Why I Farm Roadtrip Countdown: 6 Days to Go

Graduation was on Saturday, so today was my first day
 "in the real world". I had a great weekend celebrating
with family and friends.

Whoa. These last three weeks have been a blur. School finished up, graduation celebrations came and went, and now we're in the single digit countdown for Why I Farm Roadtrip. I plan to blog through this next week for a couple reasons.

1. My recent Twitter poll tells me you all are interested in what and how I'm packing.

2. I'll be packing and repacking several times over the course of this year. I want to take note of how I did things so I know what worked and what didn't after the end of this first loop.

3. I have done a pretty good job of blogging about four times a month, but I need to step it up and get in the habit of writing daily. Hopefully I can start a habit this week before I hit the road.

This is my first Monday as a college graduate. My first day of adulting went well! I made lots of progress preparing for Why I Farm Roadtrip. Here's how it happened:

1. Work from home on AgSolver social media. If you follow me on social media, especially Twitter, you've probably noticed I have a part time job with AgSolver. I love using social media to communicate with farmers about their innovative Precision Business Planning tools. 

2. Why I Farm emails and phone calls. Every day there are a few more Why I Farm Roadtrip stops to confirm or introductions to make. I got a bunch of those crossed off my list before lunch today.

3. Spare key. I purchased my little Ford Fiesta, Kermit, used and he only came with one key. I figured it might be wise to have a spare when I'm on the road so I killed two birds with one stone this morning. Took my brother to pick his car up, and I ordered another key. (I also looked into roof racks and cargo carriers for my car, but they are too pricey for my budget right now. It would save a lot of space, and hold things that I don't always need access to, like a sleeping bag and tent, but I decided to keep it on the wish list for now.)

Choosing drawers took so much math!

Here's what is packed so far. Progress,
but there's a long ways to go!

4. Pack up dry food. I went through my pantry and put the half packages of crackers, granola, etc. into my new food containers. (Remind me to tell you how I scored the containers sometime.) I consolidated boxes of breakfast bars and created a shopping list of snacks for later in the week.

5. More AgSolver, Why I Farm email and social media. 

6. Pay bills and figure out insurance. This is where the adulting came in, and I started to freak out. I'm trying to arrange my bills so they're all due on one or two days a month. I really don't want to have to worry about paying bills every week when I'm out traveling the country. I still have some work to do on this tomorrow.

7. Laundry. I got most of the dirty clothes that I want to take washed up. Clean laundry is such a good feeling!

8. Errands around Ames. Made a quick deposit at the bank and notified them of my upcoming travel. Dropped a few thank you notes in the mail. Picked up some cleaning supplies and storage drawers at Wal-Mart and Target. Finding the perfect combination of storage was quite an adventure, but with a little help, I got it done. I've settled on two 3-drawer stacks and one 5-drawer stack for the back hatch. 

9. Packing. After finding the best prices around town I brought the drawers in and started filling them up. The top skinny drawers will keep my paperwork in order. T-shirts and v-necks, scarves, hats and socks are nearly done. I'll use other drawers for farm jeans, nice jeans, flannels/misc. shirts, cardigans, shorts and jackets/sweatshirts. It's going to be a challenge narrowing down my closet, but I've got a good start.

10. Made list for tomorrow. I felt good about today's progress, but tomorrow will be plenty busy with another list of to-do's.

Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow!