Yesterday was my final performance of the season. I have no extra work lined up, and while I will be teaching my oboe students I won’t have any other work. This gives me the time (and maybe energy?) to work on other things.

Like cleaning the house!

Yes, I am the sort who likes to leave a house as clean as possible before a trip. Having house sitters means, for me anyway, it’s even more important to have things tidy. I have a closet I will clear out for them. I want to make sure I do a final calcium deposit cleanup for our espresso machine. I am hoping to get the hallway grout cleaned, but no guarantees on that one.

We also have a list of tasks to do, including getting the international driver’s permits (that we in all likelihood won’t use) as well as some banking chores.

Speaking of the latter … I am so glad I pulled out my credit and ATM cards to determine which I’d bring. Turns out the one ATM card (no fees!) we are most likely to use had expired. I called and they hadn’t renewed it because I hadn’t used it since 2018. Well of course I hadn’t … I only use it for traveling overseas! Lesson learned: occasionally use it just to keep it going. Thankfully I’d looked at these things early enough to get a new card. My other ATM card was to expire WHILE we were on the trip. Eek! (That, too, has been ordered and will arrive in plenty of time.)

I have a spreadsheet that reminds me of all I need to do, including replacing batteries in various things so our house sitters won’t have to. I have to set up the security system for them as well. And of course I have to go over all our bills and make sure our finances are in order to cover things. (One trip we found we couldn’t access our bank account overseas: turned out the VPN caused them to not allow us to log in. So this time I will be absolutely certain we are okay, but I also do hope we can log in … I never trust myself!)

Meanwhile we are STILL pondering: backpack or roller luggage?! Will we decide before that last packing day? I’m guessing not.

Here’s another shot of something I suspect we will see again: