Organizing My Stuff

In December, at school, we participated in a fund raising breakfast for a Colitis charity.  The food came packed in a bankers box, which has been stored in my office, empty, since then.

I decided to bring the box home and use it for storing all the little odds and ends that I will be taking with me to Rwanda.  I gathered up all of these bits and pieces from the various places where I had been squirreling them away, and put them in the box, which is now in my downstairs office.  I will continue to place things in the box as I buy them, thereby (hopefully) eliminating the likelihood of leaving something important behind when I go.

I still have to buy Tylenol and ibuprofen, gravol, immodium, benedryl, sun block, mosquito repellant (although I tried to order some permethrin from Magellan's Travel Supply but they were out of stock) mosquito coils, matches, athlete's foot cream, eye drops and a host of other things.

Finally, everything that I pack will be in a container of some description, like a make-up kit or travel cubes.  I am not going to have any loose items in my luggage, not even charging cords for my ipod and phone.  All of the containers will be labelled if they are not see-through.  There will be a place for everything, and everything will be in its place.  My shirts, pants, sox, gidgies and other clothes will all be in packing cubes.  I hate rooting around for little things in my luggage and it will absolutely not happen on this trip.  The flight will be enough for me, I won't need to be adding to my anxiety by not being able to find some tiny thing I tossed in my bag.

And ditto for my carry-on bag.  I will have enough to put in it (see my earlier post "The Carry-On Bag Conundrum") and I don't want to be rooting around in there while I am flying.  I need my flight to be as stress-free as possible.