Domesticating

This week disappeared!  Monday was a special day for this ole mum.  I took my kids shopping, out to eat at Olive Garden, and them dropped the two oldest at the airport.  The ticket agent was sweet as could be.  I tried to appear as calm and cool as a cucumber but alas, the wrinkle lines in my forehead told on me.  Anyway, she printed out passes for Shaunti and I both to go through security with Laife and Toria.  We sat with them till they boarded their plane.  Thank-you Alaska airline lady! 

On Tuesday, Shaunti and I went back to the school and finished cleaning out the classroom and also filed away all the permanent records.  April came with her babies and she did all the taking down of posters and decorations, while I did the book work at my desk.  Shaunti and her cousins played.  It was a good sister time.  And it was awesome to leave with the desk smacked against the wall and floor gleaming till August sometime.

   
The freedom is so strange I have to keep pinching myself to see if it is real.  On Monday I found a few things to freshen up the bed for our vacation.  Plumping up the pillows made me feel all domesticatey...  And I like this color again...

  
I walked through my yard and picked a bouquet of flowers...I finally have flowers after two years of trying... This also made me feel domesticatey...

 
And then Thursday, we went a'sailing... It was a little cooler than I would have liked but Shaunti still enjoyed being pulled behind...

On Thursday, I loved sailing... 

I still loved it when we tied to a buoy that evening... We had shrimp scampi and sparkling juice...

I got to write to my heart's content... This was an exercise I was doing from a book I am reading right now... Steering the Craft a 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story...by- Ursula K. Le Guin.

Sailing was still wonderful after our fancy dinner...It lost it's charm at 1:00 A.M. A storm came up breaking our rope from the buoy and we were thrown up against the shore. 

 Bruce and I both jumped off the boat and shoved her back into the water.  While he got the motor going and backed out I threw my very agile, lithe body unto the front by grabbing the rail and hurling myself to the top of the boat. Only, the truth is, I'm not very agile or lithe so it was more like heave, ho, and plop. 

So what do you do in the middle of a big lake in the middle of a big storm in the middle of the night on a sail boat?  For the first couple hours we worked at driving through the storm with our motor.  The day before we had sailed approx. fifteen miles up the lake.  Now, going back by motor through a storm felt a little grueling.  I took turns between holding Shaunti close in the cabin and praying and going out into the storm to help Bruce with ropes and nourishment.

It was not a relaxing night.  At dawn, around 4:00 A.M. Bruce put out the sails and learned even more about sailing in high winds.  I finally zonked out with my feather down blanket over my head; Shaunti curled up with Snoopy on another cushion.  

We pulled into our dock and made breakfast about 8:00 A.M.  Of course, daylight and food do a lot for a person's stamina. We spent the next two hours accessing damage done to the boat and cleaning the cabin after the terrible night.  The boat was fine.  I couldn't believe it, but there was hardly a scratch.  It had sounded like it was breaking apart.  

When Shaunti and I asked Bruce, he said he was never worried for our lives, only the boat.  I was worried for our lives all night.  The storm made Bruce more confident of how good she truly is.  I think he is right now that it is over...

We might be crazy, but we plan to go back out next week... Happy Weekending...