104

That is the number of days we have lived out of suitcases.  It has been a very interesting, exciting, and trying time.  I had to contain myself to the same two suitcases from October 7 until November 30.  From that point on, I figured if we overflowed our suitcase, it was okay because we would be moving it to our new place in our truck by ourselves.  No charge for extra heavy suitcases.  No charge for extra baggage.  And not everything had to be zipped in a suitcase.  There was a reason the commissary gives you double bags on everything!

Packing for four months of living out of suitcases is very challenging.  Especially when you are going from San Diego to Napoli.  San Diego is the same temperature (pretty much) year round.  You don’t have thick winter coats, wool sweaters or long johns.  From San Diego, we went to North Carolina for the Fall.  Fall can be anything from 80 degrees to 30 degrees.  Needless to say that is hard to pack for.  And Napoli in the winter is cold.  With a very cold wind.  Getting clothes for all those climates to fit into two medium sized suitcases is hard enough.  Now add the fact that I just had a baby.  So maternity clothes are necessary.  And there was no way of telling how the weight was going to come off.  And I don’t have warm clothes in the post baby weight size (or really any size for that matter…I need to update my winter wardrobe BIG time).  So I did my best, and I would give me a B- or C+.  In North Carolina I bought new jeans to replace my old ratty ones.  And the maternity jeans because they were driving me nuts.  I also had to buy a pair of black slacks because there was no way I was going to fit in the two pairs of nice slacks I had.  I had to buy two new sweaters because I brought a cute sweater dress and a cute sweater with a tie.  Neither top is good for nursing. And I didn’t have any warm sweaters or a warm coat.

Shoes are another issue all together.  You can’t bring many pairs and lose the precious luggage space but you need to have shoes for different events: 8K race, baptism, football games, shopping with the sister in law.  So I had sneakers, UGGs (truly ugly UGGs), flip flops (I can’t leave home without them as they are my preferred footwear), and a pair of practical black shoes which my mom made me throw away and replace.  I had to borrow shoes for the baptism from my niece!! A tip for all you flip flop wearers-you will need to bring more than four pairs of socks.  I wore holes in my socks wearing shoes everyday and socks on the cold tile floor!

Luckily, we had Christmas in the 104 days so I got some new tops to wear but I will tell you I have never been so sick of my clothes.  But at least the baby had lots of stylish clothes and lots of variety!

I  may have a new least favorite number!!