, another week has sped by! The two IJS girls didn't have as good a day at Junior Olympics on Tuesday as they did the first day, but still managed to finish a very respectable 15th out of a highly competitive fleet of 50+ boats. Everyone was pretty tired after an intense 3 days of setting up, racing, moving boats, and driving back and forth.
We took it easy on Wednesday. There were no regular classes scheduled for the week of Junior Olympics, so Chris had a rare midweek day off. We took the grrlz for a walk, did a little shopping, and otherwise goofed off.
On Thursday, the pace picked back up. Chris was back to work for the "Destination Sail" day, a one-day class where they loaded all the kids into 420s and took them to the mouth of the Essex river for a sail, picnic, and play on the beach.
Thursday afternoon, Joan drove up from Lexington. I made a picnic supper of cold baked chicken, pasta salad, fruit cups, and oatmeal cookies. When Chris got home, we headed up to Castle Hill for the Thursday evening picnic concert. This week was the Beantown Swing Orchestra, which was very good. Their featured vocalist, John Stevens, was an American Idol finalist a few years ago. He was great!
At 6, they offered swing dance lessons and Chris and I got up to learn a very basic six-count East Coast swing dance. After the band started, Chris and I even got up to dance a bit. It sure wasn't elegant! We both had problems fitting the six-count swing to the eight-count music....
It was a fun evening, and Joan seemed to have a good time, wandering around and taking in the crowd. Afterwards, she stayed overnight on our sleeper sofa so that she didn't have to drive home in the dark. After a nice breakfast in the morning, Chris headed off to the Friday morning free sail session and Joan headed home.
Chris got home around lunchtime and we started to pack up to go down to Lexington. As I was packing up the food we were taking, I managed to spill an entire container of iced coffee on the carpet! So, instead of leaving for Lexington, we ran out for some lunch and picked a rug doctor at the supermarket. Back home, a quick session with the rug doctor and the carpet was back to normal. Once again, we got packed up, returned the cleaner, and finally headed to Lexington. There we baked a carrot cake for Barbara's birthday.
On Saturday afternoon, we loaded up the cake and headed down to Hingham. We had an enjoyable afternoon with drinks and nibbles on Barbara's patio. Chris did a few chores for her, and she opened some presents. Later we went out for a birthday dinner at an excellent Thai restaurant in South Weymouth called Lime Leaf Thai Cuisine. All of our food was excellent.
Back at Barbara's, we all ate too much carrot cake and ice cream. This particular carrot cake recipe has always been my favorite. It comes from the Fiddlehead, our favorite restaurant in Juneau which, sadly, closed shortly after we left Alaska.
Sunday morning, we headed back to Ipswich where we did a few chores then had an excellent dinner and bottle of Prosecco to celebrate our anniversary a day early. On Monday, Dick and Marty returned from their week on Martha's Vineyard and I cooked dinner for all of us. It was nice that they didn't need to put together a meal after traveling all day.
Now I'm back in the routine of the normal chores, including taking the grrlz for much-needed walkies! Also, I finally updated the calendar on our website with our approximate cruising schedule for next season. [Heather] |
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| 8/20/2010 |
Ipswich, MA |
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Most of the day on Wednesday, it felt like my head was spinning! I spent a lot of time online and on the phone trying to sort out requirements for taking the dogs to all the different countries in the eastern Caribbean. It's very hard to know what's REALLY possible versus what the legal requirements are. All through Mexico, Central America, and the western Caribbean reality was quite different from the written rules. Here, every country is different and some of the rabies-free islands have incredibly stringent requirements, such as "all dogs coming from the U.S. must be undergo 6 months of quarantine in the United Kingdom before entering the island." Hmmmm......
Yesterday I worked at Castle Hill, an incredibly busy and chaotic day. We had over 120 people tour the house, including 60 kids from the inner city Boston YMCA that ranged in age from 8 to 13 or so.
Luckily, I had pre-ordered a picnic supper from Ipswich fish market for the concert last night, so I didn't need to think about dinner. We enjoyed our gazpacho and lobster rolls at the very well-attended concert by Inner Visions, an excellent reggae band. We were both pretty beat though and left early in the second set.
Today is the Greenhead regatta and I'm off with Chris to help run the races. Darlene (one of the parents and board members) and I have worked together before running races and we make a good team. The grrlz will get to go too and ride around in the coach boat with Chris. [Heather] |
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| 8/23/2010 |
Ipswich, MA |
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Hard to believe that it's our last week in Ipswich already! The Greenhead Regatta went well on Friday, even though the field of competitors was small and the conditions were tough. A strong wind was blowing out of the north, pushing water out of the upper bay and making the already strong current even worse. Since the only Opti sailors were from Ipswich, Chris ended up coaching several of them around the course to help them figure out how to make progress against the current. Darlene and I had a pretty easy time running the races; we've worked together enough times to have it figured out.
On Saturday I worked at Castle Hill and Chris headed out to Holden, MA to meet our friends John and Liz. They drove out to Amherst together for first a bike ride, then a short hike. I got home from work a little after 2 and released the grrlz from captivity. Chris got home around 7:30, bearing dinner from the local takeout.
Sunday morning the weather was okay, but predicted to get much worse for the week. After a nice breakfast of blueberry pancakes, we headed out with the grrlz. First we stopped at their favorite walk along the Ipswich River. The rain was just starting when we arrived, so we took them on a shorter than normal loop. They were just happy to be out and had a good romp.
Next we headed down to Danvers for a quick stop at Target, then a movie. We saw and enjoyed Eat Pray Love. Julia Roberts is one of my favorite actors and I thought she did a good job in the movie. Afterwards, we stopped for a few groceries then headed home.
This morning we awoke to cool temperatures, steady rain, and strong, blustery winds. The winds were gusting to 30 mph, so the kids weren't able to go out sailing. Luckily, some parents kept their kids home so that reduced the number of students that the instructors had to keep entertained for the day.
I was supposed to get a haircut today, but the salon called to say that my stylist was home with a sick kid. It took advantage of the cool temperatures and unexpected extra time to take a mountain of laundry to the laundromat. At the end of the season, I try to do all the rugs, blankets, bedspreads, etc. to leave them clean for other visitors at Dick and Marty's. [Heather] |
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| 8/29/2010 |
Ipswich, MA |
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Our last day in Ipswich -- after a very busy week. Cool, rainy, blustery days hampered the sailing program the first three days of the week, but luckily the weather improved for Thursday Pirate Day -- the last day of classes -- and Competition Day on Friday.
On Thursday, while Chris was at work, I took a load of stuff down to Lexington, took the grrlz for a much needed walk (after being cooped up in the stormy weather), and picked up some picnic food at Trader Joe's. Thursday night we went to the picnic concert - a Cajun Zydeco band. They were very good, but being New Englanders they just didn't get the Cajun twang quite right.
On Friday, Darlene and I ran the Competition Day races again, and it was total chaos! Unlike the regattas, on Competition Day a lot of inexperienced junior sailors come out to race. Currents were fairly strong and at the beginning of the first race we ended up with a clot of five Optis tangled up in our anchor line. What a mess! Darlene untangled Optis while I watched the start/finish line. It was great fun, however, and all the kids seemed to have a good time.
The kids that weren't racing participated in games on the lawn and on the docks including rigging and capsize races. After pizza and cake for lunch, the season awards were given out, then everyone was pressed into service to help lug all the boats and equipment up onto the lawn. All the lighter parts and supplies were carried up into the attic for storage.
After a long tiring day, the Todaros (Angelina is one of the instructors) hosted a fun party in their lovely backyard. The instructors and other kids played in the pool and lounged in the hot tub while the adults talked and ate. The kids managed to down a mountain of the delicious food as well.
We left fairly early since we had to get up before dawn on Saturday to leave for a one day rally trial in New Hampshire. We were on the road about 5:45 a.m. and stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for a bite to eat and some much-needed coffee. We got to the wonderful facility (All-Dogs Gym in Manchester, NH) about 7 and set up our crates. Both grrlz did quite well, participating in Levels 1, 2, and Veterans. They weren't up for any big ribbons this weekend, but pulled in an impressive haul of qualifying and placement ribbons.
We were all exhausted by the end of the day. We left about 6 p.m. and stopped at a Mexican restaurant for a quick dinner on the way home. We slept in this morning and are trying to work up our energy levels for the final push -- packing up all our belongings, getting the International 14 disassembled and loaded on its trailer, and thoroughly cleaning the apartment. This afternoon we should be on our way back to Lexington to settle in for about a month. Whew! [Heather] |
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| 9/2/2010 |
Lexington, MA |
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We've been slowly getting settled back in Lexington. Sunday was a long day. Not only did we have to finish packing up and cleaning the apartment, but we also had to de-rig and load the International 14. Not the best plan to do that on a beautiful Sunday. The beach where Chris kept it was packed and we couldn't find anyplace to park the trailer. We finally just blocked someone in and worked quickly!
It was after 5 before we left Ipswich, and we arrived at Joan's tired, grubby, and hungry. We ordered a pizza and Joan collected it while Chris and I collapsed.
Monday, we finished unloading the van then I ran around doing a little provisioning. Joan had just returned from Vermont on Saturday, so there wasn't much in the house. Other than that, we took it easy. We needed a break after the last couple of weeks! The grrlz did get much-needed walkies, however.
Tuesday Chris took the van for its 130,000 mile and 135,000 mile services. The summer was so hectic that we missed one service.... Luckily, nothing was wrong, even though the check engine light has been coming on from time to time.
On Wednesday, Chris drove to Rockport to select three of the Sandy Bay YC used 420s for Ipswich to purchase. He had planned to do that on Thursday while I was working at Castle Hill, but preparations for Hurricane Earl caused Sandy Bay to move up the appointment. It's looking like Earl will give the Boston area (especially Cape Cod) a quick smack on his way north. Tomorrow we'll be taking precautions around Joan's house -- securing the International 14, taking in plants and furniture, and such. We're far enough inland here that they are only predicting 20 - 30 mph winds, but hurricanes always have a mind of their own! [Heather] |
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| 9/6/2010 |
Lexington, MA |
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Luckily, Hurricane Earl was a non-event for most of Massachusetts. On Friday, the three of us spent an hour or so securing everything around Joan's house for possible high winds and heavy rains. We moved the porch furniture, secured plants, moved things up off the basement floors, and strapped the International 14 and its trailer to a tree. We had a few hours of steady rain, sometimes fairly heavy, and some winds in the 20+ range. There was a bit more rain and wind down at Hingham where Joan's sister Barbara lives. We were all glad to be over- rather than under-prepared.
On Saturday we undid the hurricane preparations and emptied out the garage in preparation for painting and laying a garage floor covering. Chris is also doing a few small carpentry projects and we'll install shelving and tool hanging systems to replace the hodge-podge of storage units currently there. The project start, of course, involved the requisite two trips to Home Depot.
We're definitely laboring on Labor Day weekend! Sunday morning Chris smeared around some Spackle in the worst of the holes and gaps in the garage walls and ceiling. After lunch, we finally got started painting which immediately proved to be more of a chore than we had hoped. The walls are mostly rough, unpainted concrete blocks with some sections of brick. The ceiling, which Joan plastered by herself 40 or so years ago, has never been painted so it really soaked up the primer. Also, there are lots of metal pipes crossing the ceiling which we want to paint. We also have to cut in around the garage door and the automatic opener. So, between yesterday and today, we put in about 12 man-hours JUST to prime the ceiling! About 10 of that was for the cutting in and doing the pipes....
We hope that the pace will speed up now that chore is done.After lunch we'll start cutting in again, this time with the ceiling paint. Now that the priming is done, we expect that this portion will take less time and paint.
Last night after our long day of painting on ladders, working over our heads (ouch.... sore necks and arms!), we enjoyed an excellent dinner of ribs, potato salad, and slaw. Yum! I made the salads in the morning and the ribs quietly cooked away most of the afternoon while we were painting. [Heather] |
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