Hit the Ground Running
January first, a new year, only 7 months till we have to leave. Yikes!
OK, maybe we should try something different, set out a list of all the things that need to be done in the order they need to be done. This month’s resolutions:
1. Get M. into college. Admittedly this is something she has primary responsibility for but it is another two weeks of reading and editing her essays and supplements before the last final college application is due. We just had a slight anxiety attack trying to decide if she should change the essay she already submitted to two colleges to the (seemingly) better essay she is sending off to the next 4. I will be soooo happy when this is over! I will be soooo unhappy if she goes to college in California!
2. Put house on the market – it is pretty clutter free, in fact looks so nice I wish we had actually lived like this for the past 5 years! So just have to choose a realtor and put it into their hands.
3. Get an appraiser out to look at furniture and china. SInce we will be combining households (our rental in the city with our weekend house in the country) we need to downsize or do we really need 3 hutches and 4 highboys?
4. Get WIlls finally done. Yeah yeah, I know, inexcusable but we have actually been in the process of getting them done for a decade, somehow the final signing never gets done!
5. Make a decision as to whether we are going East to West or vice versa. It is fundamentally impossible to get tickets to the Trans-Mongolian Express without going through an agency at the height of the summer season so if we are going to do that we might as well go thru one that will organize our accommodation as well. Unfortunately most of these agencies have an age limit (as in no-one under 12 yrs old). In order to qualify as our own “private tour” that can include the girls we need 8 people. Wellllll, we thought we had that cracked when one of the girls’ best friends (and her parents!) jumped at the chance to ride a train across Russia. But now we have to see if they are ready to commit (we need to buy the train tickets before we can get the letter of invitation to Russia before we can get the visa and before we can get the first plane ticket since it establishes when we need to leave by). But if for whatever reason they decide it was a great idea but no thanks we have decided to flip the trip and start instead in South America instead of ending there. This is nice because then we start with the Galapagos island and what a cool way to begin. Either direction has its merits, we just need to know which direction we are going! This by the way, is why we are not making any promises to meet up with anybody along the way….
6. Contact the home schooling co-ordinator at the kids’ PA school and start working on my presentation. We have to submit a “prospectus” on what the kids will be doing all year in all the usual academic subjects. When we come back they will be examined by an independent evaluator to determine whether or not we hit those goals (and I suppose whether they can re-enter the system?). Not too worried about it but need to start lining up my ducks.
7. Check out the sales and decide what I am going to be using to lug my life around the world.
8. Take down the Xmas tree and all the decorations….
9. Oh yeah, send out New Year’s cards!
Tags: Prep, RTW, Vaccinations
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