July 4 - Lock The Door Behind You

It took a long time and felt like it would not ever get here but today I begin my trip. Independence Day. What better way to begin my journey than enjoying a holiday weekend of grilling outside, riding my bike along the lakefront, watching fireworks, and enjoying what have been some of the nicest days of the year so far. I did see the fireworks while visiting with my brother and sister in law on the 3^rd but that was it. The rest of the time has been a mad scramble to get everything done.

1. Haircut – check that off
2. Safe deposit box to drop stuff off, cash out the change I’ve collected, and get money from the ATM – check but had to do it twice since I forgot the money the first time around
3. Pack my clothes and stuff for the trip – this one kind of has to be a check but it was a big one and I more or less gave up on figuring it out at the end. So I have too many shirts packed and probably not enough pants. I also did not come close to just having the one bag pictured earlier.
4. Meet with the guy staying in my place – check
5. Grill the pork chops I defrosted on Thursday – Fail, still sitting in the fridge for the renter guy
6. Move the car into storage – check
7. Wash the car, fill the tank up and put gas stabilizer in first – check
8. Get a couple of bricks to chalk the tire as my electronic parking brake (I drive a stick) decided to stop working properly – Check, which should make my brother and his wife happy since it now won’t roll around in their garage
9. Move my voicemails to go to my e-mail – completed I think. A message saying my free transcription service was about to expire. Did not know I had one and not sure what that means exactly.
10. Reset my voice mail on my phone to say I am out of the country – Nope blew that one
11. Watch my movie and return it to Netflix – Did not happen either, enjoy renter guy
12. Cancel the cable and wifi – done and I rather enjoyed this one
13. Return the cable and wifi boxes to RCN facility by the river – done and easier than I expected
14. Transfer money from savings to checking – complete
15. Pay my credit card bills – done
16. Pay the property tax bill that showed up on the 3^rd – curve ball since it came right after I shut off my wifi access but done too. I did this at Starbucks so hopefully nobody was skimming and now has my savings account info.
17. Clean the bathrooms – mostly done
18. Clean the bedroom – did not get around to vacuuming but clean otherwise
19. Clean the kitchen – not such a good job here and mom would not approve
20. Clean the rest of my condo – mostly picked up and dusted but did not clean the floors
21. Take out the trash – done, twice
22. Take out the recycling – forgot this one
23. Move the clothes left behind out so renter guy has a place to keep his – done
24. Laundry – done
25. Get batteries for flashlight in Botswana – done
26. Back up computer – check
27. Pack up computer and scanner for storage at brothers – check
28. Go for one last bike ride on the lakefront – nope

It was kind of dumb of me but I figured since I would have all day on Friday and half of today to take care of this I would be fine. After all I often would pack for a work trip the morning of before going into the office. Of course those trips are typically 3-4 days, it is a little different when you have to pack for 3-1/2 months. If I had been smart about this I would have taken a few more days between work and going to get ready and enjoy the last few days before heading out. But I’m not typically accused of being smart so instead, it has been a lot of work with only a very little bit of play before going. I actually started to get relieved as the time grew closer to go as it simply meant I had to stop worrying about cleaning stuff and getting things ready.