be prepared

We are leaving on Sunday for a much needed holiday of fishing, knitting, reading, napping, eating, napping, reading, and fishing. The six month span from the last trip in October to the first trip in April always seems long to us. We have endured the "holidays", the cold and colds, the dark, the lack of most regular exercise and too much time spent indoors. So we looking forward to just sitting outside in the sun. And probably the wind, hopefully no rain, and this year, no snow is forecast. The air will be clean, and we are leaving behind electronic devices. No TV, no internet. Well we really don't watch TV, but we both seem to have an attachment to the internet. Fortunately smart phones have not found their way into our lives yet. I'll have to save up all those things I want to look up. And I will have to live without the sports page for a few days. Our house sitter will leave them all for me. So if  Timmy pitches that perfect game I can read about it later.  But now the order of packing.
I have been working on my knitting projects for weeks, gathering yarn, knitting bands for potential tams. After the wool, comes the reading material. After that my yoga props, this is a good trip for yoga in fresh air. And I finally did the much needed repair on my chair. The seat gave way the last day of a two week trip in September. This chair has traveled the world with me, but it's needed some maintenance. None of the fabric pieces are original. We have replaced tents, sleeping, bags, stoves, air mattresses and vehicles and I am sitting in the same chair.  As usual I will probably have enough projects for a month, not a week. But at least I will be prepared for the next trip.

Hopefully it will be warmer this trip.

But after the projects comes the food. We have discussed menus.  I am gathering the appropriate picnic items. The small cooler, cloth napkins, and thermos are packed. Potato chips, have to remember to put them on the shopping list. We always know we are on vacation when we are eating potato chips. There was one year I hit Safeway at the last minute, and came home with bags of both Fritos (for Mike) and Ruffles (for me). They were not small bags either. I think I'd had a rather harried day at the office. Fortunately the piano shop does not usually produce such harrowing days, and we can probably last on one bag of chips. Mike is in charge of  breakfast, and the main chef for dinner. My job is lunch. With the addition of my fancy plastic sandwich holders I got very creative on my sandwiches last year. It's always hard to get creative sandwiches into small plastic bags. And then there is afternoon snack, again my job. And we are bringing the Kelly Kettle which allows us to make tea streamside, A very handy device, considerably cheaper when we added it to our equipment.
Finally come the clothes. I love this trip, t-shirts and jeans, with layers of warmth to go along. But no special clothes to go out to dinner, the most I think about is packing bright t-shirts that show off well in photos. There is footwear of course, not to be taken likely, the conditions may call from jandals, to gum boots. And extra socks. I think somehow the girls scouts must have had packing lists that always included extra socks. I must be prepared.