Choices

I've got too many.  I'm trying to narrow down to a manageable number the books we'll bring on this trip.  I mean we'll be gone 7 weeks.  That's a lot of books.  A.  Lot. of. Books.  I was pretty proud of myself this evening when I narrowed down the choices to just a few piles.  I mentioned this to Lego Kid, who looked at my piles and rolled his eyes.  "That's already too many to carry Mom, and still not enough."

That's us.  Here's  where the e-books might help.  Just in the last 2 years we went from no e-books to 2 rooted Nooks, 1 Kindle Fire, and one Simple Nook.  Of them all, my fave to read on is the Simple Nook.  The Kindle is the only one that I have control over though, so that's the one I load up.  I don't actually get to use it, since the kids seem to think it's theirs, but there you go.

I still have to decide what to load.  I wish I could just push a button and have every classic I've always meant to read on it, but it doesn't work that way.  And how's a girl to know where to start? 

There's the Project Gutenberg.  You can search by author, title or subject.  I typed in sailing life and children, and got some good suggestions. Looking up by author I got Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, L. M. Montgomery,.... Do we, or do we not, live in the most amazing times?  I can find, at the click of my fingers the works of all the best books ever.  Thus I am totally stymied by the tyranny of choice.  Moby Dick?  Of course.  Tolstoy?  I should.  Dostoevsky?  Well.... I'm looking forward to a cheerful holiday.  I don't see that he'll help.

So let's think about audio books instead.  Libribox is to audio books what Project Gutenberg is to written books.  There aren't as many choices here, simply because they haven't gotten around to everything available through Gutenberg, but they're working on it. 

As just a side note, the Kindle needs a MOBI format, Gutenberg has this available for most books.  Not all places do, most e-readers (that are not Kindle) use EPUB.  (Cory Doctorow, for instance, publishes his e-books for free, but general in an PDF, HTML or plain text)  I've had pretty good success using Calibre to format them for my Kindle.  (Thanks to Firelord for his tech support!)

And then I feel the need to tell all of you about this, instead of winnowing the piles of books sitting in the hall.   My bad. 

But wait, you can help me!  What classics (ie copy right free ) books would you bring with you?  Which for you, and which for the kids?

Lists

Christmas is over.  New years is less than a week away.  We leave in less than a month. I need some lists!

I'm a list person.  Or rather, if I want to be anything like productive, I need a list.  I'm not really a naturally organized person, but I can fake it pretty good sometimes.

Here's a list of the lists I  need:

Clothing list for each person

toiletry and medication list for each person

Personal equipment lists

boat equipment list

distractions list (will probably need to be pared down, but I have to start somewhere)


List of stuff I need to do before we leave:

make reservations for Puerto Rico

order seeds/seedlings/trees ect. for next planting season  (little happy dance - I love seed catalogs in January!)

Clean!  Especially the bedrooms.

Stock animal feed and litter

make lists for house sitter

shop - boys need snorkel equipment

check adult snorkel gear for wear

get all prescriptions, vitamin, and OTC meds for trip


Breath.
 In.
Out. 

I need to remember that so long as we have our passports, a credit card and the prescription meds, everything else can be improvised.

 Ah... that's better.  O.K.

So, would it be helpful to anyone if I post my lists here?  I know that I have benefited from books and blogs of other sailing families.  What would be helpful?