I'm really gonna go (Lord willing and the creek don't rise...)

My half day at work. Clear roads on the way in, by 12:30 when I left it was snowing AGAIN so decided to just go on home without any caching.

I packed for my trip this afternoon. Really. Ok, so I unpacked afterwards. But I wanted to see if the clothes that I wanted to take were realistic for just a carry on (I have the eBags convertible suitcase.) My packing "list" for today was: two pairs of pants; two mockneck shirts; one sweater; one short sleeve shirt; 1 t-shirt with sweatshorts to sleep in; 7 pairs of panties, 1 bra, 4 prs of socks; my sleep sack and a lightweight small fleece blanket; a small bag with my netbook power cords and my adaptor electrical plugs; my empty toiletries bag; and probably a few small miscellaneous items as well. I did forget to put my guidebooks in. Anyway, that fit easily into my suitcase (with the help of those bags that you can get all the air out of them.) Weight was 15 pounds so far. I will have a ScotteVest travel vest with lots of pockets, one will be big enough for the netbook itself plus some of the miscellaneous stuff. I'll also take my fleece jacket and wear jeans and a sweater. I have plenty of time to tweak this, of course!

Tonight after dinner I brought up the storage tote for the ornaments and started the sad (to me anyway) task of taking down the Christmas tree. I had packed them in shredded paper for the last year or two; this was really messy every time I took them out. So I took some advice I'd read at the start of the Christmas season and packed each ornament in a styrofoam cup with just a little shredded paper in the cup. Much neater though I couldn't fit as many into the storage tote.

While I worked I watched a DVD that I'd checked out of the library: Travel With Kids Paris. It was the first video I've seen of Paris since this trip became a reality (well, like I said: Lord willing and the creek don't rise) EXCELLENT views and descriptions of Paris, even though it was from a family's point of view.

I started watching the DVD and was somewhat surprised to find myself a bit choked up. It hit me that this is really going to happen, I am going to finally see Paris after first learning about the city back in 1973 when I started my first year of French class. Four years of hearing Mr. St. Clair teach us about French and France; then many years of "someday" and now it's real. I hope my mom realizes just how much this means to me. I'll never be able to thank her enough. Getting a bit choked up again just writing this.

I watched another DVD, this one of London but not the same series as the first one, after the Paris DVD was finished. I'm very excited to go to London as well but I didn't get choked up like I did with Paris. Maybe because I'm going to be able to more thoroughly explore Paris. Maybe because I've had English "lessons" since birth. Maybe because it wasn't as good of a DVD as the first one. I don't know. But I am looking forward to ALL of this trip, of course.