Decisions, decisions, decisions. Thrumming our fingers on the desk does nothing to help with some decision making. Like whether to allow our blog to make money for us. Yes, that’s becoming a ‘thing’ that we have to decide about because suddenly (well, not really that suddenly) we have had a couple of offers from people to advertise on our site. I guess it’s not really that much of a surprise since we’ve been blogging for 5 years in October. We have a lot of posts, even if some of them get more traction than others.

We’d be lying if we said that we never hoped we could make some change from this blog, but that has never been our primary purpose. We’ve blogged because it sharpens our focus on our goals, helps us meet cool people, and documents an important time in our lives for us and for our children. We hope that after we are dead and gone they will be able to pull up the blog and say, ‘Wow, our parents really did something. Remember when they spent all of our inheritance on a boat and sailed away?’. At the rate we are spending money, the blog may be our only legacy. If people are entertained by our blog and get some ideas from us, that makes us feel good and like we’ve contributed something to others. Plus, we like to write. It’s always been a win for all those reasons.

But now that we are getting closer to ‘living on a fixed income’,  we are asking to be shown other ways of bringing in a little cash. The Universe has responded by offering up a couple of small-time opportunities with the blog. One young company wrote to us and asked if we’d be willing to model their shirts on our blog. We had such a good laugh over that one because the last time anyone asked us to model something for them was… exactly never. We are not young. We are not hip. We do not party. We are boring, thoughtful middle aged people. Also we do not photograph all that well and neither of us have cheekbones. But they seem to like the cut of our jib, so they are either desperate or they have us confused with our kids. But I thought it would be fun, so I said yes. Why not? Free shirts, anyone? If you suddenly see us parading a couple of unusual looking shirts on the blog and linking to a place where you can purchase the shirt for yourself, you’ll know we decided they were okay and we didn’t look too terrible in them.

From our travels to Washington D.C. Traveling costs money.

The other offer was some kind of marketing company in the UK who approached us wanting to publish a guest post related to boating and travel on our site. They would pay us a nominal fee for the privilege. We were suspicious because it sounded a little too easy. We’re always suspicious when things are too easy. But we do get to be ‘in charge’ of it, and we can look the article over and reject it if it looks too hinky. On the other hand, the subject sounded like something we’d like to know about ourselves, so we said yes to it. When I think about the number of hours we’ve put into this website, so far the amount of easy money we could potentially make at this point is somewhere around $.0000000001; a number I am completely making up and that is so infinitesimally small that it could well describe your chances of that Nigerian prince coming up with the money he promised if you’d only share all your banking information. Yay! We will be rich!

Anyhow, heads up. If we post something someone else writes, we will post it as a ‘guest’ post and it will be labeled as such. If we get paid to post something, we’ll tell you. Also, I guess it should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyhow: if we don’t like something, it won’t appear here. If we don’t find it pertinent, it won’t be on our blog.  I’m fairly certain we’re not going to be flooded with requests to become spokespeople for Gill or West Marine, or that our blog is going to be gobbled up by corporate entities who don’t give a crap about the voice of the blog. But, you know, if West Marine needs any more spokes people, I’m looking for a part-time job and I know how to talk. (I’m especially interested in testing and reviewing things like Sat Phones, sailing hardware, dinghies, and head rebuild kits.)

We’re thinking maybe we can make enough change to keep us in coffee if these offers pop up occasionally. Why the heck not? Anyone else have any free stuff they want us to try out and review for them? Bring it on!

From the Library of Congress. I was in complete awe. Europe has nothing on this. Breathtaking.