Leavin' on aJet Plane in a Nissan Pathfinder

I'm writing this blog post to avoid the inevitable. I am supposed to be getting ready to go on a family vacation. It is always a daunting task to pack up for a holiday. It is much easier to default to staying home. Whenever we go away, there's a cacophony of voices vying for attention in my head.

The "I shoulds" stand up and shout": "I should get the dishes done before I go". "I should get that last load of laundry done so the kids have something to wear". "I should get out the cooler to pack up the food". Not to be out done, the "Don't forgets" holler :"Don't forget to put out the garbage" and "Don't forget that bill is due while you're away" and "Don't forget to pick up batteries for the camera". And once we are actually on our way, the "Did I's" raise their hue and cry: "Did I remember to turn off the stove" and "Did I take that rented DVD back to the store?" "Did I return that phonecall to Mrs. Diddlydo about not being able to teach Sunday School this week?"

When some people go away, they have a need to come back to a house that is spic-and-span. So not only are they packing up the whole house, they go crazy with vacuuming and dusting and making sure that there's no drip marks on the taps. I stop short of that. I figure, if I don't make it back from the trip, I'll have one less mess to clean up. I am certain the house will wait for me to clean it - and it will have gathered up a bit more dust for me in the days that I am gone.

I suppose if we went away more often, I'd have the art of packing down to a science. But we only go away as a family occasionally, so I lose the techniques somewhere in the side pockets of the luggage that we took the last time. I completely forget how to gather supplies and put them in one place so that they can all be distributed to the right pieces of baggage. And while I'm trying to remember how the steps go, I take myself on a "pre-trip guilt trip" about why a grown woman can't get it together to pack up for such a short time. "For pity sakes," I say to myself, " it isn't like we are going around the world for several years. It's just a few days. Think of what your Mom and Dad had to do all those years when they had to pack up the whole family for five years at a time."

Still, it's an intimidating job. Now that the kids are older, I don't worry about their suitcases. They are all responsible to get enough socks, pants and shirts into their own luggage. However, since I'm the Mom, I still hover around them to make sure they are all ready at the same time. It is a little like getting a steam engine going. The grunts and groans as the steam heats up, [Mom, where's my yellow pullover?] the slow cranking of the wheels [Turn the thermostat down, turn all the lights off, shut down the computers] . And my husband has a little tradition about family trips. He starts [and completes] one large job that just "HAS" to be done before we go. Usually it is something like replacing the whole engine on the truck, or re-roofing the house. [And although he starts it several days before we go, there's always glitches, so by the time it it done, we have burned the midnight oil right out of the lamp. ]

Still, once we return home, we have the memories to put in our memory box. And it makes a great story. Now, since the "You're running out of time" voices are making their rallying cry, I'd better stop procrastinating and quickly run the vacuum over the whole house before we leave.