Tagged with packing

Packing a Suitcase: an excercise in procrastination

I think I may have managed to conquer the packing. It took most of the day, though, because according to my Twitter, I first started to “think about” packing my suitcase just before lunch yesterday. Here’s what I had by 10pm:

packing fail

packing fail

In fairness, though, that goldy/bronzey thing is my makeup bag, and it took me a LONG time to pack IT, because that’s just my travel makeup bag or The Travelling Makeup Bag, as I think I will call it from now on. THIS is my real makeup bag. I mean Big Ass Box:

The Sephora Case o' Doom

The Sephora Case o' Doom

Distilling the contents of this into that was a long and arduous task, and I guess the fact that I found it hard to leave the comfort of my computer chair, where I spent many a pleasant hour yesterday reading blogs, tooling around on Twitter and doing anything, really to not have to pack, made it even harder. Like, look, this is Pinky:

My main man, Pinky

My main man, Pinky

Everyone say, “Hi, Pinky!”

Haha, I made you speak to a stuffed rabbit! Hee!

Pinky is my travelling companion. Well, other than Terry and my parents, obviously, but none of them are pink, and they don’t like being squeezed when I’m scared the plane is going to crash, which is all the time. So Pinky is like a kind of stress toy. He stands in for Ted, who doesn’t vacation with us. (He’s just at that age now, where he’s all, “You guys are lame, I want to party with my friends!” He’s going to Goa this year, apparently.)

(Note: Pinky came free with a handbag I got, and didn’t actually have a name until a moment of stress somewhere high above the Atlantic one year, when he was named in a hurry. And clearly I suck at naming things under stress. Another reason never to have children - I’d probably give birth and name it “Screamy” or “Bloody” or something.) 

Anyway, several hours later, I ended up with a packing win, of sorts. This is one side of the case:

Suitcase: one side of

Suitcase: one side of

Pretty full, no? But look! Here is the other side:

Suitcase, other side of

Suitcase, other side of

Lookit all that lovely space! Space which I will be able to fill up with… oh:

"Take meeeeeeeeeee!"

"Take meeeeeeeeeee!"

He’s going to stay with Terry’s mum while we’re gone. He will be treated like a small, furry Overlord there, and will eat much better than he does at home. But I will miss him, and every time I look at his little face, I want to cry. So, moving on, let’s weigh the suitcase (minus dog) with the handy gadget Terry bought for this purpose:

The Weigh-In

The Weigh-In

You can’t see from this photo, but it came in at about 14 kilos, which gives me 6 kilos of shopping to bring back with me.  Yay! I win! Although not really, because GOD, shoes are heavy, and I might want to buy shoes… If I do, though, I will also have access to The Shoulder Bag With a Face:

The Bag With a Face

The Bag With a Face

Seriously, it has a face, no?

Ahhhhh!

It’s drooling at the thought of all of the lovely shopping it will carry. Or maybe it’s just planning to eat my head when I go to sleep tonight, who knows?

And with the packing of TBWAF (which is actually much bigger than it looks here and is a bit like a Mary Poppins bag) I was finally done:

Phew!

Phew!

Time on completion:

whoops

whoops

So it’s a good job I don’t have to get up, like, really early tomorrow or…. oh.

Now I just need to take stuff out, put it back, add more stuff, remove stuff and then, at the last minute remember that whoops, I haven’t actually packed any knickers/sweaters/bikinis/delete-as-appropriate, and we’re good to go.

Anyway, our flight is early tomorrow morning, so we’ll be staying with my parents tonight, because they live closer to the airport, and also, because it means we can mess-up someone else’s house when we get up at stupid o’clock tomorrow, rather than our own.  Assuming we make it there safely, then, I’ll see you on the other side!

"Buh-bye!"

"Buh-bye!"

Ted is waving goodbye. Also: is clearly drunk. GOD.

Amber

Hi, I'm Amber. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on Twitter or Facebook. Or even both, if you're feeling particularly daring...

Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

Tagged , , ,

Twenty Kilos of Clothes

Twenty kilos. That’s my luggage allowance for my trip to Florida. Twenty. Kilos. And actually, that’s the UPGRADED luggage allowance: the airline only wanted to give us 15 kilos each (!), but my mum realised that would send me insane, so she very kindly paid for the upgrade. To twenty kilos. Aaagh!

Now, I could probably deal with it if we were going anywhere else but America. But the thing is, and I know this will come as a shock to some of you, but I like to shop. A lot. If previous trips are anything to go by, I’ll probably buy 20 kilos worth of stuff while I’m there. This makes packing difficult.

So I thought I would be clever. “I will pack a capsule wardrobe!” I thought.  “I’ll make sure everything goes with everything else, and I’ll only need to take two pairs of shoes, one flat, one high – and one of those pairs I will wear to travel in, thus giving me even MORE space in my suitcase! Go me!”

My chosen colours for this capsule wardrobe: navy, white, red. Because I like dressing as a sailor, obviously, and I wish I was joking about that.

But then I went shopping. And on that shopping trip, I found The Best Swimsuit in All The World. It’s retro. It’s polka-dotted. It’ll work either as a swimsuit OR as a top. It’s… black. Which, obviously, is not navy, red or white.  And because I have an aversion to wearing black and navy together, I won’t be able to put my whole “also wearing it as a top” plan into action, because all of my shorts etc are navy.

Now, the sensible person would just have put the swimsuit back at that point. “No!” she would have declared. “No swimsuit! For if I buy it, I will also need to take shoes, shorts and maybe a little cardigan to go with it. And also what would be great would be a skirt. And thus my capsule wardrobe will be ruined! Ruined!”

But I’m not the sensible person, so obviously I bought it.  And also… some other stuff.

Basically, then, I’m screwed. And yes, I know they have shops over there.  I’m well acquainted with those shops. A little TOO well, actually. But I’m one of those people who just can’t pack light. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s true. I tried to do it when we went to Tenerife last December, and that’s how I ended up with a suitcase filled only with black tops, and absolutely no warm clothes whatsoever. And that’s also how I ended up going to Zara 16 times, when we were only there for 14 nights.

I don’t know, I think I just like to Be Prepared. You know, like a Boy Scout? I know I can shop when I get there (and I’ll be getting all of my toiletries etc there, so I don’t have to take them with me), but I just can’t STAND the thought of going somewhere and not having a wide choice of outfits at my fingertips. I worry that something will happen that I will be sartorially unprepared for. Like… maybe someone will invite us to the opera, say, and I’ll only have shorts and t-shirts with me. Or I will have to climb a mountain, but won’t have the right shoes. These things COULD happen.

Realistically, of course, I know that I’ll be wearing shorts and a tank top for the next two weeks, and everything else will remain unworn. But until we leave, I’m going to be practicing putting on all of my clothes at the same time, so I can travel in them and leave my suitcase empty. And also researching how much it would cost to post twenty kilos worth of clothes back home from Florida…

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Amber

Hi, I'm Amber. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on Twitter or Facebook. Or even both, if you're feeling particularly daring...

Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

Tagged , ,
 
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • RSS Feed
    • Subscribe via Email
    • Pinterest
    • Tumblr
    • Technorati