On February 11, 2016, Andrew turned 34.  For the last decade, 34 has been the age off in the distance at which we will start our big dream.  It's pretty surreal to be here now.  Usually, I ask Andrew for each birthday whether he feels like he is spending his time on Earth wisely.  This year, though, I specifically told him I am NOT asking.  If he doesn't think he is spending his time wisely now, then I don't want to hear about it.  He will just come up with further demands.  Something about space travel...

We started the morning with a Bulletproof Coffee (google it), scrambled eggs and the birthday song in the cockpit.  Then, Andrew made me punch my timeclock and get to work, packing away more things.  (Yes, three eight hour work days later, and I am still trying to pack things away.)  At this point, though, I have a strategy:

Step One: Clear off one space to be organized/stowed/cleaned.  Dump all detritus sitting on said space into a plastic bin previously emptied.  Fish through the bin and take a spin around the boat generally in the hopes of corralling all space categorized items. I then tidy all found items, and stow them away.

Step Two:  Move a different pile of detritus onto the desk space I just cleared in order to clear a different space to be cleaned, organized and stowed.  Now the space I just cleaned is again covered in crap.  At this stage, I always feel defeated, but keep the trust!  If I did step one correctly, then I have already fished out all of the desk related items so I won’t need to access the desk for a while.  If I find an errant handful of desk items in this next wave, I set them aside for future stowage. 

Scoop crap into box, fish around, pack away.  Repeat.

The hardest part of this process is figuring out where things most appropriately live.  The second hardest part is corralling all of the like-kind items and getting them stowed away all at once.  I am a tetris packing maniac, though, so I can do this.  Everything should be stowed somewhere around year two.

As the light faded to sunset-dinghy-ride time and I was still not finished stowing, my spirits sagged.  Andrew spent his entire day fixing one ventilation hole in the front of the boat, so he understands my pain.  But, he is also the zen-budda of boat maintenance.

Now, it's time to celebrate. I carefully removed one dressy outfit from my carefully packed dress clothes bag, put on some makeup and walked over to our favorite San Diego Thai Restaurant, Supanee House of Thai.  If you want to go there, you better make reservations.  It's the best.  

"A Toast!  To a fantastic 34 year old and his fantastic dream."  We clinked our glasses.  We enjoyed a dinner, just the two of us, with a Francis Coppala Claret Cabernet Sauvignon, Nam Kao Todd (a Thai salad made with sausage, cabbage, crispy fried rice, peanuts, ginger, purple and green onions, kaffir lime juice and generally yumminess), and red/green duck curry, respectively. So tasty, relaxing and wonderful. On the way out the door, our server asked us if we were taking a long weekend.  "You could say that, yes!" we said, laughing.  An 1825 day long weekend.