Other blogs and our next blog.

You may have noticed that the blogs listen to the right under "Other blogs" have changed recently. Some of the blogs were from families that traveled when we did, but are no longer so were deleted. Others started when a friend sent us an email with links to a couple blogs of sailboats that are going south for the first time. Through that and also through the Plodding in Paradise Blog, I have found other blogs to read that are interesting to me and I hope you will find interesting. I don't know about you, but they help me to live vicariously while we stay north this winter. I hope that you find some that you enjoy.

Phil and I have been talking about making changes to this blog. He is working on transferring the entire blog posts from when we started getting ready in 2008 to when we returned June 2011, to a DVD that will also include the photos that we took of our travels in that time period. Once he has completed that, we will be deleting the post from this blog and create a link to a new blog tentatively titled "Changesgoingsouth Our Next Adventure". Fear not - We will make the DVD available for purchase for a nominal fee, which will help us save build our cruising kitty.. The DVD will also be available for purchase at any presentations we give in 2013.

So many blogs have ads to raise money as well as widgets to donate money to our cruising fund (see Zero to Cruising's blog as an example). What do you think of that for US? Also, what would you be interesting in seeing on the new blog and formats. Here is my opportunity to have things different and continue what is already working well. ALL suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you to you for reading my blog!!!

And just to make it fun, here is our 4ft Christmas Tree.

Solar Panels

The solar panels have arrived!  Phil said they were big, but didn't realize HOW big until they were in our tiny apartment.   Phil is waiting until my van is available to take to Fairport storage to mount them on the hard Bimini top and then design an interface for the 280watt solar panels to the house bank. (He is an electrical engineer after all).  

Phil humored me and got the table halves from the salon of Changes during the 60 degree weather yesterday so he can either make a new table (pretty please) or route out the front edge of our current table so that the fiddle edge isn't resting on the our arms.  Of course all the upgrades  are $$$ but it would be nice to have a cherry table or be able to use the black walnut from the tree in our back yard before we sold the Chardon Home.