Rosa Linda Román (00:10): All right. Hello and welcome to New Mexi-Castaways, I'm Rosa Linda Román and I just dropped off my daughter Ahava to her gymnastics school or club or gym. What do you call it? Her gym and found out that she did in fact, make it into the state meet, which is very exciting for her. Although very expensive for us. I just wrote a, or sent a credit card payment for 200 more dollars so that she could compete in the state meet. And part of me doesn't really want her to, because we finally, had kind of come to terms with the fact or she did with the fact that she didn't make the deadline and hadn't gotten, the score she needed to get into the state meet because that was November 9th. But it turns out you can pay a late fee and get in if you qualify before November 25th. Rosa Linda Román (01:31): Well, today is November 22nd and she qualified this past weekend at the meet at her home meet, the beach meet in West Palm Beach. So because of that, she, we kind of went to bat for her and really pushed her coach to make the call and to get her in the state meet, which is in Kissimmee. Which means another trip up to the Orlando area before we sail to The Bahamas. It's been a crazy, crazy whirlwind day week. I mean, it's been a crazy four months since we moved onto the boat, but today I'll have to post a picture of, of the actual boat and how crazy looks right now. There's, on the one hand there's the stain is being like the teeth deck is being not stained, but sealed. And so that's one thing that is going on. Rosa Linda Román (02:38): Our curtains are gone because they need to be redone. The good news is the cushions are starting to be put back together. It turns out our refrigerator and our freezer both completely died when we were off the boat. And we ordered a new one of each, which is another $1,500 each. Because it's a special marine fridge and freezer that is more secure. So when you're underway the food doesn't come flying out. And I don't even know what else, but it also runs on...which one's a common one? It runs on DC power or whatever the opposite of usual, the one that we use our inverter for, sorry, not my area of expertise, obviously, but anyway so this, we were like, why don't we just get a dorm fridge and put it in there? Well, it's because we because of the way the power works on a boat, that wouldn't be the best choice for us. Rosa Linda Román (03:42): So here we are with, um my husband spent the day and yesterday Nathan working with our babysitter's cousin's husband, putting in our water maker, which is the coolest invention ever, where basically convert sea water to drinking water, which is amazing to me! And so there's that. And he's also been taking out the old fridge, the old freezer, and we just got the new stuff delivered only to find out that the freezer is corroded in the back. Brand new. So that makes no sense. So let's see, there's that going on? Just a lot, just a lot. I, I I've been trying to get unpacked. We've been living in a hotel and a vacation rental property for the past month, because if you go back through the archives of this audio podcast, you know, that I we were evacuated from the boat because of a fire that burned our neighbor's boat down to the waterline, destroyed, burned, and then sank. So it damaged ours. Rosa Linda Román (04:56): Our sail is still not on the boat. The sail bag and the sail have been removed. Yesterday, we ran into a situation where I started getting nervous because all of this, the, the fire and trying to get things cleaned up and the estimate and all of that plus, with my parents here visiting, and also trying to just handle the kids and living in a hotel. All of this was going on while my husband was in India for a business trip. And so he was in India and we were trying to get things done, but once he came back, he, you know, there's a lot of things that he knew needed to be done that I maybe didn't know that that was something that had to be handled or I would, I handled it differently than probably should have been. But I did my best and he, you know, he certainly gave me as many kudos as he could. But one of the things that I started to get really nervous about was while Nathan was in India and I was mid, you know, crazy hotel living with the kids and my parents. the, I got a call from someone who said, "Hi, Rosa, Linda, this is so and so." I won't say his name, "We are, I'm the person who Nathan called to come and take the sail bag." Which is the like canvas thing that's on the outside of the, it holds the, the sail. You zip it up. So it, it protects the sail. Well, it got burned from the fire and had to be replaced. So he said, I, I, you know, I talked to Nathan and he told to give you a call, I'm gonna take the sail. Rosa Linda Román (06:39): I mean, not the sail. He just told me he was gonna take the sale bag. And I was like, oh, okay. And I gave him permission. Well, he ended up going to take the sail. His crew came and took the sail bag, plus our sail and removed it and then said he was gonna send us the estimate for what that was gonna cost to replace the sail bag and patch the sail. Cause I guess there's some parts of the sail that needed patching as well. And just the labor in general. And then we heard nothing. We didn't get an email, we didn't get a call. And I started getting nervous cause I had had all these calls coming in and I didn't know even which phone number it was. So I started calling the phone numbers in like from my call log and trying to find out who took our sail. Rosa Linda Román (07:32): And Nathan came back from India and I said, okay, so the, this guy came and took the sail, you have his information. Right. And he was like no, I don't. I'm not sure which company it was or who it was. So I started panicking thinking, oh my gosh, did someone just come and steal our sail and our sail bag? Like, I, I probably would've given them permission. I just, I had no idea, you know, I did the best that I could, but you know, I just really didn't even know what I was doing. So long story short, it was totally legit. They did have permission to take our sail and sail bag, but just the lack of communication and the confusion with Nathan being overseas. And then the guy dropped the ball and forgot to follow up, forgot to send an email and forgot to send the like the estimate. And so he never ordered the replacement sail bag. Nathan finally got in touch with him and he said, oh, I'm so sorry. He sent us this long apologetic letter about how he really dropped the ball. And he was very, very sorry. And he was gonna try to speed up because we are supposed to be sailing to The Bahamas in two weeks or less. And so he said he is gonna order the sale bag and try to have it installed on December 5th. Well, we were gonna sail on the third or fourth or, you know, sometime that weekend .And really that's dependent on getting a weather opening. So the way that works, if you don't know anything about kind of crossing the Atlantic to go from Florida to The Bahamas is you wait until the weather, is you have to wait for weather and make sure that it's a good opening. Rosa Linda Román (09:20): You get a good weather opening because the winds have to go in the right direction. The seas have to be, you know favorable. You know, you've heard the expression, "fair winds and following seas," well, that's what we want. And so we were supposed to be leaving or, we wanna be set to leave by December 3rd or 4th. Well now with the state meet and Ahava getting into the state meet that is December 4th and therefore we will be going to Orlando and sailing after we get back and supposedly they're gonna put our sail and the sail bag back on the fifth. So sometime after December 6th, the plan is to head to The Bahamas. And I'm gonna take a little break and then I'll talk to you more about all of kind of the anticipation. I've already talked about all the problems and crazy, whatever, but now I wanna talk to you when I come back from the break about just kind of what my family is feeling and going through, as we think about this next major step in the journey. All right. So I'll be back in a few minutes. Rosa Linda Román (10:52): Okay. I am back and I just actually dropped off Ahava and gymnastics. It is the day before Thanksgiving now. And so the schedules are all wonky because they're trying to get everybody done before the break, but they wanna also prepare as much as possible for the state meet which I can confirm now as of last night cuz this is actually the day after I did the first half of this recording. As of last night I can confirm she is officially in the state meet. We've paid, we've handled it. It's ready to go. So we will be in Kissimmee December 4th for the state meet. And then after that we will be hopefully sailing to The Bahamas. this morning I reached out to all of my friends that I know in The Bahamas to just kind of touch base and let them know that we're coming and hopefully give them a heads up so we can connect. Rosa Linda Román (11:58): That's the goal. I'm hoping to see as many of our friends from our first time living on the boat as possible. So it's kind of getting me excited now about actually going up until now. I feel like it's been a lot of hoping and thinking and prepping, but no, you know, the excitement was tempered by all of the craziness going on. All of the chaos, all of the uncertainty, the evacuations, the robbery, the, just everything. So now I feel like I'm, it's starting to be real and I'm starting to get excited about really doing this and it's becoming our reality instead of the dream. And that has been really interesting to see how the kids are behaving, how Nathan and I are behaving. We, it's been a very stressful experience as a, as a family, but as a couple, you know, you, I feel like you go up and down as a couple. We've been together almost 20 years and we really have many adventures together. Rosa Linda Román (13:15): And I just feel like I get to know him more and better every, with each new adventure. And I'm grateful that it brings us closer together when we share these experiences. I know of couples who life's challenges really affects them and pulls them apart. And they go their separate ways because as one is growing, the other is growing in a different direction or the stresses of the world take that, you know, break them apart instead of bringing them together. And this is not to say that it's easy. Nathan and I are both very big personalities. And our kids are big personalities. And so it has the potential to be really difficult and disastrous if we let it, but we never let it. We are absolutely on the same team. And we know that and we work together, even when things go wrong. Rosa Linda Román (14:12): We try to always find each other and come back the center quickly. The other day when I was having my tearful meltdown which I'm not now, I don't even know if I mentioned this on the earlier part of this podcast. This is where my brain is. If it wasn't within the last five minutes, it's probably already gone from my brain. But anyway, if, if I didn't mention it I just had a tear fest cry. You know, I had a big cry, meltdown two days ago because I was feeling like I just didn't wanna push this boulder uphill by myself anymore. That's the analogy I had in my brain, but the reality is we are in this together. And when I look around and, and appropriate for this Thanksgiving week when I'm grateful for what Nathan's part is and what he's doing to pull everything together. I mean, yesterday spent the day putting together a watermaker and so that we can have water and he got installed a new fridge because our refrigerator died and he handled the drama or trying to handle it from the fact that the new freezer that they, that we bought is corroded and West Marine doesn't want to replace it, even though they just delivered it. We opened the box or he opened the box and discovered that it was completely corroded. Rosa Linda Román (15:43): On like the, I don't know, one of the mechanisms, one of the, part of the system, like the coolant system, I guess. Some part of the freezer was just corroded like that green battery acid look that you see, you know, what I'm talking about? They said they weren't gonna take it back that we had to contact the manufacturer and have them order a new one and inspect it and then ship out another one. Well, we don't have the time for that. And it was a very expensive refrigerator, I mean, freezer. So Nathan handled that. I don't know if there's a resolution yet, but the fact is he handles a lot of the things that I really hate handling. But I also have stepped up in areas I normally wouldn't like the whole thing about the state meet. Ahava had, she had qualified for the state meet after the deadline, but nobody had done anything to push for her to actually make into the state meet because a, it was after the deadline. And I guess they weren't, they were just busy with other things. And I had learned that you could actually you could actually pay a late fee and she could get in as long as she qualified by the deadline, the late deadline. Well, it turns out yesterday was the absolute late deadline. And I had been communicating with her coach who was very busy and overwhelmed, cuz they've had a lot of, you know, they had their, their meet their actual, what do you call it? Their home meet was this last weekend. And so, you know, they had have a lot on their plate and normally I would just have Nathan handle that. He would, you know, get in touch with the coach and he would follow up with the state meet people and he would figure out all of it. Rosa Linda Román (17:47): Well, he's so busy. I finally just said, you know, that's silly. I can, I can make the calls. I can do this. Even though I've got a lot of other things on my plate, I can do this. And so I handled, I, I know this sounds silly to some people because you're used to handling everything yourself, maybe you're by yourself and you just handle it. Right. But when you have a partner, like I do, a partnership like Nathan and I have, we just kind of work it out that I handle certain things and he handles certain things and it's just how we do it. But it's been interesting to see being on the boat, we all, we both kind of move into the others area. He handles sometimes some things that are more my thing. And like right now he's at volleyball with the kids. Rosa Linda Román (18:34): I had to take Ahava to gymnastics. And so he has Samuel and Ziva at volleyball practice. So all of this to say, as we are moving toward this big journey, the crossing toward The Bahamas it's been fun to see how we are evolving as a couple, how we are evolving as a family. We are really learning how to handle the rough spots with more grace and kindness. And it's not easy. I mean, you find when you're with someone all the time, it's easy to fall into this, the, to slip into bickering and moving into not being supportive of each other and feeling burdened and taking that out on the other person or other people. And we have seen this, our kids go through the ups and downs too, in their relationships. And there are times where you, you can see them kind of bickering and taking things out on each other. Rosa Linda Román (19:40): And how... I feel like it's our biggest, most important challenge and mission to help them learn how to navigate those tough spots, those conflicts in a way that doesn't damage their relationship with one another and with us. So sometimes we do that really well and other times we fail, but I feel like we move more and more in the direction of learning how to do it and how to help each other through it much more quickly and much more kindly than ever before. So that's not to say we don't have our moments. Believe me, each one of us has our trigger points, the things that kind of set us off. And for at least two of us, Ziva and myself, we if we don't eat enough, we tend to forget to eat or we get distracted by everything else. And then we get through, you know, a good part of the day. And by the time we remember that we need to eat, we are hangry as my friend, Kim introduced me to that term, hungry and angry or angry because you're hungry. And so we turn into this hangry, these hangry girls and Nathan always has been really good about checking in and making sure I ate and making sure Ziva eats, but sometimes in the busy craziness of this new life that we're trying to create, that gets lost in the, in translation. And so I'm getting better at remembering to take care of that. I know it sounds ridiculous also to some of you, but it's just kind of how we operate. Nathan, if I was working in New Mexico and I'm busy on a project, he would bring me a sandwich. Rosa Linda Román (21:37): And so, cause he's the cook in our family. So he would, he would feed me and that way I could keep working on whatever it was. But anyway, so, so it's just been interesting. We're getting excited. I feel like the kids are are really starting to get excited about the, about sailing. But it's it's gonna be interesting to see how we do when we actually lose sight of the shore. Ziva is excited about, you know, making the crossing. I think she's a little nervous. Ahava is very glad and excited and she says, when people ask her, you know, how do you feel about living in a boat? She always says something positive, which is so nice. Because Samuel is the opposite. He always says, oh, I'd rather not. I don't wanna be here. I, you know, he always has something to say. He's just, he's just full of comments. If you know Samuel at all, he's just always got something to say. And so that makes it a little challenging for me, cuz I want them to love it. I want this to be an exciting uplifting, positive experience. And it's frustrating when your six year old, cuz he had a birthday two weeks ago. When your six year old's comments are always, I wanna move home. I wanna, I wanna be off the boat. I don't wanna do this. You know, I worry, I wanna make sure that everybody's gonna enjoy it in the long run. But I also, the more I'm around Samuel, consistently, constantly without a break, I realize he's, that's just kind of his default. A little bit of, you know, thinking he needs to complain about everything. So, I'm gonna try to take it with a grain of salt and not let it become my, you know, not let it affect my choices cuz I really think that overall it's going to be a great experience for all of us. Rosa Linda Román (23:44): So that is basically what is on my mind as we are heading to we basically probably if all goes as expected, we will be sailing two weeks from today. And so we'll see there's a lot of anticipation. I find myself not resting very well at night now because I've got a lot on my mind, but it also is because we have no curtains on our boat. So there's a lot of light at the marina and a lot of distractions. So, hopefully they're supposed to get our curtains back in today and the lady who did our boat overhaul, cleaning, fixing all that she is on there right now, staining the teak or sealing the teak. Because the ashes and all the soot really not damaged, I guess. I don't know if that's the right word. It just, it affected how the, how the teak shines. Rosa Linda Román (24:43): So she's working on that right now waiting for word on the curtains, which I basically had her take back to get pressed because when we got on the boat, as I'm sure I already mentioned, they were very wrinkly and ugly and not up to par. So, hopefully by tonight we will have curtains. We will have a pretty clean house because I'm just arriving at the marina and I'm gonna go back and get things more unpacked. We still have things in suitcases from living in hotels. And we are hosting Thanksgiving tomorrow for Ziva's volleyball coaches who we adore. So I'm gonna and do some work and I will check in again before we sail away. I hope you guys are having a fantastic Thanksgiving or if you're listening to this another time of year, I hope wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you have plenty of cause to be grateful and celebrate. Take care. Thanks for this listening to New Mexi-castaways. I'm Rosa Linda Román.