Tag Archives: stress

A Return to Sanity

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April brought its own stress. May was fun. But June and early July marked a descent into madness.

June began on a high note with a long-overdue visit from my best friend, A. But quickly thereafter I was faced with VinExpo, France’s leading professional wine fair, as well as a presentation during the show and assiting Wine Mosaic with their community management needs. The week passed by in a blur of long days, great neworking and a selected number of amazing tastings.

Shortly thereafter my attention turned to the blackhole that was my thesis and the WSET Level 3, both of which fell within a few days of each other. Of course being me, despite my best efforts, everything fell to the last minute. But the good news… It’s DONE!  And I am just one oral defense away from finishing my MBA. (Queue the crazy happy dance!) And a few months wait away from my exam results. (Fingers crossed please)

This past weekend was a long one here in France, thanks to Bastille Day. So I ran away with my other good friend K. for a relaxing weekend at the beach. And now I’ve found my sanity again. As well as my will to write/catch up on my back-log of long-overdue blogs. So readers, stay tuned there is a whole host of great new posts headed your way!

And the packing nightmare continues…

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As I have mentioned before I hate packing. I stress about what to take for a long weekend let alone how to pack up my life. And today  is no exception. My room looks like a bomb has gone off. There is enough space for me to sit cross-legged on the floor and you can’t even see the bed. But it is actually progress and I knew it was going to get worse before it gets better.

Seeing as I leave in 5 days (and early in the morning) and my mother has been pressuring me for days, I went ahead and packed a bag today. Only to have panic truly set in. I still have my giant rolling duffle bags from college. They have served me well over countless cross continental adventures and two transatlantic moves. I don’t know if its the fact that I am older or I just have more stuff but I am seriously starting to doubt that two suitcases is going to be enough.

Mid-way through packing my first bag I realized that it was going to be an overweight bag and that 50 lbs wasn’t going to cut it. So I grabbed my computer and did my research. I am already going to pay for checking a second bag – I might as well just compound the hurt and pay for the extra weight. So I checked – all three airlines (although I should only have to pay twice) and now my bag is weighing in just shy of the 70 pound cut off.

But what really has me worried is that I feel like I have barely made a dent. Granted the suitcase I did pack has multiple pairs of shoes and a large portion of my toiletries. And we all know those are the heaviest items. But still… I haven’t event begun to pack up my clothing. I guess I will just have to overstuff my carry-ons.

How did I ever manage this in college? I don’t ever remember it being this hard. And I went to school in Boston. I had to pack all of my heavy winter clothing so I didn’t freeze to death. But then again my parents always made the fall trek out to Boston with me. And when I graduated my grandmother carried an extra bag back to California as well. But when I went to London for the year I did it alone. Granted I did manage to score free overweight bags on the way home when I got to the desk at Heathrow. Maybe the nice people at American airlines will take pity on me on Tuesday morning. I’ll try not to hold out too much hope for a miracle.

Basically the moral of this is: I have too many clothes. And shoes. And stuff. And I might have to pay for two overweight bags.

On that note I am going downstairs for a glass of wine – ok maybe my own bottle and a straw.