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Rain and vacation planning - VERY pic heavy!

**Looks like you'll have to click on the pics to see them larger. Sorry about that!

OK - The weather man said that as of last night, we have had 4 full days that didn't have a drop of rain this month. That means 14 days had some form of rain in Central Park (our measurement for the metro NY area). This getting beyond out of hand. I think I have mushrooms growing out of my hair (I don't bother to style it in this - why do it if it's going to end up as a giant frizzball in an hour anyway??). SIGH Oh - and the 5 day forecast? Ummm - yeah. Rain. UGH!!

So in the midst of all of this rain, I realized that we are leaving for our first boat vacation of the year in 2 weeks and 2 days! YIKES!! That means I need to get my planning done - and I really SHOULD get to the boat to do the full cleaning. It's just not even really been great weather for me to think about it yet! I cleaned the galley (kitchen) and I cleaned the "forward head" (bathroom). I still need to clean the rest of everything and then begin loading things onboard. I REALLY don't want to be stuck with the massive provisioning at the last minute this year. You think it's bad to put all your food away after grocery shopping? Try having to find places for it on a boat! It's crazy!

So you think "Boat?? FUN!!" It really is but it's also a lot of work. Think of it this way. The boat is 42 feet long but the interior is maybe 38 useable feet (the extra is in the bow - the front pointy part of the boat, and a bit in the stern - the very back of the boat). The boat is just shy of 14 feet wide but that is at it's widest point. Remember that a boat is tapered at the front, gets wide towards the middle then gets smaller again at the back. In addition, the sides of the boat are not straight up and down but sloped so the interior useable space is approximately 10 feet. So our "house" for 6 people is 380 square feeet. In that space, we have enough sleeping space for 6 (two "double" beds and a "queen"), two heads (one is like a 1/2 bath, one is a 3/4 with a shower), a galley (kitchen) with a refrigerator, freezer, microwave, oven and 3 burner stove - oh and a double sink! We have our living room/dining room/family room/spare bed right next to the galley and then our outside "porch". Sounds like lots but I can get a drink of water from the kitchen from my master bed. ROTFL! Add to that the fact that hour "house" moves - sometimes quite roughly and you end up with a very interesting time. But I have to say, we've had some wonderful times with this boat and I thank God that the boat was bought and paid for by the time our income dropped. :) So our vacations cost us what we pay in food (granted, our food bill is higher on the boat than on land) and the cost of wherever we stay. There are times that cost is free and times we need to pay for a mooring or a dock. But we try to keep costs as low as possible since...we've just not got it. LOL

So for a tour of our boat, we begin with the inside of the boat. Remember I said living room/dining room/family room/spare bed? That's literally what it is.



Now, opposite that side is the galley or kitchen. Here is my daughter making lunch. Realize that if she steps back, she'll bump into the seat from the living room/dining room/family room/spare bed.



Here's another view of the living room/dining room/family room/spare bed. This is DH doing navigation for our day's travels. The computer interfaces with the GPS and autopilot so we can tell the boat to go to a particular place and it will follow the course set for it on the computer (important if there are land masses in the way).



Next we'll see the "bedrooms". Yes, we have 3 bedrooms on this boat. However, as you see in the next two pictures, they consist of a double bed wall to wall on 3 sides and literally 1.5 square feet of floor. There is also a small closet and a seat in each one. First is the little one's room which is under the "cockpit" or outside seating area of the boat. The second one is on the opposite side of the boat and a mirror image of the other one. This is my girls sleeping one morning.





I don't have a good picture of my "master stateroom" but here's a pic of me in bed reading a book. The large cream colored post next to me is the mast going through the boat to the bottom and immediately next to the empty pillow next to me is the side wall of the boat. We have a wall at our head and a wall at our feet - quite cozy. :)



This is the only picture we have of the master "head" which is just past our bedroom. You can see our bed in blue on the left and on the right is a closet, a cabinet and some drawers. Since the angle of the boat is consistent through the whole thing, the bottom "drawer" is only 3" deep. LOL



Outside the boat is another seating/dining area as well as steering and such. This area is called the cockpit and we eat out here unless the weather is really bad. Here we are I think on the night we had some clams we caught ourselves. You don't see shells because when you're done with a clam, you just toss the shell overboard!



Speaking of those clams, here's how we cooked them. It's our BBQ that hangs off the back and runs off of those small propane tanks you use for camp stoves. It works great!



Just a few more pictures of some scenes from outside the boat. Our favorite destination is Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. It's an amazing place of history and learning and we get to stay right on the property (well, their water - LOL). See our view?? That large black boat behind us is the Charles W. Morgan, the only wooden whaling ship left in the world.



A misty morning in Mystic:



At Block Island, RI, there is a boat that comes around twice a day through all of the boats delivering baked goods and coffee in the morning and bread, chowder, raw seafood and desserts at night. He calls out "Andiamo" which means "let's go" in Italian. His boat's name? "I gotta no change". LOL



Finally, here are two pictures of me and my little ones. What a wonderful bonding experience living in 380 feet for 3 weeks gives us!

Blessed silence

This is a huge pet peeve of mine in this age - no silence in our lives. What ever happened to just listening to the birds sing, the laughter of children or the quiet whisper of a breeze? Why must we all be bombarded by noises and even filling quiet times with more noise. I have an iPod but I have never used it other than when I'm cleaning and then it's in the kitchen dock where everyone can hear it. If I'm going to take a walk, I want silence. If I want to retreat away from the bustle of the world, I certainly don't need music to fill my every moment.

So Al Mohler wrote an article about this and I find myself this morning, with just the normal household noises singing to me, agreeing with what he says and not so surprised at some of the things in the article. So without further ado....

Where do all the colors go at night?

Monday update and Menu

I see once again, it's been over a week since I've been here. Sorry!! Life is busy as usual and it seems just so....ordinary to me to post. But that's OK. :) Today I'll be hitting the barn (well, walking into it) and going to ride Whirl who had an appointment with the chiropractor on Saturday. That was really cool! Hopefully he'll start working on getting those muscles back in shape and maybe I'll reep some benefits too. ;)

Guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to work out a menu for the week .... LIVE! LOL So let's see what we're going to have:

Monday - Pioneer Woman's Rib Eye Steak, new potato salad with blue cheese and bacon and salad
Tuesday - DH and I are thinking of using the $100 gift certificate to get the $22.99 dinner for 2 at Famous Dave's - the BEST rib place. Then maybe we'll even go to the movies!
Wednesday - my dad will come over for dinner, and it's going to be raining, so I'm thinking of roasting a chicken and serving it with mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy.
Thurdsday - I ride again so I need something easy. I think I'll make chicken pot pie and serve it with salad
Friday - Hmmm - I'll be working but we don't have anything that night, so I think I'll make the "yummy salad" that we all love. It's lettuce, pears, blue cheese, chicken, craisins, nuts and a dressing made with 2 parts balsamic vinegar and 1 part honey. I'll pick up a nice bread from teh bakery to go with this.
Saturday - Sunday - I'm sure we'll do something boat-y one or both days so I'll plan something to BBQ. I have in the freezer sirloin steaks, chicken breast and pork tenderloin .... oh and chopped meat and burgers and dogs, so I'm sure I can figure something out. :) I think I'll make a pasta salad to get us through the weekend too.

So there you have it.

Are we afraid of being a Good Samaritan?

On Memorial Day weekend, I went to pick up my oldest from work because her car was in the body shop after she was rear-ended a couple of weeks earlier. I had my 16 year old in the car with me and we were just chatting and laughing as we pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store. As I pulled in, we noticed a couple of things - there was a young man and an older man outside the doors talking and an older couple who had just left the store and they were walking towards the cars but kept turning around looking at the young man and older man. As we passed the to men, I took a look and it looked like the young man had been beat up and the older man was on the phone. My daughter then yelled "Mom! He's bleeding! We need to help him!" and I quickly pulled into a parking spot and ran to the young man. I asked him "Are you OK?" and he yelled "NO! I WAS STABBED!" He had been holding a jacket on his neck but he pulled it away to show me - OH MY STARS!!

This man's neck had a massive wound from behind his ear to under his chin and it was gaping like I've not seen a wound gape. The gentleman who was with him was a customer and I asked him if he had called 911 but he said that the young man had called - he had just called the young man's family and told them to meet him at the hospital. The other couple had seen the young man covered in blood but went to their car, got in and drove away. I ran to my car, got paper towels while I told my daughter to run into the store to get gauze and I got the young man to sit on the curb. I got behind him and crouched down, pulled off a huge wad of paper towels and pulled the jacket off his neck and put the clean paper towels on the wound. My daughter came out and told me there was nothing big enough (she had seen the neck wound so knew a 2X2 wasn't going to cut it) so I just continued to sit and hold this young man's neck as he leaned back on me. The poor thing was so scared and was saying "I'm going to die" and I told him he wasn't - he was going to be OK but then he showed me the amount of blood that was dripping on the ground. I realized that he had a large wound on his hand that apparently cut a larger blood vessel so I got more paper towels and put them on his hand and was now holding his neck and hand. I just kept telling him he was going to be OK as he cried. He told me that he was in a fight a couple of blocks over and a guy broke a beer bottle and cut him with it. He ran to the store to get away and to get to a public area. At some point, one of the cashiers brought me a pair of gloves but it was too hard to get them on as I was holding on to this kid.

Within a few minutes, the ambulance pulled up. The paramedic came over to see what was up and I told him that he had a severe laceration on his neck that was very deep and another laceration on his hand that was actively bleeding. The paramedic took one look at what I had in my hands and realized how serious the situation was. He told me "Let's get him right into the ambulance." and we got him up to walk him to the gurney. I finally let go of him when he went into the ambulance and the paramedic took over. The ambulance left really quickly and were were all left standing there in shock. Wow.

The manager of the store came over to me and told me "You need to wash up. Nicole - take your mom into the employee bathroom and have her wash well." so we went in to the store. I realized with all of that, I ended up with only a drop of blood on my hand and nothing on my clothing which had me shocked since the young man was bleeding so profusely! After the girls and I got home, it took us hours to get tired enough to go to sleep because of all of the adreneline that we had going! The only thing was that I smelled terribly of alcohol - he was that drunk. :(

So, as I processed all of this in speaking to other people, I realized something. Not one person touched this young man until I came along. There were numerous other people around, but only one man stayed with the young man but he still wouldn't touch him even though he was bleeding badly from numerous wounds. EVERYONE I spoke to said "You shouldn't have touched him. How do you know he didn't have AIDS or hepetitis? I'd never have touched him. You need to be more careful." We have come to the point in our world where a young man might have bled to death because people were afraid to get blood on themselves. You know what? I understand the world's view on this but what about us as Christians? Why are we afraid? What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of dying? We know where we're going so why are we afraid? A person without Christ is afraid of death and rightly so but why are we? I will not stop helping someone in a serious situation like this just because I might die from it some day. If I had gloves, I most certainly would have used them and I now have a good trauma kit right in the door of my car with gloves, large surgical pads and such but if I didn't have it, I don't care. I'd still help the person. If I can help someone have more time here on earth to make a decision for Christ, is it not worth my time, my effort and yes, maybe even my life? I know where I'm going and I'm not afraid to go.

I do pray that this young man was OK. I don't know how he is - he never came back to the store to get his cell phone but he might have been so drunk that he just figured he lost it somewhere. But more than anything else, I pray that I helped him enough to survive and to maybe, through this trauma, he will find Christ. As Paul said, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain." (Phil 1:21) If I live, I will work to help others find Christ. If I have to die doing so, I gain and hopefully they gained too. I guess the bottom line of all of this for me is: which do I value more - my life here on earth or the salvation of souls? To me, that is a no brainer.

God is such an amazing artist, isn't He?

What's new?

So things are cranking along here. Life is keeping us busy but things are good. My oldest got into her third car accident last week - this time totally not her fault. She was rear-ended by a taxi and we'll need to bring the car in to the body shop next week for repairs. Fortunately, it will be fully covered by the insurance.

Spring is springing so I'm busy washing winter coats, hats, gloves and scarves and packing them all away. It's fun to see that happen. I think I have the last load just finishing the washing machine now.

Yesterday was my birthday and I had a good day despite starting it off at the motor vehicles office because I needed the eye test for my new license. What was great was that I finally got a new photo! My last photo was taken when I was 9 months pregnant with my son - NOT a good time to take a permanent picture of someone! My face was HUGE and my hair was pulled back in a ponytail with my thick bangs which have since all grown out so it totally didn't look like me. LOL. Later in the day, I was able to ride Whirl, which is great since it's been 2 weeks since the vet said no riding. We just walked but we both were quite happy to get out. We'll see what the next step with his leg is.

I just wanted to share something with you guys too. On one board I'm on (a secular board), there was discussion of discipline and I discussed my ways of discipline which never goes over well since I do spank. So these women were getting all over me telling me how terrible it is that I spank - when they're the ones who are dealing with children who are defiant, disobedient and driving them so nuts that they're asking for advice constantly. I finally posted what my children wrote in my birthday card yesterday and asked them where I went wrong. The proof is in the pudding, honestly. I have 2 little ones who are still in the growing process but I have 2 teenagers (16 and 19) who have given me very little trouble at all. And the trouble they've given me? They don't always do their chores because they forget and their room is a mess. Yep, that's it. So how damaged are my kids? Here you go - my birthday card:

Joanna (6 years old) - I (heart) you mom. I thank you so much for taking care of me. I love you. JoJo

Robby (8 years old) - I (heart) you. I love your hugs. You are the best mom in the whole wide world. Love, Robby

Nicole (16 years old) - Mommy, You have no idea as to what a terrific mother you are. You have taught me many a valuable lesson about various things that I will NEVER forget. You always understand me because I am your clone. I love you and I am extremely blessed to have you as my mother. (heart) I love you, daughter clone, Nicole

Lauren (19 years old) - Mom - You are amazing! I have so much fun with you and I love you so much. I thank God every day for giving me such a fun, awesome, loving, supporting, crazy, adoring mom. Thanks for everything you have done and will continue to do for me (like driving into Hempstead to pick up the police report! ) Love, Lauren


Yep - scarred for life. ;) I told them that I have two teens who I trust, enjoy being with, who enjoy being with me and are happy when we go out with their friends too, who are constantly complimented on their respect for others and behavior in public - and my 16 year old was just offered a job by one of her customers at the grocery store because of how well she deals with the customers! The woman came to ME one day when she realized I was Nicole's mom and told me how she was an architect and would love to give Nicole a job in her office but Nicole felt committed to the grocery store and she still had a lot of schoolwork too so she couldn't accept the job right now.

So, yeah, my kids are completely messed up because I spanked them. ;)

Oh and those of you who know me will get a kick out of this. Since I'm a Christian and I spank, I must follow Gary Ezzo or Michael Pearl's teachings. ROTFL!! I of course cleared that up telling them I RABIDLY will fight their teachings because they are WRONG. In addition to spanking, I attachment parented my kids with co-sleeping, baby-wearing, breastfeeding, never CIO sort of practices. Not everyone who's a Christian and spanks follows these guys teachings.

Ahh - the life of a Christian having to defend what we believe. But that's OK. I'm not offended. I'm sorry they are because that's very telling of the state of their hearts. I pray for them but that's about all I can do. It's up to God from here.