Pete and I start to pack

Well, here I am, a week out from the big trip. My flight leaves at 7:20 pm on Tuesday, so exactly a week from now, I'll be jetting off to France. Since I have a wedding this weekend down in Owatonna, I am trying to get as much of a head start on the packing so I don't stress out about it this weekend! If you've known me for 5 minutes, you probably know I am high strung, so being organized is a must... otherwise I get a little snarky about things! So my tentative itinerary (no, I won't follow it to a t) is in excel, as are the addresses of people I'll try to send postcards to. Getting ready for a trip like this is a heck of a lot different than my previous trips. This is the longest I'll be gone since I studied abroad. Besides packing, I didn't really have to do anything to get ready for that trip. This time around, I'm gone for a much shorter time, but have a lot more to do in preparation... like putting mail & newspaper subscription on hold, talking to my HOA about the fact that I'll be gone, and most importantly, trying to train people at work on what I do so that they can do it while I'm gone. I'm not exactly 'a big deal' at work, so don't have a Blackberry. So they won't really be able to reach me when I am gone. Which is probably a good thing!

So, you might be wondering - who the heck is Pete? Did Lisa meet someone in the span of the past week? Is he joining her on this adventure? Um, no. Pete is actually my iPod. When I was training for my marathon during the summer of 2006, I was spending so much time running & listening to my iPod, I thought - this guy (I think of him as male for some reason) deserves a name. Plus, then when asked what I did the previous night, I could say 'oh, I went for a run w/ Pete.' I also named my exercise ball when I was in college, but that's a whole other story (Brooke also named hers, and also named her iPod, so I blame her for starting this tradition).

So Pete will be joining me on this trip as my trusty sidekick. I thought about leaving the iPod at home, but 3 weeks is a long time to be away from my favorite tunes.

Back to the packing.....