Cruising with the Crew - LJ Part 2

It's Cruise Ship Saturday! Today is part two of the rough draft on LJ, a cruise ship crew member.

Part 1 of the chapter on LJ, a cruise ship crew member, can be found on June 23.

When you are young you enjoy working on the ship. If you are coming from a country that is poor, you are excited to work at your first cruise ship job for $500 or $600 a month. But when you are 40 with a daughter who is growing up and a wife who misses you? For LJ, with those 13 years of experience, his $1,000 a month job doesn’t pay for fixing the house and supporting a wife and child – and future children - from afar. 

At what age do you decide that enough is enough? That it is more important to be home with your wife and eight year old daughter than fold pool towels for passengers who are just going to dirty them in a few minutes anyway? Is it worth your time having to be kind to those passengers who are nothing but disrespectful to you, the ones that treat the crew members like they aren’t humans but animals? Isn’t it more important to provide a life for a family who doesn’t get to spend enough time with you than cleaning up the dirty cups kids threw into the pool? 

Ship life chews you up and spits you out. We’ve seen it again and again. Long hours, little pay, pain-in-the-rump adults and kids with no manners wear you down. At some point you have to move on. It’s not a decision that comes easily for LJ. 

There are things he will miss about ship life. For a poor boy from Honduras the opportunity to travel is something he never expected he’d get to do. Seeing the world is something he definitely will miss. But at his age, there isn’t much else. He’s more than happy to get away from those supervisors who are not kind to their crew. And the luggage. Oh, the luggage. On every cruise, crew members deliver each and every piece of passenger luggage to their cabins. On a ship with 3,000 passengers there could be 10,000 pieces of luggage that have to be delivered within the first day. Heavy, bulky luggage. Too much luggage. 

LJ is ready to say goodbye to it all. He has just a few months left on his contract and then he’ll head back home to be with his wife and daughter for good. Plans are being made but financial concerns loom heavy on his mind. But he knows he has to do it. For his family.

The Friday 15

Today's downsizing 15 is a sewing room clean up.

2 rolls of contact paper, 1 roll of interfacing, and 1 pack of wall decals.
4 plastic containers and 1 stack of envelopes.
1 cutting mat and 1 pack of pipe cleaners.
2 spools of ribbon and 2 tracing wheels.

15 more gone!

Olympic National Park

It's Wanderlust Wednesday! Today we're talking about Olympic National Park in Washington.

1. The park is huge! It's almost a million acres big. To see it all you'll need more than just a couple days.

2. You'll find mountains, beaches, and rain forests - all in the same park.

3. You can't just drive through the park from one entrance to the other. From Highway 101 you can take side roads to get into the park, but to just drive through it like you might at Yellowstone? Nope.

4. You can see Canada from the park. See that city in the distance? It's Victoria, British Columbia.(Sorry, not the best of cameras.)

5. The weather can be unpredictable. Hurricane Ridge can have strong winds, heavy snow, and good ole blizzards. Even heading into the summer, snow can be several feet deep while you're enjoying a back-of-the-car picnic lunch.

Make a Quick and Easy Fabric Strip Potholder - Tutorial Tuesday

Today's project is a super quick and easy way to use up some of those leftover fabric strips.

For this project you will need:

• Fabric strips
• Muslin fabric for the foundation
•  cotton batting or Insul-Bright 
• Backing fabric
• Glue stick (optional)
• Pins or Clover Wonder Clips
• Iron
• Sewing machine
• Matching thread
• Rotary cutter
• Cutting ruler
• Cutting mat

Click to get your copy of the written version of the pattern today!

Looking for something else? Check out some of my other kitchen sewing and crafting projects!

Disclosure: Deb's Days is a participant in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to affiliated sites. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you new sewing and crafting content.

You can find the step-by-step how to tutorial for the homemade fabric strip potholder sewing project here: