6 ways to get out of a rut (none of which involve a tow truck)

It's mud season in my home state of Vermont, and the term getting out of rut is taken pretty literally right now. Especially after this winter.

image courtesy of www.subaruoutback.org

 To most people, however, that rut isn't a muddy dirt road, it's the feeling we get when life gets boring. "Same ol', same ol'," "Daily grind," etc. It happens to the best of us. (Well I can't speak for the whole world, but I'd say it happens to all of us.) How do we get out of the rut? What do we do when life is boring? When it's the same thing day in and day out?

1. Start a gratitude journal. Or, if that is too touchy-feely for you, every night before you turn the light out, jot down on a scrap of paper three good things that happened. The idea is to make an effort to recognize the good things that are happening in life, even if life doesn't feel so great.
2. Take one thing that you do every day and do it differently, perhaps even better. The easiest way for me to make my day a little better is through food. I cook a special dinner, bake a loaf of bread, or make a dessert. It makes a regular Tuesday a little more interesting.
3. Get some loving. From a simple hug to something a little more x-rated. Get some love into your life. Human touch has proven health benefits like releasing oxytocin and dopamine.
4. Move! But make it fun. If you love the gym and it makes you happy, go there. But if "working out" is a chore, do something different. Put on some music and dance. Go for a bike ride. Find a kid and play tag. Find a dog and toss the frisbee with it. A little bit of exercise and movement and, most importantly, play will lift spirits.
   

   

   I don't know what this "sport" is called, but these adults were having a blast playing on a Saturday afternoon.

5. Be spontaneous. Instead of driving straight home from work or from picking the kids up at school, go somewhere. Go out for pizza. Stop at the deli and pick up sandwiches and have an impromptu picnic dinner. Call a friend you haven't seen for weeks, or days, and meet for a drink or a walk.

   

   An impromptu trip to a beachside hotel let this boat kid jump on the bed. Something she's only had the chance to do a few times in her life and which she thoroughly loved. The joy that resulted from our spontaneity!

6. Think of a more sustaining way to keep from slipping into "same ol', same ol'." Brainstorm a list of things you like to do, or things you wish you could do more often and make an effort to do them. (Practical things. I love snorkeling over coral reefs, but since I don't live near any crystal clear, tropical water, that's not possible. I'll keep that off the list.) 

I feel like getting stuck in a rut is such an easy thing to do. We go through the daily motions of life - doing what is necessary (eating, working, cleaning, sleeping) and what is easy (Facebook, TV) and we forget to take a break from the necessary and the easy to do what we like. There is a little effort involved, but by acknowledging that the rut exists, and that, yes, life can be boring sometimes, will help you get out of that rut, wipe the mud off, and start making daily and weekly life more interesting, more fun, and more inspiring.

small living challenges

Years and years ago, before I even considered living on a boat, I read about Jay Shafer's Tumbleweed Houses. His houses are extreme. The initial concept used a flatbed trailer as their foundation and built up from there - a tiny living room, kitchen, with a loft sleeping area. The toilet was of the composting variety and they look more like elaborate RVs than permanent homes. But the market was there and since I first started checking out Tumbleweed Homes, the movement has exploded.

Then I moved onto a 27' sailboat - a closet compared to a "tiny house."

And now we've moved up in the world, onto a 36' powerboat with an aft cabin. Two bedrooms! Two bathrooms! A back deck! We're living large!

Yet...it's still tiny for 2 adults and 2 growing children. When we first moved to our current marina we thought we'd put the boat up for sale and buy or rent a house. But, nearly one year later, we're still here. Floating through life. There are so many compelling reasons to keep us living aboard in our tiny space. But there are also so many challenges.

What makes it hard?

• We constantly struggle with too much stuff. Too much stuff for us means...an extra throw pillow or blanket on the couch. A new toy. A stack of magazines. In a house these extra things could just get pushed aside into a hidden corner, but on the boat everything is front and center. We have to be conscious all the time of what we buy or are given - we only bring things onto the boat that we have thoughtfully considered and already found a place for. Which means no yard sales or flea markets or thrift stores.
• Tidiness. For peace of mind, it is imperative that we keep the boat tidy. The space is just too small to have cluttered shelves or piles of things on the floor. Since we use all our floor space, and every shelf space is visible, everything needs to be put away, or at least relatively tidy. So picking up, tidying, putting away happens a lot. And this is a foreign concept to me. I've always been VERY messy.
• Everything is micro. The sink. The bathtub. The closet. We can't take a bath in the "bathtub" because it is just too small. It's perfect for the girls, but no dice for us. And try washing dishes in a toy-sized sink. It's a challenge. 

  

  me and a regular sized mug, to try to show the relative size of the sink

• The lack of privacy. I do not exaggerate when I say that the only place I can get any privacy is in the bathroom. I'm sure that's true for most parents, but the bathroom is the only place I can shut the door and be alone. It's about 2' x 3'. And I can still hear every single noise on the boat while I'm having some alone time.
• Sound carries. When the girls nap, all activity on the boat stops. They are very good sleepers, but their v-berth bedroom is only separated from the main cabin by a thin door. They're not upstairs or down the hall. I can't vacuum, wash dishes, or clean the outside of the boat while they're sleeping. Darn. I have to nap or read a book.
• Food storage. This is a hard one. Our fridge is an apartment-sized fridge which is fine in the cooler months, but in the summer when it is HOT outside and in, I have to keep everything in the fridge. All fruit, veggies, bread, etc. And since we eat all our meals at home and we eat a lot of whole foods and produce, we have to go shopping a couple times a week. A gallon of milk takes up a large portion of the fridge and we go through one every 3-4 days. 

  

  that's the fridge on the left. This is an old picture...on the right we now have a 4 burner propane stove top and a small convection oven (which landlubbers would call a toaster oven!) above that.

• Laundry. Yeah. That's up at the marina. Which means I can't do laundry when the girls are napping or after they've gone to bed at night because I can't leave them alone on the boat. I can't throw a load of laundry in the wash and switch it to the dryer when I get around to it, because it's basically a laundromat. I'm sharing with my neighbors so I need to be punctual.
• Temperature control. We basically live in a greenhouse. That's fantastic in the winter, but it gets very hot in the summer. We don't have any big shade trees covering the boat so we live under full sun every day. We do, on the other hand, get great breezes off the water, so that helps. But in the dead of the summer when the a/c is jacked up, it's still 80-85 degrees inside. 

So, with all these challenges, why do we stay aboard? Here are a few reasons:

• the other day at the park, Freja (age 4) correctly pointed out barnacles to her friend who had no idea what she was talking about. 
• Freja doesn't know her left from her right, but she's getting consistently better at identifying port and starboard
• we have a couple crab pots hanging off our dock and we get a few crabs a week. not enough for a meal, but a tasty appetizer.
• We're outdoors almost more often than we're inside.
• We have great neighbors that we see and socialize with on a near daily basis
• We own our boat. The marina pays for water, trash, recycling, internet, laundry. Our bills are low.
• We don't have a lot of stuff.
• We've lived on this boat for almost 6 years...(knock on wood) almost everything works and *currently* our maintenance is low. When Hans has a day off, we can do something fun. No grass to mow, no hedges to prune, no walls to paint.

And this:

Island Time video

Here's a fun promo video I made for my book:

Enjoy!

Basking in the sun

A blustery day at the beach.

There was a flurry of activity and then it stopped. I haven't been writing recently and I've stopped obsessively checking my book sale stats on Amazon and Create Space. I guess I'm following my own advice. I'm starting to live more in the here and now, in the actual real present. Instead of writing about what I'm doing and researching things to do on Pinterest, I'm just doing stuff. It helps that the weather is awesome and I'm outside for hours every day. When it's in the upper 70s and low 80s every day and not too humid, it's hard to stay inside and sit in front of the computer.

We took a day trip to Savannah, GA and enjoyed the gorgeous spring flowers.

Instead I'm working on boat projects like renewing the varnish, brainstorming a massive canvas job, and scrubbing the pollen off the decks. We're going to the playground and the pool; and the girls are learning to ride their balance bikes. Best of all, our dock neighbors are doing the same and our end of the marina has become quite a social place.



I've let go of my need (assumed or real) to write every day and I'm enjoying the spring weather and my time with my girls. I have 101 different things to write about but, for now, my writing is seasonal in nature. I'm sure that I'm just out of practice and I'd truly enjoy sitting down every day and typing at my computer, but, honestly, it's pretty nice to read a book on the back deck or do something productive on the boat. It's just too nice outside! I've gotten my book off my computer and out into the real world, I've assessed my options for my life (work full-time in an office or stay at home with the girls) and I've realized that the status quo is rather good.

So for now I'm giving myself a sabbatical from writing and I'm enjoying each day as it comes. This is entirely new for me as I'm always looking toward the horizon and the next harbor, so we'll see how long it lasts.

Speeding through time zones

at the Hoover Dam, circa 2002

Crossing America at 65mph

 When I was 23 I stood at the edge of Old Faithful with throngs of other tourists waiting for the big geyser to erupt. After ten minutes of waiting I got fed up and we left. I went to Yellowstone National Park, I stood next to the geyser, and I left without seeing it erupt because I was impatient. That is just embarrassing.

Hans and I were driving across country, from Montana to Connecticut. We had done the trip the previous year and we had made a real vacation out of it. Six weeks: Graceland, the Texas panhandle, White Sands National Monument, The Grand Canyon, Vegas, California. Our return trip was more of a trip than an adventure, but we tried to hit some big sites on the way. Like Yellowstone. We were speeding across country; we were speeding through the time zones. How much did we miss by sticking to the interstates as opposed to the Blue Highways?

Intentional travel. Slow down, see the sights

In his book Along the Edge of America, Peter Jenkins runs a boat along the Gulf Coast shoreline from the Florida Keys to the Texas-Mexico border. He writes "I could not have done this particular boat trip when I was twenty-two. I had to . . . learn to slow down, to be vulnerable, to understand both how different and how alike people can be." (p. 274) I hear you Peter Jenkins. I can say, without a doubt, that if I were at Yellowstone today, I would wait for that geyser to erupt.

How long does it take to get to know a place and its people? The argument for "forever" can be made. Or, "you'll never know a place till you live there." Back in my college years, Swedes told me that you never break the ice with Swedes until you get drunk together. (And Swedes can get rip-roaring drunk.) In a place with four seasons, like my home state of Vermont, you can say that you never really know it till you've lived through the grips of winter in January, mud season in March, and leaf-peeping season in October.

But what about the traveler? If you have a two-week vacation, is it even feasible to think that you might get to know a place, or its people? Or should you just scrap the idea of finding cultural and social connections and just book a room at an all-inclusive?

Don't even.

Create memories, make friends, find a sense of place

I have some fantastic memories from my travels, from places we only stopped for one night, or spent one afternoon or three days.

• There was the family on the west coast of Puerto Rico who were our personal tour guides for a day. They wanted to get into the tourism business, we were their guinea pigs. Win win.  The next day they invited us to their house for Thanksgiving, and the day after they came sailing with us. We spent three days together but those days were so rich and so full.
• I'll never forget the night in Bequia when we watched the returns roll in for the 2008 Presidential election. We were the only Americans, the only tourists in a bar/fried chicken shack and we celebrated raucously with the island's residents.
• And, most recently, there was the mechanic in South Carolina who, after diagnosing our engine as dead in the water, invited us to his boat to show the girls his shark tooth collection. It was a glimpse into a different life - a cigarette-smoking, soap opera-watching life - that reminded me that we're all unique, but still the same. I shudder at the damage to the girls' lungs in those 10 minutes we were aboard the boat, but the mechanic and his wife were so sweet with the girls and they loved boats. As Freja likes to say: same-same.

Of course, while a week spent lounging on a beach chair at an all-inclusive would be infinitely relaxing, it's just not for me. When I travel I crave social connection, human interaction, newfound cultural insights. Being away from home and outside of my comfort zone does not stress me out or make me anxious. Quite the contrary. Stepping outside of my daily life is precisely what relaxes me.

Valentine's....week

Freja diligently worked on Valentine's cards all day. (That's face paint.)

Week-long holidays

When I was in my twenties (free and untethered), I used to love to celebrate my birthday week. I've always loved my birthday, but an entire birthday week was a great excuse to go out to eat multiple times in the same week. Cake? Yes, please.

I'm noticing that more and more holidays are jumping on the long-term bandwagon. Christmas is popping up among the Halloween decorations and Thanksgiving starts on Wednesday and extends through Sunday. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for taking time off work and spending it with family and friends, but it's getting kind of confusing for the young-uns.

Valentine's day week

Freja is just getting the grasp of holidays but take Thanksgiving, for example. First of all, she kept calling it Halloween. My explanation of the holiday was a simple: "we remember what life was like a long time ago by eating special food and being together with our friends and family. It's on a Thursday, so you won't go to school." Except we went to church on the Sunday prior to Turkey day and had our Thanksgiving feast there. And the next day one of Hans's colleagues hosted a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for people that may have to work on the actual day. And, finally, we celebrated (and ate) with friends on the actual day. At that point, Freja was done with Thanksgiving. Next.

A pink week

Now we're up to Valentine's day. Again, I keep the explanation simple: "it's one day a year, February 14, when we tell everyone we love how special they are to us and that we love them. We can give people cards to show them how much we care." February 14. Every year. Well, it will be a 3-day, 4-party celebration for us. It rained all day yesterday so Freja spent the day gluing together doilies and glittery hearts for her classmates. Tomorrow there is a party at her school; in the afternoon we're going to a cookie decorating party. There's a potluck at the marina on Friday night. And then, of course, there is the actual day that needs celebrating. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, at least not too much. But it can get overwhelming. Head over to Pinterest to take a look at all the Valentine's crafts you can do or the cake you can make or the mini-tartlets you can bake. Schools throw parties for all the tiny holidays. Everything must be recognized! The crunchy earth mom side of me feels very guilty for not celebrating the solstices and surely I must have some Irish in me around St. Patty's day.

Anyway, just my observation on the escalation of holidays. Is it consumerism? Is it competition? Or is it just an excuse to party with friends, (be them little kids at an Easter egg hunt or adults waking up with Bloody Mary's on Valentine's Day)? Maybe it's as simple as the that: celebrating the random holidays with vigor as an excuse to be with friends and family. I'll subscribe to that rationale.

Island time, defined.

 Island time

I'd never heard of the term "island time" until I spent some time in the Caribbean, in the islands. When I first heard the term, it was often spoken with Western values...fellow boat owners or ex-pats who were trying to get something done, on Western time, and it just wasn't happening. Long lunches, siestas, red tape, power outages, spontaneous national holidays, etc. From a Western point of view, residents of the Caribbean islands operate at a totally different pace than residents of, say, Washington DC or New York City. (Heck, doesn't everyone operate at a different pace than New Yorkers?!) I get it. Born, raised, and having spent the majority of my life stateside, being impatient is almost like an inherited character trait.

Definitely not on island time. Image courtesy of digitalspy.com

You should have seen me in line at Starbucks the other day. (Yes, that was me. Loudly sighing, tapping my foot, checking my phone, sighing again.) By the time I got to the car and gave the girls their promised cake pops, I was ranting up and down about indecisive people and bad customer service. Then I laughed. The girls were happy and my husband was taking a minute to check facebook. The only person who was upset was me. Hang on, didn't I just write and publish a book all about how to live on island time in the rat race?

Island time, as a state of mind

So what does island time mean? It certainly doesn't mean getting all huffy while I wait in line at Starbucks. If I type "island time" into my Pinterest account, I get flooded with images of turquoise water, hammocks, and white sand beaches. Yeah. That's island time. But, to me, it's so much more than that. It's a state of mind. And if it's a state of mind, it can be independent of geography. Of course lounging in a hammock and sipping a rum punch are very conducive to island time, that's not necessary. How do you feel when you're lying in that hammock?

Relaxed.
Calm.
Connected to nature.
Settled.
Quiet.
Restful.

Easier said than done

I type this as one of my girls is napping on the living room floor after screaming for half an hour that she wasn't going to sleep and the other one is on and off fussing in her bed. Typical toddler: deliriously happy, no, wait, furiously angry. I have a lot of background chatter that pulls at my heartstrings and makes it very difficult to achieve that kind of hammock relaxation.

Relaxing in a hammock, figuratively

Hanging out with my girls. Not on a tropical beach, but definitely relaxed and happy.

But I also know what relaxing like that feels like, and I try to order my priorities and my to-do list to be more conducive to internal island time. I cross things off without doing them. If it needs to get done, it'll get done. I go outside, a lot. I meet with friends, a lot, and create and embrace my community. I do things that make me happy - I cook, I bake, I write. I embrace the concept of mañana, mañana. And I still get stressed. There is always a million things to do and places to be and people to see. But I try to prioritize the here and now with the goal of living the good life today. Being happy, today.

How about you? What does your island time look like?