How To Fit Your Life Into Two Suitcases.

Okay, two suitcases, one carry on, and a ginormous purse.

With just two days left until I leave for China I have finally managed to get my packing done. Let me just start off by saying IT WAS NOT EASY. I like clothes. I have a lot of them. I have spent the past year or so working at J. Crew amassing a fabulous wardrobe of blazers, cardigans, chinos, boots, jewelry, etc. I would have liked to bring it all with me. 

And for all you haters out there, this isn’t a two-week vacation that I’m over-packing for. I’m going for a year. 365 days.  If you had to move your entire life to another country in two suitcases that can’t weigh over 50 lbs, you’d have a tough time too. I also realize that China has stores that sell all the clothing I could ever need, it just feels a bit wasteful to plan on re-buying stuff that I already have in abundance…

So, after packing and repacking at least three times, I finally have it down. Here are my secrets:

1.    Space bags. Both good and evil. Pros: compresses things into amazingly tiny bricks of clothing. Cons: clothing bricks weigh more than actual bricks.

2.    Fold things neatly. It REALLY helps. (That rolling your stuff trick doesn’t do anything for me) Thankfully working retail has made me an expert.

3.    Sticking to one color scheme. Earth tones and navy it is.

4.    Facing some harsh realities. Though I own 19,283,429,384,923 navy and white striped shirts, I cannot bring them all. I can’t even bring 5.

5.    Packing cubes to stay organized.

6.    Ditching most of my toiletries.

7.    Accepting that I’m going to have to become an outfit repeater. 

I took my bags to Publix and weighed them on their big scale. After some masterful reallocation of weight (and the removal of a few items here and there) I have whittled my bags down to 50 lbs each. I’m praying that the scale was accurate so I don’t have problems at the airport.

Release the PIECAKEN!

So this post has nothing to do with me moving to China at all. (Except maybe to emphasize the fact that I’m a little bit insane and thus totally willing to move to a country where I don’t speak the language.)

Today I baked a Piecaken. What is a Piecaken? Basically, it’s a pie inside of a cake.

Jeff and I made two: cherry pie in chocolate cake and blueberry pie inside vanilla cake. They were both delicious. And thus I must share the recipe with the world.

1.    Run 10 miles.

2.    Bake a pie.

3.    Make some cake batter.

4.    Spray a spring form pan with PAM, then pour in about a third of the batter.

5.    Put the pie into the cake.

6.    Cover with the remaining cake batter and bake.

7.    Dance around your kitchen anxiously anticipating the moment your Piecaken will be done. It will take a bit longer to bake than the cake recipe suggests. The Piecaken is HUGE. And weighs about ten pounds.

8.    Let your Piecaken cool and then frost that baby.

9.    Run 10 more miles. Seriously. Unless you want diabetes.

10. RELEASE THE PIECAKEN!!! Serve and enjoy the reactions of your guests as they try to dissect the grotesque beauty of this bizarre dessert.

The Most Interesting Blog in the World.

I don’t always write blogs, but when I do they tend to be random and sarcastic. So prepare yourself. If you read my blog, your IQ will rise by 50 points, you’ll lose weight, and your wildest dreams will come true.

But seriously, I am about to embark on one heck of an adventure: I am moving to Haimen, Jiangsu, China (just north of Shanghai) to teach English to Middle School students at the Haimen Dongzhou Middle School.

I have very little teaching experience, I have never been to Mainland China, and I don’t speak the language (but I do have Rosetta Stone). I am absolutely ecstatic about beginning this next chapter of my life.

This blog will be my canvas for documenting my journey of new experiences and sharing my ridiculous photos. My posts will probably range from random and hilarious anecdotes of my stupidity to witty and insightful observations of things that are happening around me in a society with profound cultural, economic, and political differences from the good old US of A.

I welcome comments, concerns, questions, as well as creeping on my blog and photos without comment. I hope that you find amusement and joy in following along with me.