I saw the above picture on Abe Pieciak's Facebook page while scrolling the other day. Of course it caught my eye. It was the S.S. Archer ready and waiting for use on Menemsha Pond. It seems like only yesterday I dragged Theresa down to North Philly to meet with a mad scientist
who designed and built her, HERE. That was in January 2024. I saw the ad on, but where else, Facebook Marketplace and as soon as I saw I thought two things, "I have to have it", and, "This would be perfect on Red Beach". It was last year when Abe and I were were standing over it and we both agreed it belonged on the Vineyard for good. Abe made some modifications and I can't wait to check it out in just a few weeks time. I have an attachment that allows for the mounting of a trolling motor so I'll bring that up and see if it'll work. Better to have horsepower over manpower to get this around. As much as life is a tad chaotic now I'm getting excited to head north in a few weeks. I really need a change of venue.
We're now officially under contract for the sale of the house. This is an attorney's contract, so no attorney review, it is binding when the ink hit the paper after the four of us signed.
The closing date was pushed back to "On or before July 16th" which allows some time to get the mortgage done and some breathing room for us to finish up getting out of here. Today we're heading down to Cape May to open up what might be our home for this summer. I thought about bringing down my fly rod and stuff to hit the jetty but my racing thoughts coupled with the need to get work done wouldn't allow me to enjoy it. If you remember it was May 25th of last year when I dropped a giant fish in some real sloppy weather, HERE. I know if I went the chances of catching a post-spawn fish would be pretty good. But I'll just have to wait until next spring. I spoke with Leif yesterday and we came up with an early plan for next year. I'll come back up, hit the Delaware River, then we'll go to the Upper Delaware for a few days before heading to the Vineyard. Now that sounds like a bucket list few weeks.
We've been looking for that perfect home down in Sun City but it's not easy. One, we're hundreds of miles away, and two, there's a ton of other people in the hunt for a home.
We keep finding homes we like and are ready to move on but often they are recently under contract and Zillow hasn't updating the status. So we get excited, and then bummed out. Two days ago we made an offer on a home only to find out yesterday morning they had another offer come in. We'd be buying it sight-unseen having to trust Zillow and our real estate agent who has a good feeling of what we're looking for. Being so far away you can't just jump on a plane every time a house comes up on the market. And having a contingency in the contract based on the sale of our house doesn't make us strong buyers. I wish we could close, have a pocket full of cash, and then just find one and write a check. So fingers crossed and we'll see what happens. The seller is in the hospital, status unknown, so that could be a little roadblock. But if it's not that one there will be another, and maybe better, it's all in God's hands anyway.
And if the stress of the sale and purchase, and opening up Cape May, isn't enough, work, while fun, comes with stress as well. This coming Monday the students will take one of two exams this semester. If you're a teacher then you know what the stress of exams can bring. You try and prepare them, write a good exam, and then hope for the best.
Yesterday I tried something new. In preparation for the exam I had the class split into two. Each group would write 20 questions, one group from week ones lecture, the other from week 2. They did a great job prioritizing the important stuff and came up with some pretty good questions. The exam is already printed out and in the Dean's office so it's not like I could take what questions they came up with and use them. I think they're ready and I anticipate high scores and happy faces on Monday. I hope so because right after the exam they'll sit for lecture on schizophrenia and psychosis, somatic, dissociative, and eating disorders.
But overall the timeline is looking good. Last day of class is June 12, leave for the Vineyard June 13-20th, final exam on the 23rd, and a few weeks until the closing the second week of July. We still have the attic to go through and have to get the dumpster picked up this week, but we'll get it done. It looks like things are going as planned, and pretty smoothly, but I say that not wanting to jinx it all. I'm sure they'll be a bump in the road, and we'll deal with it when it comes.