SMONDAY: When the Sunday feeling starts to turn into Monday anxiety.

As I continue to peruse the never-ending stream of blogs that promise readers a glimpse into what it’s “really like” to sell everything, buy a boat and liveaboard, I continue to find myself getting frustrated with the lack of blogs that REALLY explain the days, months, and maybe even years, that led up to the magical moment of moving aboard.  The blogs generally seem to skip from “we got this crazy idea” to “we had a yard sale and donated everything that was leftover” to “we’re wrapping up our first month living aboard” with not much meat in the middle.  I guess that’s where I hope our blog is different.  I hope to be able to contribute the timeliness of the real-life aspects of selling everything, buying a boat and moving onboard.  The monthly payments toward becoming debt-free, the boat shows, the difficulty staying focused at work, knowing that in just a few years, I won’t be fighting rush-hour traffic in order to be able to punch the clock and not be a minute late.  The hard work on our house, getting it ready to absolutely shine for prospective owners.  The countdown of Monday’s left until Sunday evenings aren’t overtaken by the anxiety of Monday mornings and another week in the grind.  (We’ve only got 231 Monday’s left, not counting today, of course.  Just in case you’re counting along.)

On the home front…more progress!  This past Saturday (5/6/2017), we took another pickup truck load of trash to the township’s spring bulk cleanup.  Hurray for free disposal of more trash!  The basement is becoming more and more clear which makes my heart happy.  We also used this past weekend to work HARD on finishing up the past winter’s renovations of the upstairs of our house.  The den is so close to being finished!  The only things we have left to complete are staining the pieces for the built in gun rack and staining some shelves to be put back up on the walls.  Other than that, COMPLETO in the den!  Josh still has some trim work to do upstairs to finish everything, but, it’s pretty minimal.  We’ve put together a plan to begin landscaping outside this year, since everything outside is finally cleaned up and we don’t have chickens anymore.  We kind of can’t wait to get outside so I’m thankful that the inside winter projects are winding down.

Since neither of us have been to a dentist for at least the past 7 years that we’ve been together, I decided to finally bite the bullet last week and make it happen.  I anticipate that I’m going to need extensive dental work done, as my wisdom teeth have come in and have made a significant mess out of my teeth in the past 8 – 10 years since I last went to the dentist.  Keeping in mind that I’m planning on retiring from my current job in 2021 (5 years of dental benefits left) and my dental coverage only covers $1,000 per year, I figured I’d better get moving in order to have things straightened out (literally!) over the next 5ish years of benefits (and $5,000 worth of coverage).  I also cover Josh for dental benefits, so he’s got $1,000 per year for the next 5 years of benefits, too.  I did a quick search for sedation dentists in my area and found one not far from Josh’s office.  (I anticipate a pretty high level of anxiety associated with the amount of dental work I believe I’m going to need.)  A phone call to the dentist’s office on Wednesday, 5/3/2017, netted me an appointment on the same day and Josh an appointment the next day!  We both have follow-up appointments set for the next steps we each need.  I’m definitely not looking forward to it, but, I’d rather have things covered by insurance I pay for every pay now than having to spend money out of our pockets 7 or 10 years down the road that we could have avoided.

So, let’s talk about this whole power boat vs. sailboat thing for a minute.  Since we began seriously looking at boats in September / October 2016, I have been pretty (overwhelmingly) resistant to the idea of a sailboat.  For a variety of pretty suspicious reasons, I’ll admit.  I feel like it’s going to be a bunch of work all the time, adjusting sails, pulling ropes, running out in the rain to tend to something.  I feel like it’s going to take much more attention that a power boat would.  But, Josh said something the other day that just kind of clicked.  And, of course, I’m never going to get it EXACTLY right on what he said, but, here’s what I heard: Maybe a powerboat would end up being less work.  But, it’s definitely more money in fuel.  Which will mean we HAVE to work more or shorten our adventures.  And maybe a sailboat does end up being more work.  But, it’s definitely a lot less money in fuel.  Which means we won’t HAVE to work as much and can adventure longer.  And it seems like we can get a whole lot more boat, newer, for the same amount as an older, smaller powerboat.  I’m sure he’s said the same thing to me a million different ways over the past few years, but, for some reason, that time he said it, I got it.  (I think he was pretty delighted by the light bulb that FINALLY fired up!)  So…I guess I say all that to say that we’re seriously considering sailing catamarans now!  I’m pretty sure Josh has been hoarding ideas of sailing catamarans this entire time, because shortly after we had that conversation, six sailing cats appeared on our research page list to check out.  We may end up being “blow boat people” after all.  Weird.