October still sounds like it’s a long way off. With summer just taking off, I think of October, a distinctly fall month, and I convince myself that we have plenty of time to get things figured out. But, the truth is, the clock is tick, tick, ticking.
Our mid-October departure date is only 4.5 months away, but in reality we have even less time than that. Jeff will be leaving for Sweden in late August, and I’ll be following him at the beginning of September (provided we get the okay next week for him to proceed with his thesis defense). We won’t return until the beginning of October, at which point we’ll tie up loose ends and take off. We’ll be notifying our landlady in just one month of our intent to move out, actually moving our stuff to Louisville in mid-August, and turning in the keys at the end of August. That’s soon!
Which means there are a lot of things to be done in a short amount of time. (And in saying that, I’m just referring to trip planning things, not Jeff’s writing his thesis or me hiking my remaining 40 trails and completing my book.) Fortunately, if there is one characteristic that I have it’s discipline. I can always buckle down and get the job done. I do what needs to be done, and I don’t accept excuses. So I’m going to lay out a couple of items here that I want to get done in the upcoming weeks. Having them here for all the world to see will provide me with the necessary motivation to get them done. I’m not sure, however, how inspiring Jeff will find this. He doesn’t seem to have the guilt issues I have.
To Do in the Month of June
1. Lay out a general itinerary for the South America leg of the trip (estimated length of stay in each country and must-see sites).
2. Purchase life insurance.
3. Reorder contacts and get a large enough supply to last the entire trip.
4. Determine what vaccinations we are going to get and when/where we’re getting them.
5. Figure out what we have to do to assign power of attorney to someone else to handle our finances. (Any lawyer friends out there want to help us make sense of this?)
6. Make a list of everything we still need to buy.
I’m tempted to continue, but I’m trying to be realistic (not always my strong suit) about what we can accomplish. Anything you can think of that I’m leaving off but should be getting around to about now?