October 23rd, 2019

This isn't really about our recent vacation, I promise.  It's just the vacation that brought this to mind.  There were just a couple of topics I wanted to cover briefly.

​First topic:

What you see in the photos above is the AMAZING travelling jewelry....ummmm..... what do I call it?  A jewelry bag ?   A jewelry case ?  A jewelry pouch ?  Well whatever it actually is called, it is amazing.  I have a couple of other jewelry travel cases and they are very nice, don't get me wrong.  They are perfect for bracelets, earrings,  pins and rings but all of them, no matter how nice they are, all of them without fail are terrible for necklaces.  I always ended up wrapping each necklace individually in a paper towel and then stuffing the mass of paper towels into a zippybag.  It works but it surely isn't pretty.

This new thingie  is perfect, beautiful in form AND function!  My friend Marsha gave it to me, for I think, Christmas last year but our recent trip was my first opportunity to use it.

It is, obviously, a drawstring bag.  When you open it, it is a lovely circle that has three rows of individual triangle shaped pockets going all the way around.   I was able to put one necklace or one pair of earrings (or one pin or ring) in each pocket (actually I didn't use all of the pockets.  There are so many!) but with each one in it's own little house, there were no tangles, no knots, nothing broken and nothing lost. Sweet!  And then as it turns out the middle was perfect for my bracelets!!  

I cannot recommend this travelling jewelry pouch thingie whatever it's called, enough!  If you travel and, like me, you like to take jewelry with you, THIS is the answer to everything travel/jewelry related.  I'm pretty sure it's from Brighton if you are interested.

Next topic: 

​ The one thing that I find to be the biggest buggaboo about ANY sort of vacation travel is laundry.  And that is ridiculous because, y'know, it's not like I'm down by the river, beating the clothes on a rock to get them clean. No. I just put them into one machine, push buttons then put them in a different machine and push buttons. Not a hardship.  Still, before we leave on any trip, I do every single bit of laundry in the baskets.  I wash clothes, I wash towels, I wash sheets. 

I make sure the house is clean and the bed is made up with clean sheets for our return.  No damp towels just sitting in the bathrooms getting musty while we are away. No no no!  The house is clean, the laundry is all done and therefore we have every single choice (except what we are wearing that minute) available to us when we pack.  Great idea eh?  I am rarely certain of what I am going to pack until I am actually packing. And often I change my mind, take something out of the pile, put something new in the pile, substitute this for that before we walk out the door, suitcases in hand. Sooooo as you can see, the day before we leave I am facing a mountain of laundry.

And it's not such a big deal before we leave because I am excited about the trip!  The novelty of travel!  The endless possibilities that lay before us!  The Adventure!  The Discoveries! The Surprises that await!  So I wash, I dry, I fold, I iron and I sing and dance while  doing so.

However, once we arrive back home, we are tired, it is late. The surprises are no longer a surprise.  The discoveries have been discovered. The possibilities are no longer mysterious. And no matter how tired or how late it is, I always unpack the suitcases right away.

I unpack right away partly because there are things packed that I am going to need (like my toothbrush), partly because I don't want the week old dirty clothes smell to linger in the suitcase any longer than necessary and partly because, well, I guess I am a teensy bit OCD about some things.  And I know that the next day I am facing another mountain of laundry.

And I'm not nearly as excited about it as I was before we went on vacation.  I am neither singing nor dancing as I separate stinky week old sweaty, dirty clothes into the  appropriate piles.  I am merely doing the laundry and ironing. For hours. The day after returning from our trip. It promotes the post-vacation blahs.

 This past trip it was 4 loads.  Not joking.  One load of delicates, one load of darks, one of whites and one of regular stuff.  The delicates is always a faster wash.  It's a smaller load of course, but a lot of the things in that load don't go in the dryer. Nope I drape them around the house to air dry. Our house looked like my very distant memories of Chicago back alley apartments that had criss crossing lines on pulleys. Back then the women would wash the clothes and then open the (usually) kitchen window and pin the clothing to the line, piece by piece using the pulley to move the lines forward.  On wash day the airspace above the alley ways were filled with lines of drying clothes as far up as you could see, if anyone bothered to look.  

But the other loads take longer.  Cold water wash of course takes longer and then the heavier the fabric, the longer it takes to dry. 

I don't like the clothes to just lie in the dryer when they are done either.  It's a great way for them to wrinkle.  I don't mind ironing but I see no point in ironing anything that is not absolutely necessary.  And anything that just lays in the dryer will need to be ironed. So I cannot stray far from the laundry room. I have to able to hear that buzzer go off and immediately hang things or fold things or semi-fold them for the ironing pile.

And then once it's all washed and dried, there is that. The ironing.  It was a Very Large Pile after this last trip.  I watched two shows that I had recorded while I ironed and a little more more of another show. So that was more than 2 hours of  just ironing.

I need to keep this in mind before our next trip. Perhaps I will find a way to pack more mindfully.  

Oh and then there is the grocery shopping! Yes! 

​ Last Topic today,  I swear!

 In the week before we left, I made it a point to use up everything perishable in the fridge.  All of the eggs, milk, cheese, cold cuts, fruit and vegetables got eaten.   Then we moved on to both freezer and pantry food, which is non-perishable but seriously, I saw no point in grocery shopping at all before our trip so by the day we left, our fridge and pantry looked a lot like Mother Hubbards Cupboard!  (By the few days prior to departure we ate some mighty odd meals!)

So that means, there was nothing in the house to eat when we returned either. So off I went between carefully timed laundry loads, to replenish the larder.  And not an ordinary, a few days worth of groceries either. We were out of nearly everything.  It was a BIG shop.  Which takes a lot longer and costs a dang lot more.   And with me it's always spending the extra bucks that hurts the most.  

I'm not certain what the answer is to this particular dilemma but I'm sure that there is one.  And if I put my brain to it, I'm sure that I will come up with an answer.  Maybe next time I will bother to at least do a small grocery shop so that there is at least non-perishable stuff in the pantry to tide us over until I can shop again. There. That's a good idea.  Now let's see if I can remember it.

More likely, I will have completely forgotten about the nuisance of all that washing, drying, ironing, grocery shopping nonsense and I will go through the exact same thing again next time.

​Some people never learn.

​At least I have my awesome jewlery thingie!!!