Monday, July 6, 2009

"i'm leeeeeavin' on a jet plane . . . "

so today . . . it is nearly midnight, and i am still up. i am still up, because tomorrow i am leaving for vacation. and if you read my blog the day i left for orlando, you know what that means . . .

actually, i was doing pretty well. i had a reasonable, doable list to complete today. if i got up kind of early. and if i stayed busy all day. and if i didn't do any farming (i lost 3 fields of pumpkins yesterday, so today i am in mourning . . . ) in fact, if i stayed off of facebook totally. and if i got my packing done early (while i still had a brain.) this was a lot of ifs, but i really thought i could do it.

the one thing i did not factor in, was attending a two and a half hour funeral today. it was a wonderful tribute to a man who had affected a lot of people during his 80 years, but it was somewhat longer than i had planned on. actually, quite a bit longer. and then rollie wanted to go out to lunch. and then i had a few errands to do. so i ended up trying to accomplish my whole day's list in just a few hours.

maybe impossible, but i was willing to give it a try. so i came home, changed my clothes and started packing.

i forgot to mention that diandra is going on this trip with me. when diandra and i travel, this is what usually happens--we start talking about the trip several days early. then we make a few trips to the store to get a stuff for the trip. (i got this idea from my friend lisa. several years ago, she and her husband were making a trip, i think to disneyland, and on the weekends leading up to the trip, they would do little things to get ready. the one that sticks in my mind is when they went to buy sunglasses--that's all, just sunglasses. but it built excitement for the trip, as well as getting them ready to go. so now, when i am going on a trip, i try to do the same thing.) but then we rarely start packing until 10:00 the night before. and then it takes us HOURS to get it done, because we are so tired by then, we can't make a decision about what to take and what to leave. so finally we just throw as much as we can fit into our suitcases and hope for the best. this results in very heavy suitcases, multiple suitcases, and nothing that goes with anything in any of the suitcases! it is a terrible system . . .

so this time, we decided we were going to pack before it got dark. we always pack at the same time, so we can help each other--maybe that is part of our problem . . . to begin, we sat down and had a snack. we just needed sustenance before tackling the packing. we discussed the weather in portland, and what we thought we might do while we were there, and how many pairs of shoes we thought we needed to take (diandra decided 2 and stuck with it--i ended up with 4.) then i decided i should fold laundry first, and diandra did nothing except pack her shoes--both pair. i finally got her moving in the right direction, but when i went to check on her, she was packing jewelry. "how can you pack jewelry?" i asked. "you don't even know what clothes you are taking yet."

she looked at me blankly and said, "i'm just taking it all." you see, even in the daylight our brains are not doing their jobs. we are seriously packing challenged!

we did get packed before dark. well, she did. i have all my stuff out, but the bag is not closed yet. we took a lot less than we usually do--we can even lift the bags ourselves! and i cleaned out the refrigerator, went to the store for cucumbers and nuts and raisins and tomatoes, and then cooked some chicken breasts for rollie (so he won't starve while we are gone.) i cleaned out the refrigerator, arranged his cucumbers, tomatoes, cooked chicken, and CHERRIES (his favorite) in the clean refrigerator. i did dishes. i VACUUMED!! yes people, i actually vacuumed. and now all i have left to do is finish this blog, clean the bathrooms, throw the rest of the stuff in my bags, and i am ready to go to bed! i had hoped to be done by midnight, but since it is now after midnight and i am still up, that is not going to happen.

by the time i am ready to go, i am really going to need this vacation . . .

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