Crunch Time.

Time is getting down until the packers come and we officially move onto the boat, 13 more days and so much to do. It doesn't help that we are going out of town next week so we need to get as much done now as we can.

Of course things can't go too smoothly, as a lovely side effect of living in the country we've been plagued with bugs and parasites, we've battled fleas and ticks and lice and now we are dealing with scabies, ick. I had never even heard of them before but it's not too hard to fix, rub some cream all over and clean all the clothes and bedding, easy.... Oh wait, it's only easy is you have a working washer and dryer. Thanks to this house having too long of a vent hose, every couple, of months our dryer overheats and blows a thermalcoupler. So it decides to do this three weeks before we move, not long enough a time for us to get the new part ordered and fixed but long enough to be a huge inconvenience.

So we brought every piece of material in our house to the laundromat over two days. We washed everybodies clothes and all the bedding and took the freshly cleaned stuff directly to the boat so, we have all that moved in, but while we are still living between the boat and the house we have one set of clothes and one set of pjs each, clothes get washed at night and hung by the fire (we are using up the last of our firewood) to dry for the next day and pjs washed in the day for that night. It's so much fun, really.

Meanwhile, at the boat... More decorating in the kids rooms, sticker time.

Back at the house... Our first attempt at trampolines, it was a failure. It would have worked but we do need a sailrite sewing machine. I had hoped my heavy duty, juki quilting machine would be able to handle sewing through the shelter rite trim we wanted to rim the netting with but after four bobbin snags and broken needles we gave up. Since a sailrite machine is not in my near future we are moving on to plan B, rather than using the shelter rite we are just going to directly lace the netting on to the boat, not as pretty and professional looking but serviceable.

Making it feel like home. New bird cage that fits and our one family photo.

Our popeye family and breaking in the new TV with Shrek.

Mermaid quarters.

Ash went a big sticker crazy, but why not? If you can't go crazy as a kid when can you?

Crews quarters.

Folding ironing board.

It's an over the door one we got from walmart, drilled some holes in the frame and screwed it to the bulkhead, fits like a glove.

And we have been making dozens of thrift shop runs and dump runs. Who knew a house could hold so much stuff?

Boat babe.

This weekends project was to get the lifelines installed. Of course I had hoped this would be a one day project, oh silly me. First, before we could get the bases on we had to empty out the amas, they were full of sails and tools and junk.

The ama may be clean, but the dock no longer is.

Putting the butyl tape on to every bolt on the base plates.

Drilling holes through the deck, always scary to me.

Premade backing plates to go underneath the deck to create added support for the bases.

Cockpit painted, some cushions down and our new weber Q in the corner.

Found this decal at the buck store, thought it fit.

So a weekend of work on lifelines and we have two stanchions standing, but not screwed in. Eight back plates on the deck but only four are completely done because we ran out of nuts and need longer screws for some.

Work may be slow going but things are getting done at least, the house is clearing out, the boat is filling up, lifelines are coming along, amas are cleaned and organized, anchor holder was installed, hopefully tomorrow we will get the kitchen sink draining directly overboard.

Thankfully the weather has been great!