Hitting the Road (Air)

It's countdown to travel day. I have my to-do list down to blocks of time. I'll admit that I'm a little obsessive about planning travel, but I like to reduce stress as much as possible. I'm so not about the drama. The more planning and preparation I do, the less stress there is. My aim is to be able to get up the morning of a trip, eat breakfast, get dressed, throw the last items I needed for getting dressed in my bag, make the bed, take out the trash, and leave. My ideal is to have everything done before the night before the trip so that I can spend the evening before relaxing -- have a glass of wine, watch a movie or read a book, and go to bed early. I haven't quite made it all the way there yet, but it's a goal. I also like to have the house fairly clean, something in the freezer that can be microwaved for dinner when I return, and something on stand-by for breakfast the next day.

This involves a lot of lists and schedules. Two weeks out, I make a master list of everything that needs to be done before the trip, whether or not it's related to the trip. I assign target dates to each of the tasks. One week out, I take another look to see what's done, what I still need to do, and what's not on the list. I break down tasks to do by day. I try to take care of errands (bank, shopping) several days ahead unless it involves something perishable. Ideally, I don't have to leave the house the day before the trip. When I'm down to the last day or so, I make another schedule, reverse engineering from the time I need to be ready to leave to make sure I have time to do everything.

So far today, I've managed a bit of business stuff, cleaned the bathroom, and washed sheets (another must-do -- clean sheets go on the bed right before I leave). I've put some stuff in the freezer and washed dishes. Now I mostly have another bit of business to do, packing (which has started but isn't entirely complete), and some overall tidying up. I may make my evening goal.

I don't know how often I'll be posting during the week. I'm more likely to be posting through Twitter (https://twitter.com/ShannaSwendson) or Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/shanna.swendson). Any pictures will be posted in one of those places because I'm not yet sure how to get pictures from my phone to my tablet and I'm not taking the computer.

Now, off to do all the things!