Chaos to Clean Slate
Well, we are officially on our way! It has been a touch slog for the last few weeks of organizing all our stuff and packing. We had to put stuff in storage, pack to take things with us on the plane to go directly to the boat and then put things in our truck to be brought down to Florida by Kevin’s parents. It was such a process and it seemed that we would never get it all done. At times, it all looked like chaos!
We are so lucky to have Kevin’s parents willing to make a road trip out of bring us some stuff for when we reach Florida. Kevin and Owen are going to put in some new batteries, that have more capacity to support the addition of a washer/dryer, and hopefully a dishwasher. Kevin found that he can reduced costs by building the batteries himselves, but these batteries can’t be transported on airplanes and few courier companies want to transport them either. So we were stuck with driving them down. Theoretically it might have been easier to just spend more money and have assembled batteries delivered by the company to the boat when we reach Florida, but we were trying to help our budget. However, there are several more things we also wanted to bring down to the boat that would be difficult to bring while traveling down, like added school supplies, winter clothing, extra pots for the galley and extra games and toys for the children. So now there is a whole truck full of stuff.
Part of the chaos of the last few days included getting rid of stuff (like all those jars and bottles of random sauces in the back of fridge and the dozens of bags of frozen blueberries Kevin had saved up in the freezer) and say good-bye to friends. We had some lovely dinners and visits with friends.
Tonight, as I sit on the couch at Kevin’s parents, now homeless(!), with the whole trip before us, I actually feel some relief. Not only to be on our way, but also because it feels like we have a clean slate. No more extra stuff in our lives. We have had so much ‘junk’ for so long, and now we only have the things we need. Okay, maybe more than we need still. . .but sooo much better than it has been. I am excited, nervous and exhausted. I think I will rest for a few days before I get on a plane for Grenada!
