Well another Christmas has come and gone. Where has the time gone? We spent Christmas with just the four of us this year. Such a relaxing time of lounging around the house, opening presents and eating. It was nice not worrying about entertaining or the expectations of helping out when visiting other people at Christmas. We watched a few movies and overall had a good time. The boy is off to college next month so it was nice to spend Christmas with him.

As you can tell by my picture and the title of my blog that my dream is to live and sail on my boat. My dream is to sail the ocean blue and to my surprise the wife is actually considering this as well. Of course her stipulation is we still need a place on land to store our stuff and live 6 months out of the year but I am hoping both of these are do-able. Actually I am pretty ecstatic that she is willing to share in my dream. I know it is going to be hard work not only acquiring a boat but to live on as well but I think the rewards out-weigh the negative aspects.

This has been my dream since I was a teenager. You see since the age of 7 to the age of 17 I have been going to Europe every other year. I have a cousin who is a year younger than I am and he lives in Holland. The year's that I didnt go to Holland was the years he came to visit me in California and we always had good times. But it was in Holland where we lived on my uncles sailboat in the Summer months and that is where my passion for the water took root. We had so much fun in ports and when we didnt like a place we just packed up and moved to another. There was always so much to do on shore as well as off and I loved it.

After watching the movie "The Bucket List" I decided that this is something I want to do. I have been perusing many websites of boats and of people who are actually livingaboard their boats. The boats I am considering are in the 40 - 50 foot range. I have looked at the Hunters, Vagabonds, Hinkleys and Tartans. All look really nice of course all will depend on my budget. I plan on retiring from the military in two years time and then working as a civilian for five more years. By that time I hope to have some money in savings and my pension. Of course I still have to plan all of this out (get out of debt, sell house, etc) and in the current economy selling the house to just break even will be tough. I think just planning this dream out and putting it down on paper will keep me focused and motivated to make this dream a reality (hence the title of my blog). I also plan on building a detailed plan in Microsoft Projects (awesome software) to get me on the 7 year plan of getting out of debt and saving enough money to pay off the boat and have enough money for expenses and to live off of. Its a tall order but with the Lords help it will be a reality.