My science of better attitude by project completion

I’m not a scientist nor do I have any degrees nearly close to science, mental health, healing or anything close.  When I write about things dealing with attitude, it’s only from my own internal observations and NO ONE should think I’m a professional.  But I’m gonna drop some knowledge about myself and my projects, so keep reading….

I have a better attitude overall when I’m able to knock out and finish projects or see steady results on unfinished projects.  I finished several small projects last week and will bring two larger projects to completion this coming week, which makes me really happy to get all this knocked out.  Two projects I currently have going are not finished and I want to be done with them.  First, I’ve been working on my new Windlass installation for the last several weeks and will hopefully be done with it Monday, completely.  This one’s been huge and I’ve ripped it out completely once because the shaft didn’t fit and I’ve had the entire electrical set-up changed from what the boat came with when I bought her (I’ll cover this in a series of separate posts).  The woodwork was completed Friday so I’ll finish putting the top housing together on Monday and empty the chain locker, to get good depth markers on my chain and finish that project.  While the rear chain locker has been emptied, I also took the opportunity to completely clean the rear section of the locker and repaint it.  This was a bear but really cool now.  I’ll finish the forward section this coming week when it’s emptied while I work on the chain markers.  This entire project should be done by Weds morning, depending on what else intervenes.  But more importantly, last week while I was literally waiting on paint to dry and the wood around the windlass was getting worked on; I took the opportunity to knock out smaller projects inside Tulum.  This means I could do the projects myself quickly and bring them to completion, very much helping my attitude and filling back up my internal reserve tank.

For the last several weeks I had been teaching myself to varnish using a piece of wood I was going to install as part of a hanging fruit basket, but since I had not stained the wood and it wasn’t teak, it didn’t come out perfect, but it did finish.  I installed it last week and cut out the fruit flies considerably on the boat, since now our fruit and vegetables can hang.  It wasn’t that hard to do and a good addition to the boat.  Not sure it’s Pinterest worthy, but a nice way to store fruit.  

Secondly,  we’ve had a nice wine opener that was a gift from a friend but never put up in our last house or boat….that I’ve been wanting to mount in Tulum 5.  For this one, I was worried Hotwife would be upset if I messed it up, so I literally measured about 5 times and drilled very, very carefully to get this into a good spot.  Thankfully my measurements were ok and the thing went in nicely….can’t even see the backing glue that I used to keep everything watertight.One thing that both me and Admiral Hotwife are well aware of is that I cannot continues to hand lift our heavy new outboard down to the dinghy, so finding a way to mechanically assist this process was important.  I wonder if this point isn’t often overlooked by cruisers or couples who have to somehow get their outboard engines down and back up from their dinghies?  Or is this why I see so many dinghies sitting on davits with engines attached, just waiting to either fall off or cause injury to a person’s back…..or the davit?  After some research on the internet, carefully looking at other boats around us in the marina that had lifts and looking at actual product in the various chandleries in San Diego, I decided on buying a Nova Lift by Forspar.  I liked the simplicity of installation and the price point.  Here’s what it looks like just out of the store and its actual packaging:

After carefully reading the instructions, finding a place I was comfortable mounting it to and then getting together all the tools, the installation was less than 45 minutes (cause…..you know….I’m a bit of mechanical dummy but learning fast).

I’ve also taken the opportunity to knock out several other projects, but I’ll work on separate posts to discuss those projects as they’re a bit more complex.  All I know is this….if I can do all this and live with my entire family on a sailboat- you can too if you want to.

Here’s some other thoughts and projects I’ve finished or am working on:

http://livefree2travelslow.com/2018/07/29/sailboat-pmcs-and-more-projects/

http://livefree2travelslow.com/2018/07/27/the-dri-dek-test-and-project/