How do I talk about all the pressures of late. Perhaps self imposed, isn’t all pressure, but still there.

Preparing and getting Jim’s parents house on the market. Cleaning our 90 years of treasures, estate sale, and doing much deferred maintenance and a few upgrades. It is under contract!!! As in many locations, the Albuquerque market is hot and the house sold quickly for a good price. Yeah!!!

Rentals. Those pesky and oh so profitable rentals. Jim and I have decided to divest of them., We really want to retire, over the next several years. We did a bang up refurb on one unit of a triplex (in 3 weeks!) and it went on the market today. Our realtor is using us as a test case for pushing the market in an oh-so-hot rental market in a neighborhood in need of some urban renewal.. Quite the dolled up unit. Fingers crossed.

This refurb happened at the same time as the work on Jim’s parents. It is hard when you “give up” your parents home, even if it was not where you grew up. It is another step of saying goodbye.

But, we NEEDED to get back to the boat which added pressure. Our insurance required us to move north of Cape Hatteras before June 1 (a short notice change from July 1 due to much earlier hurricanes of late). Impossible to do given the notice, so we paid a hefty 1 month “dispensation” so we could move it to July 1. We HAD to get back to the boat which put extra pressure on the renovation projects.

So, after finishing the apartment on Monday June 14, we packed on Tuesday and left that evening at 6 PM. We drove for a few hours and got a hotel. One just HAS to get on the road or it won’t happen.

We are now back at the boat. Yeah again! Work had happened on the boat which we needed to understand and make sure was right. All in all good. But then Tropical Storm Claudette, our first names storm (is this something to highlight?) visited North Carolina. It was not bad as far as what one expects of storms. Rain, little wind and somewhat rough seas. We probably could have left a day earlier, but we needed to do a sea trial after getting new motor mounts, repairs to the line cutter (which will cut crab pot lines and other lines that want to get caught in your prop) and a realignment on the drive shaft. All is running very smoothly now where before it was not. But, this particular slip has strong currents outside, funny eddy currents running through the slips and the remnant of Claudette winds making getting in and out of the slip extra challenging. Thus the day wait. Oh and the maiden voyage after being off the boat since March. We ARE still beginners.

A long day today as we hope to get north of Hatteras tomorrow and into the Chesapeake by Saturday. I know, I know, crazy, but we are headed to another boatyard for a tad more engine work, then, really, really, we are going to have some enjoyment on the boat.

Today was a bit of a different boat experience. Our first day of boating pseudo-Covid. Soooo many more boats, personal water craft and other water paraphernalia on the water. We are so used to having the waters mostly to ourselves as well as the anchorages. But, we knew this was coming. Maybe mpre of an adjustment for me that Jim.

It is good to be back at the boat and actually moving and being. Te are slowly decompressing.