12/30

I've been forging ahead in Live on the Margin. I'm really digging that book.

I've also developed a schoolboy crush on a Vancouver 32. No typo -- a 32. April is understandably skeptical but just take a look at this: http://m.yachtworld.com/mobile/boats/1986/Vancouver-Pilot-House-2486905/Bayfield/WI/United-States.

Another one we both fell in love with today is the Hans Christian 38. There are a number of them available in the 60 to 80 range. Those are truly beautiful boats, widely acknowledged as capable blue water cruisers.

247.9

12/29

I've been really getting into Live on the the Margin, which just came out from Pat Schulte (s/v Bumfuzzle) and Nick O'Kelly. It's primarily a book about leverage and technical analysis, which is why I wanted to read it. What I hadn't expected was all the other great content in the first several chapters. Pat and Nick spend some time talking about why this lifestyle is a reasonable choice and not mere indulgence. Their analysis of financial, economic, and political dynamics actually verges on praxeological. Good stuff!

-22.8 @ 248.6

12/28

We finished up Adventure on the High Sea!.  That was a great one and Audrey especially enjoyed it.

I've made some improvements on our listing site and we got a call from a guy who's interested in a showing in a couple weeks.

-23.3 @ 247.9

12/27

We put together a listing site for our house: 252switz.blogspot.com.  It's not done, but it's a good start.  We had a bite from another potential buyer, so we'll be preparing for a showing soon.  That will give us the opportunity to get some more and better pictures.

-22.2 @ 249.0

12/26

Audrey read her longest story yet tonight. That was Lesson 43. I'm looking forward to Lesson 50, when we'll lose all the Morse code and cocodrilos...

April had an inspiring chat with a friend the other day about FSBO, so we're going to give that a good try.  

Mom and Dad sent us a bunch of great boating books for Christmas: Inspecting the Aging Sailboat, Sailing Fundamentals, Adventure on the High Seas, and Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Started Sailing.  Oh, and  of course, Scuppers, The Sailor Dog.  We've been enjoying them all.  In fact we're almost already done with Adventure, which is the true story of a family who spent a year cruising from England to Maine, via Spain, Portugal, the Canaries, Gambia, the Windward Islands and Lesser Antilles, and Bermuda.  We've read the whole thing aloud to the girls, who've been eating it up.  Also, Genius Denied, which looks like it will be inspiring in our educational efforts with the girls.  Thanks guys!

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone! I gave myself leave to miss the last couple days, as you can tell.

My favorite Christmas song this year has been Christmas on Christmas Island. Though there are at least 2 Christmas Islands so I'm not sure which one the song refers to, but I'll take either.

I forgot to weigh this morning but I'm certainly up. I'll get back on top of it.

12/22

We cleaned up another persistent mess today, this one in Lorelei's room. It's pretty much showable now, I think.

12/20

Audrey wanted to do lessons 38, 49, and 40 tonight. It was really awesome to watch. I believe we are past a tipping point now and she'll be reading her own books in a matter of a couple months. It's great not only because, I mean, she can read, but also because I can teach. That's going to be important as we cruise.

This evening we were reading about Guatemala in World Cruising Destinations. Rio Dulce sounds like a really neat place. It winds through the tropical rainforest far inland to a big lake -- Izabal -- and is lined with little indigenous Mayan communities. And the no visa thing is great, of course.

I put a big dent in one of our last remaining serious messes-- the upstairs shelving. Very satisfying to get that cleaned up.

I threw out a pair of 44 pants and pulled out a bunch of barely-used 40s Len had given me from a client of his who'd lost a lot of weight. I'm really excited to be able to fit into those. It's been quite awhile since I could wear 40s...

-22.4 @ 248.8

12/19

Lesson 37 went great.  I think she needs for us to drop some of the repetition.

We got the Bumfuzzle book.  I'm only about 4 paragraphs in, but it definitely starts strong.

We're going to read some Your Boat Too...

-22.4 @ 248.8

12/18

Audrey did a great job of lesson 36 this evening. Early this morning I heard her talking in her room and when I stuck my head in she was sounding out words in one of her books. Also she is doing mental addition which blew my mind. And Lo counted to 9 which also blew my mind. No idea if it's early for those or just on time but I didn't know these girls knew how to do those things.

April and I read the entries in World Cruising Destinations Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine. I'd love to get to see the Swallow's Nest Fortress in Yalta, the Bosporus and Ephasus, and I love the idea of spending a few weeks in Tunisia which requires no visa.

-23.2 @ 248.0

Here is a little sample I (April) took of them working on TYCTR:

12/17

I actually didn't get a single thing done today, other than staying on my dietary plan.  And I did have good success on the scale this morning.

-22.7 @ 248.5

I got one half of the kitchen cabinets all oiled. The parched wood sucks up the oil and looks a lot better after. It's probably hard to really see the effects in this picture but for what it's worth...

Audrey did a great job with lessons 35 and 36 this evening. She was really excited to get 3 new primers from GranMiri and immediately dove into sounding out the stories. Thanks GM!

-21.2 @ 250.0

12/15

I got rid of these mangy old mercury-laden thermostats today and replaced them with ...

... fancy new blurry ones like this.


Audrey and I did lesson 31, I think.  We're both much happier since we shed the big black rectangles between words a couple lessons back.


I had a very frustrating experience with the scale this morning.  Back up to 251.8.  I'll just keep at it until I break through...

 -19.4 @ 251.8

Notes on COLREG from Your Boat Too

A "vessel" is a craft propelled by non-human, non-animal power.

Most privileged to least:

1. any vessel overtaken
2. any vessel with restricted movement due to physical constraints of the environment or the work in which it's engaged
3. a sailing vessel.  Not a sailboat, but a sailing vessel.  A sailboat moving under power is not a sailing vessel.
4. a vessel under power
5. a seaplane

Stand-on vessels should not alter course or speed.

Power vessels (including sailboats under power)

• meeting head on should alter course to pass port to port
• starboard vessel crossing is stand-on (mnemonic: right has right-of way)
• overtaken vessel is stand-on

Sailing vessels

• meeting or crossing on the same tack, the windward vessel must give way
• meeting or crossing on opposite tacks, the vessel on starboard tack is stand-on
• overtaken vessel is stand-on

Lights

• under way
• white stern light visible in 135-degree arc
• white masthead steaming light visible in a 225-degree arc forward when under power (not when sailing)
• green starboard running light visible in an arc to 112.5 degrees aft
• red port running light 
• at anchor: white 360 degree anchor light (visible for at least 2 miles?)
• towing something less than 200 meters aft, must two white 225-degree masthead lights.  more than 200 meters, must display 3

Audrey's doing really well with TYCTR, and spontaneously sounds out words she sees on signs and magazines and stuff.  We're around lesson 30 or so, and she's getting really good at reading the "fast way" which is sounding the word out in your head before saying the word out loud.

-20.3 @ 250.9

12/14/2012

I am so sad for the parents of the children killed in Connecticut this morning! I can't even imagine the heartache. More proof of the fact that terrible things can happen anywhere, anytime. 

I have had a few people really worried that our sailing adventure will not be safe, and have even told me they think we will not come back alive. I have tried to mention bad things can happen anywhere, and that we will try to be as prepared as possible. At times I have worried myself that it could be dangerous, and of course I would never want to endanger my children. Now, more then ever, I am convinced that we should be living life to the fullest while we can. 

my babies enjoying life

12/12/12

I missed posting yesterday out of sheer exhaustion.  We ran out of gas on the Peak-to-Peak in Rollinsville, and upon getting home at 9:30 I passed out in bed.  

We'd remarked on the way down to Blackhawk that we needed to be sure to stop at the one gas station between there and Ned when we headed back.  Well, we forgot.  I freaked out, to put it mildly, at the prospect of having my wife, daughters, and dog stuck on the side of the road after dark with the temperature at 24 degrees and falling, while I hiked for gas.  In fact it was all a breeze.  We stopped in front of Help Towing, and when we called the number, the guy said he'd be there in five minutes and had a few gallons he could sell us, which all worked out perfectly.

The big lesson for me, going over the episode today, is to handle things more calmly.  As the skipper of a vessel, at least as important as expert seamanship is inspiring confidence in the crew and facilitating their optimal performance.  This is obviously incompatible with freaking out.  So, another thing to work on.  Another area in which the time is upon me now to get around to a little overdue growing-up.

On a different note, we'd gone down to Blackhawk to horse around in the Gilpin pool, and I'm just blown away and thrilled with the confidence and skill that our girls are building in the water.  Audrey was going to the bottom for sunken rings and even did the water slide by herself for the first time, twice.  And that's a pretty big water slide.  And Lorelei is completely fearless.  She'll just walk straight in to water up to her chin.  She could maybe use a little more fear, but I'm so proud of her.

-19.7 @ 251.5

Christmas Spirit

It's been a challenge, but we are finally really getting into the Christmas spirit around here! I love Christmas, and normally like to start the preparation as close to finishing up Thanksgiving as possible. Every year I make a new set of christmas CDs for my car. Unfortunately, my computer was destroyed last year right after Christmas, and I still haven't gotten all my music onto the one I'm now sharing with Jacob. After many hours studying itunes tutorials, and downloading new software though, I was able to download a few CDs that I had already purchased last year! Yeah me! I also bought a new kids Christmas CD by Laurie Berkner. It's very good! The girls really like it. Jacob's current favorite Christmas song is Christmas Island, we can tell where his head is at :). 

Checking out the Christmas Lights in Blackhawk

Santa 2012

Audrey with Santa 2009

Jacob and I have had a fake tree ever since we tried to keep a cute little potted tree (Albert the Alberta Spruce) over Christmas while we were living in Alaska. Albert died way before Christmas, I'm still not sure what we did wrong, and I was really sad about it. It was probably a mixture of having named him, being away from our family that year, and watching something die. Ever since, I have not wanted a live tree. Last year our fake tree died (lights went out and big branch broken), so the plan was to get a new one from Costco this year. Unfortunately, by the time I got there they only had the giant $650 trees left. In the parking lot they were selling what they advertised as 6.5' trees for $40 bucks though, so we are trying a real tree again. After getting the tree home though, we realized it was way larger then 6.5' because it didn't fit in our house. Jacob had to saw the bottom and the top, and it is a MONSTER! It takes up a really large amount of the room. Watering it is pretty crazy too! One of us has to army crawl under the thing and use a special pumpy thing we bought to water it. Having a real tree is a lot of work! One huge perk though, the house smells awesome, and the girls had so much fun decorating it. 

 We also made our annual trip to the mall to visit Santa. Audrey was pretty cute! When I told her where we were going she said, 'Oh good! I have really been missing that guy!' Lorelei on the other hand, was not a fan of Santa. The whole time I was trying to set her down, she was saying 'no thank you mama, no thank you!' I think she thought if she was really polite she could get out of it. I still feel really guilty about making her sit there, even if it was only for 30 seconds. I picked her up almost as fast as it started. The picture is really cute though, even if she is crying in it. It's funny, I have a really cute picture of Audrey from around the same age crying too (she wasn't crying until the end when I picked her up). Audrey only asked Santa for one thing this year, a doctor's kit...I guess I better get on that. 

12/10

I got the cement and grout all cleaned up in the mud room and reinstalled the interior molding.  So now here I go to cross those off the list.

We finished the navigation chapter in Your Boat Too.  We learned all kind of neat things about sounding your horn in the fog.

-20.2 @ 251.0

12/9

We've been doing some planning and boat research in spare moments.

As you know, I'm pretty well certain that Americans (among others) have lost their way, however we've decided that we really wanted to stick to happy thoughts on Windward Reach, so I've started another blog as an outlet for crying in the wilderness.  When I complete the raison d'être essay for that one I'll post a link.  I know you're all waiting on tenterhooks.

The darn scale kept producing different reading today so who knows?  I'm definitely up a bit though.

house todos

We compiled this list of all that remains to get the house set for sale in spring. It actually could be a lot worse (and was, before we had all the help from Len).

• upstairs bath
• shower 
• enclosure walls
• fixtures $
• door $
• replace gold towel ring *
• floors
• kitchen $
• bathrooms
• laundry
• kitchen 
• overhead light fixture *
• finish oiling cabinets *
• finish installing pulls and catches *
• repair drawers $
• install new thermostats
• repair old water damage around all the sliders $
• finish window casings (x4) $
• scrape
• sand
• harden
• fill gaps
• prime
• paint
• fix living room vent thing
• repair broken outer pane downstairs $
• paint dining room, hallway, kitchen
• mud room
• finish new front door
• paint
• latch
• trim
• interior
• exterior
• add 
• coats hooks *
• shelves for hats, gloves, shoes *
• bench *
• remove
• monstrosity from mud room *
• chintzy shoe racks from mudroom *
• shelving things upstairs
• bins of kiddy clothes from garage *
• boxes of other junk from garage *
• clean up
• shelving upstairs
• all closets
• put nice caps on railing posts on upstairs balcony *
• get carpets professionally cleaned *
• repair laundry room doors $
• make all the fixtures in the downstairs bathroom match
• fix all the other peeling paint on exterior trim (mainly on gable ends of roof) $
• scrape
• sand
• prime
• paint
• splash guard *
• heater corner guards *
• Fix door jam where baby gate was 
• Finish removing baby gates *
• Install no slip on stairs *
• Install the last two lights in the garage *
• Install kitchen light*
• fix closet bar *

• paint garage door casing *
• clean garage door *
• clean up garage *
• take garage, kitchen photos *
• move stuff out *
• office shelves
• girls stuff
• baker's rack
• clean out *
• kitchen cabinets
• pantry
• laundry room
• clean up scrap wood pile *
• replace medicine cabinet *

-20 @ 251.2

Kelly Peterson 44

I made took some  notes on KP44s today.  These notes are abridged mainly from bluewaterboats.org and kp44.org.  

A long distance center-cockpit cruiser by design, she has earned a reputation for speedy passages. 180 miles days are not uncommon, with useful performance coming in all wind conditions and points of sail. Many have circumnavigated.

Fin keel cutaway at the forefoot and aft which reduces her wetted surface, good for both light-air performance and a nimble turning radius. The keel has a relatively long run which helps the boat to track well.

One third of her light to moderate displacement of 30,000 pounds is encapsulated in her ballast slung low on her 6′ 4″ keel. This combined with her clean bow entry helps her produce a nice soft motion.

Low-profile cabin trunk which is both sleek and practical in that it aids a lower center of gravity. Cockpit seating for 8 at a squeeze under anchor.

Beefy twin spreader cutter rig carrying more than 1000 square feet of canvas. Very manageable for a short-handed crew.

The interior is bright and well ventilated from the three large hatches and twelve portlights.

Well-equipped U-shaped galley sited to port and has large capacity refrigeration and a gimbaled stove. The double stainless steel sink is close to the centerline and works well on any tack.

Access to the bilge and engine is excellent.

Heavily constructed in hand-laid fiberglass matt and roving with polyester resin. Thicknesses range from nearly one inch at the bilges, tapering to 3/4 inches at the waterline and a half inch at the deck. The integral keel encapsulates 10,000 pounds of iron ballast packed with concrete. The rudder consists of a stainless-steel frame, packed with plywood and sheathed in fiberglass. Some of these have been replaced over time after leaks developed and corroded the stainless steel.

The deck-to-hull joint is a lip-tongue arrangement with a wood brace inserted between the joint in some areas, then fiberglassed over. A teak cap rail was screwed into the wood brace. This area can be prone to leaks, especially where long bolts holding the genoa track to the top of the bulwark protrude through into the cabin. The plywood-cored decks were finished in non-skid gelcoat as standard but some were optionally fitted with teak decking.

The Formosa boats and those from other yards can have quite different construction details from the Kelly yachts.

Well known to make fast passages. The theoretical hull speed is 8.3 knots and owners report this is possible on all points of sail given the right conditions. 180 mile days are very attainable.

She is well balanced and despite long rudder control lines reaching from her centre cockpit, the feedback at the helm is surprisingly good. The boat is relatively easy to single hand, even in a blow. And importantly, her motion at sea is comfortable.

Specifications

• LOA: 43′ 10″
• LWL: 38′ 8″
• Beam: 12’11″
• Draft 6′ 4″
• Bridge Clearance: 60′
• Displacement: 30,000 lbs.
• Ballast: 10,000 lbs. (iron encapsulated)
• Sail Area: 1,011 sq.ft.
• Fuel: 117 US Gal.
• Water: 132 US Gal.
• Engine: 62-hp Perkins 4-152 Diesel
• Designer: Doug Peterson
• Builder: Yu Ching Marine, Taiwan
• Year Introduced: 1976
• Year Ended: 1983
• Numbers Built: 200+

Also Known As: Peterson 44

Similar Boats

• Kelly Peterson 46
• Formosa 46
• Spindrift 46
• Hylas 44
• Cape North 43
• Lafitte 44
• Mason 44

Owners: 

• s/v Loose Pointer
• s/v Beatrix

Video tour of a KP 44

Listings

• 1977 $114k
• 1981, Rio Dulce, Guatemala $115k
• 1975, Ft Lauderdale $115k
• 1977, Malaysia $65k
• 1979, Napa $80k
• 1975, Oregon $99k
• 1975, East Coast, USA $95k
• 1977, Annapolis $79k

-20 @ 251.2

12/6

Audrey and I watched Shipwrecked this evening.  Exciting stuff!  It's about a Norwegian boy whose father is injured and in order to earn the money to head off a foreclosure on the family farm he ships out to sea.  We also did a little TYCTR, but she was pretty tired and silly so we didn't do too much.

I cleaned up the To-do page.  It was pretty chaotic before, I thought.  Not that there's any less to do now, but I'm keeping it at a higher level on that page now.

I've also spent some time on boat research this evening.

-19.1 @ 252.1

12/4

Audrey and I are on Lesson 26 of TYCTR.  She's doing great.  One thing that's kind of annoying is the way they clutter up the spaces between words in the stories.  She and I both find it pretty confusing.

April and I had a great brainstorming session this evening on our next steps.

Time for a chapter of Your Boat Too...

-17.9 @ 253.3

12/3

Man, it's kinda bumming me out to report yet again, no particular progress today.  I've gotta get back in the groove.

-17.1 @ 254.1

12/2/2012

We're getting back to Your Boat Too tonight.  Tonight's chapter is on inland navigation rules.  Woohoo!

Oh another small tidbit:  Mr. Bumfuzzle is publishing a book on expat trading called Life on the Margin or something like that.  I gotta read it.

Audrey and I have also gotten back to word games.  Today we did lessons 24 and 25.

-20.1 @ 251.1

12/1/2012

We saw Len off today, and I really didn't do much else.  I got to hang out with Audrey and Lorelei a lot  which was really nice.  My big plan for tomorrow is to plan steps for the next couple weeks.

I did have a nice surprise from the scale this morning.

-19.8 @ 251.4

11/30

I did some research on unschooling and Waldorf this evening.  Len actually poured some cement in the mud room.

-16.2 @ 255.0

11/29

I did some research on homeschooling methods today. I'm interested in the Trivium and and Quadrivium and in the Thomas Jefferson Education.

Len replaced the sad old fixture which went with the sad old door. The new one looks great.

There was a CIA drone strike in South Waziristan today. Four people were injured and as many as four were killed.

-16.3 @ 254.9

11/28

Len got that new door fully mounted and installed.  There's still finish work to be done with molding and paint and stuff but it's looking very nice.

I've lost 19 pounds since starting this project.  It's slow but steady progress.  Since my all-time high of over 284 pounds, I'm down over 31 pounds.  Things will work out a lot better aboard if I can move quickly and easily about the boat.  Plus it'll be great if I can  avoid a mid-ocean heart attack.   So I'll continue to push.  I'll be happy if I can make 225, thrilled with 200, and super-duper thrilled with 175.

-18.7 @ 252.5

Grampsy Time

The house is really coming along! After the crazy cleaning spree, my dad has been furiously fixing things too. We have new lighting fixtures, a new front door, a new bedroom door, a new towel bar, patched bathroom wall, new door knobs....and I know there is more, I just can't remember it all. He even extended his stay to help finish all the things he had started. I feel really lucky to have him. It has also been so nice for the girls. They are loving having all the Grampsy time. 

It hasn't been all work, we went to see a play, and spent a few days in Breckenridge. Breckenridge has been a Thanksgiving tradition for my dad and I for the past 32 years. We started going to Beaver Run when I was 4. We have so many great memories there. It was really great bringing the girls back, and it was nice not cooking all day! 

Thanksgiving dinner

yum, cheese (our favorite fondue restaurant in Breckenridge)

One thing that I love about the hotel is the great pool. It is half indoors and half outdoor, and the girls loved it. They are both getting so brave in the water. Lorelei might be a little too brave. She will stand on the edge and just jump. A time or two, no one was ready and she started to sink for a split second before we grabbed her. She came up sputtering, but ready to do it again. In swimming class we have been working on her kicking and pulling after she jumps so she doesn't sink. She is really good at both, just not consecutively....yet. Audrey on the other hand is doing both brilliantly, and has gotten over her fear of taking the plunge without someone right there to catch her, as long as it is in under 4 feet of water.  

New Door

Progress on the new door:

11/26

Len ripped the old front door and frame out today to make way for the new one.  I observed.

I'm sick, so let's hope for some better posts soon.

-17.7

11/25

Len got us a new exterior door to replace the old one on our mud room, so we worked on prepping and painting it today.

One thing I forgot to mention that I did the other day was to apply some Pledge orange oil to some of the kitchen cabinets.  It actually makes a big difference to that parched wood.

11/24

I started working on revising the todo list and the pages on the blog in general.  For some reason it's slow going.

We also did some more confidence building in the pool.

11/23

The great thing about writing more often is that I have less to report each time.  We've been hanging out in Breck the last couple days, so I've only been able to snatch brief moments to push on the goal.  I studied forex a little today and also did some boat research. Come to think of it though, our several hours at the pool with the girls today definitely counts as progress too.  They're both getting to be really brave in the water.  Lorelei is actually a little too brave.  She'll just jump into water over her head whether you're there to help her or not.  Kinda freaks me out.

11/22

Here are some pictures we took the day of the showing.  Our house had never been so clean.  We'll probably use these for our real posting in the spring.  

Len installed a new bedroom door for us the other day, and repaired some water damage to the sheet rock next to the tub.  He and I also installed the long-absent towel bar in the second bathroom. 

I'm going to be after myself to get back to posting daily, so we all have that to look forward to.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  I find myself experiencing mixed feelings today.  While I am so deeply grateful for my wonderful family and friends, I can't help thinking of those whose families and friends have been destroyed  and will be destroyed in the years ahead by American imperial adventurism.  As we know, "war is the health of state."

What horrific and countless tragedies each of us has lent our material support to through taxes on our productive labors, day in and day out.  It must give pause to anyone who dares to give it a moment's thought on days like these when we are expected to merely gloat over our own good fortunes.  What an ethical quandary it is:  Can we be held responsible for evil perpetrated using resources of which we were forcibly dispossessed?  One might think not.  Yet, knowing the intentions of those who have taken from us for evil purposes in the past, can we be excused for continuing to produce the fodder we know will be taken from us for evil in the future?  One might also think not.

11/19

Today I replaced all the old smoke detectors with fancy combination smoke and CO detectors.  Apparently that's mandatory when you sell a house in CO these days.  That's right, you can't sell a house in carbon monoxide without Colorado detectors.

Len replaced one of our ancient kitchen light fixtures with a nice new one.  It's great except it's one of those stupid CF-only fixtures.  I didn't realize they were actually changing the fixtures themselves. I thought I'd be able to stockpile incandescents in order to avoid having a house full of those damn little mercury capsules, but apparently not.  Anyway, the new fixture looks much better than the old one.

We also replaced the mangy 28-year-old stove hood with a fancy new LG OTR microwave to match the stove.   It's pretty sweet.

The house is so much more live-able these last couple days than it's ever been with so much junk cleared out and so many previously unaddressed projects completed.  It's great!  If only it had a full keel and a cutter rig...

OK about the showing.  The folks were pretty impressed with the location and definitely liked certain parts of the place.  Overall they maintained pretty good poker faces, so who knows.  I guess the thing is that if you're being shown the place by the seller what else would you do but keep a poker face?

We're on chapter 8 of It's Your Boat Too, and I'm in high school in the School of Pipsology.

First showing

Alright we completed our first showing. That was exhausting. We got rid of so much stuff! It's an amazing feeling. Anyway, here's that kanban I was telling about.

11/16

So yeah, as April mentioned, we actually got a call on our Zillow MMM listing.  That has seriously kicked me into high gear on getting this house sale-ready.  Agile geek that I am, I put up a kanban to organize the effort.  For the past couple nights, since we got this call I've been pulling near-all-nighters getting things ship shape.  Obviously I can't do all the repairs we had planned before a showing for this weekend, but I think we will have seriously cut the amount of junk and mess around here.  Stoked!

Make me move

Someone responded to our Zillow 'make me move' ad, and now the most dreaded part of this whole process, getting the house ready to show, is upon us. They want to look at the house this weekend, leaving us a whopping 48 to 72 hours to get it ready. We are frantically cleaning, and making shopping lists. Unfortunately we won't be able to get to some of the bigger projects like re-tiling the bathroom. Jacob and I really do work well under pressure though so I believe in us that we will get it done in time.

It's sort of exciting that we may be able to move on to our next adventure sooner rather than later. If this doesn't pan out though at least this exercise is helping us get the house ready more quickly.

11/14/12

There's been a stream of really inspiring posts from Behan (sv-totem.blogspot.com) since they departed Australia a few weeks ago and are making their way through Papua New Guinea.  Those guys are definitely role models for us.

We've renewed our focus on divestiture of excess clothing, pun intended.  We've been carrying it out by the bag-full.   It's a truly wonderful sensation.

We're continuing to forge ahead in our reading.  We're on Chapter 8 of It's Your Boat Too.  That's a really great book.

I also completed Jimmy Cornell's World Cruising Essentials.  I don't know that I'd recommend it.  Though there were some good parts, there were large chunks of the book where he just went over statistics he'd gathered over the years.  That could've all been condensed into a few pages of tables and might've been more useful in that form.  My favorite parts were on the various ways you can quickly install a high-capacity through-hull (whales, submarines, tankers, reefs) and on the variety of communication technology and what kind of information is available through each (SSB and GRIB files, SailMail, shortwave and email, VHF, etc.)

11/11/12

We've been working on a getting rid of stuff.  

I'm continuing to study technical analysis and forex.  I've been learning all about Bollinger bands, MACD, Parabolic SAR and the like.

I've also been digging into some sailboat metrics and stuff.

We're continuing to read It's Your Boat Too, which I really like, maybe more than April.

We've had couple a days off from TYCTR just due to scheduling conflicts.  I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

I took the girls on a nice little hike up by Eldora today:

I need to leave

I must apologize for this post in advance.  I know that one shouldn't bring up the drone wars in polite company but I've been stewing about this and finally had to put it down:

I've had something on my mind and it's got me really confused.  This president kills and maims innocent men, women, and children on the other side of the world casually and frequently.  Like on a weekly basis.  Everyone knows this, yet everyone is thrilled that he'll have 4 more years to continue to kill at his leisure.  Why is this good news?  The man is known to personally maintain a "kill list" including American citizens who have never been tried or convicted of anything.  Children too!  I just can't get my head around it.  

Maybe I'm just not patriotic enough.  Anyway, I clearly don't belong here.

-15.9

99th post

It's our 99th post!

I'm done with the window and door project for now.  I do have 4 more windows to do eventually.

Audrey read her first complete sentence this evening: "See me eat."   Lesson 13, baby!  She also wrote and illustrated a short story about Mary and Laura entitled "Once Upon a Time."

TYCTRI100EL

So we've been doing better with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, which is mainly the result of my letting go of the need to work meticulously through each and every exercise exactly as per the instructions in the book.  One of the great attractions of this book is that everything is scripted for the parent.  Theoretically, the parent could just read aloud and then watch as the kid magically begins to read.  Of course, nothing is ever as easy as that is it?

The problem for us is that Audrey can't stand the repetition in the script, which has us doing the same sounds three times slowly and then 3 times fast, in 5 or 6 different permutations, when she already got the point the first time.  I can't say I blame her.  So I've had to let go of the script and just move quickly through the stuff that's boringly easy.  Of course the challenge is not to skip anything important in our haste.  And it's a real challenge: so far it's all boringly easy, but some of it is pretty important.  So it's a balancing act.

One thing that works great is to put her in the driver's seat.  So I'll let her play the parent role and I'll play the kid role from the script.  The way this book works is that the parent controls the speed that the kid sounds out words by moving their finger one letter at a time.  So Audrey thinks it's great fun to be in charge of pointing so she can make Dad stretch mmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat out over a full 90 seconds and then say it 30 more times inside of 10 seconds.  One way or another, she's getting the point about the sounds that the letters make and how they fit together.

Another key thing I've learned is to understand when she's telling me that we're going too slowly, and how to acknowledge what she's telling me and re-engage her.  When she starts to horse around with stuff in the immediate vicinity, or starts doing gymnastics in the middle of an exercise, that's the cue.  Earlier, that would really get under my skin and I'd express my exasperation to her.  No wonder she began to rebel against "learning to read" as such.  She saw it as a time to sit down with Dad, have no fun, and then get in trouble.  So my approach now is to stop the lesson and go ahead and horse around with her for a couple minutes, then return to the lesson and skip to the next part.  That seems to work.  For now.

The trickiest of all my moves is that when I've tried and failed to bring her back to the lesson several times, I'll say, "OK well that seems like enough for tonight."  She'll then beg to keep going and promise, promise, promise that she can pay attention.  My reply is just that we'll have the next lesson to look forward to for tomorrow.  This way I leave her wishing for more "word games" as we now call learning to read.  It works so much better than dragging her through a lesson that she just can't focus on.

I'd say the biggest lesson for me so far is to understand her needs by looking at the experience from her point of view.  It's actually pretty easy for me when I let myself do it, since there's a part of me that identifies very easily with 4-year-olds.

-14.4

Oh, I almost forgot.

In my first post, I said, "The journey is the destination..." but in a more recent post I complained that sometimes our goal seemed so far away that we might never get there.  Silly me!  I almost forgot that the journey is the destination.  So let me tell you about my day at the destination.

April's been craving a day free of child care and today was it.  She headed out for the evening last night and spent the night in Blackhawk with some other mommies.  She hung out with them most of the morning then rolled down to the flats for some errands until after bedtime today.

Well, Sweet Pea, Audrey, Lorelei and I had a great 24 hours on our own.  After Mom headed out last night the four of us settled in to watch The Rescuers.  I had a 45 when I was a kid that had an abridged version of the audio from that movie, but I'd never seen it until yesterday.  So of course it brought back some memories and I thought it was a really good movie.  What great voicing.  But the best part was that Audrey and Lorelei both decided to curl up on my lap so I got to spend the whole movie cuddling with my girls.  It may never happen again that both of them are in the mood to be still  and relax for 90 minutes, but it was really nice.

We all slept in until 8 this morning.  Yes, that's sleeping in.  After breakfast we all played in the basement until almost lunch.  Then we all took Sweet Pea for a walk and got good and cold, so we had hot chocolate for lunch.  After nap, we built a pillow fort in the basement and read 8 books.  That was so much fun that we decided to set up the tent in the basement and watch The Rescuers again.  By the time that was done, Lorelei was asking to go to bed.  After putting her down, Audrey and I turned out all the lights and did our Teach Your Child To Read exercises and read our Laura and Mary book by the flashlight.

My computer battery is about to die, but tomorrow I'll give an update on the Teach Your Child To Read situation.

Halloween

Whew! Halloween is over! It was incredibly fun-filled and jam-packed. We did a Halloween story-time at the library, a friends party, a cool wonder walk where we met mermaids and princesses, and then last night we trick-or-treated around Nederland. The girls loved all the activities we did, and I loved watching them have so much fun, but I am exhausted!

I was reading Totem's blog about their Halloween festivities while cruising Papua New Guinea. It was pretty fun to see how similar and how completely different their experience was. They still dressed up, and seemed to have lots of fun creating their costumes. They happen to be cruising with some other families with kids (9 in total) and so they all got to trick or treat together. I'm not exactly sure what that entailed. I hope that as we are cruising we run into other families too, like those guys!

The fun doesn't stop around here -- next weekend is Lorelei's birthday party! I'm getting ready to decorate a cake for the first time. Stay tuned for pictures.

11/1/2012

Getting very close on this window and door project....

It's starting to feel like a home improvement blog.  Just to remind myself: I am doing all this home maintenance in order to make the house more marketable.  I am making the house more marketable in order to maximize the sale price.  I am maximizing the sale price of the house in order to hasten the day that we cast off to explore afloat.  This is a blog about our journey and how we are making it happen.  Just to remind myself.  

I opened a practice forex account.  I've made a couple trades and am ahead so far.  I have a huge amount to learn before I would ever try it with real money, but I'm really enjoying exploring forex.

We read the 3rd chapter of It's Your Boat Too, which I thought was really great.  Suzanne Giesemann encourages women to take on projects and roles aboard of their own choosing, rather than defaulting to the "pink" jobs.  I couldn't agree more.  All the jobs that need doing need doing, but I hope April and my girls will always feel empowered and encouraged to do the job that inspires them, both aboard and ashore.  And frankly, Giesemann just makes boat maintenance sound like a lot of fun!

10/30

Windows and door primed:

Audrey now takes Teach Your Child to Read to bed.