The whole crew is back together on Whidbey Island. The kids and I had a horrible red eye flight from Orlando last night, hard good byes to Nanny and Baba then 15 hours of traveling. I seem to no longer be an air travel person. I've been 'jet setting' across the country since I was 3 years old but now I find the whole processing completely stressful. Just getting through the security check in my left eye started twitching. I know with threats of terrorism rampant in this day and age, how we got to this point, but it seems we have lost all sense of human decency. I've heard air travel compared to being treated like cattle, but it's more like being treated like slaves. The workers talk to you like your dirt, order you about, strip you of half your clothes... It's atrocious. Next you push and shove with a bunch of other twitchy, pissed off people to get to your stupidly small seat where you remain wedged upright for an interminably long time until you can't feel your legs anymore. Gone are the days of complimentary pillows and blankets, free food and these days you're incredibly lucky if you get a TV in front of your seat, which of course you need to pay for.
Our first flight from Orlando to San Francisco was very bumpy, the poor kids screamed through the first half hour of it. Thankfully they slept for the last few hours before we bounced down to San Francisco and had twenty minutes to dash to the next gate for our jaunt up to Seattle. I think from now on I'll be traveling by land or sea, the air is literally "for the birds."
The kids enjoyed being home, playing with their toys and running around the yard, seeing the neighbour kids again and the priceless moment when they randomly remembered there was a zipline out back, I guess they had forgotten. I on the other hand was battling jet lag and unpacking and organizing the ton of stuff we somehow managed to accumulate down south and trying to fight off the depression of being back in this freezing, dingy place. I had forgotten how this house manages to suck the life right out of me.
After stocking up on groceries we took a trip down to SweetHaven to inspect firsthand all the work Mark had done in our absence. It's exciting to see everything starting to come together and the kids were excited to use the head for the first time (it's the little things in life), and I can finally start to actually picture how it will all come together. There is still so much more work left to do but we are getting there.
Our 'providence provided' funds arrived in the mail today, it is even more strange to us that our broken outboard motor would be stolen and we would get the insurance money for it in less than a week, but here we are and thankful for it. We've decided to put a push on getting the boat livable by the end of May if we can, and we have narrowed down our remaining projects to ones we feel are essential to living aboard. So the next few weeks we have, painting the interior, fabricating and installing trampolines between the forward amas, putting up the lifelines and netting and purchasing mattresses for the cabins.
The weather is still very cold here and the damp wind down by the water just rips through my bones, makes me wish I could blink my eyes and be back in Florida again. It is difficult to get up the energy to go down to the boat and get work done when you just want to stay curled up with a hot tea, but warmer days are on their way. And while we wait for them to get here we are re adjusting to the weather and to the new direction our life is headed.
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