Everything! Plus some kite string

I’m not sure how I could know about this trip for eight months and still feel so woefully unprepared. I had such good intentions! I was going to master French. I was going to prepare an exhaustive and neatly organized list of everything to do and see in London. And darn it, I was going to rid myself of that awful caffeine addiction! {Note: A coke in Paris is supposedly quite expensive, and I can name loads of things I’d rather spend my money on}. But, here I sit two days before my departure with a long list of to-dos before me…and a Sonic Route 44 just to my left. Bad!

Okay, so yes. I knew that many of the items on my mental checklist were unrealistic. Becoming fluent in French? Obviously wasn’t going to happen. Giving up coke? Eh, debatable. But one thing that I truly HAD to do was pack - which was my big task for the weekend. Over the past few weeks I’ve been going through a process that I would describe as “pre-packing” which basically worked like this: 1. I'd suddenly think of an item to take with me and 2. I’d grab the item and toss it onto my couch. Pretty simple. But with my trip rapidly approaching {and with the pile quickly growing} I thought I should probably go ahead and make sure that it all fit inside my suitcase.

So here was my mission. To get all of this:

{The most random item I'm bring along?

A kite! (and string).

It was actually required...}

into this:

Yes, yes. I was aware that I was over-packing. But I have no idea what I’ll need, so I figured why not just bring everything? After I started putting things into my suitcase, though, I quickly discovered a wee problem. It wasn’t going to fit! Not even close! So I resigned myself to the sad fact that some of the more extraneous pieces of clothing would have to be left behind (sorry, loves!) and then tucked a bunch of odds and ends into my backpack and laptop bag. And TADA! - it all fit! My suitcase is stuffed to the max and I have ZERO space for the things I might buy during my travels, but…I can think about that later.

For now, I have a passport, a plane ticket, and a packed suitcase. Everything else? Well, I guess I’ll just wing it. :)