Last night I went to Aveda for my semi-annual purchase. Except, since I'll be out of the country in December, it's actually my annual purchase. Except, since I'll be out of the country in April / May / June ...
As a general rule, I schedule my purchases around the double rewards points offers. These happen the 1st weekend in December, Mother's Day weekend and for roughly 90 days around your birthday (you get a cert for 1 day of double points, not 90 days of double points).
I went a little nutty with the purchases, which is crazy. It's not like they won't have shampoo, conditioner, lotions, and hair product in Germany ... I'm thinking this behavior may be related to growing anxiety / nerves.
In other news: next Friday is the 2nd of three scheduled going away events. The first was a small lunch with what ended up being just a couple of people from work. This next one is a girl's night at my place, and looks like it'll end up being 7 - 10 people. Then, after I'm back from Greece, there's a scheduled happy hour with work people. Finally, there'll be my last day party.
I hadn't really thought about it, but one of my cohort's fb posts, earlier this week, mentioned a dwindling number of lunches, so clearly I'm not the only one quietly stressing. Or not-so-quietly, I suppose.
I ordered my camera, for Greece. I thought it was on the way / had been shipped, but a quick check of my email shows that the SD card is on its way, not the camera. Sigh. Regardless, this is what I'm getting:
It's a Sony-Cyber-shot 16.2-Megapixel Zoom Digital Camera-Black-DSCHX9V/B, a slightly up-market and, I think, somewhat newer version of the camera I bought before my trip to China last year, which was later stolen. One of the things I loved about that camera was the really great panorama shots it took, and which I'll be taking on this, too. It also, apparently, offers 3D panorama. I'm ... not so excited about that. The other think I loved was the way it made many of the pics look, to me, like movie stills. Hopefully that still happens.
I also bought, at a website's recommendation, a book:
How to Shit Around the World
The title amuses me, and the advice (what to eat & drink, where, to have a prayer of maintaining intestinal regularity) is supposed to be straight forward and usable. I read the intro last night, and have high hopes.
Departure: 58 days
Last day: 56
Leave for Greece: 12 days
Girls' Night: 7 days
With the countdown getting scary, I'm starting to work my lists and wrap up my life. Here's how that's going.
Packing
So, the plan to use the box recycling place hit some hitches: the visa debit card didn't work, and when I re-placed my order I never got any sort of confirmation. So now I've gone and re-re-placed my order. Actually looks promising, this time? But, since I needed to use my own card, I went the paypal route, which I'm not generally a fan of as it means endless spam.
Also I'm a week behind ... sortof. I also scheduled my "Drink my Wine" party, and turned it into a girls' night. Honestly, most of the previously scheduled girls' nights have ended up being 3 or 4 people, total. Mine ... looks bigger, so far. Like, 10 people bigger. Everyone get's their own bottle of wine! Or something.
I also checked out Ikea, so I could see what my shelving collection is selling for now, to get a better sense of what to ask when I attempt to sell. ... The entire line has been discontinued. Also, apparently it is all solid pine. So in addition to looking nice and being mid-range expensive, it apparently is decent quality. So now I don't really want to sell it. Or at least not the big bookshelves. So my current thought is to disassemble the three and the table I want to keep, at a minimum, and put them in storage. Yay?
So my current plan is to leave everything as-is until my party, then start packing that weekend. Yes, okay, that Wednesday I leave for Greece (woohoo!), but I want to put the stuff I'm keeping into storage, except probably a few dishes, July 16th or 17th. So ... packing.
Shipping
I suppose that also means I need to firm up my shipping plans. I intend to pack the majority of what I want to bring to Germany and ship it (SLOW ship it!) in advance. I need to find out if a traditional trunk (well. The current version of a traditional trunk, which has wheels) is shippable via UPS or USPS or whether it'd have to go into a box, in which case not much point to have the trunk ... well. Except when it comes to getting the shipped items to my new residence. Then it'd be really, really handy to be able to unbox and roll. Hm. Thoughts.
Augh
I suppose I also need to get on buying my health insurance, setting up my car-custody (for insurance) and reserving my storage space!
Weight
I'm not doing as well as I'd hoped but frankly, between people visiting me, me visiting them, (possibly) herniating a disc in my back debilitating me for 2 weeks, and, of course, general laziness as I fall out of the groove, I'm really not doing too badly. I haven't gained anything, and in the 6 or so weeks my body has done some re-distributing of weight so I actually look pretty okay. It is impossible that I'll reach my initial goal-weight before I leave for Germany. I may, maybe-possibly, lose another 10 by then, but with 2 weeks in Greece in the middle, I rather doubt it. Still.
I went clothes shopping the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and was quite pleasantly surprised to be back in clothes that are carried in the store now, instead of only online. Even better: I can squeeze into some clothes the next size down, even if I wouldn't yet leave the house in them. That means, to me, that soon (SO SOON) I may be buying that size. That was kindof the reason I went shopping when I did: I don't intend to be in these clothes for long, so 30% off everything, including clearance, makes purchases reasonable even knowing that.
All that, however, obscures the fact: I am officially 3 full sizes smaller than I was this time last year!! Jeans that I couldn't wear last year are now too big! And I can no longer buy anything from Womens Plus - I'm back into Women's proportion-wise, if still at big sizes. Super exciting!
What's Next
I have started my application for the Peace Corps. It sounds like I want to get that completely squared away by the time I leave for Greece. That can be done. And then when I get back I'll need to start my GM application.
My sister asked me how serious I am about the Peace Corps. It's hard to say, honestly, but I was thinking last night: this is my life. I want it to be a good one, and an interesting one. I want people to talk about me and how neat I am or what I've done is. Sure, going to school in Germany is a start. I want to find myself interesting, and for that to happen, I need to do things that make me think "wow, that's really cool". That would happen with a stint in the Peace Corps. It would also probably happen with GMs ECLP program - it sounds like the projects are fast, intense and informative.
So I guess my ideal would be to do the GE thing for 2 years and then do the Peace Corps? Glad I worked that out!
16 days: Greece; 55 days: goodbye apartment; 60 days: last day of work; 62 days: goodbye Orlando
