The last few days can be described pretty succinctly as: CHAOS. Every morning, I scratch out a to-do list and create a mental game plan on how to accomplish as much as possible. I snarf down some breakfast (when the milk isn’t weird and bitter like it was yesterday morning) and I head back to the basement to continue the harrowing adventure that is filling boxes with my belongings.

Fun fact: It’s surprisingly difficult to get usable boxes for packing without having to pay for them. Ridiculous, right? SERIOUSLY? You want me to pay for an empty box that I’m not going to be mailing anything in? What has the world come to? After my lovely boyfriend attempted to dig up some boxes from his attic, I astutely found some on his garage floor. You know, after he’d climbed up there and gotten all dusty and probably gave the bats his scent. I’m an excellent, super-observant girlfriend like that.

I think the scenario went a little something like this:

A: These boxes are too big. They’re all like wardrobe boxes.

Me: Well, just bring one down. Maybe we can cut it in half or something and make it two boxes.

A: Cut it in half?

Me: I don’t know. You know – then it would be two, smaller boxes?

Me: (looks around the garage) Oh hey! I found smaller boxes!

A: (turns around and looks on the floor) Oh hey, boxes!

I think he was mocking me.

So since finding the boxes, I’ve been asking the boy to tape them up and I’ve been filling them with various things. Mostly DVDs and books. There’s some paintings, pictures, and bedding thrown in my  crazy pile not to mention SHOES. I have a problem. But to give you a little taste of how this tornado ripped through my basement, I actually used my camera – die in shock, it’s okay, I’ll understand – and took some pictures!

Warning: What you’re about to see may not be suitable for children. Or something.

So after accumulating this mass of boxes and stuff, I still have a whole heck of a lot of packing to do. But the summer lazies refuse to release their grip on me, and really I’ve got another week to finish packing, so I decided to take a break.

While I’m packing, I would be completely insane if it weren’t for the things that make up my break.

Those coloring pages are essential to my education. Secret? I like to color pages that I think coordinate with my classes and tape them to my binders for said classes. For example, Snow White making friends with all the animals will grace the front of my Biology “How Animals Work” class. It’s a mandatory class. I’ll probably be the only senior in it, but as a Communication Arts major, I pushed off taking the science with a lab class as long as possible. But that’s another post for another time.

And then, of course, music is an absolute must while I’m packing up my life and trying not to get emotional that this is my last year in college. The country booming out of my amazing sound system (thank you step-dad!) allows me to push of adulthood and dance around the basement while simultaneously packing (it’s a skill). And sometimes the Burlesque soundtrack helps, too. Sometimes.

After an appropriate break, I keep packing. After all, I guess my bedroom and my bathroom won’t pack itself.  But sometimes, when I’m down to one of my last empty boxes, the chaos takes over. And I make A take the following pictures while watching Friends at 11:30 at night.

So that’s that. I’ve still got clothes, bathroom stuff, fitness stuff, storage containers, and all the big furniture to go, but I figure there’s no point in moving the heavy stuff until I’m actually moving it out of the house. And I always procrastinate on clothes until the last minute. I fall back on the idea that I never know what I’m going to need to wear until the day of. It’s Iowa. The weather is as insane as I look in the bottom left picture of that collage.

I can hardly believe I’m only a weekish out from moving – and only about two and a half weeks from starting my senior year of college. I’ve only got 17 DAYS left until I turn 21! Holy crap. When did I get so old?

I know life has got loads of adventures waiting for me this year and after graduation. I’ll be glad to take them on, if I can survive packing with my sanity intact.