Our new Morningstar.

 She is a 36' Senator
 Sundeck   Trawler

We are very excited! Will post a longer blog tomorrow.

Boat shopping

While we were in Michigan there were two different showings on our house. The first family liked our house but liked another house better and the second family liked the house but just began their search and want to look around. This is encouraging as both family did not say they did not like the property.

Rich, Lucky and I have been boat hunting. We traveled from NY to North Carolina and back to NY. This past weekend we looked at three boats two in Michigan and one in Sandusky Ohio. Rich and I narrowed down our search. We weighed all the good and bad features of the 42'Jefferson (the bad feature being the fuel milage) and have decided we could be happy living aboard the Jefferson. On Thrusday we took a ride to Long Island and looked at a 42' Jefferson and are hoping this could be the boat. It needs cosmetic repairs but the engines are good.

Could this be our new Morningstar?

All we need now is the money to buy it and bring it home to Jacksonville Fl.  If this is the right timing the Lord will work it out for us. To all of my praying friends please pray the people who looked at the house will come back and make us an offer.  Rich, Lucky and I miss Florida and want to go back. It would be great to buy this boat and on our travels back to Florida meet up with our good friends Myron and Dena and all come back to the OYCM togeather.  Hay, it could happen the Lord sees the desires of our hearts. I will never forget despite all our ups and downs in life we are children of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Praise the wonderful name of Jesus. Our Lord and savior forever. Be blessed!

Sleeping Bear Dunes

Life is good and so was the weather. We spent Sunday driving to Traverse City to look at a 42' Jefferson Sundeck Yacht. What a beautiful area of Michigan. It made us so sad to be boatless in such a  paradise for boaters. Tom and Ally were great tour guides and the kids were excited looking at boats.

Here we are at Sleeping Bear Dunes. We had a great day with Tom, Ally and our grandchildren

The dunes were amazing and almost took your breath away. The dunes were steep. We were  450 feet above Lake Michian.  Some daring people went down to the lake and had to crawl up the dunes to get back.  Vinny was walking with Tom and when he looked over the guard rail and saw the people climbing up he looked over at his father and said,"  Holy cow Dad look at all the monkies." We all cracked up.  From that height the people did look like climbing monkies.

We are leaving in the morning to head back to NY. Be blessed.

We are in Ohio

I know I haven't blogger in a while. It is hard to get fast internet in Earlville NY and that prevents me from being able to post pictures and when I can not tell my story with photos there is no story to tell. Actually things have not changed too much.  Rich, Lucky and I are still in Earlville and missing the water more and more everyday. There is something going on down deep inside of me that is making me feel more and more distanced from the life I knew and loved in Earlville for most of my adult life. It is nice to get phone calls from our frends at OYCM it seems they miss us as much as we miss them. They are down south dealing with 100 degree temperatues. I don't miss the hot hot hot weather but I do miss the marina.  If we still had our boat on Oneida Lake it would be nice but spending the summer boatless is depressing.

The realitor is showing our house today at eleven am and at ten am Rich and I are going to be looking at a 42' Jefferson docked at the Cedar Point marina in Ohio. The marina is part of the Cedar Point Amusement Park. It looks like a fantastic place.

So that is why we are now at the Red Roof Inn at Milan Ohio. We are headed to our son Tom's house today to visit with our grandchildren for a few days and than we are headed back to NY. Hopefully with good news on the house. We decided to stop for the night in Ohio because the 42' Jefferson is type of boat I would love to buy if money was not an issue. Here are a few pictures of the boat we will be looking at this morning.

Rich and I took a ride to North Carolina last week to look at a 42' Present. The boat was in bad shape the decks were all soft. We drove 774 miles one way to find out the broker was not honest with us concerning the condition of the boat. It looked good on the outside but the inside was a mess. However, we got to spend the night with my sister Cathi and that was fun.  Cathi went with us to look at the boat. We were so close to Florida I wanted to go back but we didn't. I miss Rick, Vande and the boys very much.

This is the 42' Present in NC.

This is my sister Cathi

Well it is time to get ready to head out to Sandusky Ohio to meet the broker at the marina.  It was so nice to have fast internet again. Be blessed.

I'm starting to feel Amish

I do not know Rich and I managed to live for so many years in the country. There is just nothing to do. We had our grandson Adam over night again and he is just so much fun. We told him we were going to visit an Amish farm to buy some baked goods and he was so excited he could not sleep. When morning arrived he wanted to make a picture for the Amish family and asked me question after question about them and their customs. He drawings are so detailed. I wasn't sure how the Amish family would react to his generious gift but it went fantastic and now Adam wants to be a little Amish boy.

When we got back to the house Rich had to make Adam a carrage and wagon out of cardboard.

Rich and I are going to North Carolina to look at a boat this week.

Yard Sale

Well, after days of hard work and planning Rich and I found a trailer load of items to sell at our garage sale. We priced everything cheaply to sell fast and were very excited about the possibility of getting rid of a lot of things. We want to use the money towards the purchase of our new boat. However, I forgot we are living in a very rural area and not many cars pass by our house.  Most of the vehicles that passed were trucks and not interested in any yard sale. It was also a hot muggy day. A few Amish farmers past by our house but they did not stop either. Here is a picture of an Amish wagon passing the house.

My five year old grandson Adam was very excited about our yard sale and helped me set out the items. He was especially excited about the Christmas items. My son Brian jokily told Adam that Santa was just a fat old man who liked to eat a lot of cookies to which Adam replied, “Santa is not fat daddy, he is jolly.”  It cracked us all up.

At the end of the day four people stopped at our yard sale. Two of them were just looking for specific things such as air conditioners, tools or fishing items.  However, two people did some shopping they bought Christmas ornaments, exercise weights, and a towel rack.  All together we made $5.50 and a pound of fresh honey. This is the second gift of fresh honey we got since we’ve been here. Our neighbors have bee hives and gave us honey fresh from the honey comb it was delicious.

I told Rich we would order chicken wings from the Georgetown Inn with our yard sale earnings but since the wings cost $15.00 we had to add money to buy them. The Georgetown Inn has the best wings of any place we have ever been.

The lady who looked at our house a few weeks ago liked the house but did not like the yard. She told the realtor she wanted a yard that was flat. We just wait and look forward everyday for a call from the realtor.  We live by faith and not sight. Our suddenly moment will come.  The longer we are here in NY the more we miss Florida and our marina friends. I miss the rocking of the water and the sloshing of the water again the sides of the boat. I miss having a cup of coffee on the back of the boat while watching the fish jump. I miss yelling at the speeding boaters to slow down, feeding the ducks, and the fellowship on the docks. In fact as much as I love NY this time of year the desire to be back living aboard a boat is only growing stronger. We are trusting the Lord and His timing to guide our way.

I think Lucky misses the water too. He likes to be in small spaces and follows us all around the house. His favorite place to be is in the Durango. We take him with us most of the time and as soon as Rich picks up the leach. He knows we are going in the Durango and starts getting excited.

Rich finished all of the work on the house and now we are planning a trip to Michigan to see Tom and bring him some appliances. We took a ride to the 1000 Islands and Oneida Lake area looking for boats but most of the larger boats are gas engines. There is a boat in NC we want to look at but until the house sells we will not have the money to buy the boat of our dreams.

It is almost impossible to get a fast internet connection in this area so I have not been on line much at all. This is my first post in a while but I wanted to update everyone. I miss you all dearly and hope to be back on line soon. I am able to read most of the messages from my friends and family once a week but can’t reply so I thought it best to just try to keep up this blog.

Wow Amazing.  While I am sitting here outside the Earlville library trying to get internet, the librarian arrived.  The library doesn’t open until one pm.  I started talking to her and she told me that she looked at our house and loves it. She said that she is a Christian and has been praying for the Lord to hold our house until her house sells. Her face lit up as she told me how much she loves our house and the land.  She looked at our house two years ago and drives past it every Sunday on her way to church.  She said she took her house off the market and I told her to put it back on. I know the Lord has something going on here.  I told her to come up to the house and I would show her around and pray with her at the house. I asked the Lord for some encouragement and He gave it to me.  Now we need to pray for the Lord to make away for her to buy it. I told her the story about how I planted a penny for her and all of my friends were praying. This is going to be a good day.  I have to go now the sun is keeping me from seeing the screen.

A day in the country

I was sitting in the living room having a cup of coffee with Rich when I looked out the window and saw an Amish horse and buggy pass by. I tried to get a picture but I was too late and you are not supposed to take their picture. The Amish purchased many of the farms in Lebanon and are living side by side with the farmers who still use heavy equipment. Two children around the ages of twelve were driving the wagon and once it pasted I could see they were carrying milk jugs. It is truly amazing to watch and hear the horses clattering along the road.  Lebanon is a beautiful place to live and raise a family but a bad place to try to sell a house because there are just not many jobs around. Rich pressured washed the house and it looks great.

I am already missing the water and my friends from OYCM. I set up a small area in the back of the house just off the deck to keep me feeling close to the water.  The life ring came off our 36’ Trojan. I needed to be near boating and our nautical lifestyle.

 Lucky loves the pond and spent almost an hour in it today trying to get a tree root loose but it was not moving.  His paws were covered in mud.  I am sure he will go back to it tomorrow.  It is cool here today the high was only 65. It was damp with no sunshine.

Until next time, Be Blessed my friends.