Category Archives: packing

Happy birthday!

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Today my Middle Child turns 9! The last single digit age. Kiddo is absolutely ecstatic to be no longer 8. Apparently 8 has been a really hard year and we are glad to be rid of it. Today kiddo gets to dictate what we eat all day and we allow birthday people to have a reprieve from school and chores. It’s going to be a fun day.

We literally came to Portland for today because kiddo wanted to spend today with Dad. We will be spending hours with Dad in a neutral location.

I have stopped using “Dad” or “Grandpa” with my kids. He’s a friend of the family. Not because I hate him or because I want to end the relationship… because it has been made clear to me that I don’t count as a daughter when it comes to giving support, only when it comes to asking for money. I don’t need to show my children that I agree that I deserve such a relationship with a “father”. But my friends sometimes need to be reminded of boundaries.

I am feeling some guilt because ECs birthday was a time of such limbo that she got very few physical presents. MC has… several physical presents. EC is also in that in-between time when she has given away her toys but she isn’t quite at the level for adult stuff yet. MC still solidly wants toys.

A while back MC’s therapist told me that my expectation for behavior should be based on thinking that MC is about one year younger than chronologically expected. Given that they are still in the 98% of height, this is still kind of hard to balance in terms of shifting ones mental process. People are guessing kiddo to be 11/12 years old because of physical development and in terms of emotional development it is more like they are turning 8. That’s hard. They do their absolute best to live up to expectations, but life is hard.

We leave for Bangkok in two days. Our thirteenth wedding anniversary and the day we officially own the house is in five days. We arrive in Inverness on my 38th birthday in thirteen days. (Because of dateline stuff we leave Bangkok in twelve days.)

We mostly packed last night. Like 80%? I think we won’t have a suitcase over 45 lbs and most of them will be under 30 lbs. That’s a far cry from everything being 50 lbs on the nose.

One foot in front of another. Keep going.

I sent the letter to the head teacher. Eeep.

Tapping toes

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In 4 days my middle child turns 9.

In 6 days we leave the country; Noah has plans to come back for work… the rest of us don’t. Hello Bangkok!

In 9 days we legally own a house in Scotland and my wonderful, sweet, helpful friend will be collecting keys from our solicitor so there is no delay!

In 16 days we arrive in Inverness and the fun truly begins.

Jenny really wants us there. I can tell. She has offered to let us borrow (possibly keep) a very large number of items, including: dishes, a kid bed, an adult mattress, duvets, a crock pot, sheets… It’s like this woman wants me to stay and feel comfortable!

She’s got a 10 year head start on me, but we get to learn how to be Scottish together. This’ll be grand.

I slept meh last night. If I hadn’t missed the night before it would have been plenty, instead I’m still tired.

Ikea then a housewarming. Wake up, Little Susie.

Noah sent out a goodbye email to pretty much everyone we have ever sent an email to. Now folks are coming out of the woodwork wanting to say goodbye. Uh, we left the state already. You missed your window. Where were you all those years we lived there? Busy? Ok. We will take one more possible obligation off your plate.

I want chill. I want green. WHERE IS ALL THE DANG WATER FROM THE SKY!? My body hates this heat wave so much.

Noah and I are making plans. We are going to be living on a much reduced income so we can’t spend money the way we have learned to in the valley. Our food budget is getting cut in half. Really… a bit further than that. It means cakes, cookies, candy, and drinks are going to be very rare treats. Bath stuff and random things can no longer “sneak” into the grocery budget. It’s going to take us a bit to start properly having a tiny savings so that we can make more interesting purchases.

Fitness stuff is going to be a lot of what we do. We are definitely people who like to spend time on our computer but we are also keen walkers. And our house has lots of space for the exercise equipment we favor. I have a TRX set up (it’s a strap system) that helps me through all of my PT and Noah heavily favors kettle bells. We can set these things up in the lounge as a permanent installation and then we won’t have the excuse of “there is no where to do the work”. I’m up a good 25 lbs since we started on this journey and I’d like my clothes to be more comfortable again. Given that I do not intend to waste money on a scale that means I want to start exercising so that I fit my clothes better and I have no idea where I will end up.

Health at every size. Right now I can’t do my exercises (both logistical reasons and strength reasons) and that’s bothering me.

Besides we have more fun fucking each other when we are in better shape. We both hope that with all of the increased access to privacy our sex life might reemerge as a fun hobby we share.

Sex has come a long way. Right now we don’t have sex very often. Like, once or twice a month has been our average for a while. We have no privacy and that’s a big barrier for me. But I’m thinking about sex more than I have for a while. I am not sure it will take a full five years postpartum this time for me to be really interested.

I am 99% certain that my next period will be in my own house. That sounds really wonderful. If it is not too freakishly cold (we’ll see!) I sort of intend to spend several hours on my “Oh my god is that a period or a hemorrhage” day sitting outside with no pants (or trousers!) on. I’m going to bond with the earth, yo. I hope it will be the most relaxing cycle of my life. And less laundry. Bonus.

I am going to get family cloth and a little bucket for every single bathroom in the house. Septic systems are no joke, yo. (With some supplemental paper for getting poop.)

Her Sweetness is absolutely talking up a storm. She tells us “no!” and “stop!” when she doesn’t want something. She says, “Help!” and “please” and “mine”. It’s so funny. She is starting to get colors. She can talk about her getting dressed and clean process in a combination of words and signs. She is super keen to communicate and be part of the pod. She likes carrying a bag when the rest of us are doing so. She loves to laugh.

I am so very grateful I got to have a third child despite the challenges. She is a really wonderful person. It’s so lovely to break the “my kid/your kid” assignation of behaviors and traits and personality bits. She’s like all four of us. She’s completely herself. We all have to work on our petty jealousies and pissiness because she’s a baby and we chose to bring her into this world. We need to be nice about it.

Middle Child has confessed they didn’t know what they were getting into and sometimes it is hard to not be the baby anymore. That makes a lot of sense. They are still so wonderful with their sister. They try hard to be gentle and helpful. They play together. Kiddo is trying so hard and I am so full of love and respect for the efforts.

My kids are growing up and it’s pretty amazing.

The kids are in a funny place with money and chores. They are still doing chores but they keep forgetting to write it down. I tell them that they can work for free or they can get paid for keeping track of their work. Lately I’ve been getting a ton of free work. So they are sad that they are not accumulating more money. Dude! WRITE DOWN YOUR STUFF ON A DAY TO DAY BASIS AND I’LL BLOODY PAY YOU! We sat down yesterday and priced out a basic back-to-school-kit and uniform selection. Now they feel nervous. They kind of slacked off over the last month. They would have been in a great place for all of these purchases but… they stopped writing anything down. Whoops.

It’s a learning experience.

School won’t give you credit for doing your homework if you bring the math worksheet home, do all the work on the separate piece of scratch paper then throw away the scratch sheet and try to turn in the blank worksheet. “But I did the work!” Yeah… that’s not how it works. If you have a job and you neglect to clock in… you can’t just go back at the end of the week and say, “Yeah I was totally ontime every day; you should pay me all the monies!” “But surely I did all of my hygiene this week, pay me.” “I clearly remember you skipping it on day A, B, C, I had to yell at you 7 times on day D…”

Write it down on the day you do it. That’s why you have a day planner. Are you choosing to skip that step? Then you are choosing to make the work free. Cheers and thank you so much for all your hard work. You are definitely working.

It’s a process! Follow through is hard for a bunch of unstable ADHD folk.

Thus Eldest Child is on Pinterest trying to learn about organization systems so she can get one started right when we arrive. It’s glorious.

I am tired and the day is just beginning. That’s ok. I don’t have a lot of proper work to do. I’m day dreaming lists of stuff I will want in the house. Here is a possible list. (We will not show up and buy all of these things instantly, I expect we are going to be Good Customers at the charity shops and we will buy things new as we have to.)

Obviously we have a long way to go.

Kitchen Dining room Family bedroom Bathrooms Noah office Krissy bedroom Shanna bedroom Orion bedroom Lounge Jennabeth bedroom Laundry room Miscellaneous Hall Garden Studio Kitchen stuff
Refrigerator Table and chairs mattresses toilet paper Kettlebells Bed Bed tumbling mats Detergents and soaps Kid school uniforms baby gate Seating? 2 large frying pans
Cleaning tools (sponges, mop, broom) Additional silverware/dishes Blankets soap Monitor clock alarm clock alarm clock couch Shoe rack Lunch boxes Shoe rack Grill 1 small frying pan
Dish soap, dishwasher soap, hand soap Pillows Printer coat rack bars for the wall. chest of drawers chest of drawers Personal water bottles Coat hooks? nanny cam 1 wok
Food storage devices Clock Plungers Caffeine brick Bed Tables and chairs Vacuum Replace fence along burn drafting table 1 large stock pot
child safety locks Sheets Toilet brushes Standing desk Desk w/ ergonoic setup Desk w/ ergonomic setup Desk w/ ergonomic setup Projector bed Replace driveway gate easel 1 medium stock pot
Knives whiteboard for calendar Toilet paper holders? Monitor stand or swing arm WiFi Router etc. paper 1 small sauce pan
tea pot, sugar bowl, milk pitcher Towels whiteboard dresser electric drill art supplies 1 large roasting pan
Clock black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains 4 cookie sheets
shampoo/conditioner 2 bread pans
rice maker?
insta pot?
eggcarton and curtain soundproofing cutting boards
Crock pot Lighting for video potato masher
Big soup/stock pot grater
Roasting pan for turkey veggie peeler
collander
KitchenAid Mixer mixing bowls
Ice cream machine measuring spoons/cups/pitchers
Deep-dish pizza pan

Obviously I have not accounted for everything. It is going to take many years to accumulate this stuff at the rate we plan to spend money.

It’ll be ok. We have time and patience. In my experience it is a lot easier to do without if you are living with joy in the meantime.

Ok, it’s a plan.

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We leave here in 6 days. (Less than that because our flight is early.) Luckily the airport here is tiny so for a 10:55am flight I think we should arrive by 9. It’s less than a 20 minute drive so we’ll be out of here at 8:30. Not bad at all. It’ll be about 22.5 hours of travel door to door. And I get to drive on the far side after installing a car seat. Festive!

Maybe. We’ll see. Emailed buddies to ask for help with the car seat. We’ll see if they agree.

We’ll see. That’s kind of my life mantra right now. How will things work out? We’ll see!

5.75 days until we leave. We all feel so sick. This is going to be… something. Ugh. I feel like a horrible person for getting on a plane within a week of feeling this bad but I don’t see what our other option is. We won’t have a place to sleep if we just stay here until we feel better. Changing the flights would be horrifically expensive. We will wear masks.

And wash hands. And use hand sanitizer. The world is a horrible germ infested place.

As bad as I feel about all the things I haven’t gotten done yet… we are getting an absolute ton done.

And the kids agreed to the reading/exercise challenge for the summer. And they like the idea of planning, doing, and reflecting as their writing.

Ok. I’ve got a few months planned. Now just do the things.

Of course I will need to reflect later.

Can you tell I am absolutely simmering with anxiety? Next on the agenda: order some pot to be delivered to my friend in Portland.

Countdown already.

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142 days until we will come back and do the beginnings of setting up house and paperwork and all that fuss.

The road trip was 167 days and we were so done with that. To the best of my knowledge we will only be separated from Noah for a 3 week stretch and a 4 day stretch. So 25 days alone with the kids in that 142 days. That’s not so bad.

Looks like the former owners are not up for the fuss of renting temporarily from us. They have a lot going on and that makes a lot of sense. They want 8-10 months in one rental without more issues. I totally understand.

That means that we will try to have our stuff shipped directly to the UK from California because we will take possession of the keys (our solicitor will at least) and when we have to come to the UK to handle paperwork in October we will spend a month starting to set up house. I won’t cry about this. (Really 3.5 weeks.)

207 days until we get to move into our house permanently and we won’t be traveling for quite some time.

We will get to go see Pam and her family in Taiwan for a month at the end of traveling there.

So many things keep changing. I feel like keeping track of the plan is hard. That’s because the plan keeps changing.

Luckily, when we go to Taiwan we will only need to bring the bare minimum of stuff we need for a month in warm weather. Golly that sounds so restful and light.

The plan has changed a lot as we have had to look at the realities of dealing with laws and visas and processes we don’t control. I’m a bit sad that we aren’t going to be traveling for the 18-24ish months I had hoped for.

I AM NOT THE TINIEST BIT SAD MY CHILDREN WILL BE ENTERING SCHOOL A LITTLE EARLIER THAN PLANNED.

I mean, things have gone ok for the past couple of weeks. And we have set up a summer full of Outschool classes that will mean I don’t feel like I need to do almost anything for their academics for a solid two months. I won’t be on vacation but I will have a reduced load. Ahhhhhh.

They have a bunch of classes set up in Minecraft where they will be doing a variety of learning activities through the game (it’s actually incredibly well done, we have tried such classes before and they learn a lot) as well as classes on healthy boundaries in relationships, being savvy consumers and ad aware, how to socialize with new people (kiddo said he really wanted this class–ok), and cyber safety. The kids will keep up with their Duolingo too because they like it and that’s on the list of chores they earn money for and they really like that part.

Middle Child never has more than one class scheduled in a day and Eldest Child only has two classes scheduled on a day for a couple of the weeks. I told them that I want them writing notes for the classes as their academic writing for the summer. What do you plan to do, then after the class write up how it went, what you changed, and what you think you might like to change in the future. Then get up and try again with the next day.

Plan, do, reflect.

And they have unlimited time on their kindles so they will hopefully go through a lot of books. I bet I could do some sort of reading challenge to encourage them to each be reading more. (EC doesn’t really need the push, but MC might benefit. He’s a fairly standard little boy–he’d much rather be doing than reading.)

MC will be receiving a pedometer watch when we get to Portland. It’s already arrived.

I think our summer challenges will be: whoever has the highest step count for the week gets to pick a family movie over the weekend. And for reading…. maybe for every 10 books you read I will add… £20 to your start of room budget? (I was going to give each kid £500 to start with for furnishing their rooms.)

We’ll talk about it at lunch.

Another pretty good day.

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Only 3 miles today. That’s not really enough, but it’s what I’m going to get until both of my children are healed.

Oh, Middle Child has a thing now. *sigh* I’d be super happy if my kids could be healthy and fully functional. Or at least wait until we get back to a country where we can have an easy conversation with doctors. Erf. We are doing the recommended home treatment (soaking and squeezing out puss) and it already looks a lot better than it did when he woke up. My comment to him: “Sweetie, this is why I’ve been telling y’all that chewing on your toenails isn’t wise. Your mouth is dirty.”

Apparently his toenails aren’t dirty but his mouth is? I don’t know. Ugh.

Bodies are rough. I will say that when things go wrong my children relax in a way that causes me to feel better about myself. “In perfect love and perfect trust” describes the way their entire body relaxes when I say “Hold still, I need to help you with this.” They believe I can fix basically anything. I didn’t ever expect to be trusted to this degree. It’s amazing.

I spent some time today moving stuff around in suitcases. I think I have gotten Noah from 85 lbs of checked baggage up to a solid 100 lbs of checked bags. This will make my trip easier.

I am seriously looking forward to finally getting to Scotland so I can share these books with my nieces. Ok, I probably won’t deliver the books to Jenny’s house till the end of the trip. We still use them for academics but June will be great. I feel super happy about knowing that at least 10 lbs will be disappearing. Ahhhhh.

When we leave Inverness we get to have 5- 50 lb checked bags, a diaper bag, 4- 22 lb carry on bags, and 4- small backpacks/purses. And we’ll have way less crap! I don’t think we’ll need all of them because we will get rid of enough stuff in Scotland.

The load is lightening with every hop. And after Scotland I don’t think we’ll see proper cold for a long time. I may not bring my fleece lined jeans for reasons of weight.

Ok. Time for bed.

NOT FAIR

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I just looked more closely at the baggage allowances for the airline we are taking out of this country. Because Noah’s destination is the US he is allowed TWO CHECKED BAGS THAT EACH GET TO WEIGH 50 LBS.

Oh fuck life.

H’okay. What can we live without for a week or so as he brings it with him to the US and then back across the damn pond to Scotland?

Sorry Noah. You get to carry a lot of shit you won’t use. I assume you won’t even open the second bag.

Holy crud out of the blue

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I was sitting at dinner with my lovely family and out of the blue I had really strong visualization of cutting myself really badly. Cutting myself in flamboyant, very attention-getting ways. Razor blades from the wrist to the elbow. Screaming and flailing at the same time.

I have no idea where this visualization came from. It was sudden. It was intense. I had to really consciously choose to not beat my head on the table because my first impulse was to try and get it out of my head by beating my head on the table. Like I almost slammed my face into my dinner. It was disorienting and weird.

I have no idea what the fuck is up with that. Not fun.

Otherwise I’m pretty sure I’m done packing other than perishable food. It will take about 15 minutes to round it up.

We leave in just over 17 hours. I’m tired and feeling kind of flattened.

I’m going to sleep a lot. Tomorrow I want to take a very very very long bath. With epsom salts.

I find it weird that I had the intense visualization given that my general anxiety level has been going down all day. As I get closer to “go” I’ve been settling down. I’ve been feeling better. All of a sudden I feel completely not ok. But I’m going to sit on this.

How I feel doesn’t really matter. What matters is what I do. I noted to Noah, “I’ll write about it later. This is when it started.” I’m pretty sure that other than blinking more times than usual I didn’t otherwise act inappropriately.

Right this second I’m scared of going so long without a consistent witness. Who will make sure I’m appropriate?

Well tonight Noah asked/gave Calli permission to call me on having a negative attitude. I suppose she will be the one to make sure I’m not too much of a bitch.

Have I mentioned lately how much I fucking love that my children have the courage to stand up to me? Grown men are afraid of me. Not my bad ass little babies.

Shanna is developing a very negative attitude about the trip. She doesn’t want to leave Noah. I’m… trying to be ok with it. I’m being supportive of her having feelings. I am sympathizing. I’m still implacable. “We’re going. Why? Because we have things to learn.”

I feel like I am drowning in waves of guilt. We are leaving because I want to run away. Because I need a break. Because I’ve been standing in one place too fucking long. Because I have always wanted to see what the country is like. Because I wanna.

Because I wanna and I’m selfish and you have to come with me.

For just a few years you have to keep me company. I hope it isn’t too awful. I hope you will have some fun. Calli is acting like she will have fun.

I’m trying not to be an asshole about “At least one daughter likes me.” Shanna does like me. But she really likes her dad and her computer and she wants to stay. Not too long ago she was happy to follow me to the ends of the earth and I was enough. I’m having feels. I’ll get over them. This is appropriate.

I hope we will have fun together.

I hope she will not remember this as something her crazy mother dragged her through. I pray.

Both kids are still absolutely adamant that they want to keep home schooling. I’m not dragging them through everything. Shanna says that if Noah were coming with us more she wouldn’t feel resistant to the road trip. That makes sense. She says the around-the-world trip sounds awesome because he will be with us.

Yeah honey… but there are steps here we need to figure out. If we can’t make this work we can’t spend a year away. We have to manage five months away first.

We can do it. But will you still like me?

I like you. I know there are going to be years where you don’t like me much. I’m trying to be ok with it. I know it isn’t personal. It’s normal and appropriate. Lots of books tell me so.

Sometimes I find it startling how “normal” and “text-book” my kids are. They have normal, happy people problems. I love watching it. And I will continue to do whatever I must to not beat my head in front of them. I will not cut. I will not let them see me harm myself on purpose. Just no.

I will not be how you learn about these behaviors. Or, rather, you will not learn about them by watching me.

I will teach you to love your body, to say kind things about it, and to be gentle with yourself. That’s my job.

Every single time I’m having a hard time emotionally I want to say mean/petty/vindictive things. So far I have managed to bite my tongue because I chant in my head, “Their negative inside voice will not come from you.”

My goal is to ensure that my children never hear nasty tapes in their head of my voice dressing them down. That will not be our relationship.

I hear my mom scream that I am a stupid cunt. A bitch. Unwanted. Dirty. Nasty. Pathetic. I don’t know how to stop those tapes.

I can’t stop them in my head but I can make sure I don’t put them in my daughters’ heads.

I mean… I tell my kids that they are obnoxious and annoying… just like their parents. I grin while I say it. It generally comes out something like, “WHY DID YOU HAVE TO TURN OUT AS ANNOYING AS ME?!?!?!” They laugh.

“You are supposed to be obnoxious. If you weren’t obnoxious you would have to turn in your kid-badge.”

When I’m being scary my kids will stand there, straight and tall, and tell me, “You are using a mean voice and you need to stop.” Sometimes they are crying… but they do it. I tell them they are right and I do stop. Thank you for telling me.

I’ve had an interesting thing with Shanna lately. I love her hair. I have always loved to stroke her head and she has mostly barely tolerated me touching her. Since it was dyed… I uhm… I’m being annoying. I want to play with it and braid it. I PAID SO MUCH MONEY! I WANT TO PLAY WITH THE COOL TOY!!! Uhm… Shanna has these opinions about it being her body or some bullshit.

Who has been telling her this crap?!

Anyway, I was trying to cajole her into letting me braid her hair. Cool pink and blue streaks are super duper fun and I like playing with plaiting. Shanna resisted some and I cajoled some.

At some point I said, “You know what… I’m pestering which isn’t cool; it is your body. If you really don’t want me to play with your hair I won’t.”

She said, “I feel like you haven’t been very respectful of my body lately.”

I felt like I got sucker punched.

I said, “Oh. Well, I think what is happening is that your boundaries are changing and I didn’t notice. We are going to have to have lots of conversations over the years. We started out with you being a little lump I carried around at all times and it was ok for me to touch you whenever I wanted. That will change slowly and sometimes quickly and I’ll need to be told. I can’t read your mind to know when you change. Also, I’ve been pushing harder on brushing your hair for a few reasons. Know how we make a lot of unconventional choices like not going to school?”

She nodded.

“Well, when you choose to not do what most people do most of the time then you risk people having to come check up on you. Unfortunately when folks from the government come to check on kids… one of the first things they look at is whether you are clean and your hair is brushed. It’s stupid. It isn’t a measure of how well you are taken care of, not really. But people can look at it from a distance. I’ll try to be more respectful though.”

She asked a few more questions about the government checking up on families and then agreed that a basic brushing is reasonable daily. I’m to back off on wanting to play though.

It sucks.

I have watched a lot of movies about mothers and daughters this year. Lots. Dozens maybe. I’m on a kick. It is surprising to me how mother/daughter relationships are twisted around appearance and hair and the perceptions of other people. My relationship with my mom was complicated. She wanted my hair to be about 2″ long so that she didn’t have to be embarrassed all the time about how bad I looked.

I have to respect it when my daughters say no. Even if I don’t want to. Even if it would make *me* happy to ignore their wishes. I’ve got a long game going. I want them to be my friends in thirty years.

Given how cool I am at 33 I bet Shanna is going to be way fucking cooler at 37. Yeah, I really want to know them in thirty years. I want to be friends. And that means I have to be appropriate when they are kids.

It is harder some days than others. Today being appropriate is hard. I think I did ok though.

We went to get passports. We went to the bank; both girls are now square when it comes to allowance. Their savings accounts are up to date. My kids get $2/week for saving. So Shanna has over $700. It’s… honestly a bit weird. I couldn’t have imagined having so much when I was that age. Heck, it isn’t real to her. The $5/week of walking around money is what she sees. I’ve been talking to them about the save money for a while. They only kind of get it.

I drew the watering diagrams for the yards. I’m ready. It’s time to go.

I love you, Wonderland. I’ll come back.

That was lovely

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Yesterday we had a going away party. It went pretty well. I had a lot of fun. I felt like I got to have interesting conversations.

It turns out that I am going to stay with some of my friends in New Hampshire. Friends from the bay area who go out there to vacation in the summer. They are going to make sure they line up with my schedule so we can hang out. That’s… that’s friendship.

There are even people who want to go on the cruise. I’m shocked people want to spend that much money.

I am enjoying looking around my life at the demonstrable evidence of people caring about me. I’m very happy that I can look at the behavior of many people and say, “Clearly when I doubt you I am being delusional. You love me.”

It was a good party. The people who are very sure they want me to come back showed up. I know who my friends are.

Thank you.

Today I packed again. Like I do. I am almost settled in the van. I can’t think of anything other than perishable food and water I need to add. I need to pack the potty and the bikes on the trailer. Then I’m ready.

I’ll deal with the potty and the bikes tomorrow, probably. Just get it done. If someone steals my potty on this trip I will cry but I will just have to take the risk.

Tomorrow I have to make the garden watering directions. I’m still procrastinating. I’ve been seriously resisting this process for years. Not for any particular reason, I just…. don’t want to do it.

We see our dear baby sitter twice more. Eek. Tuesday we have a date for dim sum and I have a chiropractic appointment.

We will leave right after eating lunch on Wednesday.

I absolutely over packed food. It is… kind of humorous just how much I over packed food. It’s going to take over a month for us to start making a dent in what I have packed. Once I lighten the food load I will probably be able to take half the stuff out of the sky box. We have a ridiculous quantity of food. I didn’t realize quite how overboard I was going. Whoops.

There is the non-zero possibility we will be eating the same fruit leather in February.

Good thing they like fruit leather.

I’m going to have to eat a lot of fruit leather. Oh crap.

Shanna seems to be unfazed by her tooth extraction. It’s hard to get her to stop running around in circles. She’s ready to chew again. She’s happy about the pain being gone.

I guess we’re ready.

I will be blogging mostly on medium because that’s where I’ve elected to shunt my kid friendly writing to for now. For this year. I’ve migrated so much around the net that I no longer assume I’ll stay somewhere forever. Well, I hope I’ll stay here.

This is the stuff I can’t say anywhere else. This is my proof for me that I’m here and thinking.

I’m excited. I’m scared. I’m ready. At this point we’re within the 72 hour window. Less than 68 hours to go.

Not that I’m counting.

Packing for Hawaii

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I hardly ever post pictures, so here is what I’m taking to Hawaii.

Including what I will wear on the plane.

Including what I will wear on the plane.

On the left, we have a blue shirt, hippy dress, and purple pants I will wear on the plane. Next to them is a skirt and tank top. I will probably wear the purple pants under the skirt. I’m like that. Above and to the right of the purple tank top is the black semi-sweater I like to wear. It isn’t a real sweater. It doesn’t cover your belly or your arms but it keeps your shoulders covered. Then the BRIGHT ORANGE shirt of delight, which I’ll be running in. I will lean down and borrow my bathing suit pants for running. (Between the pants and the skirt lie two lonely pairs of chonies.) Then landing all the right you see my sexy bathing suit top and my swimming hat.

I take *all the sexy* to Hawaii, baby.

First aid kit. I am so a mom. And an accident prone runner.

First aid kit. I am so a mom. And an accident prone runner.

Bandaids, latex gloves, trash bag, period supplies (I bleed by surprise these days), caffeinated mints, and medicated head ache rub. Works pretty well.

This is basically the bathroom section.

This is basically the bathroom section.

You get to see the other side of the period supplies. I have enough Q-tips to clean out… I really don’t want to think about it. Moving on. Tooth care (I don’t do well at shoving my hand in my mouth with dental floss so I use pick things–multiple kinds). Sun block. Anti-chafe stick (I don’t use it much but I will be hot.). Nail file! Don’t leave home without it!, The little makeup I own. Hair tie stuff. And an emergency rain poncho. Oh, and my hankie. Always need a hankie. All the liquid-ish stuff goes in a quart bag (with room to spare) and everything else fits in the little black bag.

Ted wants everyone to know that he is excited about his next adventure.

Ted wants everyone to know that he is excited about his next adventure.

Ted travels with me everywhere. In fact, he has already been to Oahu. We’ve been talking about how not to be a snob about it. Humility, Ted. He’s holding my eating utensils, extra bag, running belt, charging cord (and adapter), headset, and the only wallet I will be bringing. My phone isn’t in the picture, but it is the only screen I’m bringing. Yay for music and books in one place.

And of course, the most important stuff.

And of course, the most important stuff.

I hate swallowing pills. But I’m told they will help me be “healthier”. Fuck health.

And it all fits nicely together like so.

And it all fits nicely together like so.

I will probably actually also wear the shawl from Jenny’s wedding because going from airports to our house will be chilly. It packs down small when I don’t need it but it is wonderfully warm. I wear it a lot.

I’ll try to ask Noah to take a picture of me all dressed and ready to set off. It’s been a while since I’ve really gone off on an adventure like this. Going to Guerneville wasn’t very adventurous.

Now I only need to go to sleep five more times.

I’m so excited.

Oh, I tripped and twisted my ankle today while out on a walk. And the festivity continues.