More Preparations

14th July

Back at work and already in full swing. The kids are back at school and the routine is kicking in with extra reading lesson on Tuesdays, Chess on Monday and Wednesday, Cricket practise on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Prefect meetings on Friday and Body corporate meetings in between, the schedule looks to be filling up for the next few weeks. I must remember to keep it clear for the upcoming long weekend when a visit to Yrumoar, with Rauen’s best friend in tow, seems to be in order.

We have started to seriously consider our routine for next year. We will still be running our company but with the added responsibility of home schooling the kids and we want to spend at least 50% of our time at the boat. We have decided to travel between Johannesburg and Richards bay spending 15 days at each end.

Our time up here in Johannesburg will be spent getting the business into a position where our presence is needed less and less until we have a competent management structure in place and putting the finishing touches on our house to make it rent able. Our time down in Richards Bay will be spent ensuring the boat gets ready for our highly anticipated trip.

Another routine that Rauen, Kyle and myself have been discussing is the actual “school time table” we have all only had the experience of actual schooling and will start out with a semblance of this system, adjusting it to meet our needs as we proceed. Our initial plan (my philosophy in life is “any plan is better than no plan”)is as follows:

I am generally very busy at work early in the morning and we have agreed that the first “period” will be “homework”, making the day turn upside down with homework first and class work starting at 10am in our boardroom while in JHB and at the saloon or cockpit table in RB.

Class work, meaning me teaching subject matter, with occur from 10am to 12pm at which point we will break for lunch. We will return for a little more class work in the early afternoon depending on how we fair with getting through the required amount of work and finally ending with the homework to be done the following morning.

We also decided which subjects we will be officially taking and made a complete order list for both Grade 4 and Grade 8 that we are all happy with. It is all becoming very real and the boys and I are very excited to start on our new programme.

I want to share a small part of my daily rituals…

Every morning, in place of coffee, I read a blog on the net. I affectionately call this family of four the crazy people. Why? Because they too are doing what we are doing and I think they are a little crazy…just like us!

They are yet to leave and are documenting their preparations via a blog on the net. They write a short post everyday, you never know what to expect from financing problems to boat repairs and upgrades to drowning information and sewing techniques this family puts it all out there explaining their journey from the decision to cast off the lines and hopefully they continue to document as they go so I can keep my morning fix. Have a look at The Sailboat Family and get a feel for my morning fix, some great ideas and reality checks have come about from their blog.