Working on moving onto the boat

Saturday, May 29 81F @ 6:46pm

We signed a secondary contract yesterday evening, which will be a backup buyer if the deal falls through. This morning Buyers #1 had the house inspected, and preliminary results are that it went well. Tomorrow late morning, the bank will have the house appraised, so hope that they appraise it for at least the price of the loan - and that they don't require us to replace the roof.

Yesterday, Phil put a deck for the table and chairs at our dock, and as you can see, we are already enjoying the companionship of our dock mates. Jack on the left, Phil being funny, Jack Reinhard, his daughter Hannah and brother, Bud.



I also was working on making a fitted sheet for the mattress. It was very fortuitous having a clean deck (well it was mostly clean after I swept it. Just one to two spots of bird poop) to use as a hard surface to lay out the mattress sandwich. First the sheet, then the mattress, then the memory foam and mattress cover so I can wrap the sheet over all the layers to fit it correctly.

Side Story: Did you notice the mattress on the picnic table in the background??? The mattress is on the table drying out the bottom side. The story behind that is I was working on the mattress, the wind came up and since according to SailFlow, there was going to be enough wind for sailing from 12 noon to 3pm, we left the mattress with the fitted sheet adjustments where it was - and went sailing. What's important after all! Sail flow was correct - we had a nice breeze and turned around @ 230pm, sailed for 30 min more, turned on the motor - turned it off again - and restarted the motor for the final 3 miles. When we came back the side of the mattress and sheet that was next to the deck was damp. Duh!

My adjustments will work fine, though is not something I would ask someone to pay me money to do for them! But it beats tucking all the extra fabric at the short end and it looks good on top. I also cut the corners of the top sheet and put a hem in to prevent raveling.
I'm getting this done today so that we can sleep on the boat tonight. Boy! Am I looking forward to trying out how it feels with the memory foam. While it was on the deck, a test drive felt pretty good.



Here is the closet insert that Phil made in the dock box ready for me to put my clothes in. Our goal is to move onto the boat next weekend. Lots to do before then and 2 Memorial Day picnics to go to too!

Signed a Contract!!

It's been a Happy day and a sad day.

We signed a contract for our house at the asking price this evening. It's the couple that we had the contingency contract with. They want to close on June 25 and have us out of the house by June 28 as they have 2 people who are interested in doing a rent-to-own on their house - and probably (we're assuming) the renters want to move in July 1. It's sad because we signed the contract - and the reality is hitting me that I'm not going to have this house anymore. Of course I shed some tears on the way home from work and on the way over to Capps Tavern in Leroy where we have chicken salad on Tuesday with friends - but this is good! The pieces are starting to come together for us to leave this fall. Cross our fingers now. We're going to wait to see how the inspection goes - is for a FHA loan - so hoping that they won't want us to put a new roof on the house - even though this roof is fine or have us do any other work to the house. Lynn, our Realtor, says that hopefully we'll know by next Thursday the results of the inspection. We also have to have the appraiser appraise the house at the price of the loan - so we're not out of the woods yet - though she think that it will meet the loan price.

Phil has been busy working on making an insert out of Cherry and luan to go into the dock box so that I can put my work clothes there while we move on to Changes - which will be as early in June as we can. Here is a picture taken inside his shop. He's a fast worker as we were just talking about it this weekend. (He wants me to get onto the boat soon you see) :)
I love it - at the top I have a hanger to hang the shirts, pants, and skirts. Then he made slides out of cherry wood for the baskets to slide on - rounding the front edges so the baskets don't catch. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the vertical area, but sure that we'll find something to put in there.

Now both Phil and I are feeling stressed with having to get everything out of the house. We already know of a couple teenage boys that don't have job that may be willing to help with the heavy lifting. We're trying to decide if we rent a storage unit tomorrow - or wait until next Thursday. We're probably going to wait. Do we go to Ashtabula for the weekend, or stay home and start clearing out the house? I'm also in my online Health Promotion and Rehab Nursing Class that ends June 20- still have my project to finish up and 2 more tests - my sister Robin and her husband Paul are leaving tomorrow (Happy Birthday Robin!) to drive to St. Louis to visit his family, then to a few places in Ohio to end up in Cleveland. I'm going to visit my daughter, Rachel, June 11-14. Plus I have started my new job. The next few weeks will be busy and stressful, but then we'll be able to relax more - living on Changes. It will be great to have work 3 miles away. Just think how much gas money I'll be able to save!

So I hope to have more to post soon.

Oh and here are the pictures that go with the last post. We had supper that Phil cooked on Changes and our dock neighbor took this picture. Fried potatoes, boneless chicken thighs and broccoli. We went sailing Thursday, May 20 and the first picture is on the river - me in short sleeves.The 2nd picture is me with the polypro fleece and wind breaker - out on the lake.The last is me covered up with a quilt - as it got colder still as the sun was starting to go down in the sky. The auto pilot is steering - and we're relaxing with the required sun downer wine. Like my pink glass that is for girls? Yellow is for boys don't you know. BTW, the quilt is made up of flannel fabric that I used to make pajamas for my kids. We had a tradition that I made pajamas for them every year and they opened them Christmas Eve. Once we moved to Chardon and I started working as a nurse again - I didn't have time to make them pajamas - but instead bought them. This quilt is older - tied instead of quilted and is starting to fall apart - but I love the feel of it and is nice to have on the boat - just for this use and it brings back the good memories of their Christmas pajamas through the years.

Weekend at the boat

Phil and I went sailing Thursday evening as it was suppose to rain Friday evening. It was a great stress reliever - so that was helpful as stress has increased with my new job. We had a great sail - but I got colder as the evening progressed! Phil took pictures of me in as I added clothes during the sail - may post later but not now. I have a school project that I'm presenting tomorrow - and we have a showing tomorrow evening - so too busy to download the pictures.

We have put the house in the MLS for rent - and waiting to hear from the buyers we have the contingency contract with. They really like the house -we are waiting to see if they'll buy our house and do a rent-to-own with their house. Time will tell but prayers that something happens soon.

New Mattress for Changes - Renting

A couple weeks ago, Phil and I ordered a new high density foam mattress to be made at Original Mattress Factory in Cleveland. We understand that they make the mattresses for the tartan boats. As I need a firm but soft mattress - we ordered the 6 1/2" thick instead of the 5 1/2" thick one. It was ready this past week and Phil picked it up in my van. It's all one piece, which will make it more comfortable to sleep on. See picture below. Yesterday was the Welcome Aboard Party at GRYC - so I thought it a perfect time to try out the new mattress. It was to be 46F at night, but as we have a electric heater and being at dock - having enough electricity isn't a problem - we decided to try it out. In case you don't know - Phil sleeps like a baby on the boat - Me, I need more padding. Well, I'm happy to say that for the first night, this mattress is very good!! Minimal aches and pains for me. I think that I would like a little more softness, so we are negotiating adding the memory foam mattress on top. We have yet to work out how it will be cut - as Phil doesn't want anymore softness of his side.

Phil had gotten up at 530am for necessities - and turned on the heater, so when I woke up 2 hours later, the boat was toasty warm. After having the requisite coffee and tea, we went to Sammy's Restaurant with fellow sailor Mark Whalen for some breakfast. We had a great time listening to each others stories. Below is a picture of the sunrise off Changes stern looking across Grand River.

Well we have decided that we're going to put the house up for rent - listing in the MLS with our Realtor, Lynn Bender. The housing market has slowed down since the tax credit has expired - so we decided to rent after the concurrency contract expires June 30. The deal is we can sign a rental agreement July 1 and they can move in July 2 or later. We've decided to use a screening company and hope that we'll get a quality family to rent for a year - or more if we like the cruising lifestyle. Phil and I don't have much hope that the buyer's house will sell in Euclid. So now we have 6 weeks to clear out the house and move onto the boat. Wish us luck in getting it all done!

First Sail was wonderful

Yesterday was a beautiful day - made it into the 80's with a S-SW wind 14-17 knots - waves about 1 foot -So we decided it was a good evening for our first sail. As we sailed down Grand River, there was only one other power boater M/V "Nothing Else Matters" that went down the river with us. Phil recognized him from when he anchored at "D" Dock at the Sailing Center before moving out to the Hidden Harbor Marina area close to the Hidden Harbor Condos. We sailed about 40 minutes from when we left Fairport Lighthouse to back to inside the harbor not including the sailing downwind down the river. It was also terrific in my mind that I didn't get seasick for the first sail!!! Though I did need to put on a couple layers as the water is still in the 40's- and Phil as usual was in jeans and T-shirt. Look Ma - No hands! as we're going slowly - (2-3.5 knots) down the river and as you can see - this was before I had to add my layers.
Here is a picture of the full sail to prove that we actually sailed but we were lazy and didn't raise the Main. :)

A couple times this past week, the current was running high making it difficult to dock the boat - so we played it safe and prepared (adding an extra line to the bow dock line) for the worse and were lucky enough that there wasn't any current left to make docking difficult. We ended the evening sitting out in the cockpit. Picture this - the wind had died so the river was glassy - no one from the yacht club across the river was playing music so all you hear were the geese honking and the frogs chirping and see wisps of clouds in the sky as the sun was setting behind them and temps in the upper 70's - so you can image that we enjoyed the end of our evening, toasted to a great start the season and nice conversation ending a very fine Friday.

Today is GRYC men's clean up day - so hope they can get enough done before the rain comes. Me - I'm planning on taking the v-berth cushions to a mattress store to see if they can make a mattress so that I can sleep well on the boat as I think it would be great to spend the weekends at the boat -but not on the current cushions.