Why am I not more stressed out about being homeless?

I guess I have Irie to thank for that! When we, ahem I, named this blog, it was decided that no matter what boat or boat name we had, the blog would always be Forever Living Irie. Because who wouldn't want to forever live with no worries? Ok sure, there is always going to be some worries, but for the most part, life has certainly taught me that, worrying is no way to live! 

With that in mind, we have lived the last 14 months on Irie, relatively, care free! It's a simpler way of living on a boat and that's fine by us!

Oh, but don't get me wrong though! It's not all sunshine and butterflies! There are plenty of day to day chores to take care of, week to week maintainence that is never ending and monthly tasks to stay on top of. Sure we don't have to mow grass anymore, but tell me, how many times a day have you checked to see if your house is taking on water, or growing mold? I think you get the picture! I would even go as far to say that, there is more work living on a boat than when we lived in a house! However, through all the extra work, changing the way we do, almost everything {and I do mean e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.} & constantly thinking outside the box of normalcy, we choose to live with the mindset of, no worries!

As I was typing this post, our boat was already 85% packed up and we had approximately 1 day left before we had to be completely off the boat. I had no idea where we were going to be living in the meantime...but I've got to say, we both look pretty calm & relaxed hanging out in our empty boat for the last time! 

So for now, we are temporarily taking up residence at a nearby extended stay hotel. 

Of course, I am missing my marina-living life already, but this normal shaped bed, bathtub and big TV are a nice change!! What's really great is, being able to watch HGTV's Tiny House Big Living show.....although, that just makes me miss my boat & my own tiny "house" living.   ={

Our mantra has basically become, "We'll make it work...we always do!" 

Until next time.....

Congratulations....we're homeless!

Well that was quick!!!

They say the happiest two days of a sailor's life is:

1. the day he buys his boat 
   
   
   
2. the day he sells his boat 
   

Call me crazy, but hubs seems a whole lot happier in the first photo than the 2nd one! 

Poor guy! I hope we find the next boat sooner rather than later, so we can get back to that happy place in our life!! 

*Full update coming soon....

Living on a vacant boat

It is not fun living on a vacant boat. Why is our boat vacant, you ask? Well, we've sorta sold it!  As I'm sure you already know, we have been wanting a bigger boat for quite some time now. So, we  decided to put this one up for sale  before we buy the next boat so we don't end up with multiple payments.  Everyone told us our boat will sell pretty quickly.... We thought, maybe a month??  That's pretty quick considering our house sat on the market for over a year. Well,  it was on the market for about 10 hours and we already had a contract on it.  The survey was done yesterday, but here's the kicker, they wanted our boat to be completely empty when they did the survey. So, we started packing....

Thursday afternoon after I got off work, we finished packing and moved everything off the boat! We decided it was better to work after the sun went down, while it was a somewhat cooler than during the day and be insufferably miserable.... So, from about 10pm to 4am Friday morning we made trips back-and-forth from the boat to our cars and storage and then cleaned the boat until it was immaculate!!!

We haven't heard back from the broker about the survey.....so now we wait! We still get to sleep on our boat, but it's not as comfortable as it used to be. We have two blankets & our pillows, that's it! There's no pictures, no decor, no personalization that says this is our boat! No food & no dishes, no cooking or eating! We did plug the DVD player back up, so we can at least watch movies, but that is the scope of our life right now! If you thought we were living minimal before, you should see us now!!!

Sail for Sale

Trying to sell a boat, while living on it is a lot harder than selling your house, while still living there. Mainly, I think it's just because it is so much smaller than a house. Plus, there is no real hiding spots to toss something into when you have an unexpected showing...,because every nook and cranny already has something tucked into it. :)

While our boat isn't technically on the market, it is still being shown as if it were. Our broker showed it three times on Saturday {with good reviews} and they are showing it again today!!! Every time I clean it up for a showing, I take a one last look over everything to make sure I have everything staged & looking good and I get a little sad feeling, while simultaneously, feeling excited¡! 

I'm excited because I know how much our current boat has meant to us and I feel we will get that much more out of our next & bigger boat! But, then I'm sad because this is the boat that we started on and she has been so good to us!  She has been the perfect starter boat for us and I feel she will be a great boat for her new owner too, whoever that might be!

All bright & clean and looking so pretty!!!

I hope it sells quick so we can get back to being sailors & liveaboards, but on the other hand I'm not looking forward to being homeless either{since we haven't found our next boat, yet}...I'm hoping it works itself out and just has a domino effect and everything rolls into place perfectly! But since our life isn't a scene from a movie, our backup plan is to stay at an extended stay hotel or something. And while I think it would be sorta nice to have a bathtub again, for a brief time, hubs is not looking forward to a stay on land. I think he will forever be a boat dweller!!

 So, for any of you who were taking bets on when we would give up this boat life....we are not done yet, we are just moving towards a bigger boat!!

So what have we been up to? Well...

We have been super busy lately! I guess that's what summer is all about, right? A whole lot of nonstop busy and plenty of go, go go....but that's why I love summer!!! 

We had lots of family come down to see us this summer, which is always really nice....it makes moving away from home not seem so bad. 

Joe's sister and her husband & kids came in for their annual Galveston beach camping trip, so we took them out sailing 

one night, watched the fireworks and then hung out at the beach with them!!

These adorable lil'cuties {two of my nieces that I used to watch before we moved down here} came and spent one night with us on the boat! They loved it and we loved getting to see them!!

My brothers two boys came and spent two weeks with us on the boat!! Lots of swimming took place and their new favorite about coming to stay on the boat is, swinging off the bow and landing in the water! 

What else has been going on? Let's see, hubs has been working a lot and I have been looking for work. I applied & interviewed at a doctor's office where the dr said he had over 200 applicants for that one position. On the one hand I'm lucky to have had 2 interviews, but on the other hand it's tough finding a job when there's this much competition and even harder when most of the jobs require you to be bilingual. Ugh!! That's sorta discriminative, ya know....when you won't even be considered for a job (that you are well qualified for) on the sole purpose of not being bilingual, I call that, languagism! I thought we lived in America where we spoke English and got jobs because we not only spoke the language, but because we were qualified for them! But hey, what do I know? Well, other than another language!!  🙄

In other areas, we still can't decide on what sailboat we want next, so we haven't listed our current boat, yet. Plus, I told Joe that I want to try to wait until it gets colder to sell this one, because if there's a chance that we are homeless again (like last time) while in between boats and have to stay in a hotel I'd rather do that in the winter time. Besides, we are not cold weather sailors anyways and barely take the boat out, unless it's warm outside so it just makes sense. 

Although that being said, I don't know how much longer I can take. While I truly love our newer boat, there's nothing to be done on this boat unless we want to make improvements. Which I can't justify putting money into it if we already know we are going to sell it. Hubs and I are both project people! And while I don't really want to do a whole refit on our next boat, I do think we both would enjoy a boat that needs a little work done. 

It has been raining here for the last few days, and though I know we need the rain, I am having major sunset picture withdrawals. It is cloudy from the time I get up until I go to bed and that just doesn't bode well with me....I need my sunshine!! We did get a brief glimpse of blue sky the other day, but it was just a false  advertisement. It was back to all clouds in no time. 

Oh well, our life afloat is still pretty amazing, even on the cloudy days!!

Until next time.....