As My Boxes Get Organized, My Life Gets Disorganized

Were an alien to come down and have sorted through a large box (an air conditioner originally came in it) of my travel mementos, they might have thought that I was addicted to collecting worthless receipts.  Honestly, I keep the receipts from my travels to compile how much I actually spent.  Well, at least this is the idea.  I never actually went through the receipts to figure it out.  And I never looked at the brochures to write Trip Advisor reviews or to research future trips either.  So after throwing everything except for especially interesting maps (like a map of Eastern Europe bought in Romania), brochures from places I've *actually* gone, and train tickets (I am a huge train geek) all of these trips now fit in one layer of a small box.

From now on, I think whenever I take a trip, this is what I'm going to do.  It fits right in with my throw out or give away 60% to 70% of what I have before this move.

Just one bag from a trip to Manchester in 2006.

It's hard to believe that I'm renting my car one week from today already.  Judging by the state of my apartment, however, I'm right on pace to do it.  All of my trinkets are slowly finding their way into little baggies with like trinkets (it's amazing how many refrigerator magnets that I've collected over the years and how many different boxes they had found themselves in).  All of my clothes are slowly finding their way into boxes with like clothes (though I still haven't sorted all of my socks).

Now if only I could get all of the packing down in a rational manner while still doing everything else that I need to do before I leave outside my apartment.  Today I went all the way to Lakeview for no other reason than to use a Falafill Groupon.  And I ended up coming home with two more books from the Borders at Clark and Diversey (they're at 70% to 90% off now and closing in five days, I couldn't help it).

And that only scratches the surface.  I have seven or so more to use.

I've pretty much given up on my bucket list.  I'm just going with the flow to go wherever I'm invited whenever I'm invited to it.  Though since I'm in the packing "zone," I can't even guarantee I'll keep doing that.  My social life for the next week might be the laundromat as that's the biggest portion of what is not packed.

It's fitting that it's the 11th since it was the first day of my serious packing.  Hopefully I can finish this by Day 9 on the 19th because that's when I leave.  Well, back to packing now.  Progress is being made.  Maybe I can dig myself out of these piles sooner rather than later.