Preparations

It seems as though no matter how far in advance I plan, how many lists I write, itineraries I print, or schedules I outline... something is going to come along to try to frack it all up for me.
In the last week we've had to take the truck into the shop twice (for two unrelated issues), had our fridge break, had a leaky toilet, and the frosting on the cake was when the guys working in our yard shattered the sliding glass door with a stray rock.  (It slowly spiderwebed, but by the time anyone noticed the impact, the entire door was imploding in slow motion.  It would have been cool to watch if I were not freaking out.)

However, I refuse to be deterred in my endeavors!

I am in the final stages of prepping for the trip... laundry is spinning happily away, piles of "must pack this" things are forming, I've set up a suitcase staging area in our spare bedroom.  Thanks to the broken fridge we have pre-disposed of all potential mold growing experiments, and the lack of cooking has kept the kitchen nice and clean.  My camera equipment is set aside, SD cards are cleared and ready, and my new Kindle is set up to keep me entertained for the long flights.

This year, one of my goals is to get through the flights without having the familiar adverse sinus issues crop up.  Almost every time I fly I get sinus headaches for days after (at best) or sinus infections (at worst), so I've been doing some research online to see if there are steps I can take to avoid these kinds of things.

One article I read, which made a lot of sense, talked about how dried out we get when we travel... not only from the recirculated air, but because we tend to not drink as much water when we travel in order to avoid frequent pit stops.  The suggestion is to stay hydrated, and deal with the multiple trips to the bathroom (which ends up being better for your circulation while flying anyway)  So I'll be taking that approach, along with some of the suggestions from these articles:

Allergy travel tips

Sinus Pressure While Flying

I'm armed with ibuprofin for sinus pressure, nasal gel to keep my sinuses from drying out, my netipot for post-flight flushing, sudafed for decongesting, and hand sanitizer for all the germy germs.

I haven't purchased sudafed in many, many years... by the way.  Not since they put it behind the pharmacy counter and required you to sign a waiver and hand over a dowry just to clear your nose.  When D came looking for me in the store he found me at the pharmacy counter and I explained what I was buying.  He said, in a very loud voice, "Oh... is that for your meth lab?"

Thankfully we were surrounded by people with a sense of humor.

I've also loaded up my iPod with meditations to help me relax on the overnight flight.  The podcasts are free through iTunes, or you can go to the Meditation Oasis website to see what else they have to offer.  I've actually used a number of their meditations to help me get to sleep at night when my mind is buzzing too quickly to settle down, and they are very effective.

So with this... I am officially within the 48 hour mark of my first flight off to the island.  We have some ideas for the trip, a few excursions we're hoping to explore... but as the last week as taught me, having too tight of a grip on your "plans" can make for a stressful time.  So... we leave them as ideas to keep in mind, and we'll see what happens.