GRADING OUR WORK

I read the beginning of my blog yesterday. It has a very short TO DO LIST:

1. Sell the wine shop
2. Sell the house
3. Sell the current boat
4. Buy our cruising boat

That list written on July 19, 2008, looks remarkably similar to today's TO DO LIST! I have procrastination tendencies, but at face value, a four-item list and eight months to accomplish it?

Of course, those four items are just the titles of very long to-do lists containing hundreds of items. On those lists, we're not doing so badly. Last July seems like five years ago if measured in what we've accomplished, and for my own enjoyment, I think I'll hit the highlights.

We went through all the steps necessary to put our business on the market, and when the listing expired this month, we went the extra step of understanding the details and numbers well enough to speak intelligently about them. Our guerilla marketing plans go into effect next month.

The house looks awesome. We now have three empty bedrooms. The living room, kitchen and master bedroom are staged to look like a model home. We sorted, preened, pruned, tossed, resorted, sold and gave away enough stuff to fill several houses. The CDs were all uploaded to the iPod and sold in a garage sale. The books were sold on amazon.com or donated to the library. We sold everything from a desk chair to a pocketwatch on Ebay. We're now lean and ready to move on out as soon as someone else wants to move in.

Isabella, the boat we're selling, looks beautiful. I refinished the toe rails in the blistering heat of August (what was I thinking?), and we've got almost all the exterior wood looking great. The canvas needs two more zipper pulls, which arrived in the mail today. The bulkhead is refinished, the engine starts effortlessly, the hand pumps work, the electrical wiring issues are solved. She even has her own web site and is advertised on Craigslist.

We've shopped extensively, electronically and in person, for our cruising boat. Once we've sold two of the three things mentioned above, we're ready to buy an Island Packet. The good news is that in the intervening months, the prices have dropped almost 40%. That might make up for the fact that our house has also dropped in value -- just not 50%!

When I look at lists like this one, I'm ecstatic that all but two or three of them are DONE.

Since we can't measure how close we are to our goal, we can at least measure what we've done to prepare. Could we have done more? Maybe. Would it have made any difference? We don't know. All I can do is say, "Well done," and start on tomorrow's list.

HOPE IN THE WATER

People often express concern about us "leaving home" or "not having a place to come home to." Many think we should keep our house instead of selling it.

But Chip and I have a common bond: we were each the rambling sheep in our family, the only one of the herd that left the fold, that wandered outside the pasture to have a look around. To us a house on land feels less like being grounded and more like being tethered. Sure our house is comfortable. It's home in the sense that it's respite, a sanctuary from whatever is buffeting the four walls. However, it has never been our center, the place that holds our attention or our dreams. It has only been for us a place to safely harbor the kids on their trip from childhood to their newly found adulthood.

Neither of us feel any sense of loss in leaving this house. On the contrary, it's like shedding a burden that no longer has to be maintained, mowed, painted, cleaned or vacuumed. We can both be perfectly content living in a studio apartment, a tiny house, anything until we're living onboard.

The concept of home has always been an elusive one for me, but when I imagine moving into our new boat, putting away our clothes, making the bed, stocking the tiny kitchen, checking the lines one more time before going to bed, the moment when my head rests on the pillow brings with it an enormous, overwashing sense of finally being home. Finally, finally home.

Here I am on the road again
The song began and then in the end
I'll be standin' by the sea --Western Highway by Gerry O'Beirne

UPDATE:
--two appointments to show the house, one today and one tomorrow
--sold many more things on Ebay
--listed the boat on craigslist Annapolis and obx
--have an appt with a lawyer Monday to talk about offering owner financing on the store

LETTING THE DAYS GO BY, WATER FLOWING UNDERGROUND

Nothing like two appointments to show the house to light a fire under me. I've been dusting, scrubbing, vacuuming, sweeping. I remind myself of that old short story (Poe perhaps?) where the murderer is backing out of the house wiping fingerprints from everything he has touched. He gets more and more obsessed until they find him days later in the attic scrubbing away imaginary fingerprints where, of course, he never went in the first place.

Today's cleaning was the polar opposite of that pretend, silverware-drawer clean I wrote about the other day. At some point, when I was about to wash my travel makeup bag, I called a halt.

Yesterday we got a counteroffer to our counteroffer (try to keep up). If you stood on our offer and looked toward theirs, you couldn't even see it from here. We decided to lay low, but the people want to look at the house again anyway on Saturday afternoon.

I told the universe yesterday, "What might help this along is another person looking at the house at the same time." You know, get a little sense of competition. I assume the universe needs my advice.

This morning our realtor called to set another appointment for Saturday morning.

Will either of these folks buy our house? I don't know, but it's really nice to have a clean house.

And you may tell yourself
this is not my beautiful house -- Talking Heads

PROGRESS
--finished compiling tax info to give the accountant
--cleaned out under the house
--put washing machine parts on Ebay
--put the Flintstones thermos on Ebay for round two
--feeling better after a week of having shingles in my ear. really. awful.

ELECTION EVE

This election has been as slow in coming as Christmas to an 8-year-old. Right now, 25 hours before the first results come in, the whole country, maybe even the whole world is listening for Santa to land on the roof, wondering if he'll be the usual old gray-haired guy or a Santa of a different stripe.

Chip says if McCain wins he'll denounce his citizenship. (Actually, I think he's serious. He's been country shopping.) I say if Bush wins a third term, I'll denounce mine.

So what do we do? Go shopping. We bought Chip some pants to wear to a wedding next week and those hot hiking boots. It's all part of the buy-while-you-have-an-income plan.

He's also been bidding on Downtube folding bikes on Ebay. They cost $459 new, so he's trying to snag one for $350 or so.

Me? I've been working on my election spreadsheet. More on that tomorrow.

TODAY:
--bought Chip's hiking boots!
--did some more house staging

THE INCREDIBLENESS OF BEING LIGHT

"I wish we'd done this a long time ago."

We keep saying that, not about going sailing (although that surely is true) but about paring down our stuff.

This weekend we did the hard, hard work of sorting through the last remaining corners of the house. We started upstairs and slowly pushed everything that's not being used out of closets and rooms, down the stairs and out the front door. Part of it went in the trash, part got yellow dots for the garage sale. A select few items were set aside for ebay and even fewer went in the ultimate "keep" pile.

What's left behind? A house beautifully devoid of clutter. The closets contain only the bare essentials. The cabinets are efficiently stocked with 6 plates, 6 bowls, some glasses and cups.

What a joy to put away pans now. No avalanche of seldom seen pans (how do they get to the front?), no pushing, pulling, stacking and subsequent cursing.

The bedroom looks huge. My office is so airy and inviting. You could play jai alai in the extra living room space.

Even I want to live here now. Why didn't we do this years ago?


UPDATE:

HOUSE: The first prospective buyer came through this morning. The house is not listed yet, but a friend of a friend heard we're selling. It was a perfect boot into the final phase of making the place look presentable: making the bed, leaving the kitchen immaculate, staging the whole place. We should be listing next week!

BUSINESS: The business is officially on the market as of last Wednesday. The broker has had several "calls," which is probably Outer Banks nosiness. The beauty of having a broker is that we don't have to talk to anyone until they've been prequalified, made an offer and put down earnest money. All we have to do is hand out business cards.

JUNK: This Saturday our junk has one more opportunity to find a new home before heading to charity. All week my car was full to the brim with garage sale junk. I pondered the benefits of leaving it unlocked, and strategically placing a few dollar bills in clear view. Some well-timed thievery would have saved me a lot of time and effort.

BOAT: Isabella still needs some attention before going official. I have most of the bulkhead stripped. Sanding is next. I had a minor varnish tragedy: the wind blew my beautifully varnished teak garage onto a basketball hoop leaving 6 little gouges. ARGH. In my mind they're gnarly two-inch scrapes, but each time I go look, in reality they're little pencil-tip pricks.

CATEGORIES: The Ebay room is almost clear. Mailed out the stereo, cheese cuber and exercise ball. The remaining items are neatly divided in categories: stuff to be stored at Chip's mom's; stuff to be mailed to friends; two small piles that go to the kids; our pile that goes on the boat. It's exhilarating to see how small that last pile is!

WHAT THE?: We're meeting with our accountant tomorrow to figure out how the heck to manage all this. I never imagined worrying about things like capital gains tax. This 'system' neither makes it easy nor holds much reward for cashing out.

WHO'S WATCHING MY TV TONIGHT?

Some of the things on our TO DO list are minor, like "Put Boots on Ebay" or "Clean Downstairs Bathroom."

Others are monumental, weighing on us like that senior project due in three days, no, two days. Things like "Have a Garage Sale" and "Clean the Downstairs Store Room." Today we did them BOTH.

All that junk that's too small to sell on Ebay got tagged with yellow dots and went on the driveway for the whole neighborhood to fondle. And just in case, Chip put a yellow dot on the house marked $350,000.

Unfortunately our gated community has bylaws prohibiting advertising a garage sale, so we only had a few dozen folks. But the exercise served to get all of the little junk sorted, priced and out of the house, never to return. We made a paltry $150 for a full day's work in 94 degrees with 60% humidity, but it was worth far more than money. The psychological weight of two major tasks has been lifted.

Next weekend we're taking the show on the road to a friend's house where we can advertise.

In the meantime, no more crock pot or dresser. No clay pots or mixing bowls. Gone are the videos and skim boards and electric lawnmower.

And somebody else is watching our TV tonight.

TODAY:
--cleaned out the outside store room
--GARAGE SALE!!!!!
--sold the Fender Stratocaster and more license plates on Ebay

RUNNING TOWARD EMPTY

What do a 5-foot inflatable wine bottle, a Texas license plate, a green sake set and a blue exercise ball have in common?

They're the dregs of our lives available to the highest bidder on Ebay.

My office has some newspapers, a box of photos, some CD racks and a small ceramic gargoyle.

The den has a Christmas centerpiece, a couple dozen random VHS tapes, a futon couch, an antique sewing machine and Chip's coin collection.

Casey's room has a mosquito net, two amps, a memory foam mattress topper, an electric scooter and a boom box.

A cello, a Fender Stratocaster and a pasta maker.
A banjo, two lawn chairs and some dishes.

The end game is very strange.

TODAY:
--decided on a broker for Isabella
--finalized price for business and signed the paperwork
--put a few more items on Ebay
--ordered waffle weave, microfiber towels

STEP 842

"You guys are really doing this, aren't you?"

It's something we hear over and over. Sometimes I'm the one saying it.

With the business on the market, the house about to be, for sale signs on Isabella, two empty rooms, 13 items on Ebay and 15 already sold, including the chair I was sitting in, it feels like we're really doing this.

We no longer talk about things we have to do some day, we talk about what needs to be done in the next hour. We no longer talk about selling the house, but where we'll live when it's sold. We no longer dwell on selling the business, but what our first destination will be afterwards. We no longer procrastinate, we prioritize. We run from one project to the next, managing house and boat and business projects like a carnival clown juggling loaded paintbrushes. It's messy.

We look like a herd of carpenter ants carrying things from one place to the next to the next. To an outsider it might look like we're only shifting things from one room to the next, but from our vantage point, we're moving mountains. Sure, we might move each object from upstairs to the kitchen to be photographed, then to the "holding" bedroom to wait seven days, but eventually each object ends up in a brown, cardboard box, taped and addressed and headed to San Diego or Pecos, Texas, or Johnstown, Ohio, into the hands of someone who is hopefully as glad to have it as we are to be rid of it.

We had a staff party last week, and it was a struggle to find chairs for all six people.

Yes, we're really doing this.

TODAY:
--coat #6 of varnish on the garage
--coat #3 of varnish on the hatch panels
--sanded down the bulkhead
--attached the starboard dorade box
--stripped, sanded and sealed the cockpit grate, and it looks FABULOUS
--sold more stuff on Ebay.
--put the boat on Craigslist
--ordered mulch for the beds
--decided on a price for the house
--started having hot flashes. GREAT. menopause added to the long list of other life changes!

A QUICK UPDATE

Hurricane Hannah is stopping by tonight. She's not packing so much punch, but we'll have to take a short break from boat repair while she blows by and dumps rain on us. YAHOO!!!!

Maybe we'll use the time to do some work inside the house -- or put more stuff on Ebay.

Would you just look at that garage shine (that big chunk of wood in the picture). And I'm not finished varnishing it yet!

TODAY:
--stripped the cockpit grates
--varnished the companionway door
--listed the Fender Stratocaster guitar on ebay
--sold an OBX license plate on Ebay for $57 (!)
--secured the boat for Hannah
--dug out the vegetable garden and covered it with black plastic
--went to the dermatologist
--talked to broker about house

TAKING MEASURE

Three years and three months into building our business, we are ready to pass it along. Our five-year timeline has been thwarted by unanticipated success. The whole shebang goes on the chopping block next week, not a day too soon.

On the seventh anniversary of building our house, we will be ready to list it. I wish we could claim that we built this house knowing it would fund the foundation of the rest of our lives. Instead, we were tired of renting and wanted to provide a more stable home base for the kids. As a bonus, this house doubled in value and allowed us to start a business that quadrupled in value in just over three years. Our nest laid a nest egg.

Five years after bringing Isabella up from Fort Lauderdale, we have her ready to sell. Her toe rails are glistening. The garage will be in a few days. The fuel and tank have been cleaned. The stove is working. the tachometer is working. It's possible she will bring close to what we paid five years ago.

Our belongings disappear by the day. The desk chair is gone with an overall outlay of $149 for 8 years of use. The princess jewelry, gone. Two pairs of Doc Martens, sold for about what I paid for them 12 years ago. The Jerry Garcia doll shipped to Florida today. Our original artwork has a home until Casey's ready to provide a permanent one. Two rooms are almost empty and will be once we have the energy to have a garage sale. Half of my clothes have been distributed, the stained glass window sold.

The photos have been sorted, tossed or filed, ready to ship to Chip's mom. My old files have been sorted and mostly trashed. At least half of the CDs are on the iPod. The yard is looking more like a landscaped lawn, less like an overgrown lot. The excess wood under the house is loaded and ready to take to the dump.

We're tired but thinner, exhausted but motivated, closer and wiser than we've ever been.

TODAY:
--shipped the Jerry Garcia doll and the Doc Marten boots
--got the Fender Stratocaster boxed and ready to put on Ebay
--had the fuel and tank cleaned (!)
--passed along financials to the business broker

TEAK LESSONS

Dear Tammy,

You know all those lessons we learned while refinishing the toe rails? You think you'll remember them, don't you. Trust me. I know you well enough to know that you'll forget them. So I'm doing us both this favor of writing it down here where it won't get lost.

Thinking of you always,
Tammy

--don't waste my money on teak cleaner. a mixture of part bleach, part laundry detergent and some TSP works just as well, if not better
--don't EVER, EVER use a pressure washer on teak
--use 40-grit on the first pass. as john bayliss says, "it lets the teak know you're serious."
--save yourself some grief. refinish before the wood starts deteriorating.
--don't skip grits. going from 40 to 80 is too far and makes more work.
--leave the perfectionism in the cabin. the outside will take some wear and tear. it doesn't have to be perfect.
--gloves for varnishing and cleaning up. saves a lot of annoyance.
--100ml does a whole lap on isabella
--keep it thin so you won't get brushstrokes.
--don't overload the brush so you won't get drips.

Use this order:
1. clean with bleach solution and brush. rinse and brush.
2. tape fiberglass
3. sand with 40
4. sand with 60
5. sand with 80
6. sand with 100
7. sand with 120
8. clean and wipe with mineral spirits
9. check tape and add tape to hardware
10. seal with half varnish/half thinner
11. sand with 140
12. clean, wipe
13. varnish 85/15
14. sand with 160+
15. clean, wipe
16. varnish full strength
17. retape
18. keep going as long as you can stand. use scotch brite pad instead of sandpaper once it reaches the right smoothness.

TODAY:
--sanded with 320 and put on third coat. it's starting to shine
--3 things listed on Ebay
--took pictures of more stuff for Ebay

WIND IN OUR SAILS

Boy, last week, we couldn't get a thing going, not one damn thing. It was a stalemate from beginning to the bitter end. Saturday night i thought nothing would ever go right again.

When you're out on the water, sometimes the wind shifts or the sails aren't set just right, and you slog along, heavy and sluggish, like wading in thigh-high water. Then you hank in the jib or let out the main just so and the sails snap into shape, the boat rises up out of the water, the wheel locks in, and you just fly, you, the boat and the wind all as one piece.

Sunday turned like that. $200 worth of stuff sold on Ebay -- including my lucky green Doc Martens! They went to Chicago. My princess jewelry went to Austria (!). Today that damnable chair started en route to Indiana after only one more glitch when the post office said it was too big to ship. Did I want to repack it? AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH. UPS took it for only $9 more than I had collected for shipping. They had no idea how much I would have paid.

Twenty more CDs on the laptop, a plan for transporting the wood under the house to the dump, more photos in albums, a teak plan for tomorrow, it's all coming together. And perhaps most exciting of all: we opened a savings account today for our cruising pennies, straight from Ebay into savings. We've covered more ground than all of last week.

Crazy days. Sometimes I can almost taste the salt water.

TODAY'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
--swapped out speakers between the home stereo and the store so we can sell the home system on ebay
--sold my stained glass window at the wine shop!
--shipped the damn chair to Indiana and the shoes to Chicago
--more CDs on laptop. better look back at the TO DO list. i forgot to keep up on this one ....
--opened our cruising savings account -- very exciting
--made preparations to do a teak attack tomorrow -- first round of sanding with 40 grit. That shit looks like a shingle! I could break out of prison with that stuff.

BLAME IT ON AUGUST

Some weeks are easier than others. Chip and I have a life condition we call "being in the stream." It's when the future unfolds before you like a yellow brick road, a Disney moment when the whole world is in concert, the path ahead is obvious, smooth, even glorious. Little birds float around our heads singing, rainbows light our path. All the signs and flowers point the same way.

Then there are weeks like this.

All I wanted was a cardboard box.

I've been looking for one the whole damn week. A simple cardboard box big enough to ship the desk chair I sold on Ebay. I thought I had one on Sunday. I thought I had one on Thursday. I thought I BOUGHT one this morning. But no, after eight phone calls, a 24-mile drive, and a wasted $11, it was too small.

How hard can it be? Isn't this the lucky 08/08/08? Or do you have to be Chinese for that to apply?

If I was in the stream, that box would have been dropped of on my doorstep by bear cubs on Monday morning. It would have had a roll of strapping tape and a bunch of bubble wrap inside. An hour later a handsome UPS driver would have shown up to whisk it to Indiana for half price -- and he would have brought me a skinny latte.

What am I doing wrong that's making this so difficult? To get back in the stream I usually have to find something I'm pushing too hard or pulling too vigorously. Something I'm agitating about that needs to be left alone or something I'm leaving alone that needs attention. Help!

Shipping a chair. Sitting. Cardboard. Packing. Letting go. Fulfilling an obligation. Peanuts. Bubble wrap. Planning ahead. Anybody?

I found a crap box at Sears that looks a little Frankensteinian, but it was after 5:00 on Friday when the post office was closed. So now that glommed-together box with Sears washing machine instructions all over it has to sit glaring at me until Monday. Maybe the message is stamped on the box somewhere .... am I supposed to learn Spanish?

TODAY'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
--packed the #&*$&*# desk chair for shipping
--bid on an attitude adjustment on Ebay

COCOA PUFFS IN HOPETOWN

About three months ago we each independently looked in the mirror and thought, "hmmm, this ain't gonna float."

Everywhere we look there's somewhere we need to trim down our lives. Getting down to cruising weight is a multi-faceted project; extra body weight is just one more thing on the list.

I've never been -- by anyone's measure -- fat, but without noticing, I had matched the highest weight of my life, and it was not optimally arranged, if you know what I mean. If I were a piece of clay a sculptor could have trimmed me up in short order, but alas I am flabby flesh and little-used muscle -- apparently shlepping around cases of wine and beer doesn't get the job done.

We know we'll be active when we're living onboard. The way of life will keep us moving. Getting from one port to the next involves sailing activity. When we're in port, sans car, we'll be biking and walking on a daily basis, snorkeling, swimming, rowing. All good, but we want to start strong and trim.

We also want to carry healthy eating habits aboard. We've had a running debate about what "healthy eating" means. That argument is in its 11th year, but we've recently discovered the South Beach Diet. We can both agree: this is a healthy diet.

We've dropped sugar and most carbs from our diet and a lot of pounds off our bodies. We eat lean meats, lots of veggies. We're never hungry, don't have cravings, and we've completely eliminated processed foods.

No more worrying about finding Cocoa Puffs in Hopetown.

TODAY'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
--more photos
--cleaned Isabella's engine room
--pumped out bilge and added bilge cleaner
--a brick walkway under the house
--another clear drawer in the downstairs dresser
--sold my office chair on Ebay! now add "ship chair" to TO DO list