Wow. The last 10 days have been hectic.

First of all, I achieved my new year's resolution of running the Run Melbourne half marathon. I was stoked with my time of 2.04.49 - less than 6 minutes per km.

I was originally supposed to finish work tomorrow (Wed 28th July) but due to Papa's funeral being held on the week-end I decided to finish last Thursday (22nd July). I drove to Nowra on Friday (about 9 hours) and spent the week-end there before returning to Melbourne yesterday. Now I'm concentrating on packing and moving. The removalists come tomorrow at midday, then I have to drop in my laptop to the Accenture office at 4pm before my farewell (bowling, karaoke, and drinks at QV). Thursday is a big day of cleaning before the final inspection on Friday morning, after which I will drive to Canberra. I'm going to take about 4 days to drive up to QLD - first night in Canberra; second night in Sydney; third night on the Gold Coast before fourth night at Mum and Dad's.

I was supposed to find out about my job at Whistler 3 weeks ago, and I've been stressing that no news has come through. I'm dependent on finalising the job so I can book flights, accommodation in Canada, and receive my orientation booklet from OWH. Luckily today I received a phone call from Emma at OWH to say I had been offered a job of "Advanced Sales Host" at Whistler. My wage will be about $12.85 an hour - apparently this is good money!!

In every holiday, I always have a 'holiday from my holiday'. For this trip, I've just booked a week at Le Meridien in Phuket. AirAsiaGo had a fantastic deal that I couldn't refuse. It looks like such an amazing resort, including 7 restaurants, a tennis instructor, gym classes and a private beach. I watched the movie "The Beach" with Leonard DiCaprio for the first time the other night and absolutely loved it. I plan to read the book whilst in Phuket and of course venture out to Phi Phi island and Phangan Bay.

Ok, back to packing .... no rest for the wicked!

You don't realise just how much is involved with going overseas for a year. Not only do you need to plan (to some degree) your trip, but there is work to be finalised, an apartment to be packed, and millions of little nuances that need to be taken care of.

I'm an avid list maker and hate keeping things in my head - I have to write everything down on paper/spreadsheets. For the trip, I have a spreadsheet that is my lifeline. It has a heap of different tabs - i.e. itinerary and costs; but most importantly is my 'Trip Prep' tab. It has listed everything I need to do before I leave down to the most finite grain (e.g. all of the companies I need to contact to re-direct my mail or cancel accounts with). This might sound excessive but I go stir crazy if these things aren't documented.

This week has been an expensive one as I've tried to tie up some of those nuances. First of all, I booked the storage shed where I'll store all my furniture. It's on the small side, so I have my fingers crossed on moving day that everything will fit. I also booked a removalist and carpet cleaner (and am tossing up about getting a cleaner to help me ready the apartment for final inspection as I won't have a lot of time between the removalists and the inspection).

Next, I booked my travel insurance. Given my unpleasant experience last year (that was fortunately covered under the company's travel insurance), I'm not taking any short cuts for this. I considered numerous policies but everything kept coming back to CoverMore as the leading insurance provider. I also made sure the policy had a $0 excess and included ski and snowboard cover (knowing me, I'll break my leg on the first day of skiing in Whistler!) It is hard to see the money you've been saving over the past 18 months drain from you bank account so quickly though ...

Apart from that, I also had my car serviced (in preparation for the drive to QLD); had a check-up at the dentist; booked an appointment with the travel doctor; and finalised the paperwork for my LOA with HR. I even packed a couple of boxes and bought some Christmas presents - very organised!