How do you pack for a year? Particularly if you will be hiking through rural Spain, sightseeing Paris, and swimming on a tropical island in the Caribbean- with 2 kids that need to be homeschooled. When I would get dramatic about this question my mom would say, "well, it's not like you are putting your family on a boat". Except that we are on a boat for 17 days across the Atlantic. But now packING has turned into packED. I'm quite sure we made many upcoming regretful choices, but we chose to be nimble rather than comfortable. This is a pretty nerve-racking place to be. Mostly because I like being comfortable, as in squishy cozy comfortable. But you don't get to adventure unless you walk out of that comfort zone. Whenever we would bring up how we could ship, store or drag Rubbermaid tubs along with us both Jake and I got exhausted, confused, and overwhelmed. We did the money-math and the stress-math and taking stuff to store stuff so that we could have stuff was turning out to be a pretty expensive/complicated choice. AND that is before we were trying to figure out how to make sure that nothing gets stolen or lost. So cuts- major cuts. What didn't make "the cut" is kind of amazing. I mean pj's didn't make it past the first round of cuts- because we have travel dresses. I didn't pack a sweatshirt because I packed a vest, a vest doesn't have sleeves (I could have maybe handled one but two sleeves were just ridiculous ). I mean my deodorant even got cut at round 3, because 2 sticks felt excessive. There was an actual conversation about Jake smelling like baby powder or me smelling like Fiji. Marriage is a compromise, and today I'm smelling quite tropical. By the 7th round of cuts, I can tell you, I am NOT comfortable with this... not at all. But we are nimble. I have been in an awkward relationship with "stuff" my whole life, and he's kind of a jerk. I don't want him to come along with us- not this year. So we are gonna try to only take/keep what we can carry comfortably. That will be my new comfortable, and it will be ok. Right?
Jake's pack: 55liters and 35 lbs
Lisa's pack: 45 liters and 25 lbs
Charlotte's pack: 22 liters and 10 lbs
Claire's pack: 18 liters and 6 lbs
(We are not taking the couch, it got dropped in round 4)
Comments