Packing Procrastination

Hello, my name is Danielle and I am a procrastinator...wait, everyone already knows that!

It looks like procrastination is every where in my life, including my packing. Big shocker there. This post is even a little delayed. It was supposed to go up on Thursday but here I am in Dallas typing it out now.

The advice I was given as far as packing goes is to start packing two weeks in advance, not two days. Then take out about half of what was packed. Since the planned Facetime with Lorraine never took place when she wanted it too, I had Kelsey and Bri come over and help with the trial run. Here is what took place. Then there was a Facetime call with Lorraine that narrowed me down to 14 sets of outfits.

I'm still learning how to format this blog...sorry about this.

First I layed out all of the dresses, intially there were nine dresses before Kelsey helped me weed them out. After the Lorraine seal of approval, I was down to seven.

Then there were the shirts, which were narrowed down to seven. After the shirts came the pants. I think this was narrowed down to two pairs of khaki capris, one pair of leggings, one pair of stretchy pants ha ha basically workout capris, one pair of jeans and one pair of jeggings. All of my pants match each shirt I brought.

Then came the decision on the pajamas. The choices were black and white "mom" jammies, Irish jammies with "Good Luck" on the booty (to which Kelsey said, let's not with the Luck) the final decision was the Star Wars shirt and super hero pants. :)

There was also several under shirts that could double as shirts to wear. I'm not exactly sure how much I'll be sweating down there so I don't think it hurts to have too many undershirts. Here is Bri and Kelse smiling and looking so excited to help me pack for this adventure.

Then Kelsey rolled up the whole kit and caboodle and we dumped it into my suitcase. I tossed in a few toiletries and we headed to the bathroom to weigh in.



Here is a picture of the scale after fifteen different attempts to weigh it. The actual weigh in yesterday was at 48lbs. We'll see what the airport says.




See how excited they are to help me pack. I'll miss their faces.

10 Day Count Down! = Pre-Departure & Packing

En diez dias, yo salgo a Costa Rica.

 

Whoa! I know the wind is strong in Amarillo, but I can't believe how quickly May has blown past! This month has already been taken up by finals, Patrick's fencing tournament, school projects and the arrival of baby Elliana. Busy, busy month.

 

Pre Departure

Study Abroad Amber

Just before finals took place, I met up with the Office of Study Abroad for my Pre-Departure checklist. Here is the lady who helped get all of this organized for us. (Spanish Aimee & I). We will call her Study Abroad Amber. I'm sure Spanish Aimee and I took up every ounce of patience she had popping in every so often to see what else we needed to do to make this dream happen. And she did always with a smile. 

 

During the Pre-Departure, Study Abroad Amber gave us many helpful hints including suggestions for packing. She showed us a pack that she used on trips across Europe. I was AMAZED at how she was able to use just a back pack for several months. Challenge accepted.

 

 

Packing Part I

 On Sunday, Spanish Aimee and I were texting when I finally became excited about traveling to Costa Rica. Up until now, I've been extremely nervous about the unknown aspects of this adventure. As Spanish Aimee would say, I needed to put my worry on a piece of paper and tear it up. Turning that worry over to God (Philippians 4:6), I pulled out my suitcase and placed it into what I call "Packing Position".

 

[Packing Position - pulling the suitcase into a clear area and begin randomly tossing clothes into the suitcase. ] This continues until I have all of the clothing candidates for the upcoming trip. Then I begin weeding out the clothes that I really won't wear or can live without. Some might consider this a bit disorganized, but it works for me.

 




Screen Shot from Pinterest

I've been searching on Pinterest for suggestions of packing and Study Abroad tips. There have been many helpful hints on what to pack, the amount of clothes needed, but nothing really detailed. The truth is, what I would like to know is what are people actually wearing while studying abroad, What works, what doesn't. And what is comfortable for the ladies who are abundantly blessed. :) Yea, I went there. The end result will be information placed on here for future travelers with the similar mind set. Hopefully it will help someone else down the road. What would be really awesome is if I had the packing talents of this person that I found on Pinterest. As OCD and artistic as I'd like to think I am, my absent minded brain just doesn't function that way.  

Any who...I hope you guys are as excited as I'm getting! Stay tuned for more packing dilemmas.