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?
Keep making lists, keep chipping away.
I promise the time will fly by faster than you can imagine.
Oh, an a little panic now an then can be a mighty motivator 🙂
Vaccinations are first on the list… what if there are multiple shots, months apart… could limit the ones available
Can you imagine if you were still leaving this summer as originally planned? Just take everything one step at a time… checking things off your list will help you feel better about the whole thing. Have you guys already purchased your plane tickets for your major destinations?
We’re waiting for the official okay to graduate before we dive in and buy the plane tickets. But once we do get that, figuring our flights will be Jeff’s top job.
Power of Attorney? How much stuff do you have!! Get rid of it! Vagabonding is about less stuff! All you need is to put your mom on your credit card and your all set!
Do you have Hep A/B shots yet? may want to move that to the top of the list (3 shots over 6 months).
eeeaaa… I hate shots.
We do have Hep A/B, so we’re good on that front. Should we chose to get the Japanese Encephalitis shot, we need a month to complete the three part series. That seems to be the one presenting the most time concern, though a lot of places are only offering yellow fever on set dates, so we have to plan around that too.