One week to go!

Today is Saturday, July 28th 2012. You know what this means? I leave for Finland exactly one week (7 days) from today. What a crazy thought! And so of course, with everyday going by so quickly and having a list full of things to get done I decided that today was the day to face the thing that I've been dreading the most: Pack!  

Now you see, if any of you know me (which I'm sure all who might be reading of this do in fact know me incredibly well) you'll know that I love fashion! Telling a fashion lover that she can only bring a suitcase's worth of clothes for ONE YEAR of her life is like telling a kid at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory that he can only have one piece of candy. Therefore, it's a huge challenge. I started off with a very organized & clean closet and set my music on high and went to work. Surprisingly, things became very easy and quick paced until I realized how big of a pile I had on my bed. Want to see what I mean? Check it out!

Ouch. Knowing I had to downsize but not quite wanting to face that challenge yet, I went ahead and moved on to going through all of my beauty products and accessories and all of my host gifts that I have gathered these past few months. My mom had helped me out with this all evening long and we were both SO productive! I split all of my stuff into three different sections, for my three host families and got everything complete which is such a good feeling. After dinner it was time to downsize.. I obviously had WAY too much stuff! And so we picked up the packing list and slowly started to pull things away. Honestly, this was really hard for me to do because I have sooo many clothes and shoes and bags.. well, you get the idea. But just like everyone always says, you have to keep it to the minimum. After a lot of thinking and decisions we got it down to a size that I feel really good about. Now, I know I still have too much (and yes, I will downsize even more) but for now, one week away.. I feel like I made some awesome progress and I'm proud of that. And so now it's one week away.. this means I have a week to think about what I've gotten together, make final decisions and then put it all in a suitcase. Until then, it's off to other things!