It’s November 16th, just after work. I thought I’d maybe write a little bit before I go into the rest of my evening routine of sitting on the couch trying to decide if I should watch another rerun of West Wing, or read a book, or … well, you get the idea.

I think I may finally be over the suitcase mania that struck me in October. ONE medium-sized suitcase to check that will hold “stuff” on the way home, probably including my dirty laundry, but that’s TBD for obvious reasons. TWO carry-ons. One hard-side that will go in the overhead compartment and will likely hold all my clothing, and one somewhat large purse to go under the seat. Packed in the checked suitcase will be another carry-on that holds more than my purse. For coming home, purse goes into the checked bag (empty), and all that jazz. It’s not really as complicated as it sounds.

I moved on to clothing after that. No bulky sweaters. Seems like the weather is very similar to what I have in Minneapolis, so that helped with decisions. Turns out I actually have 3 sweaters that will be perfect. One is cashmere and the other two are merino wool. Light, breathable, and I can wear each one twice – once in each country. After I stopped agonizing over the sweaters, I calmed down significantly.

So 22 days until take off. Next week is Thanksgiving, so it’s only a 3 day week, which will be nice. We don’t “do” Black Friday anything, so it’ll just be hanging out, napping, and eating leftovers. BUT, what makes this important is not that it is Thanksgiving. It’s the number of working days. When I looked at the calendar, I only have THIRTEEN working days before the trip! AND, I’m only back to work for FOUR days before I take off until 2023.

Why is all that important? Because people do a lot of work between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I won’t be here for it. Which means that I have to have everything that they would normally get from me in that time frame done in approximately 13 days. I actually had to make a list so I didn’t forget anything that needed to be done! I haven’t needed a real list in ages because I typically do not have a lot to do and very little time pressure on what I DO work on. Makes for a lazy person.

What’s left to do? I need to make all the photo copies of documents, I need to print out the information I got from the travel company, I need to check to see if I actually DO have a voltage converter already because I will need it.

And then? I just need to pack.