Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Packing Style

 

Picture from February 2020; the last time I had to pack for all five of us.


We leave for a Covid-style epic road trip in exactly two weeks. TWO WEEKS. I totally rushed to Amazon for basic essentials I keep forgetting to order, just to be sure they'll be here and packed by the time we leave. It's crazy to think that at this point last year all of our orders were taking weeks to arrive. I never did get that tetherball set I ordered. The delivery date kept getting pushed back, so I finally cancelled the order when I received a notification the set wouldn't be delivered until beginning of August.

"Ugh, the kids won't have time to use it before they go back to school!" I remember thinking as I hit the 'cancel order' button. Joke was on me with that one. Anyways, we'll have enough sun screen, beach towels, and camping supplies to last us through the summer.

I need to dig my summer clothes out of drawers, make sure everything is washed, do a quick round up of clothes, and then I can begin packing. I'll likely need to make an Old Navy run for new tank tops before we go. My closet room is a mess though. Do I clean it, then make a mess with packing? Do I pack, organize, and then put things away properly? Decisions, decisions. Oh, and no, I don't have an entire room as a closet per se, but my office has a wall of built in drawers that I use to store my clothes and the closet in my office became my closet because it's slightly larger than the one across the hall in my bedroom. 

The minis finally stopped using my upstairs office as a homeschool room as much as they did, so I feel like I have some space. The first thing I did was junk it up with my clothes everywhere. So, I guess I kind of do have a clothes room. Way cooler than a walk-in closet if you ask me.

I'm so proud of myself that I'm even thinking about packing. I pulled out a few pairs of shorts....and then threw them into the pile of jeans. I'm about halfway there. While I'm thinking about packing and supplies, I know it's going to be a flurry of clothes thrown around my house the day before we leave. Fingers crossed I don't forget my swimming suit like I did when we went to Florida. Everyone else had multiple changes of swim wear (thanks to me) and I failed to put even one of mine in the suitcase. Sigh. A quick run into a Target saved me that time. 

The last time we did an epic road trip (summer 2019, I think?), I gathered items a week before we left, got out our suitcases, and stared at them until 48 hours before we left. There was also the time I went to pack a suitcase only to find clothes that I hadn't unpacked from the last trip. That was a smelly good time. Then there was the time I emptied the suitcases, washed what was in them, and then loaded everything right back in as we only had a mere three (or maybe it was four?) days at home before we left again. I haven't checked our suitcases, but since we haven't gone anywhere for over a year, I'm confident they'll be empty (also crossing fingers and toes as I type that). 

I imgaine I'll break the suitcases out later this week, make piles of things we should bring on top of them, and then actually do some packing right before we head out the door. Anyone else as organized as me? Or do you actually pack in advance? Does everything have a place in your luggage? Or do you pack whatever and assume there will be a Target nearby (this is totally my go-to)?