February, 2008

Location: Rescue, California.

I’ve been working on the house for 5 weeks now. I left my job the second week of this year at the County of San Diego. Well, technically I was working for R.B.F Consulting, but I was placed as adjunct staff at the County. I had been there for almost a full year, so it felt like I worked there instead of R.B.F. Enough about work. Well, the kind of work that provides a paycheck.  My real work was just beginning.

So for the past five weeks I have been playing contractor. Plumber, floorer, painter, landscaper and carpenter.  Oh, also appliance installer. What shall we call it? Appliancer. I’m going on break.  (Mitch Hedberg, R.I.P.)

My family came over to help with our yard sale. We had sold most of our belongings in 2001 when we moved to San Diego. But we had kept a storage shed with our larger items. This was a fallback plan should we not find living on a boat to our liking. There was so much more in the shed than we remembered. So we have sold our remaining stuff.  Jodie and my mom painted the fence (half-acre worth) and my dad and I painted the house. My brother-in-law helped install the new range that same weekend. That turned into a three man job pretty quick. Now all we have left to sell is the cars and the house. If I can ever be finished with it.

Jodie has come up twice during this period. I miss her so much. This has been the longest we have been apart in 19 years. Many times when discussing how we live on a boat, people comment that we must get along really well to be so close together. Well we dont just get along really well together. We are close. So being apart like this, well it blows. The sooner I can get back, the better.

I am now finishing up the few items that came up on a termite inspection report. Good news: No termites. Bad news: Mold. Glad I got the report done while I was still up here. If you haven’t guessed, I refuse to pay someone to do anything that I can do myself. If I don’t know how to do something, I will learn or just muddle through it till it is done. The report items will keep me up here an additional week.

Our March sail plan will have to be pushed out. It is taking twice as long to get the house ready as I anticipated. With a April sail date, that puts us very close to hurricane season. We might do a shakedown cruise in the Channel Islands and head to Hawaii for the early Summer.

Michael