It finally happened, the pup fell in the lake!

I was out on the back 'porch' this morning trying to get him to pee on his pee pad and his trainer came by.  He was so excited and was dancing around her that it finally happened, he fell in the lake!  Poor little guy was swimming around looking like a drowned rat (I don't have any pictures of him in the lake, I was trying to get him out).  He finally swam close enough that I was able to pull him out.

We learned a few things today

1. Sebastian can indeed swim
2. My arms are long enough to pull him out if he gets close enough
3. Sebastian still isn't a fan of getting wet
4. I need stairs or something so he can get himself out if needed

Wet puppy right out of the water

Puppy Recovering

Sad Wet Puppy

Identifying my frustration -- how am I using my space?

Before I get to anything else, I wanted to thank everyone who has been asking me about this Houseboat thing and tell me that they are following my journey.  It's a bit humbling to know that people are reading this!  And in being told that I realize that while I started out strong I have been slacking on writing anything and led me to trying to understand why.  I think I've hit on something.

Back when I started looking at houseboats I asked myself why I was doing it.  I'm not the person that wants to leave all material things behind and simplify my life, I did that when I moved up to Seattle.  I downsized a whole moving van worth of stuff!  I have simplified as much as I'm ever going to.  I never had big dreams of 'living on a boat', I don't know how to sail, boats were never my thing.  So why am I doing this?

Well I wanted to own again, and the housing market here in Seattle is crazy.  I miss the ocean, and while I don't want to live on salt water (it's killer on electronics and stuff) living on fresh water is a nice compromise.  I was ready to move out of Bellevue and live in a place with 'soul', I have friends on the West Side that I don't see often and I'd like to see more, without huge efforts on my own part.  But while all of those reasons are true I wasn't sure that was enough.

What I found it really came down to is the concept of using space efficiently.  The challenge of living in such a small space but doing it without giving up the things that make me happy.  Part of that is paring down the noise and seeing exactly *what* makes me happy, so that is simplification, but that isn't all of it.  Part of it is having a smaller carbon footprint, not having a lawn (most useless waste of water I can imagine), and owning my own place again, but it's even more than that.  We waste so much, *I* waste so much in my life.  I buy all these groceries that go bad, I end up buying things I don't need or only use once, or three version of the same thing because I'm not sure where the old one is and I just buy a new one.  While I am certainly a consumer, I don't need to be consuming this much, and living on a houseboat is a way to consume less.  And this is how I've chosen to do it.

So then why am I frustrated?  I bought a fantastic houseboat, it's beautiful, but it's not very space efficient.  There is dead space under my bed that would have been much better utilized by placing the water heater there instead of in the *only closet*.  I have no shelves, there aren't any of the cool space saving things that I had pictured in my mind, and somehow I didn't make that connection before I bought this place.  It's missing the things I was looking for.

Where does this leave me?  With a better understanding of my current frustrations and a goal, to incorporate all of the space saving things into this boat.  I've been reading about boats and RV's online, and amusingly enough the RV's have better 'tips'.  Some of this will need a third party to do things like put my mattress on lifts so I an use the dead space under the bed, and install shelving, but that is ok, I have time.

Now I have a goal, find the clever ways to utilize space and make this crazy 353 sq foot place my true home.

I'm still unpacking!

I know I've been a little quiet but I am still unpacking!  The new screens are in which is wonderful and I'm still chipping a way all of the boxes trying to find good places for everything.

I think the theme of the next few weeks will be shelves and where do I put the shoes?  

I am making progress, I have a suitcase full of stuff to take to my mom's when I see her in a few weeks, I'm filling up another box for storage and I have another donation box going.  Despite the fact that everything is kind of everywhere it's starting to feel like home! Kind of!

I'll post pictures and storage tips when this place is a bit more put together and I've figured that storage stuff out :)

Weekends are never boring on a boat!

I think I mentioned that we moved my boat, well today we moved it again.  The problem is that the front corner keeps banging into the dock.  Two of my wonderful neighbors helped and we moved it back, but it's not sustainable.  So I went off today to get a new fender at a local marine supply shop.

A3 Fender

The idea is to put this at the corner of the dock and it will buffer the boat.  We are going to have to retie the boat when my neighbors come back anyway, so we're good for a few days.

Right after that the internet goes out.  I crawled around in the hull for a bit and saw that everything there was ok, turns out the cable had come lose at the dock, easy fix!

One storage unit is empty and done!  now I'm down to one, which I intend to keep.  Getting ready to move my summer clothes in to have room for the winter clothing.  It may be the end of August but summer is basically over in the Pacific North West, I won't need my bathing suit again for a bit.

The screens are coming on Thursday!  The goal is to unpack and arrange things so someone can get to all of the windows.  I feel like that is kind of important in this situation.

Out of the old apartment, so now it's unpacking and organising in the boat

Turned in the keys today, I am officially only living in one place!  I will miss the apartment, it was great and close to work, but this new adventure will be awesome too :)

I have one more trip to the storage unit, and I have everything on the boat except for the last of the food and wine.  The next step is to unpack, organize and get rid of the cruff.  I think I'm going to have to get more shelving and small space organisational items before I am totally finished, but I'll get as much done before then that I can.

Bit weight off of my mind having everything finished with the old apartment.

Update! Packing, unpacking, moving and sorting all of the things

Long time in-between updates, I've been busy!

I am almost out of the old apartment, I just have a few things in the storage unit and the fridge, few things in the freezer and then I'm done! 

Unpacking is going to go a bit more slowly.  My saintly cousin came up and helped this all happen.  She met with the movers (third set), did multiple good will runs, helped me identify stuff that I don't need, and pointed out that I need to stop buying pens and post it notes.

She isn't wrong.

So after the last run tomorrow it's all focusing on unpacking the boat.  I think I'm going to have to purge the closet, for the fourth time, and most likely other things. 

It doesn't feel too small yet, but it isn't spacious either.  It's a mental shift, getting rid of all of the things.  Everyone says it's 'freeing' but I honestly keep adding up all of the money I spent on these things that I'm giving away.  I don't have a problem with giving things away, I don't want stuff ending up in the landfill and if I can donate it's so much better, but I find that I am re-evaluating my consumerism.  Not sure yet how I feel about that.  I feel like that is another blog post.

So while the sky is smoky and the moon has turned red again (due to fires north, south and east of us) I'm going to work on unpacking.

Achievement Unlocked -- Comfort Food

Living on a houseboat, a lot of things are exactly the same as living on land, but a few aren't.  Besides the whole toilet situation the stove is very different.  Mine is propane and the tanks are outside in an attached box.  One of them is hooked up to a valve that I can control from the kitchen.  This was the alarm that was going off in the middle of the night, so I had unhooked everything to make sure I wasn't going to die and then cut power to the alarm.

Today I had the system powered up all day with no issues so I hooked the propane back up and lit up the stove for the first time!  I used my new nestable pots and boiled water.  Half a box of Velveeta Mac and Cheese soon followed.  I used the collapsible strainer, I ate it in one of my collapsible bowls (my dishes came in today but the bowls aren't quite big enough) and it all worked!  Yes there is a theme here, collapsible is key when you don't have a lot of space.

I have to turn the valve on here to use the stove

That was the first thing I've 'cooked' here, and it was definitely comfort food.  I honestly think my Instant Pot and toaster oven will end up doing more of the cooking duties than the stove, but it's nice to have options.

Now I"m going to go unhook the propane since I don't 100% trust the alarm.