Yesterday in 15 minutes

I'm going to try to do this post in 15 minutes.

Yesterday, I realized that my sleeping bag - my mom's actually - is probably really dirty from all the use I've been getting out of it. I may or may not take it to England with me, but I took a trip up to REI to buy some down wash just in case I do. As it turns out, I probably won't.

On the way back home, I stopped by the outlet mall to look for some shoes to replace my blue suede Nikes (which I've been wearing for almost 4 years. I really like those shoes.). After trying on a lot of shoes that didn't come close to living up to the standards of my blue suede Nikes, I found a sweet pair of blue suede Pumas. Style's a bit different. They're a narrower shoe and have the signature, shiny puma swoosh thing along the sides. I haven't decided if I like the look as much as the Nikes, but these shoes are really comfortable, which will be important if I wear them all over the UK and Ireland.

When I got back home, the packing began. Bar mitvah preparations are getting much more intense, so I had to get the packing out of the way. I spread all of my clothes and odds and ends all over the living room. I put my suitcase and my backpacking backpack in the middle of the room, and I just started either packing things or setting them aside for storage. I definitely have too much stuff to bring all of it, but I also don't have that much stuff, so it wasn't too hard to figure out what to pack. Right now, I think I am way under the 100 lbs. mark (50/checked bag), which is great. I probably won't add too much in the coming days either. I won't have the most extensive wardrobe, but I don't usually anyway.

Before I finished packing, Christian and Liz, some of our relatives from Denmark, arrived. Christian is my mother's mother's foster brother, and Liz is his wife. That may sound pretty far removed, but we happen to have stayed in close touch with them. They are some of my closest family, and it's awesome that they came all this way for the bar mitzvah. They had been traveling for several days before getting here, starting in Phoenix and then coming north from Palm Springs. We spent the rest of the night chatting with them for a while about all the family in Denmark and their trip so far.


And that's 15 minutes. It wasn't the most interesting summary of the day, and it didn't allow for much reflection or commentary. That said, I was able to cover the main events of the day in a bit of detail. Soon I will be more crunched for time than I am now, so I want to get in the habit of these shorter posts. To keep the quality up, though, I should figure out how to best use limited time. Now it's late, I'm tired, and I'm just rambling. Feel free to comment, you early adopters out there. Suggestions? What do you want to read? What have been your favorite posts so far?