The Little Red Bible: Goodbye Wedding Tasks, Hello Bon Voyage To-Do’s!

A couple of weeks ago, Rob bought us a red, wide-ruled notebook (picture what you get for an 8-year-old as back-to-school gear).  It’s replaced my 3-page “Wedding To-Do List” in a place of honor, right next to the Field Guide to North American Birds and the big pile of bills.  While the wedding was fun as hell, I don’t miss the mundane organizing tasks a bit…especially since our new red bible is so titillating.

For those of you who don’t know, we’re leaving Missoula this spring to explore islands, oceans, and cultures west of North America.  A couple years back, we decided to search for some brand-new horizons.

We’re quitting our jobs in March, packing our belongings into a 5×10′ space, renting the house, selling the car, and taking one backpack each into the sunset.  Our goal is to crew on sailboats through the South Pacific, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia in 2013, eventually buying our own boat.  In between ocean voyages, we plan to climb mountains, fly off cliffs, dance on beaches, meet new people, and see what may find us.

The dream is going to be a reality in just under 6 months. Which means we have to get our s$i@ together, starting with keeping all our random “oh, we should do this before we go” ideas in one place, instead of exclaiming them to each other at all hours.

Meanwhile, back on the homefront, there’s a LOT to do before we set sail.  Rob isn’t big on electronic lists, mostly because we look at computers enough in the office.  And I find comfort in physical lists, probably because I LOVE crossing things off in big, black, permanent marker.

This red notebook is our ticket to get outta dodge.  Below are the 7 list categories so far, with one example of what’s under each category:

• Wish List (Go Pro Hero 2 Camera)
• Items We Need (UV water purifier)
• Life Maintenance (buy emergency international health insurance: here’s the front runner)
• House Prep (build a wall to separate the garage in half, creating a locked storage area for all our stuff)
• Odds and Ends (find a new home for the chickens)
• Sailing Prep (decide if we’re going to get a USGS Captain’s License and study like hell)
• Timeline (put the the car up for sale in February and the house up for rent in January)

Some lists are a lot longer than others (like the Wish List), and all of them will probably get longer this winter.  Luckily, we keep crossing things off, too, inching that much closer to a new horizon line.