Thursday, April 21, 2011

The 50th post -- where does the time go?

Spring is here and I find myself with an entirely new dilemma for my 50th post at Diary of a Liveaboard -- lack of time.

In the past, I held jobs that allowed for time to work on the boat. Jobs that weren't at least an hour away. Jobs that... well... weren't paid by the hour solely for the purpose of making me feel guilty about not working them. 

So after four months of unemployment this winter, I elected to take a 32-hour-a-week secretary job at a church an hour away and a supplemental job as a copy-editor for a Capitol Hill publication in Washington, D.C. -- an hour in the opposite direction. 

And I had to buy a new car, which only makes me want to work more (in my copious spare time I am copy-editing a book that the Capitol Hill publication I work with publishes every two years). 

So I now face dilemma that boat owners the world over must also face: I have no time to work on my boat! It's just killing me! I'm keeping up with the cleaning for the most part. That's no so bad. But measuring the floor for parquet? Putting the sails back on? Scrubbing the boat? Painting the bottom? 

I just don't know! How do you other boat owners find time to do all of this? I think I'll have some free weekends in May. I hope I have some free weekends in May. But jeez. For the time being all I see is the marina launching boats and painting bottoms and generally being industrious.

I guess one solution is to pay the marina to paint the boat bottom and scrape the barnacles and replace the floor. But pay someone to do something I could do myself? I just don't know about that.

So, fellow boat people, what are your solutions to this distressing dilemma? Where do you find the time?!