It is getting busy around these parts. As always(it seems) I am slowly rebuilding myself. It appears that back injuries do not go away just because you wish it so. Mine  has not.

 I have certainly found a nice gal to spend time with. Vivian and I are  Yin and Yang, if you are the type who believes in such things. It is sometimes uncanny the way we seem to fit together. I have known her 6 months and it seems like we have always been together. I cannot explain. Maybe sometimes you find someone who just "fits", for lack of a better word.

I have joined a gym again. It is 5 minutes away from Vivian's place, by bike, and as I have been spending a lot of time here during the hot spell, it is handy.

The gym is on the old air force base if I remember right. It was a gym and was remodeled a couple years ago. I was going in the morning. I have a new workout routine I was trying that requires explosive lifting with medium weights and letting the speed of the lift create the needed tension on muscles. The book was written by a guy who coaches olympic and professional athletes and has written over 300 articles for different fitness magazines.

The idea is, harder workouts in a shorter time. Kind of like standing up on that bicycle and pumping those peddles hard as apposed to sitting and poking along at a leisurely pace. I will let you know how it goes.

I have a routine worked out that trains four different parts of my body. One each day with weekends off. At this point, only 2 workout stations each day. Lots of time for each muscles recovery between workouts. Yet I workout 5 days a week. The problem was going first thing in the morning. I could ask people if I could have the two work stations for several minutes while I went back and forth working the muscles to failure. Inevitably....Some gal in her 70's would walk in and plop down at a station for a slow extended session while I was on the other station. What could I do. If I asked for a few more minutes I either got a "I will be done shortly" or the look that made me feel like I was in the way :-)  What to do???

Turns out that about noon....The place is nearly deserted.

Everybody is happy now.


I am also riding bike every day. Like I stated above. I peddle as hard as I can for stretches with short breaks to catch my breath. When exhausted, I head back.


So what else is new??  Monday was a road trip to Columbia, South Carolina. Vivian and I went on a tour of South Carolina's vocational rehabilitation assessment center. I will be going there soon for a month. Weekends off. It turns out that South Carolina has a top of the line operation and other states send their people there to learn how the operation works. I qualify for it and once completed, I qualify for any and all help the state has to rehabilitate me and get me working again.

So........
What does this mean for traveling on Mary Lee????
For starters,,. I have this intense desire to return to work. I am working at finding something that will allow me to work about anywhere I am with Mary Lee. I have sold cars before. I enjoyed it, just had a chance to manage a grocery store and wanted to try that. I am looking into an apprenticeship sewing canvas/upholstery. The way I see it. With the sewing I can find work about anywhere I go. With the sales I can find work I enjoy anywhere in the U.S. Mary Lee started my recovery and spearheaded the dream. I will still be using her to learn on. But for living?? The size is limiting.
What about now??? I am really not in the best sailing grounds. Next spring, I will move Mary lee to a better place and all weekends will be spent with Vivian sailing. Vivian has commitments that will keep her busy for a while.. However, she will be doing some traveling with me. Lots of Islands to see and learning to be done before any major trips are taken. Vivian has quite a lot of vacation time to be using up.
Not the original plan, but it is certainly a better plan. I will get new canvas on this winter. Topsides painted. Prop changed,etc. Early spring will see all the new running rigging installed. I am getting stronger and am hoping by next summer I will finally have my back past the point of re-injury. I am planning to move Mary Lee south in early spring. Will look hard at finding work in Florida. Will take the best job possible but Florida would be nice. A serious thought to consider is moving up to a bigger boat. More on that and why later.
I have been doing a little canning.

Garbanzo and black beans.

A little baking.

Trying to eat better. Herring in wine sauce. cottage cheese with hemp hearts on top. Breakfast at times. Vivian is a sort of Vegetarian. Will eat fish but no other types of carcass. She does not force her eating habits on others and both her boys are confirmed meat eaters. I can deal with that. It means I eat dishes that are a lot healthier along with my meat. I still don't eat anything with eyeballs....I cut the heads off :-)

If you have ever seen the movie,"My cousin Vinny" with Joe Pesci. You will remember the suit he showed up with on court day. We think we found the women's version. Vivian would not try it on for a photo shoot. It was quite shimmery. However, she did try on the flower child version of a moomoo

Kind of entertaining when you know that she had no idea these pictures would end up on the blog. I just took them so she could see how it looked. :-)

Still reading about the places to go.

Lucy does not care. She is 15 on the first of october and needs her naps.

But talk about the practiced and sad looking stare down when she sees you with food.

Always time to learn. I usually just figure out the bike repairs when they are needed but I thought that it is time to go through the bikes here for a regular maintenance and greasing/adjusting while I put a new chain on mine. It might be nice to read a manual on it. Just about done. Learned quite a bit actually. No longer need book. I have now seen(in the book and have had hands on experience) most bike repairs done and read the hows and whys. This method works because I already have a background in it. repairing Mary Lee's engine was the same. I already had a background in engine building so reading the manual was a very simple way to convert all the information to memory. Next dinghy I build will be the same, etc,etc.

And it is nap time again!!!