The Coffee Meter

Today got an early start as we got up at 6:30 to see our friends off the dock. Both the other boats from our home lake of Carlyle, IL took off for warmer climes South this morning and after a group shot we helped them with their lines. It has been a great couple of weeks getting to know these folks better and we'll miss them but I'm sure we'll run into them again soon. The silence was deafening after they left so after finishing our coffee there seemed no good excuse not to hit the project of the day, finishing the closet.

 

 

Half the components already removed

It's a funny thing about projects. You can start one on a certain day, work on it for 14 hours that day and be left with this totally unsatisfied feeling at the end of the day like you didn't do anything. The next day you can get up and finish the project in an hour or two, and you feel like you accomplished something fantastic even though you only worked a couple hours. Today was a bit like that because Tim finally finished my closet project. I say “my” closet project, not because it was my project but because it was my closet. I've been living out of duffle bags for the last 2 months because my closet also happened to be where the air conditioner was residing and we didn't want to remove it till we were sure we were done with hot weather interior projects. Since it has been hovering in the low 50s at night and the low 70s during the day we figured we were safe. Tim has been slaving away for days on this, removing all the old components (of which there were miriad), and cutting the wood pieces to fit the “oh what a surprise this isn't square” space that made up the closet interior. Cutting,

This was only one of four piles we took out.

sanding, and painting completed, I was able to put everything away today and clean up the inside of the boat. Tim hung out on the foredeck in his hammock
(a well-deserved rest) while I cleaned and when he came back in the boat he stopped and seemed a bit confused by the fact that the pilot berth was now void of its stack of stuff. The interior of the closet turned out to be a bit more space than he thought it was and it took a lot more than my clothes to fill it. He's a pretty happy camper at the moment.

Voila!

At some point during the work of the day a new slip holder ambled by and introduced himself. Jack and his wife Penney are heading out on a voyage in nine months or so when they retire. We made plans to meet for sundowners and had a great time enjoying their spacious cockpit enclosure. They are getting to know their Gulfstar 44, an amazing boat in excellent shape. It was good to meet them and we're looking forward to spending a little more time with them before we go.






Tomorrow is errands day and then the Carlyle kids (Kacey, Joel and Emily) are coming to visit for the boat show so we'll have a chance to relax a little and not think too much about projects. I can't tell you how much we're looking forward to their visit.


Tim and I have this little guage of how the days are going now. We call it the Coffee Meter. We have been using our Thermos brand mugs which keep your coffee very hot for a long time. As a result, we sometimes get busy with projects before we've had a chance to drink all the coffee and however much we have left over at the end of the day when I wash the dishes tells us what kind of day it was. On the days we get to drink all of our coffee before we start work, the meter hits a 10. On the truly sucky days when we get into projects before we even have breakfast, let alone coffee, the meter sags to 1. You'll be seeing a Coffee Meter status on the bottom of posts on occasion, so now you know what we mean by it. The great thing about the kids coming to visit? I intend to hit a 10 on the coffee meter every day they're here.


Coffee Meter: 10