Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

Another New Year, Simple Resolutions

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I look back at the year that just ended and forward into the year just beginning.

As I get older, I’m spending a lot more time thinking about the past and the future. I thought I’d take a moment to jot down some of my thoughts as we change calendars and start a new year.

Goodbye 2024

AGLCA
I’m not a member of this organization, which seems to exist primarily to separate Great Loop cruisers and wannabes from their money. I got the flag for free and flew it to identify myself as a Looper to others; not many realized I hung it upside down.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the year that just ended — as most of us probably do around New Year’s Day. It was my first full year of “retirement” (whatever that is in my life), a year when I completed a handful of personal achievements to move me forward in my life.

The biggest of these was the completion of my Great Loop cruise, a non-event that occurred on August 12, 2024 in Chicago, IL when I cruised past the entrance to the Chicago River and into DuSable Harbor. It was the culmination of about 16 months of cruising, mostly solo, over the course of 22 months in the boat that members of my family (who I now realize never really knew me very well) claimed I’d never use.

Do It Now at Walburg
One of my favorite anchorages last winter was just off the ICW in Georgia.

In the 8,300+ nautical miles I traveled on all kinds of waterways — rivers, lakes (including three Great Lakes) , bays, gulfs, canals, the ICW, and the Atlantic Ocean — I really honed my skills as a mostly solo boat captain. That served me very well in late September, when those skills were recognized and I was offered a job as a powerboat instructor for single and twin engine boats up to 50 feet in length. I took two classes to get the additional certifications I needed (in addition to my USCG captain’s license, which I got in 2023). I start that work later this year.

(I could write a whole blog post about how my hobbies and interests have turned into paying work — and even careers — throughout my life, but I’ll save that for another day.)

I put my silversmithing work pretty much on hold during 2024, although I did get a few jewelry classes in at Gallery One. I also managed to sell some jewelry to a new wholesale account on Bald Head Island in North Carolina. (Be sure to check out the Silver Peddler for my work if you’re ever out there.)

I did start a new hobby — like I needed one — bookbinding. This combines my love of addiction to paper with my love of books and writing. I’m just starting to get the hang of it now. I find the stitching of text blocks to be strangely soothing and rewarding. I think a lot of my friends will be getting books as gifts in the months and maybe years to come.

Dad and Me
My stepmom took this photo of my dad and me at their house in Florida last winter. At the time, my dad was 84 and working full time at Home Depot.

I also reconnected with my dad after so many years of him just being a background figure in my life. This actually started in 2023, when I first cruised to his Florida home in my boat on my way north along the Great Loop route. I stopped there again twice in late 2023 and then again in early 2024. It was a pleasure to be with a family member who wasn’t judging me or trying to get me to do what they thought I should do. A family member who seemed genuinely proud of who I am and what I’ve achieved. Sadly, I lost my dad to a combination of illnesses in September. He was 85. I need to blog a bit about that, but I’m not quite ready.

Realizations

I realized a few things about my extensive traveling over the past two years.

First, even after spending more than half my time traveling, I still love to travel. There’s something very appealing to me about every day having the potential to be very different from the day before it. I love seeing new things and meeting new people. I love the challenge of plotting a course — whether it’s on a boat or in a car — and seeing where it takes me beyond just the expected geography. Of seeing how it helps me learn and grow as a person.

But, at the same time, I really do love my home and enjoy its comforts. It’s nice to have a washer, dryer, dishwasher, soaking tub, and unlimited water, electricity, and high speed Internet. I love the views and the privacy and the peace. I missed my garden and the chickens I had to give away. It’s easy to see why so many people would rather just stay home than explore beyond that, where things might not be as easy or as comfortable. But after just weeks at home starting in October, I was aching to get out again.

Home
I admit it: near the end of my Great Loop cruise, I was a little bit homesick.

Other things I realized:

  • I spend entirely too much time on social media. I’m only on Mastodon these days — an algorithm-free Twitter-like system with a much higher percentage of smart, socially conscious people than you’d find on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. That has fueled one of my two tiny resolutions: no browsing social media between 6 AM and 6 PM. I’m tired of so much of my time being sucked away. I want to be more productive.
  • I am losing focus of the things that matter to me. Those things are mostly my writing and other creative endeavors. I blame time wasted on social media for that. But I also blame myself for being so easily distracted. It’s another thing I need to work on in this new year.
  • I’m getting old. I’ve actually been realizing this bit by bit over time, but now it seems to be on my mind more. Feeling out of shape, losing the strength I had just 10 years ago when I was building my home. It’s harder to do some of the things I used to do with ease. Part of that is letting myself get heavier again; so much energy is wasted just moving my body around! Another part is simply not being as physically active as I was. That’s another thing I need to address in the new year. But another part is the fact that my friends are starting to die off or get seriously ill. I’m not the only one aging. Time is short for all of us.

Looking Forward to 2025

The completion of my Great Loop cruise — which had been a personal goal for a few years — left me without a goal or direction. I have some ideas of what I want to do in the next stage of my life and have taken a few steps toward those things. Using my boat captain credentials to teach people how to drive boats is just one part of that. Taking a break from long-term cruising and putting my boat into a charter fleet so it can earn me some money while being ready for me to cruise when it’s not booked is another. And yes, I even started a new business to manage both of those boat-related endeavors.

At the Beach with my Pups
Here’s a rare selfie of me sitting on the sand with my pups at Marineland’s beach.

But I think I’d also like to return to the northeast to do some cruising in New York and Canada. I just don’t want to do it in my current boat. I want to upsize. And I want to take others along to see what it’s like. To share the joy I feel when I cruise across a smooth body of water on a perfect day, or pull into a marina at a brand new destination, or drop anchor near a deserted beach.

And I think I’d like to spend my winters in Arizona, where I can look out the window and see desert hillsides studded with saguaro cacti, mesquite, and palo verde. Where I can feel the sun on my skin in December and January. That means selling my house — I know the folly of owning more than one home — which means downsizing. It also means finding the place that’s right for me. I think I have just one more move left in me so I need to make it count. And I know how hard it’s going to be to find a place that comes close to the near perfection of what I have now, someplace I can move to without regrets.

In the meantime, I need to finish a few projects I started that are related to the Great Loop trip. The biggest is the blog that has too many gaps in the account of the trip. That blog will eventually become a book — my first in nearly 10 years. That’s the kind of project I’d like to get done before the boating season starts again.

Status Report: My First Winter at Home in 10+ Years

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I summarize how it started and how it’s going for my first winter at home in more than 10 years.

It’s December 18, 2024 and I’m typing this at home while sitting at my desk at a desktop computer. Outside is approximately 8 inches of snow that has fallen in the past three days. My driveway is plowed, my vehicles are tucked into the garage. My house is warm. The sun is out, trying to break through the low clouds between my perch about 800 feet above the Columbia River and city of Wenatchee. It is a gorgeous day and is likely to become even nicer as the sun continues to rise — although for me, it’ll never clear the 500+ foot ridge just south of my home.

I’m chomping at the bit, ready to turn my 2-3 week planned trip to Arizona into a 5 week camping adventure. After all, I do still have my truck camper. I may as well use it.

On Being Home

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love my home. I love its simple comfort, privacy, quiet, spacious garage, and, above all, its views. (I’ve always been fond of a good view and I don’t think I’ll get a better one anywhere else.) I have everything here that I want and need — or almost (more in a moment) — and after spending 17 of the past 24 months traveling, it’s great to be settled in somewhere.

At least I think it is. I’m so used to being on my boat that it actually feels weird to have luxuries like a washer/dryer, dishwasher, enormous (well, okay, just normal sized) refrigerator, and soaking tub where I can immerse 90% of my body in hot water for as long as I like.

One of the things I admit that I am struggling with is the sameness of every day. My pups and I have revised our routine for our surroundings and that’s fine, but what’s weird is that we wake up in the same place every day. When I’m traveling, every day doesn’t just have the potential to be different. It is different. Here, I have to work on adding variety to my days. And I’ll admit that sometimes I just don’t bother.

The Plan: A Winter at Home

The original plan was to spend the whole winter at home. Period.

I have lots to do. Not only did I have to clean the boat and prep it for a season as a charter boat in the San Juan Islands, but I had a lot of catching up to do on my Great Loop blog and the video channel I’m trying to build. I could spend eight hours every day working on these things and still not catch up by the end of February.

Not only that, but I’m exploring more creative options. In addition to getting back into my jewelry shop to build inventory for the upcoming season, I’ve begun dabbling in paper arts, including bookbinding and the production of decorative papers. I find these things challenging while being a good creative outlet.

So that was the plan: work on the things I need and want to get done.

But the Gray! And the Snow!

Right around the time we changed the clocks, I remembered why I go usually south every winter. It gets dark early here. When it gets dark, my brain tells my body that it’s time for bed. It’s increasingly difficult to stay up until at least 9 PM.

And then there’s the gray. The Wenatchee Valley has inversions in the winter time that fill the valley with clouds. Sometimes I’m above the clouds, sometimes I’m below the clouds, and sometimes I’m in the clouds. So I look out the windows and I see a lot of gray. I’d estimate 4-5 days out of every 7.

This is very difficult for someone who lived in Arizona for 15 years where the sun shines so often that you wish for a gray day.

Of course, on other days here you get a day like today, when the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the world looks like a winter wonderland. On days like this, I feel like sitting in a window seat with a book and a cup of hot cocoa, glancing up at the amazing, ever-changing vista every time I turn a page.

Gorgeous Day
How’s this for a gorgeous day and amazing view? Come join me for a cup of hot cocoa looking out the windows.

Dave Shovels
With 8 inches of snow in about 48 hours, “shoveling” requires some heavy equipment. Here, my neighbor Dave is digging a pathway for my Jeep to get in and out of the garage.

And the snow is definitely a thing.

I like snow. I think it’s pretty. But the problem is that it makes it difficult to do anything or go anywhere outside. The problem is only made worse by the fact that the snow slides off my roof to block my garage doors, thus trapping my vehicles inside until I — or someone else — breaks them free.

A Year Ago Today
There’s a nice private beach a short drive from where my dad lived.

Last year on this date, I was walking on a beach near my dad’s house in Florida, feeling the sand between my toes while my pups chased each other near the surf. Only a few days later, I’d be heading south a in my boat to New Year’s Eve with a friend at Key West. The year before, I was heading east on the Gulf ICW to spend Christmas week at Orange Beach, Alabama. The year before that, I was camped out in the desert in Arizona, hiking, exploring, and enjoying star-filled skies every night. Ditto for most of the years before that.

Lately, I’m constantly trying to remind myself why I’m here this year.

The New Plan

The new plan is to load up my truck camper and head south sometime around Christmas Day. I’m going to visit a bunch of friends in Wickenburg, Quartzsite, Phoenix, Tucson, and Sierra Vista. I’ll hit the big Pow Wow rock show to replenish my supply of certain stones I use in jewelry making. And I’m going to start my search for a new winter home in the Tucson area. — more on that in another post.

My usual winter house-sitter, John, is thrilled. He loves it here in the winter. He thought he’d be stuck spending more time with family, but is already packing his truck in preparation for coming back here. I’m sure my barn cat, Rover, will be thrilled, too. I know John spoils the hell out of him when I’m gone. (Maybe this time he’ll take Rover with him when he leaves.)

But John won’t have too much time here. My goal is to be back by the end of January. I want to go to the Seattle Boat Show at month-end and I need to get my boat to the other side of the mountains for some maintenance work before it’s launched in March. There’s a lot to do.

There’s always a lot to do. And I like it that way.

Taking Notes … in Scrivener

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I get tired of looking up the same things up over and over again and do something about it — with a software tool that I already have.

My memory for little facts and figures is something I can neither understand or explain. I can tell you the phone number for the house I grew up in (and left in 1977), as well as phone numbers for my grandparents’ homes and even my aunt — all of whom have been dead for more than 20 years now. (Heck, my dad’s parents died in the 1980s!) But, for the life of me, I can’t remember the pixel dimensions of a YouTube video thumbnail, which is a piece of information I need every time I publish a video on YouTube.

Little things like this haunt me. I found myself looking up the same information, over and over. It was a frustrating waste of time, especially when I didn’t have a way to look it up. In case you’re wondering, the Internet isn’t always available when you’re on a boat in a remote area of British Columbia. (And yes, I’d have a Starlink by now if I did’t think Elon Musk was such a shithead. By I digress and I definitely don’t want to discuss the Space Karen here.)

So I started taking notes.

It didn’t go very well. The problem is, I took notes on paper. Notebook paper, usually. But I didn’t always take notes in the same notebook and I’d sometimes misplace notebooks with notes. And I travel a lot and usually forget to take the notebooks with me. So I start new notebooks. And even if I did stick with a notebook for more than a week, the notes weren’t organized in any way. It was just a mess.

And then I thought about my To Do software, which exists on my computer, my phone, and my tablet. I can add an item to my to do list or consult the list or check off a completed item pretty much anywhere I was because I always had at least one of those devices at hand. The app on each device shared the same databases and automatically synced. Clearly, I needed something like that for note-taking.

I know Apple has a Notes app, but I’ve never been able to get it to sync between all my Apple devices. But there was one app I already had on all the devices and it was already sharing one database: Scrivener.

Scrivener is supposed to be a writing app. People on social media who write books (or want to write books) rave about it. They rave so loud and frequently, that I’ve tried using it to write books. I’ve tried at least three times with three different versions of the app. And I’ve failed as many times as I’ve tried.

The trouble is, I’ve been using Microsoft Word since 1989. I have written all kinds of things with it, including entire books and the scripts for video courses about it. I know Word (and Excel, for that matter) better than almost any other software I use. Scrivener does things Scrivener’s way. I do thing Word’s way. I just couldn’t be bothered learning enough about Scrivener’s way to use Scrivener to write books. Why learn to use a new tool when the old tool is working fine?

I could, however, use it to take notes.

My memory issue extends to the work I do as a silversmith. When I make items such as earrings and bracelets for sale, I need to have consistency in the way they are produced. I don’t make one of each earring design. I make dozens. And I don’t make them all the same day. The only way to ensure that I was making them the same way every time I made a batch — given my crappy memory for details — was to create what I called a “Recipe Book” for my jewelry.

Years ago, I created a Scrivener file, which lives in a Dropbox folder. (Dropbox is a cloud computing storage service where I put things I want to be able to access from all of my devices.) The Mac OS and iOS versions of Scrivener all have access to this file. I created folders for the type of item, such as Findings, Earrings, Bracelets. And then subfolders inside each of those folders such as the Sheet Metal, Wire Earrings, and Bead Earrings folders inside the Earrings folder. And then actual pages inside the appropriate folder. Each page listed the “ingredients” — materials, supplies, and tools — and steps for making one specific item.

Jewelry Recipes Example
Here’s one of the pages in my Jewelry Recipes file, which has expanded over the years to include descriptions of the stones I use in my work as well as boilerplate text I use in online shop listings.

This works like a charm, provided that I create page for each item. For example, my Split Bar Dangle earrings page describes the earrings, shows a picture of them, and lists all the materials, supplies, and tools I need to make them. That’s how I know that I need 3 inches of 1/4 inch wide 24 or 26 gauge fine silver bezel wire (among other things) for each pair. I don’t have to guess what I used last time I made them or measure a pair I might still have in inventory. I have the recipe and I can follow it, step by step, with the same ingredients.

What if I created another file that just had miscellaneous notes in it? Organized onto pages and maybe with folders to keep things easy to find?

It seemed like a no-brainer, so that’s what I did.

This is a life-changing (for me) productivity hack. Not only am I using it to note down the dumb things I find myself looking up online (and elsewhere) over and over again, but I’ve also begun using it as a place to keep notes for projects I’m working on.

For example, I’m currently preparing to get my boat on a charter program next season and I need to take care of some upgrades. As I do research and get answers from knowledgeable people on the TugNuts forums and elsewhere, I copy and paste the info into a page in my Notebook. When I need the info, it’s right there.

Notebook page example
Here’s my note page for the upgrades I need to complete on my boat this winter. Everything is right where I need it.

So sure, Scrivener might be “the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators and more.” (Per Literature and Latte’s marketing material for Scrivener. But it also makes a damn good notebook app, keeping your data anywhere you need it.

Now if only I could stop buying empty notebooks…

Another Clouds Time-Lapse

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With clouds in the valley before dawn, I set up a time-lapse camera to capture the cloud movement throughout the morning.

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love time-lapse movies. They make it possible for us to see movement that is normally too slow to perceive.

On October 31, 2024, there were thick clouds in the valley below my home. I know from experience that our winter thermal inversions can put on a good cloud show and those inversions are happening earlier and earlier every year. I set up a GoPro in Hyperlapse mode and let it run all day. Here’s the first few hours of the cloud show, sped up with the hyperlapse as well as a 400% increase in speed in video editing. The result is a smooth, high-speed look at what the clouds did that morning.

Enjoy!

I’m Not Your Support Person

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Just because my blog addresses one of your problems doesn’t mean I’m willing to spend time giving you more help or advice than what you find here.

The other day, I got an email and three texts from a fellow maker. He sells on Etsy and has had a bunch of problems with them, all of which he listed in his email message. He had read the post I wrote last year about why I left Etsy and seemed to think I would be his go-to source for help finding an alternative for his niche market handmade items.

I saw the email and got the gist of it after reading just a few lines. It was early evening — unlike too many other folks, I don’t sit with notifications turned on and respond to every bing emitted by my phone. Email, in fact, is one of the worst ways to reach me because I hate checking it. So I figured I’d give it a closer look in the morning.

Text Messages
Here are the initial three messages. I did get the email he’s referring to. I just don’t drop everything to answer emails from strangers. Does anyone?

I’m not much better with texts, which is the next way he chose to reach out. He sent three of them.

That got me kind of annoyed. Yes, I wrote a blog post about why I left Etsy. And I believe that every creator of quality merchandise should do the same. (I won’t repeat why here. Read the post.) But just because I left Etsy and wrote about it doesn’t mean I’m anyone’s source for one-on-one support for Etsy dissatisfaction.

Deja Vu All Over Again

It’s just like when I wrote computer how-to books for a living. Someone would buy one of my books for about $20 — of which I’d be lucky to see $1 of income — and they’d automatically assume that I would answer all of their questions regarding the topic of the book. I cannot tell you how many email messages and phone calls I got in the early 2000s. That’s why the Contact page on my blog says this, right at the top of the page:

Support and Frequently Asked Questions

I no longer provide support for my books, articles, Web site, or anything else by email, contact form, U.S. mail, or telephone. There are no exceptions to this rule. I simply cannot provide one-on-one support for my work — especially work that is no longer in print.

Note that it includes “Web site” and “anything else.” This person used the form on that page without bothering to read what was right on the top.

Unfair Expectations

More Text Messages
Here’s the first round of responses. When he came back with more nastiness this morning, I responded and then deleted the thread.

Rather than just delete the email message and text messages — as, in hindsight, I really think I should have — I answered him honestly, trying to be gentle about it. But he got snippy and sarcastic. When I told him that I’ve been dealing with requests for help for the past 40 years — okay, maybe just 30 — he came back with more nastiness and told me I should give up blogging.

Oh really? Being a blogger means you’ll help any schmuck who reads your words and wants personalized assistance?

I told him that after blogging for more than 20 years that wasn’t likely.

I also told him that he needs an attitude adjustment and he needs to stop expecting strangers to help him with his problems. (I wish I still had the actual text I sent, but I deleted the whole exchange right after sending that last one and, for once, Apple has actually removed it from Messages on all of my devices. Go figure.) I wasn’t being nice anymore. I was being blunt. I wanted this guy to go away and I really don’t give a damn if he likes me or not.

But that’s my point of view on the issue. Yes, I wrote about it. I wrote 2600 words about it. That’s all I have to say on this matter in a public forum. My blog does not exist as a gateway to using me for support. It’s all of the support I am willing to give, all packaged up in individual blog posts.

Solve Your Own Problems

And that brings me to this, which I see as a major problem in today’s world: no one wants to do their homework anymore. Everyone would rather just get all the answers from someone else, even if that person is a stranger.

Like me, this guy has become dissatisfied with Etsy. Well, Etsy isn’t the only place to sell. There’s Shopify and some maker co-op that the folks on Mastodon keep pushing and the solution I went with: setting up a shop with my Square account. A Google search for “where can I sell my homemade widgets” will get him started on possible solutions. Reading reviews and blog posts and forum posts about those solutions can help him learn the pros and cons of them — so he can pick the one that’s right for him and his business.

Expecting a perfect stranger to take him by the hand in a phone call and walk him through the process of finding his perfect solution is unrealistic.

I have a full life and lots of things to take up my time. (Including, apparently, ranting about situations like this in my blog.) I’m running three small businesses by myself and trying to bring in some extra income in early retirement, before taking social security payments. I should be working on my Great Loop book or making jewelry right now. (I hope to do both with the rest of my day.)

Maybe our text exchange will be a wakeup call for him.

Or maybe it won’t.