Between the shopping and the actual packing, preparing for college was nothing short of stressful. Target (I swear at least five times), Walmart, Marshals, T.J. Maxx, The Container Store, Staples, and the countless Bed, Bath, and Beyond runs I made with my mom. You name it and chances are we were there once.... if not 10 times. Having a list was definitely helpful at times, but the smallest things seemed to stress me out the most! For example, which shower caddy to use, which bowls to buy, and of course, what would hold my makeup. As a came to find out shopping was not nearly as bad as packing it all up.

As some of you may know, I have a slight makeup addiction... maybe more than slight. So deciding what makeup to bring was like asking me to pick my favorite child. I sat on my floor for like an hour sorting and choosing the makeup I would bring, my family probably thought I was nuts because of how stressful this was for me. I was able to limit what I needed into clear organizer from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, a small bag with some lip stuff, and three small ceramic cups from Marshals.

Clothing was also a struggle and a half. I decided my best bet was to pull out all the clothes I wanted to bring and then narrow down the pile with my mom until I got to a solid amount of clothing. It was weird trying to pack for the different weather because currently, Ithaca is VERY hot and we are not quite sure when it is going to cool down. So I packed a lot of short sleeves, a lot of sweatshirts, some shorts, a few pairs of jeans, and a few sweaters to get me through until I come home for a short break in October. At this point, it doesn't seem like I'm ever going to need said sweaters, but I'm holding out for the cold Ithaca weather. Surprisingly, shoe packing was very smooth, which was shocking to my mother since she was expecting me to try and bring all the shoes I own. I packed 11 pairs of shoes, sans the warm boots I have to grab when I'm home in a little over a month.

Three days before packing the car, my mom and I sorted through all the clothes, toiletries, laundry things, etc. Her room was an utter disaster, but somehow we pulled it together within a few hours. Then it came time to pack the truck (the night before I left), but I can't tell you much about that experience because I left the house to say bye to some friends. While I was out, though, I got an SOS snapchat from my sister saying don't come home, everything is a madhouse. So I waited until my mom called and asked me to come home. Upon my arrival, the truck was completely packed and there were flustered looks on everyone's faces. My sister then told me that she and dad had packed up the whole truck and then my mom came down with more things to pile in. They had to take everything out and start from the very beginning. We could not fit anything else into the jammed car, but everything I needed somehow fit.