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A few of you have been asking what we are doing so we figured it was long overdue for an update. The end of October Janice flew back to the US due to some medical problems the Dr. in the Netherlands couldn’t figure out. Bob stayed in Lelsytad, Netherlands and got stuck with winterizing Tsamaya and getting her pulled. With there being so many unknown’s we decided to put her on the hard and have a few jobs done on her in our absence. Flevo Marina in Lelystad is a first-rate operation. A year ago we had the boat pulled and did some work on our prop shaft and on our rudder and were extremely happy with the results. This year we needed new bottom paint, some repairs to the bottom of the keel (thanks to the rocks in Finland), a stanchion replaced which had been damaged in Helsinki and some skid resistance on the cockpit floor.
Janice’s primary care Dr. in the US figured out quite quickly what the problem was. It was a very bad side effect of a medication she had been taking for 2 years. It had affected the muscles in both arms and both legs.
Fall Color
Janice was back in time to enjoy seeing the fall color.Unfortunately because we didn’t find out for quite a few months it had been getting worse while in the Netherlands so it took much longer than the Dr. expected for it to clear out of the body. It wasn’t until mid-January that she was back to being fully functional. It was definitely a little scary due to the fact that she couldn’t do even simple things like dressing herself or pulling the blankets over herself in bed. Fortunately when she flew back to the US she was able to stay with her sister Barb and her husband Peter. What a great help to have someone to help with basic tasks as simple as putting on my socks! Luckily as it got better she was able to drive herself to Dr. appointments.
Bob got the work done on Tsamaya and flew to the US the first part of December. Again, fortune smiled on us because his aunt and uncle are in the process of selling their house in northern New York (about 40 minutes from Janice’s mother’s place) so we were able to house sit. This is the same Uncle Charlie and Lynn who have been storing our “stuff”above their
garage for the last five years. This means that we can sort our “stuff”while we are here to decide what we are going to do with it before the house sells.
So, what have we been doing all this time? Fortunately for us there are quite a few family members around in the area. With us being here for the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and a few birthdays and a wedding we were fortunate to have time with family for these events. Having time to spend with family has been a definite bonus of being back in upstate NY.
With the amount of snow we had here that also kept Bob very busy with snow blowing/plowing. Luckily Bob’s uncle left a great snow blower and tractor here to use which was a life saver! We were very lucky that we didn’t get much in the way of ice so the winter driving wasn’t bad at all.
Janice seems to be spending plenty of time at physical therapy appointments trying to get her body to function again after all that time of not being able to do much. It has definitely helped. Her Mom wound up in
Our "Home" Thanks to Our Aunt & Uncle
We've enjoyed housesitting this beautiful log cabin! the hospital for a week in January, but she is doing much better now. One of the tasks Janice has taken on is cooking most of the lunch and dinner meals for her Mom. She had been using Meals on Wheels before for her lunches, but they are very high in sodium so cancelled that service in exchange for home cooked meals that we can control the sodium/fat levels in. Janice has always enjoyed cooking so it hasn’t been a chore and she has had a beautiful very large kitchen to work in now. Quite the change from the galley on Tsamaya!
Fortunately it hasn’t all been work or medical appointments –we always try to find out what is happening in any area that we land and this was no exception! Just a few of the things we have done - spent an evening at CaféLena in Saratoga listening to some great music, Janice attended an evening of Celtic pipe and drum music with her sister, and just recently did an Art & Tap evening with both of her sisters to see how “creative”we are. During the winter here they even have an outhouse race on one of the
Interesting Sculpture on this Bridge
related to an incident years ago with frogs in this town. nearby lakes so that was a definite must see event! It was amazing to see how creative they were in building an outhouse that measured up to the rules of having 3 sides and a roof, must hold a person weighing at least 100 lbs., of course having a toilet seat (didn’t have to be a working one!) and be powered by 4 humans with the 5
th member of the team being the “driver”inside the outhouse. Even though it was a cold day it drew quite a crowd –quite a unique event (for those of you who live in warm climates this will give you some idea of what prolonged periods of numbing cold and deep snow will do to normal people)!
The nearby city of Troy had an a Victorian Stroll before Christmas - enjoyed that with one of our nieces (Laura) and Janice’s sister Barb. Lots of music in the street (even Morris Dancing for those of you that know this!), businesses to visit decorated for the holidays, and of course what “festival”is complete without food vendors on the street. An added treat was finding out that there are numerous Tiffany windows in Troy. St. Paul’s Church
Gingerbread Houses for the Holidays
a competition at the Sturbridge Village Museum entire interior was remodeled by Tiffany Co. in the 1890’s. This made for one unified unique look with its lamps, windows, mosaic tiles, stenciled walls and gothic truss designed and executed by Tiffany. Fortunately they also had people explaining the various components of the interior and taught us how to recognize a true Tiffany window as there were many that imitated his technique. There are a number of other buildings with Tiffany windows in Troy –unfortunately we only had time to see the one at the Troy Library. If you are ever in the area, these are well worth seeing.
We toured the Schenectady Museum of Science with family members, the youngest in the group being our great nephew, Gabriel age 3, currently planning to be a railroad engineer. With that in mind we had to see the excellent model train exhibit there. Even though we grew up in this area we learned quite a bit about the history of General Electric and its impact on the city of Schenectady. For those of you who are unaware Thomas Edison was one of the 2 founders of the General Electric Company in the late 1800s which later became one of
What a Great Place to Have Christmas
and room to set up a full size tree! the major developers of jet engines and steam turbines. Schenectady New York is the home of the General Electric Company.
Janice made it to the Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts with her sister Barb and niece Linda and kids –a very enjoyable overnight trip. They attended the Christmas by Candlelight event which allowed them to visit many of the historic buildings located there, learn about the lives of the people from the 1790’s to 1830’s, listened to music and sampled some of the foods from the times with mulled cider, gingerbread, and plum pudding. What a pleasant as well as educational way to spend the evening with the bonus of being with family members.
Bob has been enjoying his time getting his woodworking tools unpacked and set up to use. His aunt and uncle bought a home in South Carolina that needed new bathroom vanities and a linen closet. Bob offered to build them for them so he is immersed in that project now.
The other thing that has been taking up our time is doing some house hunting. We definitely didn’t think we would be doing this now, but decided that it might be a good
The Future Railroad Engineer in Our Family
watching the trains at the Schenectady Museum idea right now. Every time we come back to the US we have to find a place to live and rent a car. With the location of our “stuff”being sold we also needed to look into a place to store it for when we are on Tsamaya. After considering all of these points as well as wanting to spend some more time here with Mom we figured checking into buying a place might be the solution.
After looking at quite a few places we narrowed it down to one that needs some work, (as the real estate agent said “it has good bones”) the bathroom reminds us of the head on Tsamaya just smaller), is in a nice community (reminds us of Trumansburg where we used to live) and will be an excellent project for Bob (will keep him off the streets and out of trouble, well at least reduce the possibilities). We took the plunge and put in a purchase offer which was accepted. The house inspection has been done so we are another step closer to closing. Will keep you posted on this one! We have always said that our time in Peace Corps taught us early
on –“you always need to be flexible”and as we have learned since cruising full time, plans are written in the sand at low tide. This one will be quite a major one, but we are excited about a new adventure! Bob is already enjoying planning changes we want to make to the house if the purchase goes through. Of course Janice is trying to keep him on a tight budget ( “no you can’t put a second floor in the kitchen”). With this new plan we will still be going back to Tsamaya for part of the year –our current plan is to head back in April 2016 for the next sailing season so stay tuned.
We know we still have other places we visited in Europe to report on so even though some of this information will be old, we will continue to work on updating our blog in order to give you a complete picture of our travels this past season. We hope you will continue to monitor our activities as we do not want to lose touch with you! Best wishes to all.
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