In a bit of a panic...

Well, if I didn't feel the time crunch before, I certainly feel it now! When I realized that I have only 7 days left in Saint Paul, this sent my mind reeling! I kind of have a lot to do before then...

I'm currently sitting in the Purple Onion café in Dinkytown (part of Minneapolis), using their wireless to work (and blog, apparently) while my car gets the front brake pads replaced. Considering that I had the whole car checked out in preparation for my road trip up to Alaska, I am extremely lucky that I didn't need more work done on the car. So at least I'm checking something off my list.

But boy, do I have a lot more...

So I'm working through Thursday, and then I am off from work until after Thanksgiving. But here's the run-down:

I leave on Friday for a Western Caribbean cruise with 26 of my friends. I am SOOOOOOOO looking forward to this! But I need to be really adept in my packing for this cruise, because I'm sending suitcases back with some friends. This times out beautifully for getting my clothes and such up to Alaska. My friend Megan is even going to bring my violin back as a carry-on—how nice is that? So my first priority is to make sure I have everything that I need for my cruise, and then filling the rest of the space with clothes and such that I want to return to Alaska... I also need to find someone who has a scale I can borrow to make sure my bags are within weight restrictions...

Meanwhile, I'm still in the mindset of how the heck am I'm going to fit the rest of my stuff in my car. I'm going to have 4 days between the cruise and hitting the road, and in reality, most of the work of stuffing my car will go on during this time. I just have no idea how things are really going to fit. I've given stuff to goodwill, sold some other things, but then the fitting of everything else into the puzzle piece of my car is going to be the challenge. The good thing is that there is not tons of stuff that I would cry if I had to leave behind... I just want to be economical and try to not have to replace things when I'm up in Alaska. All I'm saying, is that goodwill might end up with some pretty good things :)

Okay, I've got to get back to work, finishing some things before I take off all this time, so that I can truly enjoy the time off without feeling like I left some things hanging. Sorry, this post ended up being pretty boring. I guess it was more therapeutic for me, figuring out what all I need to do before leaving. So if you got this far, you're awfully sweet!

Ciao for now,
Lindsay