When we were together with our friends, we were asked a number of questions about our lives which I thought that you might enjoy hearing as well.  We all were asked so many more great questions, but I don’t want to bore you with them all.    If you do have any specific questions that you’d like to know, please feel free to email Jane (Jane@sailimagine.com) & Jane will respond & keep adding below.

1.  “Other than family and friends, what do you miss most?” 
- Although I love our life, there are definitely things that we miss about life in the good old US.  Being with our family and friends is, of course, at the top of the list.  But, I have to say that the modern convenience that I miss most is a dishwasher.  I have come to fully appreciate this wonderful modern appliance.  Some days, I feel like Marc and I and the kids are doing dishes all day long especially because our lifestyle doesn’t contain many restaurants, take out foods, or frozen prepared meals.  We also are not sending kids or husbands to school or work with lunches.  So, we are eating a lot of meals on the boat and that means A LOT of dishes.  The other thing that we miss a lot, that goes along with the food theme, is being able to pick up the phone and order out.  Living in Chicago, we had every type of food at our disposal for delivery any time we wanted.  It was a little too convenient to order out….that is certainly not the case anymore as we haven’t had delivery in about 2 years. 

Although, I didn’t realize it until we visited Chicago the intangible thing that I miss the most is familiarity.  As I drove around our old neighborhood going to friends’ homes, eating at restaurants, and shopping, I realized that I knew where everything was and how to get there without maps and directions.  That is the first time that this has happened since we left Chicago and I hadn’t even realized that I missed it.  Although I love visiting all of these gorgeous places, we are visitors there.  And we always have to find the grocery stores, customs offices, attractions, etc.  Which is often fun, but it if also sometimes tiring and it was comforting to be in a familiar surrounding for a change. 

2.  “Have you ever been scared?” 
Of course, I’ve been scared just like all parents are scared of things.  But I have to admit that I haven’t been scared of the things that most people would expect.  There have been very few times that I have been scared while we were sailing.  We have had some bad weather that has been hairy and yes, a little scary.  But I trust our boat and Captain Marc.   The thing that sometimes scares me and once in awhile keeps me awake at night are the parenting questions….”Are we doing the right thing for the kids?”, “How will they adjust to life back on land?”, “Am I a good teacher?”, “Will they be prepared for school when we return?”.  Although, I believe, more than ever, that this whole experience is extremely positive for the family.  As a mom, these are the questions that worry me, not so much weather, or sharks, or diseases, or the questions that are asked most frequently.

3.  “How do you handle being all together on a boat everyday….I mean being with your husband and kids ALL the time can’t be easy?” 
OK, I have to admit that sometimes being on a 48 ft sailboat with 4 other people isn’t easy.  There are times, when we get on each other’s nerves but I really don’t think that it is any more often than we did in our land life.  In fact, I actually think that for Marc and me it is less.  Since, we have very few outside influences; we don’t have a lot of things to argue about.  Most of our issues or problems are all of our problems and we are all in it together.  Even when things don’t go smoothly, we’ve all got to work together to fix it.  It’s actually pretty cool.  But, of course, I am glad that Imagine has a large master cabin and everyone knows that when Mom goes in the room and closes the door, she might need a little time out. 

4.  “At any point during your trip back to the US, did you want to stay “home” and not return to the boat (except to get Marc)?” 
No.  It was great to be back in the US and see family and friends that we have missed so much but there was never a time when I wanted the trip to be over and to stay on land.  We are still enjoying the cruising life and I feel that we have so much more to see and do.  That all being said, we really do miss everyone and it was sooooo good to see the people that we love.  We all look forward to having more visitors on Imagine or returning home to visit.

5.  “Are you Green (meaning environmentally)?” 
This was a great question.  I have to say that we are all green by default.  I was definitely not a very “green” person when we were in Chicago.  I usually found it too difficult or time consuming to even recycle my own garbage and often wondered where those “blue” bags really went. But out here cruising, we are VERY “green” in a totally different sense.  Out here, we are “green” through conservation.  We conserve everything and use very little of the items that are very bad for our environment, primarily because, we have to and we don’t want the garbage.  We never use plastic water bottles, we almost always take our own grocery bags and don’t use plastics, we re-use everything (included zip locks), we never use paper plates or plastic silverware, and we use only enough fossil fuel to run the boat which is probably less than most people use just to drive their car.  But that being said, we still almost never recycle our garbage.  That would be a little tough, when many of the places that we visit don’t have paved roads, many cars, or hospitals – it’s a little too much to ask for them to have recycling facilities.   But, if we all try to conserve as much as we can, we wouldn’t need to recycle quite so much.  I certainly hope that this is one trend that we continue when we return to the US after the trip.