by Michele | Oct 10, 2012 | Preparation Stage
Dan recently took this photo while on his day off with Carter
Recently, I had the opportunity to be part of a leadership seminar through my department at work. There were many excellent points discusses throughout the entire course of the seminar, but the portion on change is what really hit a chord with me. Hmm, I wonder why? The speaker, Chuck Stoner*, spoke specifically about the fact that every change in life comes with a sense of loss and grieving, even when the change is something positive that we are looking forward to.
When change comes, there is always a different path that will never be available to us again. Dan and I are currently standing in that divergence of choices and the other paths that we will be walking away from are so clear to me I can almost physically see them. I can see Carter at his first day of kindergarten, baseball game, and a host of other things that every mom cherishes and it does fill me with a sense of longing for that path. I can see that our grandparents are getting older and know in my heart that there is a very real possibility that being gone for 5-10 years or more means we might not get to see them again before they die. We may miss births of nieces and nephews, friends’ weddings, and a lot more events that we can never get back once they are over. We will be moving away from Dan’s very close-knit family that we spend time with multiple days a week.
All of these things and more impose a real weight to the decisions that we are making. They give more value to the good life that we are leaving behind to follow our dream of cruising. Does that mean that we will regret the choice to leave? I don’t think so. The excitement of moving forward and doing something new is far too great for us to look back wistfully for very long. But it does make me appreciate the time we have left a little more.
Follow your Dreams. Follow the Horizon.
*Dr. Charles Stoner and his speaking partner Tom Bower gave one of the best seminars I have ever attended. If you ever have a chance to go to one, I would highly recommend it. Also, you can find some of Chuck’s books on business and leadership here.
by Michele | Aug 2, 2012 | Preparation Stage
Dan’s mom, Shelly, and Carter at the pumpkin farm last year.
Step 1: Put a big sign in front of your house that says it is for sale.
Step 2: Wait for your family to freak out.
Okay, this is exactly what we didn’t do and hopefully anyone reading this blog will try to avoid this approach as well. We were not looking forward to telling Grandma and Grandpa that their adorable grandson would soon be living on a boat out of easy cuddle range, however we decided that it would be very unfair to put our house up for sale without letting them know first.
Let me just insert a little history here to help everyone understand why we were hesitant to tell our parents. First of all, we have a very good relationship with Dan’s parents. They live only a few blocks from us, which means that we see them a lot. It will be a major change for us (and them) to not see each other basically every day. Secondly, sailing off on a boat is not the first time that we have told our families that we are moving somewhere else, but it will be the first time that we actually do it. We wanted to make sure that we were far enough along in the planning and preparation that we would be taken seriously, as well as have as many answers to their questions as possible. Finally, over the last year we have been trying to prepare them for the idea of cruising by talking a lot about sailing and other people that we have met who are currently cruising.
To be honest, I think our general preparation worked to make the idea sound feasible, but I’m not sure that we overcame the obstacle of being taken seriously. We told Dan’s parents at dinner at Cracker Barrel (his mom’s favorite restaurant, mine less so) that we were putting our house up for sale in August and that we planned to move to Florida as soon as possible to find a boat to live on. And then…nothing happened. It was extremely anticlimactic. Eventually they did ask some of the basic questions like “What about pirates?” and “How do you make sure Carter doesn’t fall in?”, but the overall mood was so subdued I almost wished someone would cry or yell or something. It felt like being a kid again…
“Hey mom! I’m going to be an astronaut when I grow up!”
“That’s great, honey, now wash your hands for dinner.”
Since that day, a week and a half ago, there still hasn’t been much reaction. Things have been mentioned in an off-hand kind of way, but no more questions or concerns have been voiced. I have a feeling that may change once we are actually leaving, but for now I just don’t think that it is real to them yet.
Note: some of you may have noticed the lack of information on my family’s reaction to the news. That’s because we would like to tell them in person, but we haven’t been able to get up to Chicago to talk to them about it yet.
by Michele | Jul 21, 2012 | Preparation Stage
Playing horse is just one of many great ways to spend some time!
If you listen closely enough throughout the course of your day, you will probably hear a mention of “spending time” more than once. “I spent some time going through that report…” or “I’m going to spend some time with my kids this weekend…”, you know what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, I think that too many of us don’t actually realize the consequences of what spending our time actually means.
Americans, in general, are not well known for our ability to save money. We like to spend it as it comes. (Not exactly the most prudent choice, but we’re not talking about what’s advisable, just what is true.) However, it seems that the opposite mindset is true of our time. For some reason our society has decided that if we work like maniacs now, we will be able to retire when we are at some unknown “older” age… at which point we will have “earned” enough time to relax and enjoy life. We have, unfortunately, picked the wrong commodity to try and hold on to.
In a program called The Truth Project, a recurring question that is asked is this: “Do I really believe that what I believe is really real?” That question has plagued me ever since I first heard it. People say that time is our most precious asset, it’s the only thing that we can never have more of. But do we really believe that’s true? Because if we really believed that, wouldn’t we do everything that we could to cherish every second and be a little more judicious with them?
My son was born almost 20 months ago. They have truly been the fastest 20 months of my life, and I’m sure that the months are not going to start rolling by any slower in the future. It’s about time for us to start spending them a little more wisely. Dan and I are in the process of finding out what it really means to live what we believe. I hope you will find out for yourself.
Follow your Dreams. Follow the Horizon.
by Michele | Jun 27, 2012 | Preparation Stage
I have to admit, as much as I like documentaries, I can only watch one every couple months. I just don’t think I can handle the shock to my system more often than that. If you’ve ever watched movies like Supersize Me or Sicko, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Dan and I recently watched the documentary Bag It on Netflix and it was another shocker, though I would recommend it especially for those of us who have to worry about the state of the ocean in the near future.
Bag It begins with the basic premise that disposable plastic items (such as the typical grocery bag) are wasteful and harmful to the environment. Why spend so much energy to produce something that is going to be instantly thrown away? The movie goes on to address the impact of plastic garbage in the oceans and the toxicity of plastic in our bodies. It is amazing how many chemicals are getting into our systems from the plastic products that we use everyday.
Watching this movie definitely gave me some additional confidence about our choice to move onto a sailboat in the near future. I’ve known for a while that our physical environment is toxic to us and I hope that removing ourselves from the “plastic” lifestyle will help to decrease the impact on our health and especially Carter’s health as he grows up. I understand that there will always be risks to our health anywhere we go, but why impose them on ourselves?
Bag It also drove home the responsibility that we have as consumers, and especially as future cruisers, to protect our oceans. If we intend to enjoy beautiful beaches and bountiful reefs, we should take care to preserve them. I don’t know what kind of life my son will choose to pursue, but if someday he has a boat of his own, I sure hope there is a beautiful anchorage for him to watch a sunset from. It’s our job to make sure that’s possible.
by Dan | Jun 4, 2012 | Preparation Stage
We had a busy weekend… a trip to the ER, a visit with parents, the cat brought a rabbit downstairs, and we still found time to go sailing! Michele was having some bad symptoms from her recent concussion, but everything is on the mend.
Family sailing - Carter didn't enjoy it as much... he's tired.
Michele, Kyle, Carter, and I had a great sail yesterday. The wind was a little too light, but hey… we’re learning! We were able to get both sails up for the first time, what a difference. The boat is significantly more controllable with the jib, properly trimmed (how do we know it was properly trimmed? We took NauticEd’s free sail trim class!), assisting the main.
Thanks to our new friend the jib (more weathered sailors need to keep the laughs at a minimum… you’ll wake the baby) we were able to sail a respectable 3.6 miles. Beginning at our new home port Detweiller Marina we turned South West and had the wind perpendicular to our course. The new marina helped immensely by reducing the time we spent between the marina and the channel. Detweiller is around 200 feet from the channel… Spindler is over a quarter mile. We had a beautiful sail past the downtown skyline.
Let me make a quick digression… there is a no wake zone between the two large bridges flanking each side of downtown where cabin cruisers (and wannabe cabin cruisers) like to raft up. To each his own, but it seems like a gigantic waste to buy a beautiful, expensive boat and never actually go anywhere in it. If you can’t afford the gas in your boat get a different boat… preferably one with sails.
Our Course
Upon our final turn into the marina, we were greeted by a cluster of drunkards sitting smack dab in the middle of the marina. I am under trolling motor power at this point, not winning any races here. One group of drunken people saw us coming in and decided it would be a good idea to power over, cross our bow, and park immediately in our line of travel about 50 feet away. After (as nicely as I could given the situation) asking them to move their drunken selves out of the way of traffic we were able to tie off at the launch ramp. Truly a wonderful sail! Michele and I begin our official sailing lessons tonight… we are used to just winging things, but our first few adventures told us to seek professional help.
Follow your dreams. Follow the Horizon.
We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.