After procuring the lines for Puffer, Beloved and I had to figure out how to rig a 34-year-old boat from scratch.  We didn't even know how to properly tie ANY sailing knots.  Thank God for Basic Keelboat and The Handbook of Sailing, from which we somehow learned how to tie a figure eight and a bowline knot and how to rig a 12-foot sailboat when all the lines were lying on the ground in loose circles.

It only took three hours.

Despite the fact I was wearing 50 sunscreen, I managed to earn myself a painful sunburn.  And a bunch of bug bites.

But the result...

I have not felt a greater sense of victory in a long time.

This weekend after the little angel kicked some serious preschool ass at her dance recital, Beloved, she and I spent several hours cleaning up our 1974 AMF Puffer.

Source -- this is not my boat.  If you haven't noticed, I hate taking pictures.  But mine looks exactly like this one. 

The Puffer is 12 feet long, which is essentially like sailing your bathtub.  I can't WAIT to get it in the water.  We bought new sails for it last year, but we never got the chance to put it in the lake because we were, oh, moving, and painting every wall in our upstairs and stuff like that.  This is Puffer's year. I can feel it.  Even though you should never, never go to Bass Pro Shop and look for new sailboat lines, because they will look at you as if your lily sailboat ass has just ripped off their fishing/motorboat heads and shit down their throats.  Then they will point stupidly at utility rope and indicate you should cut your own.

To which you will respond by laughing at them and buying a jolly roger flag and a Diet Coke and storming huffily out of the establishment.

Ahoy!

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Writing about downsizing the family auto today at BlogHer.  And I promise I will get around to picking the Lee Jeans contest winner this week, but I was distracted because I've been buying books to sell at BlogHer, which is three weeks away.  Yikes!