January 1-7, 2023
The S/V Kya Anne will double her population when we welcome Scott & Teri Hansen aboard at the end of this week. With 2022 in the rearview mirror and the Bahamas in our immediate future, we fully expect exponential fun and shenanigans ahead!
Sunday, January 1st (New Year’s Day)
I believe God will do some amazing things in my life in 2023 and I’m excited for him to get started!
<Man plans, God laughs>
Wahoo! It’s not the flu! 🦠
After 2+ years of never contracting Covid, my winning streak comes to an end. As I tried to think about where I could have picked it up in the last week (before Key West), it could have been any number of places – the hotel, laundromat, or grocery store. Possibly the church where I went to Christmas Eve services or the church where I went to Christmas day services. Maybe Target (when I picked some supplies), Best Buy (where I picked up a hard drive to back up my computer), or the computer repair store (when I picked up my computer). 🤷🏽♀️
Sigh. When I think about it, I haven’t exactly been living in a bubble 🫧 the last week, so it could have been anywhere, including the day we spent in Key West, or the breakfast place we stopped at on the way to Key West. Where I contracted it doesn’t really matter- Covid is so prevalent that it’s become like the flu or common cold, with potentially more dangerous repercussions, depending on each person’s health, lifestyle, and co-morbidities.
I’m tripled vaxxed, and in relatively good health, so my plan is to keep doing what I’ve been doing– hunker down & heal.
Monday, January 2nd
I slept, a lot. 🤒
Tuesday, January 3rd
Isn’t NyQuil supposed to help me sleep? Why isn’t it working?
Could someone please smother me with a pillow and put me out of my misery?
Wednesday, January 4th
Yay! I stayed awake all day today, but I sure didn’t accomplish much. It’s been a quiet, low-energy day, where I’ve mostly focused on my writing, and a devotional project I just started. Paul’s family has been begging for some time with him (Covid be damned), and since they are scheduled to leave tomorrow morning, he went over to spend time with them in the afternoon and evening. I was down and out early and didn’t even hear him return.
Thursday, January 5th
Conrad and his pup Bug came by to do their weekly pump out, and Paul and I scrubbed and cleaned the kitchen and dining area all day. I cleaned my downstairs bathroom and sorted through my luggage and belongings. I’m going to Arizona for a workshop in two weeks, and I thought it might be a good idea to separate out any unnecessary items that I brought along and ship them back to Marcia & Randy’s place. I’m fortunate that Marcia and her husband are willing to store my belongings for me until I determine where I’ll end up settling. Paul is moving from the captain’s cabin to the forward portside berth, giving Teri & Scott the larger cabin since there are two of them.
All in all, I felt better today than I have for a while. We closed the evening with a movie night– something we haven’t done for several days due to my illness and exhaustion. I opted for Thor: Ragnorak, as I wanted some levity and I love Marvel (before it started going super dark, depressing and forbidding). Paul had never seen it before, but likes Chris Hemsworth as Thor in the previous movies. He enjoyed it, so it was a good night.
Friday, January 6th
Happy Friday! It is Friday, right? My sleep schedule is back on track, and I feel 95% recovered, though the cough lingers and feels as though it has anchored itself in my lungs.
We’re both excited for Scott & Teri Hansen to join us on the boat (as soon as we clear our Covid chaos). It’s windy and humid today. It will be in the 70’s all day, but with the higher humidity, I am especially grateful for the breeze, though it’s wreaking havoc for our plans to dinghy into town and try to get all the laundry and grocery shopping done. Instead, we washed and scrubbed and cleaned the boat inside, wiping down cupboards, walls, seats, counters, etc.
It was a low-key, but busy day of chores, which reminds me that even in paradise, toilets need cleaning and counters need scrubbing, and I’m okay with that.
Saturday, January 7th
Today’s big accomplishment was laundry, and since it had been almost 3 weeks since we had done laundry, it was sorely needed. When you consider that we had been both been sick, it makes sense that we had A LOT of laundry – two complete sets of bedding and towels, plus all our clothes. Wheeling a borrowed wagon (thank you Peter & Helen!) behind us, we walked the short distance to Sea Foam laundry. When we walked up to the laundromat, I was instantly concerned because water was POURING out from the building. Once we got inside, we were told a whole bank of washers (about five or six) were out of order.
Fortunately, there were only three other people doing laundry, plus the laundromat operators. With a quick glance, I could tell that this laundromat also provided laundry services to many of the nearby hotels – there were large rolling baskets full of towels, sheets and other linens—all white. We ended up scattering our six loads throughout the laundromat, taking any available machine we could find, and within 3 hours, we had all the laundry done and folded. It was an expensive morning—depending on which washing machine we used, it was $4.00 a load, $4.75 a load or $9.00 a load (for the large, oversized machine). The dryers cost $.25 for 4 minutes.
We finished up, and checked in with Scott and Teri, who were in Key Largo, awaiting a bus to Islamorada. They were still a few hours out, so we took the laundry back to the dinghy and put everything away while we awaited their arrival.
When they finally arrived in Islamorada, there was some back and forth about exactly *where* Paul would pick them up in the dinghy, but it eventually all worked out and I saw the three of them motoring towards the boat in the late afternoon.
Once everyone was safely onboard and luggage stowed, we loaded ourselves back into the dinghy (all four of us this time), and celebrated their arrival by going back to land and having dinner and cocktails at Lorelei’s.
