Feelin' a Bit Like Home

When you're spending any extended time on a boat like ours, making it feel like home is really important. It's also one of the things on the long-term list of boat projects because you really have to live in the space for a bit before you figure out where things need to go and where changing something will make life easier. This past week we spent a lot of time working on this.

First up was getting some pictures up. I chose carefully from my collection at home, including some artwork that my grandkids have made for me as well as some from my son-in-law who is a professional artist.

Top left: "The Ocean is What I Meant By" by Tom Break
Top right: "Sailing" by Tom Break
Bottom left: "Boat Under Sail" by Catherine Rennier
Bottom right: "The Sea and Sky" by Tom Break
The top of the ukulele cabinet: "Learning From a Uke" by Mary Rennier

This is a work of pourable paint done by my eldest
granddaughter. It reminds me so much of the water
in the Bahamas.

"Birds in Flight Over the Sea" by Edie Rennier

Next was adding some tunes to work by. We have a Fusion stereo system on the boat with control heads at both the lower and upper helms and speakers all over the boat, but it's dated enough that it didn't include Bluetooth connectivity. With the addition of a small Bluetooth receiver we were able to run our Pandora through the Fusion stereo system. Score! It's amazing how much easier it is to deal with boat projects when you have some good tunes playing in the background.

Next up was to find a place to sit our mascots, Bean and Nutters. Bean went with us on Kintala where he lived on the top of the back of the settee and where he was used to judge how rough the seas were by where he ended up landing in the salon. He then voyaged back to the apartment in St. Louis where he's been living on a windowsill in the sunshine for the past 4 years. After a bit of trial and error, he has landed on the lower helm seat where he can get his daily dose of vitamin D, accompanied by his buddy, Nutters, a squirrel that my granddaughter crocheted for me a few Christmases ago. The back story to the gift is the rather large community of exasperating gray furry creatures that populate our property in St. Louis. I tried putting up Christmas lights the first year we lived there and the squirrels ate the lights. Not just the wires (which we have been told are made partially with peanut oil, so understandable) but also the actual bulbs. Evidently they think they are berries. This is why Nutters has a Christmas light bulb in his paw.

Two book racks have been mounted so that the little ones have places for their books and I have a place for all my paperwork. 

All of the instruments have found their home on the boat and Tim's drum set has been set up to where all he has to do is move it over a couple feet to play it. In case you haven't figured it out yet, music is an important part of our lives on the boat or off of it. My daughter rented out our apartment while we're gone on this trip and she had to make a note in the ad that there was no TV in the apartment. Wall hooks for 11 ukuleles and a guitar? Absolutely. TV? Nope, not happening. 

So as we approach the end of the squawk list (Shhhh! don't let First Light hear that!) we're allowing some time to enjoy the surroundings, to play some music and spend some time with friends new and old, and to enjoy our new temporary home.