Yesterday my dear friends, Linda and Wayne, helped me pack all the stuff to go in the moving van. The collection of bins, suitcases, and boxes looks really good, compact, and very secure.

But last night instead of sleeping I worried about having too many additional items to go to Florida and no packing space left.

I have everything from a pizza cutter, pen & base, coffee, my undies, my bras, and several clothing items plus a pair of sandals (in addition to what I’m wearing on the plane.) I also have make-up, curling irons x 2, electric tooth brush x 2 and charging base, bottle of advil & zyrtec, etc. I will probably find more I’ll want to take and all my bags are full.

Now for the good news: Today I sold my lap harp and gave the Webster dulcimer that was water damaged to the same lady. I also decided to give the harp John built to the leader of Jolly Hammers dulcimer club (provided I hear back from her). I will also put Tom Loper’s dulcimer in the sales area at the ODPC Funfest. I sold my extra autoharp to my friend, Gwyn, and she’ll take all the above mentioned instruments to the festival. I should make $615 from the sale of them and maybe more if I sell Tom Loper’s instrument. (I’m asking $200 to start out.)

If I don’t hear from the Jolly Hammers leader, unfortunately the dulcimer won’t be transported to Evart. It’s not worth much anyway and I don’t want Gwyn to get stuck with it. She’s good enough to take the harp and the damaged dulcimer.

But selling the instruments didn’t help my worry about having too many items left to pack and no way to get them to Florida. So I went shopping. I bought new luggage. I purchased a 25″ and a 21″ spinner suitcases from Amazon as well as a matching (purple) carry-on tote.

My plan is to put everything from my old to-be-checked suitcases (one gray and one floral) in the new spinner bags. They new ones will definitely hold more, so maybe everything will fit in them including the extras I haven’t packed. Additionally, I bought a carry-on wheeled tote. My small computer will fit in it with lots of extra space. The tote will hopefully fit under the seat in front of me (or it might be a couple inches too tall to slide in there so I might have to put it in the over-head). I checked the comments and one writer said, “Fits under the seat of regional flights.” I won’t know until I try. I did pay for “extra” space around my seat. But I’ll have space in the tote for the over-flow from the suitcases and it has wheels when I go from terminal to terminal And if I still don’t have room for extra clothes, I’ll use the gray older bag and add it to the stuff to go in the van. (I’ll need to pack everything prior to the van picking things up so I have accounted for everything.)

I figured it out and I will have about 1,800 cubic inches more packing space which is about half the size of either of the old suitcases I had previously planned to use I won’t need to check a third bag which would probably cost $50-$150 (or even more by USPS). I’m sure I can make everything fit. If I can’t, I’ll start eliminating. Example: I’m bring a knife block but I could leave it behind. I have a heavy velour top which could stay behind. I don’t need all the old tops I hadn’t planned to bring but now I’ve added to the “take” list. There’s a big instructional book which I’ve packed (for learning Lotus). It will be one of the first things I’ll take out of I’m short on space.

I feel I’m dealing with all the contingencies in hopes that there are no surprises.