Today I have been preparing for my trip to Turkey.

I have been checking more items off of the Vacation Checklist.

One large item was one that I wasn’t sure would be checked off before the trip. There was a possibility that it would be completed while I was gone.

When I had my Water Woes a couple weeks ago, I found out that the shut-off valve to the water main was broken. Since that time I have had very low water pressure.

This morning my doorbell rang and my friend Kevin and his brother were here to help me out. As you can see in the picture above the valve was in an almost shut position. Because of this I did not have enough water pressure to run my sprinkler system.

I now have a new shutoff valve and my sprinklers work again. Now I don’t have to worry about my lawn, trees and flower beds drying out while I am gone.

I am looking forward to spending some time in my nice green, shady backyard when I get back home.

While doing my lawn work this morning I noticed that I have a couple blooms starting to appear on my Agapanthus. I planted it two years ago and was expecting to have some nice blooms last summer. I was disappointed, but am really excited that I have some on the way. I will definitely be taking some pictures of the blooms when I get back  home.

Today I have been applying The Packing Formula, and I am mostly finished.

After morning services tomorrow I will head back home to finish packing and then it is off to a hotel near the airport. I have an early morning flight on Monday.

One of my big decisions to make earlier today was whether to pack a second pair of shoes. Usually when I travel I have one pair of dress shoes and one pair of casual shoes. On this trip I only need casual shoes, especially since my casual shoes are black and go with about anything.

After question my network of fashion consultants on Facebook I dug up an older pair of casual shoes so that I have a little bit of variety on the trip and also a backup pair just in case. Maybe I should have taken a picture of the other pair before I packed them away 🙂

I am also posting a map of where we will be in my Turkey page. You can click on Turkey to visit the page.

I am getting excited for my big vacation. Looking forward to seeing all my tour mates.

Steven