Nine Days to Go, But Who's Counting?

We're now at the point where I can answer the question of, "When are you leaving?" with the answer "A week from Monday" and it makes sense in that it's close enough where a short explanation is enough.

Our last few days (today, Shabbat, excluded, of course) have been spent entirely in preparation of our trip. The decision of which books to carry on, which books to pack in our suitcases, which books to ship, and which books to leave here has been a lot more complicated than expected. Books weigh a lot and if we take too many, we'll be over our 70 pound limit for suitcases before we know it. While there's a special mailing rate for shipping books, it will take about six weeks for them to arrive. Plus, we need to take a certain number of books in our carry-on luggage because we just have to read between Sacramento and JFK, while at JFK (we're there for 10 hours), and between JFK and London.

Fortunately, we have a great friend who is willing to allow us to ship books to her house. Even though we'll arrive long before the books do, it's important that we have this opportunity because we don't have our six weeks out address yet. We don't want to be a burden; however, so we want to limit the number of books we ship to her.

Bottom line, we want and perhaps need far more books than we should take or ship. We're determined to make decisions once and for all on Sunday morning! We both read a lot so this is a tough process.