Wow! You finally get to the point where the house is starting to empty out and then the enormity of it all strikes. In 2 weeks we will be “homeless” – with only the boat to live on. We went out to dinner last night and I don’t know if it was the food or the TV watching afterwards, but neither of us could get to sleep. As a side note – we were watching a series on Netflix called “Midsomer Murders” – my parents introduced it to us on our last visit down there. GREAT show – we have yet to figure out the guilty party in an episode and we are now up to the beginning of season 4! Highly recommended!!

Anyway, so at 11:30PM we turned on the light and grabbed a notepad and started writing down things that had to be done before we leave the house. The list was HUGE!! Gifts for all our family birthdays in April, license renewal, wrapping up loose ends for things we are giving away, address changes for the bank, life insurance, cellphone service, scheduling the final electric meter reading and having the power turned off – that was just part of my list and I only have about 25% of the tasks! All these little details you don’t think about when living from day to day on land – amazing how much they clutter up your existence. And another thing – they add to your bills!

The nice thing about this is we will only have 4 bills next month; mail, cell phone, credit card and dockage – a FAR simpler existence that will allow us to concentrate on the things of importance, namely getting the rest of the equipment purchased and installed for the trip. This is proving to be daunting – I finally took a serious look at what still needed to be done, and its almost $25K worth – dinghy, lifeboat, safety equipment, fixing broken and leaky hatches, new forestay and roller furling, solar and wind generation capability – I know why they spell it BOAT – it means Break Out Another Thousand 🙂

After going over the list we realized that some of the stuff can be purchased and installed along the way, but some of the stuff – like the forestay, roller furling, dinghy, safety gear and lifeboat have to be done before we can leave. That means I will be doing a LOT of chores on the boat after I get done with work each day. Its going to be a tough road, but the reward will be worth it. Our departure date looks to be in the first half of June assuming we can get all the required chores done. Weather will play a part in this too.

We are both getting over colds too – while we don’t feel stressed, I think that the enormity of what needs to be done is silently taking its toll. Can’t wait for the next step to pass – our get-rid-of-it-all garage-sale – that big step will move us toward move out date and the start of the next part of the adventure.

Half of what we’re taking aboard – not much…

Then there are the con-men – I mean seriously! I am trying to sell a riding mower in Ohio, and some guy calls me from California with all this stuff about a certified check; I called the bank and they said 10 days to clear, so I told the guy I will hold the mower for 3 weeks to ensure the check clears; strange how he just suddenly fell off the planet. Crickets…. Don’t people have better things to do?!? Happened to me 3 times today, all with the same M.O. !

Ah well, the joys of downsizing. Until next time….