Changes with her Mast for the Unbelievers

Yesterday Phil Waddle and Phil put the mast and boom on the boat. I was going to join them after work to observe since I don't know if I've ever seen the mast put on the boat, but they were too efficient and they had both the mast and the boom on before I left. I wanted to see how it worked as we'll be taking the mast off for the trip down the Erie Canal. Oh well, I guess I learn this one on the fly. Here is Changes at Grand River Yacht Club - looking very lonely.

Changes in the Water

Phil and Colin Mills helped put Changes in the water yesterday in pouring rain. Good thing he was able to find his full foul-weather gear. Everything went well and she's at our dock 20N at Grand River Yacht Club. Tomorrow the mast is to go up tomorrow with the help of a couple friends (we hope - to be confirmed tonight). Today it's to be 51F and sunny. Tomorrow 55F and partly sunny so a nice day.

Here is the picture today. All the bright spots are reflections off the nice shiny hull after Phil polished it. If you look closely, you can even see the reflection of the dock.

We had lots of rain starting Sunday afternoon and yesterday so you can see how muddy Grand River is. And here is Phil's new dinghy in the water where she belongs.

Calvin's Quilt - boat items swap

Since my last posting, I have completed my 2nd nursing class this past Thursday, which gave me a weekend of no school so I decided to work on Calvin's quilt. Using an iron I set the fabric pastels so they won't wash out. I used them to draw up each design on the fabric and applied fusible web to the letters and have a mock layup which you can see here. A few years ago, Katie and I went to a sewing and quilting expo at the IX Center and I bought the fabric pastels - so am glad to be able to use them. I miss my Mom's light box tracing the designs, but used a flashlight under a Omnigrid square ruler, which worked out well. Above is all the letters of the alphabet. Keep in mind I still have to fuse the letters to the blocks.
The photos that follow are semi-close ups of the 4 corners of the quilt. I have tried as much as possible to have an ocean/beach theme, but as you can see - couldn't do everything that way.
The Blocks are: A - Anchors (danforth, bruce and fisherman after all this is a learning quilt!), B - Boat (you can't see in this picture but there is "C2" on the sail. "C" for Calvin and "2" for his age for when I hope he gets this quilt), C - Car (Honda Pilot, which is the current Groh family vehicle), D - Dolphin, G - grapes (for the wine that is drunk?) - H - Horses - I - Chocolate Ice Cream - J - Jack in the Box, M - Moose , N - Neck tie - O for Orange - P -Pumpkin
Addition letters seen here are: E - Eagle , F - Fish, K - Kite (that is flown at the beaches) L - Lighthouse - Q -Quilt to lay on top of on the sand- R - Life raft
U - Beach Umbrella, V - Volleyball, W - Whale and X - Xylophone (which I know is NOT a beach theme but does begin with "X")

S - Sun - T - I think I can Train, and last but not least Y - Yam and Z - Zoo plankton (didn't think I'd actually find a "Z" word that goes along with the theme but here it is)

Now I need to have ideas for the numbers 1 - 10 that will complete the 36 blocks in the quilt, but that will wait for another day. So far #1 is a chair and my plan is to use shapes of fabric fused and sewn to the squares.

Just to make this a little related to sailing, Phil went to Chagrin Lagoons Yacht Club in Eastlake this afternoon as they were having a sailors swap meet where you can bring boat item that you aren't using anymore and sell/trade them. It was successful as Phil sold 6 items and has enough money to almost buy the new anchor that he wants for Changes. This has been a day where we had some rain on and off rain, which was off during the swap meet and now is on which is not good for the Maple Festival.

Tonight is the Grand River Sailing Club Lottery meeting which we'll be going to even though we are not racing this year. It will be nice to socialize with our friends. Time for me to go as I need to get something to eat. Feel free to post comments about suggestions what I should use for # 2 - 10, as my idea is to have the number of objects for each number on the square.

Almost ready to put Changes in water/School

Phil was pretty busy today. He got the new dinghy inspected today, applied the numbers and then took it down to GRYC. He tried it out and it's definitely less tippy, but now he's having problems with the outboard motor. Another project to work on. He also worked on making the holder for the anchor light and so will be installing that shortly. Still scheduled to go in the water April 26. After all of that, he was kind enough to walk up to the square, as it's Maple Festival time and there isn't any parking up there - to get a certified copy of our marriage license so that I can have my RN license updated to my new name.

I also took my last test - and should have gotten an "A", but something happened because as I reviewed the test (taken online) all the questions I got wrong were the same answers that I had marked! Emailed the professor, and will see what happened, but even if there can't be changes made, will still get an "A" in the class. We have a showing tomorrow at 430 - 530pm so will now start to get ready, but before I did, I wanted to take my last test first so that I can enjoy my weekend.

With great regret, I have lowered the price of the house again as have 9 days left before the first time buyers can get the $8,000.00 tax credit and hoping it might make a difference. Don't have much hope that will get an offer in that time, but willing to try as we want to go cruising. Hope is dwindling that the house in Euclid, whose owner has the concurrence contract with us, will sell as they haven't lowered the price to what their Realtor asked for in order to sell it. I did a search of homes in Euclid and can you believe there are 490 homes for sale at $120,000 or less and there are 4 houses on their street for sale. If anyone believes in prayer, please pray for us to sell our home soon. Thanks.

I took some pictures of the crab apple trees out front and also the daffodils across the driveway. They are at peak and I wanted to capture them one last time. Will add the pictures later.

Almost forgot. Found out during our open house that the water heater was leaking. We're lucky in that we still had hot water. We also had signed up for the HSA Home Warranty (though initially they said the contract had expired and they weren't going to cover it - but Lynn Bender got it all worked out) and for the buyers and sellers (that's us!), so were able to have a new water heater installed for $75 this past Monday. Took 8 days to get it, but at least it's new and Phil didn't have to do the installing or carrying out the old one himself. Looks like it was worth the price on the home warranty.

New Blogs Added

Many of you who know me know that I work for Hospice of the Western Reserve. Today as I was reading hospice information, I found 2 blogs that I put in the blog section on the right so that if anyone needed information about hospice and palliative care and support after someone had died, they'd be able to find this information. Check out the Hospice of the Western Reserve's blog as there are many heartwarming stories to read that I'm sure will touch your heart.

Open House Sunday

I got a call from my Realtor with a request to have an open house Sunday - so we are from 2-4pm. We haven't had a showing for a couple weekends, so gives us some new incentive to get the house cleaner. No news on the home in Euclid, so still keep the prayers coming.

Phil waxed Changes topsides today and we have an appointment to get the boat in the water 830am on Monday, April 26 - which turns out to be the first appointment of the season. We could put her in the water earlier, but are waiting until Grand River Yacht Club has the docks in. Phil hopes that the weather holds out (no rain) so that he can paint the bottom over the next couple days.

He's also painted the outside of the dinghy this morning - so then wait to dry and we'll be able to turn her over for the next step.

We had a wonderful Easter Dinner over at Virginia's house. Thanks Ginny! Was good to see Phil's side of the family again.

Getting Changes Ready

We've had some really warm and dry weather this week - had record high's in the mid 80's - so Phil has been busy getting Changes ready to put into the water. Unfortunately, some of the red Vivid bottom paint had flaked off the interprotect - so he had to scrape off all the loose areas in addition to the normal sanding. Part of the keel and the bow were affected. He thinks that maybe it was too cold when he put it on, as not all of the bottom paint is flaking off. Some history: In preparation of changing the bottom paint to be compatible with salt water instead of the fresh water Changes has been set up for, fall 2008 he removed part of the old bottom paint and repainted with the Vivid red. spring 2009 he did the rest. It's the areas he did in the fall that we're having problems with now. Of course he had to order more paint - and is now waiting for the additional quart of paint to come in on Tuesday so that either Tuesday or Wednesday he can paint the rest of the bottom. He has cleaned the top-side with the windex- so it's nice and shiny and plans to wax the topsides on Monday. Besides these last two chores, all that needs to be done is to charge and install the batteries, which he won't do until close to when the boat is scheduled to go in to the water and Changes will be ready to go in the water. April 27 is the first day that boats go in at Grand River Marine and he hopes to get an appointment on that day.

Phil is now over his friend Kay's home picking up the dinghy, where it was stored for the winter. He plans to sell it and have us use the new one that he is making for when we cruise. The new one so much bigger because it has a flat bottom so we'll have plenty of room to put us and the water jugs/food/supplies that we'll need when traveling.

Here is a picture of starting to put the bottom on the boat.

Here is a picture with the bottom being clamped on.

Here is the bottom after it's been glued, fiberglass and epoxy applied and sanded.

The Daffodils are starting to bloom in the bed next to the house. Here they are in their prime condition. We have the greenery up of the daffodils across the driveway, but no flowers yet. There are buds coming out on the trees and Phil trimmed the plum tree in the back yard. The red stalks of the Peonies are starting to poke out of the ground too. Spring has arrived! Even thought it wasn't a bad winter, the weather was hard on the bush type plants and japanese maple tree - as limbs have broken off. Too bad! I trimmed the bush rose bushes and hope that they will bush out more this year.