This morning I’m sitting in my window seat at home, my land-life equivalent to the cockpit on Galapagos, nursing my one and only ‘latte’ of the day. I call it a latte, but it’s really my addictive Taster’s Choice House Blend (yeah, thanks, Scotland) and nicely frothed milk. Delicious. It’s my morning ritual. I sit here, observe the early falling leaves, and check my email.

I open the email from Bookbub, a website I subscribe to that showcases really cheap books for my Kindle. Most of the time I glance through the list and am not impressed. I hit ‘delete’ and move on. Today I find three books that grab my attention and I end up buying all three. And that’s when it hits me: this is the measure of the day ahead. Getting three Kindle books for a total of 5$.  I guess if you are going to measure the success of a day in advance, this is as good a way as any. I wonder what other wonders this day will reveal?

This Kindle-stock-piling is one of the many small things I do to prepare for all those long hours of web-less forced inactivity that I’m sure must be awaiting me when we cut the dock lines late next spring.   I just know I will have hours and hours to lie around when the weather is too hot to do anything else; protecting my delicate skin from the sun’s bitter rays, Kindle in hand and absorbed in stories. It’s a good dream, and I’m holding fast to it and as I buy-with-one-click. Amazon, you make it so easy.  At this point, I can’t even find all the books I’ve bought because I haven’t yet discovered the secret to keeping them organized. It’s the story of my life.

I feel like a squirrel, gathering nuts and storing them away in hidden places, preparing for the lean times. I’ve canned gallons of figs and huckleberries from the yard, hoarding them away under the settee. We’ll never buy jam again. I look at the crab apple tree and begin planning another round of canning. Maybe it’s my mother’s and grandmother’s depression era heritage that keeps me from wanting to see good fruit go to waste.

I’m hunting and gathering dvds we’d like to watch, saving them for that rainy day at an anchorage somewhere. End of the season deals on hot weather clothing find their way into my shopping cart and then into the pillow cover storage on the boat. During the cold and wet winter, I’ll find myself fingering the cloth like prayer beads, counting the days to the warmth and sun.

Even as fall has not actually begun, our late spring departure bears down on us, gathering speed.  It’s hard to believe there is less than a year to go in this plan.  There are countless things to accomplish before then. The big ones are scheduled in our heads for a haul out next year. That leak under the mizzen mast. That old mainsail. All the deck systems. The rigging inspection. All that and more. It will stretch us to prioritize these things into what actually needs to be done before we go, and what can wait until another day, another place.

I am working on a few small but important things such as the medical kit. I’ve made great progress ordering things from Amazon, such as these Quik Clot sponges for stopping bleeding, and this Israeli Bandage Battle Dressing compression bandage, and even this skin staple kit. It’s amazing how much you can spend on things you hope never to actually use. I purchased first aid for the mind in an entire season of Big Bang Theory, waiting for a nice binge watch session in the Rumpus Room on board.

With the aft cabin creative endeavor complete and Mike having almost completed the install of the new hydraulic steering lines, our next big interior project is going to be the galley and the water system on board. My little grey cells are working overtime experimenting with materials, doing research, coming up with a cunning plan to increase accessible storage, get rid of the old countertops, and replace the tired sink before the drain snaps off and falls into the cabinet below. Of course this is all while saving money and coming up with new Cheap Boat Tricks. I have ideas, plans forming in my brain. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, here are the three books you may want to consider for your own Kindle. Hurry before the prices go back up:

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories by Ben Fountain $1.99

Coop by Michael Perry $1.99

Escape on the Pearl: Passage to Freedom From Washington, D.C.  by Mary Kay Ricks $.99