the countdown begins...

There are 20 days until Adam and I board a plane for El Salvador. That's less than 3 weeks!

Now my countdown actually began a month before our departure - Friday, May 13, 2011 - but that was the start of our family vacation and I tried to avoid the Internet while we were exploring the tourist trap of Gatlinburg, Tennessee (a town that Bill Bryson in his witty and entertaining travelogue The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America - a book I highly recommend - affectionately calls "a community that...dedicated itself to the endless quest of trying to redefine the lower limits of bad taste...the world capital of tat") and the appropriately juxtaposed leafy woods and rolling mountains of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But I digress...

Along with the countdown comes a long and varied "To Do" list, which, unfortunately, won't all be accomplished. This list also, unfortunately, includes several bullet points that necessitate buying items/spending money, which I am loath to do, but which proves to be a necessary evil.

CHECKLIST (in no particular order)

1. Buy a plane ticket. CHECK. Completed April 9, 2011. Leaving Monday, June 13, 2011; returning Wednesday, December 7, 2011.

2. Finish work at OWU. CHECK. Completed Friday, May 27, 2011.

3. Buy emergency/missionary medical insurance. CHECK. Completed Tuesday, May 17, 2011.

4. Don't get sick/injured during the 12 days I don't have health insurance. Update 5/25/11: I now have health insurance from OWU through June 30th - yay!

5. Buy a journal. (Even though I am blogging, I still like to keep a paper journal that's just for me.)

6. Workout/run. IN PROGRESS. Although not as often as I'd like.

7. Buy a swimsuit. My swimsuit is about six years old, and I am no longer comfortable in a bikini. I need a tankini or a one-piece suit, both of which would be more appropriate for the Children's Home anyway.

8. Figure out what type of workout/exercise regimen I can do/will do in El Salvador.

9. Hold a fundraising dinner at St. Mary's. Update: Unfortunately, I started this project too late and this will, most likely, be one of the uncompleted items on this list.

10. Pray. IN PROGRESS.

11. Move out of my apartment and into my parents' house. IN PROGRESS. I currently have items packed up and stored at four different locations. Moving is a slow and painful process that deserves to have an entire blog post all to itself.

12. Buy a Spanish bible. CHECK. Bought from on Amazon.com, Wednesday, June 8, 2011.

13. Spend time with friends and family in the Delaware/Columbus area. CHECK.

14. Watch The Human Experience. CHECK. Completed Sunday, May 15, 2011. (I HIGHLY recommend this documentary film: two brothers travel the world to better understand life, in general, and in particular, from the perspectives of the homeless of New York, disabled children of Peru, and lepers in Ghana.)

15. Visit (and frolic at) the Columbus Zoo.

16. Buy a new camera. The processing chip in my Nikon COOLPIX died and it costs about the same amount to fix it, as it does to buy a new camera. If anyone has any suggestions for an easy to use, high-quality, point-and-shoot, digital camera, please let me know!  CHECK. Bought a Canon Powershot ELPH 100 HS, Thursday, June 2, 2011.

17. Spend time with friends and family in the Canton area. CHECK.

18. Get a haircut (even though JGB says I get a haircut more often than anyone else she knows...I like it shorter and don't plan on getting a haircut during the six months I am in El Salvador).

19. Pack for a six-month stay. How much can I shove into two suitcases and a carry-on?

20. Pray, pray, and pray some more.