Let the Fun Begin!

To-do List

So, today I started making a list of all that we’ll need to purchase in order to begin the refitting on our 1976 Bristol 24 Marguerite.  I am not a shopper by nature.  I am a list maker, a “buy what we need and get out of here” kind of girl.  I don’t like to try stuff on, I don’t like to shop around, I just go where they sell whatever product I need and buy it. Easy.

But with Marguerite, it’s going to be different.  It has to be different.  That’s because how much we spend refitting our boat directly impacts when we get to take her on the water.  If we don’t shop around and spend more than necessary, we may finish the work faster, but be too penniless to cruise for awhile afterward.  But, if we spend too little, buy cheap materials or skimp on comfort, we may not want to sail her or be limited in when and how we sail when we are able to go.  Our best bet then, is to shop around and plan as well as possible.  (To any of our children who are reading this, Christmas will likely look very different this year…prepare yourselves!)

While this is NOT my strong suit, I think I have found how to accomplish this without hurriedly draining our account and without having to spend decades wading through sale papers just to finish up with a second-rate final product.  And (reluctantly) I have to credit my husband with the idea.

A few months ago, he came up with a compromise that made our married life worlds easier.  I love to travel, and had no problem leaving on a whim with dimes in my pocket to do it. I also like home improvement projects.  And God bless my husband, he likes me, and was always hurrying to get to projects and save up for my next big travel scheme.  He finally had me do something that I expected to be painful, but have actually come to enjoy. He had me write a list of the trips I hoped to take and a list of the projects I wanted done and (compromise…can’t believe it’s not a four-letter word) told me that we could alternate from one to the other.  No more projects while we were planning a trip and no more trips until we finished whatever the current project may be.  It was simplistic and brilliant.  It allowed us to funnel our money, efforts, and attention so that we were accomplishing just as much, but with such good planning that we were doing it more quickly and less expensively; AND I didn’t feel like we were neglecting anything.  We just had to wait on some things to accomplish others, and the desire to get to the next goal was ample motivation to move us through the current one.

So, shopper, know thyself.  I have decided to use this method to make my shopping list and goals for our refit.  For example, the main bulkhead is probably among the first on our list, but I also want Marguerite to have her name put on.  While we need to wait to paint her name when we’re ready to do the brightwork and antifouling, it won’t hurt for me to find the font and stencil that I want now. So, as a reward to myself, after we buy our first batch of marine plywood, I’ll buy my stencil. After the main bulkhead is completed, the v-berth is likely next. So, after the plywood for the v-berth is purchased, i’ll check Amazon or West Marine to see what I can find for bedding or comfort.  Making these little deals with myself motivates me to keep working on the hard stuff because I’m already getting to enjoy some of the fun stuff too!  This is another reason that we decided to get a boat before we completed our OSA courses; so we could practice sailing in our boat and enjoy the fun while still doing what’s responsible.  Overall, I think that this is our approach to life as well.  We love and enjoy our kids, but find ways to enjoy what lots of other people don’t get to until their retirement.  We don’t ascribe to an “all or nothing” thinking that says “you must complete ‘this’ before you do ‘that'”.For me especially, this has allowed me to do a lot in my life that I may have otherwise put off until “things are ready”, and the longer I live, the more convinced I am that “ready” is a lot like “perfect”…a nice, albeit, unrealistic ideal.  At any rate, I hope to have my list posted by the start of next week and now, knowing the method behind my madness, I think it will make a bit more sense when you see it.  Happy day dreaming!

Peace and blessings,

Mindi