Happy birthday to me! And a collection of ramblings

Apologies, this turned into a bit of an epic collection of thoughts. As usual they are interspersed with distractions and interruptions along the way. You might want to read this one in a couple sittings.

Can you believe it's been 40 days and 40 nights since we set out on this adventure? Me neither. I'm kind of hoping that instead of the rain stopping, it means we've made it through the worst of the breaking and replacing things, and that maybe Dad will take a deep breath.

Its also a bit of a shocker that I just survived to see my 28th birthday, this long on a boat with my Dad had the potential to push past the breaking point.I know as you get closer to 30 you're supposed to start to feel old, or at least that's what I've heard.

When you look at it from the point of view that my Granny is 97 and is the coolest Granny ever, then relatively speaking I'm barely out of training pants. Besides if I'm half as cool as she is, even at half her age then I figure I'm doing alright... she went down the big waterslide at West Edmonton Mall when she was 80. Yes, I'm fairly confident, that's where all my crazy comes from *s*

It's crazy how my priorities have changed on this trip. I don't have that many different clothes to choose from, so my toughest first world dilemma in the morning is what colour tank top I'm going to wear. The important things that I grab when I go out somewhere are my hat, sweatshirt, camera, and my laptop if we're going to be near wireless.

I do miss having 24/7 access to Wikipedia and Google, but it's not the end of the world, I just have to remember things and look them up later. It's also been weird not having my cell phone, but again not as important as I used to think it was. I do miss the random text messages relating family gossip or something funny that just happened... although I know the good stuff will resurface around a campfire *grins*

Its almost like we've slowed down to pioneer times, Dad has had considerably more frustration adjusting than I have. The thing is that peole have always made things work, so if you don't have what you need to make it work one way, well sometimes it helps to think about how Granny would have done it.

It's moderately embarrassing to admit this, but when I moved into my friend's old place, I was living there for a bit without a microwave... and I kid you not, one day I went to make soup for lunch and just stopped, my brain went completely blank. I was all "Omg I don't have a microwave to warm my soup up in." *long pause* Then I had a "wait a minute..." moment, people have been eating soup long before microwaves were invented. Then I honestly did the "Hmmm how would Granny heat up soup?" ... D'oh! But ever since then it's been a lot easier for me to take a step back from how I've always done things, to the fact that there are usually other ways to do the same thing... involving little or no modern day technology.

The pace of things has slowed down, partly because doing anything on the boat takes so much longer, but also partly because there is less that has to be done 'right now'... it seems like even simple tasks take more energy. I'm not sure if its because my body is constantly balancing itself and running interference between my stomach and my eyeballs, or if it's just all the extra fresh air.

Thus far it has been a wonderful combination of what I thought it would be like, and things that never even crossed my mind. I've learned a lot, but still feel like there is so much more I would like to learn... and I sitll have lots of projects in various stages of being started.

All in all, it's been a pretty awesome trip so far!