New Year, New Perspectives

Despite having completed some awesome activities the past few weeks, I am struggling to write this blog. Perhaps, it’s influenced by the gray sky and frequent rain squalls making their way across the bay leaving me feeling a little cooped up. Everyone that knows me would concur, that I am a restless individual and need to be busy, productive, and active to maintain my happiness and sanity. Admittedly, feeling stuck in Martinique while we wait to get our furlers serviced and all the maintenance done is making me a little stir crazy. Add to that the fact that the water has continued to remain murky with poor visibility and therefore, we have not been snorkelling and swimming as much as usual. I feel like, our adventure is on hold and won’t really begin until we leave Martinique and start making our way to Bonaire.

I have tried to branch out and try baking, cooking, language learning (651 day Duolingo streak for French and Spanish), EDX classes, CME, signing up for fellowships, even doing homemaking and sewing to try and make myself feel more fulfilled. I have taken the Tiwal (inflatable sailing dinghy) out almost daily and the boys and I have regular done the 8 km hike out to Plage des Salines for some beach/wave action. Unfortunately, I get caught up feeling that it’s not enough.

Then I have to remind myself about how fortunate I am to be able to live on an exceptional sailboat, anchored at a Caribbean island with my family. I have been blessed to be able to hike over 50 km this month so far while exploring secret beaches, volcanic peaks, and just generally staying active. I need to remind myself of this fortune and appreciate the here and now rather than concerning myself about our lack of forward movement and activity. This is going to be my endeavour this year. Let’s see how it actually turns out. It will be my hardest resolution yet.

In the meantime, enjoy the pictures of what in retrospect, has been an amazing, active, and busy month.

Miles Sailed: 5

Activities completed: Solar arch welded, Halyards spliced, Lee cloth stitched and awaiting installation, Chain and oven are en route to Curacao, New start battery sourced, Diving regulators serviced, New BCD for Evan ordered, Grandparents arrived, Birthday hikes, New Years hikes, Mt Pelee summited, Beach party with boat kids, Survived Google’s backroad directions back to Saint Anne’s making for a hilarious adventure, Grandparents arrived safely and on board.

Things that broke: … still waiting…

Boys free writing:

James:

Evan’s Amazing Paintings

Evan is a very talented artist who this Christmas gave me some of his art work. The painting Evan gave me is of a haybale sitting in a grassy field with a stormy sky behind. This is the second haybale painting Evan has done. He also gave daddy a painting of a bookshelf and Mommy a painting of some beautiful mountains.

Evan is the main family artist. He also builds very realistic paper airplanes. I traded one of my paintings for one of his paper airplanes. This paper airplane is in a Galaxy Air livery which is based on an airline in MarioKart.

Evan:

Happiness on The Outside

One crisp, winter morning Anna, Eric, and Marc watched the snow gracefully fall to the ice blanketed ground. They were all excited about the snow because it meant a rare break in school. They all wanted to play their new video games, which lead the to ask, “can we play our pigman video game?” The mom responded, “No, but you can play in the fresh snow.” So Anna, Eric, and Marc grumpily sat down.

The mom, who happily helped them get dressed soon mentioned, “ten minutes then you can come inside and play video games.” Eric screamed, “Mom, no, I want to play video games!” because he was really annoyed. “Mom absolutely not, I will not go outside,” sobbed Marc. The mom began to regret dressing the children up in a coat, a shirt, a hat, long underwear, and boots for the bitter -5 celsius weather.

The children reluctantly waddled outside and they definitely looked overdressed. Their terrible hatred fell away which left only their love of snow.