Purge # 3

We're going through the boat in project mode which usually means moving stuff around a lot which, in turn, means being tired of moving things around that we never use which, in turn, means wanting to get rid of some more stuff.

So what does this mean to you? It means I have a really terrific deal on a Marine stereo that we bought and decided not to install for various reasons. It's brand new in the box and you can get the details here or also in the sidebar top right of the blog. If you're interested, email us at svkintall att gmail dott com.

Sorry but this stereo is sold pending payment. If the deal falls through I'll remove this note.

Stay tuned for more listings...

Project overload

In my demented little brain The Retirement Project has morphed into Project Overload. Deb is completely buried under the house, trying to get it emptied and readied for the rental market, with something like 10 days left for her to get it done. It doesn't help that she is essentially doing it alone, but I am as buried trying to get the boat ready for the truck. So jammed is the schedule that the workbench project was being used as a workbench to finish the workbench project. And though finished just a day or so ago it is already cluttered with the tools being used to get the self-steering gear installed.

That project is, as expected, going slow. For all of my complaints about the shoddy way the boating industry goes about its business, the butt end of a Tartan 42 turns out to be a serious chunk of fiberglass. Boring the 3.5 inch hole that is the heart of the project has already chewed up two days of effort, two hole saws, and a couple of other bits. And it isn't done yet. It turns out the transom is thicker than your average hole saw is deep; not a problem if I had access to both sides from which to drill. But, so far, I haven't figured out how to access the transom from inside the boat. Once upon a time crawling into the outboard wing bays of B-52s to pound rivets and insert systems was just another day of work. That was once upon was a long time ago. I fear that level of flexibility may be beyond my battered and bruised self, to say nothing of not being nearly as calloused about squeezing into small places as I used to be. But I'll figure out something. I just haven't figured out what that something is, yet.

I'm told this is normal, that everyone who has ever moved from the land to the sea has had to climb this mountain. The accent involves getting rid of stuff while the descent is mostly getting a boat into the water. I wonder if I should be worried since, as any climber will tell you, most fatalities occur while getting down, not going up. Anyway...

... I am going to offer a bit of advice to any who might be following this blog with hopes of joining the sea-living community some day. Though I have been critical of setting a "go" date I think I've changed my mind. Go ahead, set a date because it really doesn't matter. What matters is pulling the trigger on actually going one year ahead of said date. Yep, one year. Put the house on the market, get it emptied out. Sell all the stuff you have accumulated over the decades. That stuff may actually be worth quite a bit IF you have the time to spend selling it. Deb and I don't have the time so thousands of dollars are being left behind, left in the hands of people who are getting some very good deals. If your nice car actually sells while you still need wheels, go out and get a "junker". It will get the job done and give you practice driving "loner" cars. (At least if marina loner cars are anything like airport loner cars.) The house goes? Same thing, get a small (all your stuff is gone or going, right) cheap apartment ... or go ahead and move onto the boat if you can.

All the spare time you have not taking care of the stuff you have unloaded will be sucked up (I promise you) by getting the boat ready. If you don't have a boat yet then all of that time can be spent finding just the right one at just the right price. Which puts you way ahead of the game.

Had I known then what I know now I would have kept little Nomad on the lake, sailing and living aboard as much as possible. I would take the year and get rid of everything methodically, banking as much money as I could as we went along. When it was all done Nomad would have been shipped east at a fraction of the coast of moving the Tartan. (If the house had sold quickly we would have just spent some more time living on a 27 foot Compac. There are worse things ... trust me.) She would splash in salt water with a "FOR SALE" sign on her bow and we would go find the right boat at the right price. Sure we would move onto a "new" boat needing work ... which would be about what we are doing anyway.

Of course I didn't now then the things I know now, and we started all of this living about as far away from an ocean as is possible to be. Those already living near the sea may have a slightly different mountain to climb.

But start a year early ... I promise it will make things a lot easier.

With a CAPITAL P

PURGE, that is. I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in our garage. We've lived in this place for 12 years now, and that time encompasses 5 years of house projects and 7 years of boat projects so our garage was filled with project leftovers. Wood scraps, one-purpose tools, boat bits removed from Kintala, piles of stuff to go to the kids, scrap metal, camping gear, and junk. Did I say junk? And this all was after having purged several pickup loads worth of stuff from the house when the kids moved in with us two years ago. In my defense, when the kids moved out after a year of living with us, I determined not to fill up the rooms, closets, and drawers vacated by their stuff and I have, for the most part, managed to do that. It still boggles my mind how much stuff two stuff-haters can accumulate in that time.

Friday I made the trip to the boat and began the same process on the lockers. I hauled loads to the dumpster, I hauled stuff to the picnic tables under the pavilion and put a "free" sign, and I hauled some stuff home to go to Goodwill. With every minute I am becoming a stuff-hater with even more vengeance than before.

It rules your life people, so travel light and be happy.

CPR

It's 5 minutes to midnight on New Years Eve and in fact, 2011 will have arrived by the time I hit the post button. I believe it's an impossibility to approach January 1st without at least giving some passing thought to the ritual of resolutions, and having those resolutions painted on the canvas of the 5 year plan yields some interesting results.
Since most resolutions are restorative in nature (diets, exercise, smoking cessation...) it got me onto a health care train of thought.  My New Years Resolution?  CPR.

CPR - Challenge - Purge - Reallocate.

Challenge:  I'm resolving to challenge my assumptions on what material possessions I require.  In the process of cleaning my house for the arrival of my children and grandchildren, it occurred to me that I was cleaning a whole lot of items that I hadn't used since the last time I cleaned them and that life would be a lot simpler if I removed the items so that I didn't have to waste time cleaning them.  All purchases in 2011 will be filtered through the "Can I use this on the boat when we leave?" criterion.

Purge: I'm resolving to remove any stuff from my house that I haven't used in the last 12 months.  One closet at a time, e-bay and Craigslist and ReUseIt and Goodwill will be my new friends.

Reallocate: I'm resolving to reallocate resources and priorities to what matters.  It's troublesome to me that we spend enough money in a year on the security system in our house to cruise in the Bahamas for a month.  It's also deeply troubling to me that I allow media and political influences to weigh me down and distract me from the important things.  Even though we gave up television nearly 8 years ago, we are bombarded with negative influence and fearmongering on all sides from headlines at the checkout line, 6 TVs on the gym walls, coworkers at the water cooler, the internet, the newspaper and even NPR, all vying for my attention and some deliberately aiming to control.  As much as I try not to use this blog to press religious opinion, there does happen to be a certain scripture that I find immensely inspiring when thinking about the promise of the New Year and my attempt to best use its time:


"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things."  Phil 4:8


Happy New Years to you all and best of luck to you on your own resolutions.