Coming up

I'm counting down the days until I leave for my trip to the US on Saturday. Overall I'm looking forward to it, though any time spent with my parents will be a bit rough, I think. I'll be treating my mom and myself to pedicures though as a Mother's Day present and it'll be nice to have a few hours of just the two of us.

I continue to add things to my list of things to get while over in cheap-dollar, no-sales-tax land. I plan to pack quite light so that I have plenty of room to bring things back. Normally O and I take a smaller suitcase as well, but I don't want to lug it around on my own, plus I'll have our large suitcase to myself, so it should be fine. Not looking forward to next month's credit card bill after this trip.

With all the sunny weather we had here, I kept imagining the same for Portland, which may not be the case, but at the moment it seems it'll be ok for my first couple of days there. Even if it rains, I can hole up in Powell's, or check my email at the library, or go to a coffee shop and have chai and read AT 10 O'CLOCK AT NIGHT. Or do just about anything at 10 o'clock at night (though with jetlag it is unlikely I will often be up at 10 o'clock at night). Bless US opening hours.

I am sort of looking forward to having my trip to the US done with so that I can fully focus on planning for Australia. By the time I return from Portland, it'll be only about 3 months till I leave for the Australia trip. So much to plan in that time...