At Mountaintop’s rising up ceremony the other night, a friend came up to comment on the photos I’ve been sharing on my instagram page. “Hashtag cruising prep,” she said with a grin.

Even the graduation photos.

And the house photos, including the ones of the Great Garage Clean Out as well as projects we’re working on to spiff it all up.

And Vermont photos.

It’s easy to dismiss the life things as unimportant in the scheme of things. To say, '“well, it’s not a boat project so it doesn’t count.” Whether you tick them off from a to-do list or star them on the calendar or spend time reviewing the photos afterwards, they still all need to be done. It’s not like you can just skip ahead to only the boat projects, or (even better) only the cruising - every single thing we’re working on, every single thing that appears as a post on Instagram or on the blog or on my rare appearances on Facebook? They’re all snapshots of things we are doing to prepare to head off cruising, which is, after all, the definition of “cruising prep.” Things you need to do to go cruising!