Always Pack the Night Before

Among the life lessons that I will teach my children is one I learned today. Always, always, always pack the night before. Do not allow yourself to believe the excuse that you can do it better in the morning because you are so tired you can't think. It is a lie.

I went to Brandy's house this weekend for a fun filled weekend of scrapbooking. Yesterday I headed home (on time, actually - this is not a usual occurrence by the way, generally I call Sandor and say I'm staying anywhere from 3-12 hours longer), dropped off a few things on my way through Charleston, and arrived home in time for dinner and some quality chatting time with the hubster (who by the way shaved his face for my birthday - possibly the best present I've ever gotten). By the time we were done watching a show he had recorded for us, cleaning up after dinner, and bringing in my bags it was relatively late and I was tired so I decided to pack when I got up in the morning. I set my alarm for a sweet 4am, knowing that I'm generally far more motivated in the morning (even the wee hours of the morning) than when I'm tired and just want to climb in my bed.

Now, had things gone as planned and I woken up at 4am all would be well. Instead, because of the electricity going out the day before my alarm clock was set on AM instead of PM making my 4am alarm be a 4pm alarm, which of course did me absolutely no good at 4am. Sandor's alarm went off at 5am and I realized that I had one hour to pack and shower and get into the car for him to drive me to the airport. Let me just say that the packing that is done during mild hysteria is not good packing. Because I was afraid to forget stuff I overpacked, and since I didn't have time to actually plan anything I was packing I have duplicates of everything I thought of first thing and threw in the bag and then thought of at the end and forgot whether I had put them in. The other complicating factor was that we are going on a boat one day, to a ranch another day, and in a conference room the rest of the days when it's 80 degrees outside, but everything in the south is over air conditioned inside.

Thus, when I unpacked this evening I found that I had:

• 9 pairs of shoes - now really, I'm on a 5 day trip, that most certainly is NOT necessary. I'm going to have to wear multiple pairs each day. I have open toed shoes, closed toed shoes, flip flops, dress shoes, sneakers, and hiking boots. You give me any situation and I can dress my feet for it.
• about 6 baby bottles of lotion and no conditioner - we keep all the baby bottles of stuff in a container in the bathroom and I just grabbed a handful and threw them in. My skin need not worry about being well hydrated.
• an entire container of face wash wipes - I didn't have the time or concentration to take a few out and put them in a plastic bag, so I've got the whole box.
• 3 pairs of jeans in addition to the 3 pairs of dress pants - they will work well with my many shoe options
• at least 4 shirts for every temperature except cold, and two sweatshirts in case it is cold
• amazingly enough I did remember a wind breaker for the boat, a hat and sunscreen - go me!
• I had enough airplane reading to keep me busy if I was stranded all day - I brought a book, a magazine, all the reading for work plus I realized once I opened up my backpack I had packed extra random reading for work (not related to this meeting) and then I had things to actually do on my computer related to work. I won't need to worry about being stranded
• 3 sets of earrings - I love that I packed jewlery but packed one third the number of earrings as I did shoes
• no swim suit for the pool and hot tub
  
• no pajamas for warm weather - I just threw the pajamas I took off as I ran into the shower into the bag so I was packed for coldness. My roomie and I may be air conditioning the room in the evenings.
• and, another impressive thing I remembered was my cell phone charger.

All in all, it was an interesting day. I saw the Mayor of Charleston and someone from my lab in the airport - I don't think I've ever seen anyone I know in the airport and today I saw 2 people in the same airport. The Dallas airport apparently has a shortage on electricity so they decided to not put in any outlets. I had to sit 6 terminals away to be able to plug in my computer. A guy in front of my on one of the flights was I guess a surgeon doing some extra studying on the flight and had these videos of random parts of the inside of bodies with metal instruments poking and proding around - not the greatest thing to see on a computer screen when your stomach is dropping out from under you becuase of turbulence. And as we go to bed Tonna Marie walked to the air conditioning unit and saw a note that said 'Please use thermostat on the wall' and then walked to the wall and saw a note that said 'Please use the thermostat on the unit'. It has just been that kind of day.