Getting Ready

Every day I say I'm going to post, and then something happens and I don't get to it.

It's no surprise -- I'm counting down the very few days left until I leave for London. I'm packing up my sundry items, picking out coordinating outfits (I'm packing light and being as mix-and-match as possible), making sure I leave copies of my passport and my itinerary for my family, figuring out what goes in my check-in luggage and what I'm carrying on board with me.

Not to mention making sure my husband and daughter can get through the week without me. I'm printing up schedules, to-do lists and reminders of where my daughter needs to be and what my husband needs to do around the house. I've been briefing my mother on morning routines, since she'll be getting my daughter ready for school in the mornings (my husband leaves for work at 6:30 a.m. and my daughter doesn't leave until 7:50) I've arranged for my brother-in-law to drive her to school, since he already takes my nephew every day and they live just a block or so away.

For those of you new to my world and haven't read my old post, this trip caused some major strife in my life when it first came up. My good friends from my days as a newspaper person arranged this week-long trip and invited me to come along. From the moment I mentioned I was thinking about going, my husband was not happy about it, even though he takes a yearly fishing trip to Alaska with his buddies and leaves my daughter and I home alone for a week. The more I debated going the more displeased he was, and it escalated to the point that he dragged his parents into it to try to gang up on me. This made me even more stubborn and determined to go, and I did finally book my airline ticket and make my lodging reservations almost in spite of their protests.

Things did calm down over this skirmish -- my husband and I were able to talk things out and come to an understanding. As for the in-laws? Well, we've basically taken the path of "let's pretend it never happened and never discuss it." In fact, this past Sunday was the first time since this began in the early fall that my MIL ever uttered a single word about my trip. I guess it's hard to deny when it's a week away!

Throughout these preparations I've been trying my best to stick to my 2008 goals. I've been doing really well with taking my vitamins and supplements, and I really think it's helped my energy level. The exercise is going so-so: I've been pretty regular with my exercises on my stability ball, but the treadmill walking has been more erratic. The food is pretty hit and miss; sometimes I feel pretty intuitive about my eating, then there are times I find myself pretty compulsive or emotional when it comes to food. But more than once I've caught myself before I do it and can prevent or interrupt myself before I go over the deep end. I'm squeezing in as much "inspirational" reading as I can, and like I mentioned above, the blogging is coming in fits and starts. I suppose I should be pleased that I've been able to do this much so soon into the year. I initially said I would do this in baby steps, which I thought would be doing one thing perfectly, then moving on to the next goal. But I need to stay away from the whole perfection trap and learn to appreciate what I can do, no matter how imperfect.

Here's the bad news: I think I'm coming down with another cold! I just finished my antibiotics for my sinus infection a week ago, and it's bumming me out that I'm feeling lousy again so soon. I'm loading up on Echinacea with my vitamins and hoping I can knock it out of my system before I leave Friday evening. If I'm worse on Friday, I'm going to try to get to the doctor that day and get any meds I might need so I can wipe it out for sure at the very beginning of the trip. But hopefully it is just a cold and I don't need more antibiotics.

I'm hoping to post once more before I leave with any final pre-trip thoughts.