Our First Video... Without a Bayliner in it :(

Since I want to video tape our journey, I needed to make sure:

1) My camera was up to snuff
2) I knew how to upload videos

Following is proof of both! It's completely unrelated to boating, BUT there
is a joke in it!

Crazy Idea #1 - Circus Freak

Before you go all Child Protective Custody on me, I'll start by saying this was just an IDEA. And a discarded one, at that. We didn't pour over the phone book, looking up amusements, carnival, circus acts, entertainment, fairgrounds... I digress.

Our crazy idea was to force-feed one of our kids til they weighed around 400 pounds and lease them to the circus. I'm a responsible enough parent that I'd DEFINITELY negotiate a favourable buyout payment. However, there were some problems.

Between Jer-Bear and I we have 5 kids–4 regular ones and 1 we don't see all that much. 2 of these kids would never be able to eat enough, 1, like I said, we don't really see, and the smallest guy, Brandon, would probably explode after the first 5 bites. So Taylor was the winner, mostly because she likes chocolate. She's petite, but I think she'd be up to the challenge. The down side is I've gotten attached to her and like being able to see her whenever I want, without having to pay $10 to get into the carnival.

Our $500 Raffle

Okay, you're probably reading this and thinking WTF, they're giving away $500? We TOTALLY are! All you have to do is buy a ticket for 50¢. And wait a little bit. Read on...

If you've read some of the other stories on this blog, you'll see that we're thinking of ways to make extra money for a boat. Now I don't know how long this will take, but with your help, it will go even faster.

Here's how the raffle will work:

1) Start off by putting your name and contact information on a piece of paper. If you like, add in your idea for a good boat name. We're always looking for ideas!

2) Tape two quarters to that piece of paper–in a decorative fashion, if you like–and put it in an envelope. You can be a rebel and tape five dimes, or any combination of coins. Sending quarters is not a requirement.

3) Put this address on the envelope:

Float Jeremy & Nala's Boat!
#2444 Unit 304-7592 Vedder Road
Sardis, BC
V2R 1B0
Canada

4) Put a stamp on the envelope. This is very important! Yes I know it means the cost of your raffle ticket is higher. Maybe higher than usual, because if you're not in Canada you need to make sure it has enough postage to GET to Canada. It's a small investment compared to $500. Get over it!

5) Deposit the envelope into a mail box. Or sneak it into the outgoing mail at your office. Whatever it takes, get it in the mail

Here's what will happen when we receive your envelope:

1) First, we will have an emotional welcoming party when we remove your envelope from the P.O. box. There may or may not be confetti and ticker tape.

2) Second, we will open your envelope with great care. We will reverently write your name on a raffle ticket. All tickets will go into a special container. We will video some of this process and post it so you can see it's ALL ABOVE BOARD!

3) We will deposit all the quarters or other coins in our Float our Boat bank account (which right now is a shoe box.)

4) Once we've achieved the goal of buying our boat, we'll dramatically draw one of the raffle tickets. There will be great fanfare and possibly singing. THAT is how special this draw will be!

5) We will record the exciting Ed McMahon-styles phone call to the lucky winner. IT MIGHT BE YOU!

Just so you know, we have no idea of the real rules and regulations, or if we're even ALLOWED to run a raffle like this. Isn't being bad fun?! The rules seem pretty fair, don't they? Comment if you have any better ideas.

Send a link to this blog to everyone you know! Buy as many tickets as you like. In fact, the more you buy, maybe the sooner the draw. As in... maybe even in this decade!

Thanks!

Dream & Goals

As you can probably tell, I'm a person that strongly believes in the power of a dream or BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal, in case the initials threw you.)

Jer-Bear's had some difficult times. I'm not going to go into details here–at least not yet–but most of the them have been financial. I've watched him struggle to make an adequate living up here in Canada since he moved up here, watched him fall further and further behind on his bills and have to make some difficult decisions. I saw him go from hopeful to dejected to demoralized. I know he'd turned his back on ever getting out of the hole. When you love someone, you do everything you can to bring them hope, but sometimes words can only do so much. They can't always dig deep enough to do the inspiring work you'd like them to.

But in recent weeks I've seen his attitude do a 180, and this week I watched Jer-Bear take the first steps to rectifying his financial situation. He said to me "When I'm sitting and relaxing on that boat, I don't want to have any worries. So I have to look after all those worries now."

My wish for everyone reading this, is that you find your own powerful dream.

Baby picture

Here's our baby. Isn't she gorgeous?

We're not sure where we'll keep her when she's out of the water, since we live in a townhome complex with rules as flexible as a Russian gulag. But parking is just a triviality, isn't it?

Jer-Bear's cool widdit.

I showed the blog to Jer-Bear and he's pretty comfortable with it. He typically plays it close to the vest about personal things.

Of course, I was clever to show this to him after only one blog post. I haven't written all the deeply personal stuff yet. Or the stuff about our sex life. Kidding! (Maybe.)

Watch for us on various boating forums and discussion groups. The only way to make dreams happen is to immerse yourself in the culture and tell yourself repeatedly that they are GOING to happen.

Bayliner 300, baby. Come to mamma!

Welcome to our dream

See that guy in the banner? That's Jer-Bear, my boyfriend. Isn't he hot? He's sitting inside the engine hatch of a Bayliner 300. That's the expression he makes when he's TOTALLY LOVING something. In this case, dual V6s. :)

Yup, a Bayliner 300 is our dream. I'm going use this blog to tell you why that's our dream, although it will only be my opinion because I haven't presented any of these ideas to Jer-Bear yet. He doesn't even know I've put up this blog.

We've been together for over two years, and my sense is that he's at a crossroads in his life. He took me to see this boat two weeks ago. I fell in love with it and that's when we started down this strange and exciting path.

I hope you'll follow along with us on our journey to a (seemingly) impossible dream!