Well the last coat of primer went on last night. J walked in the door around midnight. Now we just have to scuff this coat, and I think we are painting this weekend! Yippee! With a whole 2 weeks to spare! Wow! Now for those of you who are new to this, trust me when I say, this is a first. The boat is normally still in the curing mode while driving down the freeway to the first race. I don't know why this seems to come so fast every year. It isn't like we don't know at the last race that the first one is in the spring. Yet it still jumps us every time. Some year, I have faith in the fact that we will have the boat ready by the end of Feb. Or better yet, by the end of Jan!! :-) I think that today is a daydreaming day for me! Maybe it has something to do with 4.5 hours of sleep, but I am being very optimistic this morning. Probably won't be so much by this afternoon......pretty grumpy would be my guess. Just in time to work on the boat. Honestly though, we aren't on it every waking moment like I must make it sound, I have been getting emails on how are we spending time with the kids, working on the house, or even getting laundry and dishes done. Well for those questions, I will say this. If you knew me well, you would know that it takes a whole lot of motivation for me to get the laundry and dishes done anyways, so the boat doesn't really change the frequency of those.(hehe) As far as the kids, I spend a good chunk of my day with them, so I don't think that the 2-3 hours in the evening are going to really be a bad thing for them. Not to mention that they are at the shop with us, riding bikes or playing on the computer or having broom races through the shop, whatever might entertain them that night. And working on the house.....*sigh* that's just a pipe dream. It might get done in the next 10 years. Maybe. I am being really optimistic on that one! Sooooooo on I go. Sorry, had enough questions about that, that I felt this would be simpler to put here than responding 40 million times..

So, I have every intention of taking pics of the boat tonight, so look for them by the end of the weekend, and you can see the lovely PURPLE primer we have on it now!! Tata!

Well, the 2 motors are getting close to done, just waiting for some last parts to come in. Guess what I am doing? Yep! Still sanding... I have just a few hours left on this coat, then we do one more coat of primer, sand that, then paint. For those of you who are wondering why so much sanding and priming, here's why. Unlike a car, we can't really use the bondo (sp??) to fill in the low spots, because believe it or not, that stuff is heavy! I know it doesn't seem like it, but think of how much that can weighs.... then transfer that weight to the boat. So we sand instead. This way, it fills in the lows, but the highs get sanded off, therefore, we are only filling the absolute needed spots. Now on to the paint. If you use bondo on a boat, it has the possibility of cracking or separating when the boat flexes. And it really flexes. We wound up using it on one line last year, and that line was bubbled under the paint after the first heat.

So when we paint the boat, the real colors, we will use as little of paint as possible. Once again, weight. 1-2 gallons is pretty heavy! When we rack ours brains on how to get/keep the weight down/off, this is one of those "hidden" things. I mean really! Who in their right mind has really thought of how much weight paint puts on their car, boat....etc... I hadn't until I was carrying the paint into the shop a few years ago, and in my typical style, complaining the whole way about how heavy the stuff was..... Then watching a dawning look go across Jim's face, it came to me also on the weight.... Oh how some things get discovered! I am sure there are many people out there that are sitting there going DUH! I knew that already! Well in my defense, nobody TOLD me! So anyways, that is the really long reason for not using bondo..... And now students, that is your lesson for the day, I will be reviewing your knowledge on this next week! :-)

Man, in case you have forgotten, let me remind you how much I hate sanding.....YUCK! My arms hurt, my clothes are nasty, and I have a grand total of 1/2 a sponson sanded. Yuck. That is about all I have to say! But since you are here reading, I guess I will say a bit more. Hmmm let's see. The backup motor is almost done, not as pretty as the first, but almost done! We are rapidly coming up to Moses Lake, and really starting to feel the time pressure now! I have so many things going on already, that I am having a hard time coming to grips (why doesn't that sound right?) on having to add races into this packed schedule of mine. I don't remember who told me once upon a time that a mom might get some free time every now and then, but man oh man, they were most likely not a mom would be my guess! And I can guarantee they didn't race! On the flip side of all this, I can't wait to catch up with all our friends from the races. I keep in contact through email, but that just doesn't cut it for 6 months. So looking forward to that! Ok, I get to go sand some more tonight, so I will keep updating, and I have my camera in the truck to take some pics for you!