An Extended Stay

Today’s the day I say goodbye to Georgia as a single gal, because the next time my feet land in the Peach State, I’ll be a married woman!

My plane leaves Atlanta this evening, so with some hours to spare before take off, I wanted to share a few tips on how to pack for an extended stay. A little refresher for you: I’m going home for two months and I needed to pack for…dun…dun…dun:

Christmas, New Years/Anniversary, bachelorette party, bridal shower, the cold weather (scarves and hats), the wedding (taking home the invitations and other projects I’ve been working on), clothes for going out, clothes for working out, makeup, and finally, the honeymoon.

We’re talking about A LOT of stuff, people. Remember, I moved completely out of my house in New Mexico and took everything with me. Granted, I’m just going home for a couple months and can buy whatever I forget, but still!

Okay, enough talking. Here’s my tutorial on How To Pack for an Extended Stay:

{Step One} Procrastinate. Think really hard about all you need to pack for. Decide that there’s just too much to pack and you’ll have plenty of time to do it later.

{Step Two} Take a deep breath, peer inside your closet, and get to work. Our closet is a wreck. The shoe holder we put up, fell, leaving shoes scattered all over the place. On top of that, I still have clothes in bags from when I moved. But that’s besides the point. Get a good look at all the clothes you have and may want to take.

{Step Three} Pile it up. I started by making piles. There was one for fancy/going out attire, working out clothes, “casual” clothes, warm clothes, and honeymoon wear. Then I went through and picked out a few different pairs of shoes and piled those on the bed as well.

That may look like chaos to you, but trust me, it’s organized chaos (see step three)

{Step Four} Pack it up. I had to use Kenny’s suitcase to help out with this one. It turns out that packing for two months, with special occasions and two climates worth of clothes, requires more than one suite case. Luckily, he’s only bringing a few things with him for the two weeks he’ll be in town, so he can get by with just using a duffel bag. Me, on the other hand? I need three suitcases (checking in two and carrying on one).

{Step Five} Weigh! The airline I’m traveling on only allows a maximum of 50 pounds per suitcase. Well, as it turns out, my two bags each weighed very close to 50, so I had to do a little rearranging (as seen in the photo above). I didn’t feel like lugging the luggage (ha!) back to the bathroom where the scale was, so I brought the scale out to the bags.

{Step Six} Luck. I’ll be crossing my fingers that I didn’t forget anything and that the bags won’t be over 50 pounds, because I really don’t feel like paying their $75 baggage fee for going over.

And that’s that. I’m officially (almost) homeward bound!