day 20: sunday mornings

is like every morning but unlike most who do not have children I am awake at 6am. With a charlie horse in my leg. my cold seems to be subsiding and while I feel like I packed a ton yesterday, my office and living room look remarkably the same mess they did before I began. I packed the vases and the flowers, the projects, the little details, the bm gifts, some craft supplies for emergencies and condensed boxes. We started the morning with a long call with our super awesome DJ. We went through the entire day, things to consider, plan for, and plan B for. Our first dance, when does it happen, do we have other dances, is the party going to be introduced (I never saw this before ie not paying attention), ways to make our songs flow, ideas to keep people dancing.

Menus are done, as is my mini tree forest and all the butterfly escort cards, tree names, tree stories for each table, favors purchased, some boxes are packed. I even cleaned out my closet and made four huge piles: to be thrown out, to stay, to store for the winter, and to be packed. Good time to purge, right?

If you are packing for two weeks of various activities and potentially or definitely living out of a suitcase, it's a good idea to try on your clothes. This is really geeky but the last silly stress I need is that I don't know what to wear, or I packed too much or too little.
Here's what I did:
a. looked through October magazines and earmarked pages that I liked/online and (instantshot to flickr),
b. bought a few staples that I was missing with a huge promo code and shipped it directly to my mother,
c. made a list of the clothes sent in green
d. tried on my clothes with the days and nights listed near me (ie what am I wearing to the parents dinner? bridal shower? apple picking? working on projects? staying warm in my mother's house?)
e. made a huge pile of "yes" clothes and added them to my packing list in BLUE
and lastly for today
f. narrow down the big stack of clothes and pack them.

I had to have a heart to heart with myself about a few purchases that are not working: a Loeffler Randall black dress that is too big, a pair of distressed Steven boots (I don't need two pairs of boots, ever. This I am not sure about but I know only one is coming with me), a pair of shiny snakeskin triangle heels with the cool toes (I have a pair of Ralph Lauren black snakeskin shoes; they are cousins from a different designer, different season) and an ivory shirt that looks like 10 other shirts I have. I packed them up and thus begins the excitement of looking for their receipts. All are tagged and unworn. Then I made a list of things that I absolutety don't have and really need so exchanges are welcome.

The shipping tape is out and ready to wrap up the visuals and be shipped to CT. Kind of scary and crazy. Very exciting.