Moving!
Oh, wow. We rented our house! We have to move by November first!!!!! This is a pretty exciting step towards the trip. It's not going to be easy now, though. The last ferry boat from Portland out to the island my folks live on (where we'll be staying) is at 5:45 most nights. So Neil won't be coming home much, since there's still so much after-work boat work to do. But the adventure continues!
Just a quick note to apologize for the lack of web site updates lately. We have not done any boat work in weeks (which just feels so wrong!) since we've been packing and moving. We're in the final 3 days now, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, finding homes for the houseplants, taking car-loads of boat gear to storage.... very hectic. Hallowe'en is our last day in the house. Olivia wants to go Trick-or-Treating here in the "old" neighborhood, so we'll get her all costumed up in the empty house, and then take the late ferry out to the island Friday night, with Zora the cat and Caddy the fish in tow. It's very weird to be leaving our home. We have gone through so much here in the last 6 years. We bought an old, dilapidated house and worked really hard to make it into the lovely, comfortable home it is now; we went through my cancer diagnosis and treatment here; Olivia has spent most of her life here. Of course we're excited about the next adventure, but it does feel weird to leave (I think if we were moving right onto the boat it would be easier, rather than this sort of interim homelessness we'll have for 6 months or so). Happily, the renters we found seem just perfect. I'm sure they'll take good care of our house and enjoy living here. I am still nervous that some problem will arise and new tenants will have to be found while we're abroad, but I'm trying not to worry about that now! And it will be fun to be able to spend more time with my parents than we usually get to do. It's so generous of them to offer their home for us to stay in while we work on the boat.
Although our day-to-day life for the foreseeable future is going to be logistically difficult (due to the ferry schedule we won't see Neil much, and he'll have to find couches to sleep on...) it is very exciting to be making such a concrete step towards our departure. I can't wait to get back to work on the boat once the move is over and we've worked out our daily routine in the new living situation. I'm hoping that I will have a lot more time to spend at the boat now, and that I'll be able to finish up the 20 projects that I've had ongoing all summer...