Suitcases and Rubbermaids

Last weekend I packed for Hawaii. We're not heading to the island where palm trees sway until early January, but I wanted to put together our favorite warm weather ensembles before we trading out the summer/fall clothes for the bulky winter ones.

This is Mr. Johnson's least favorite event. It makes him nervous. He feels stressed to see piles of girls clothes, a medley of color, season and size sorted into various piles, traded out from Rubbermaid bins, and outgrown numbers either passed down if it seems the next younger sister would be interested, or passed on to someone else. It's not a delicate process, or a quick one. We have had bags lining our upstairs hallway for the better part of two weeks, as we sort into donate piles. He is in no way involved except for the schlepping of rubber maid containers from our garage to the upstairs bedrooms, but it still leaves him uncomfortable.

Strangely, the suitcase packed for Hawaii, which will remain parked on our bedroom floor underneath a drying rack designed for drip drying sheets, doesn't seem to phase him. Suitcases he can handle, Rubbermaids, not so much.

Some day I will become brave and post a picture of our bedroom. Its a huge space, with a large bathroom. It has the blond bedroom set purchased for our use by our lovely landlady (who btw had the toilets successfully repaired!) which includes a large king sized bed, two night stands, and large wardrobe that looks like something out of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The walls are a pale pink, and we have views of the sea. Not bad. Except that our bedroom also doubles as our laundry room, and our storage space, and... on our small enclosed patio is a clothes dryer which is vented out an open window. (We use our dryer very seldom... largely because it has two settings... on and off. Nothing for delicates, or perma press. But its perfect for towels and undies. Everything else gets hung on the clever Chinese drying racks preferred by almost every Asian nation. I smirked this last month when Real Simple introduced a clever clip rack for drying socks and delicates in their laundry issue... they are standard in every home in China!)

So, the suitcase isn't troublesome to Mr. Johnson, because at this point he's gotten used to the eclectic look of our boudoir. But I think another reason is that travel has become such an important part of our life here, and really something that we look forward too. That suitcase is symbolic instead of a nuisance. It will remain a happy reminder of our upcoming trip to the archipelago that is the US's 50th state.

In the meantime, we'll be putting our other cases to good use as well. Mr. Johnson is heading to Pusan, South Korea on Sunday, and then our family will head to Beijing for a long weekend next Thursday. At the beginning of December we'll load up our Christmas presents and warm coats and pack even more cases for our Christmas trip home, our first time in the States for 18 months.

Suitcases or Rubbermaids? Suitacases... hands down!