Last July I blogged about my favorite travel item of all time, the Lewis N. Clark Pressure Reducing Ear Plugs. They work continually to reduce the pressure in my ears as the plane's altitude changes. I won't fly without them.
After coming across my blog post online, the company reached out to me and asked if I would like to try some of their other products. I selected a few that looked great and I will tell you about my experience using them.
The funny thing is that I have had an incredibly stressful year and I didn't use the products as I expect to, but I loved them just the same. I thought I was on-the-go a lot before, but my old schedule doesn't hold a candle to this last year.
From April to December 2016, I flew to southeastern Michigan to sell 2 houses (my house and my mom's), pack-donate-store-ship the contents of 2 houses and make decisions on the new house we were building in Seattle. During those same months, my mom needed surgery twice and I found myself with stress fractures in my hips from the constant moving.
By the last week in September, I was living in a Marriott for 3 days with my husband and my mother as we closed on our houses and waited for the car transport service to pick up our cars. The hotel rooms were brimming with clothes, dry cleaner bags and precious items we wanted to fly with us.
I had cuttings of my beloved roses wrapped in wet newspaper lined up in mailing boxes on the hotel dresser. I had notes, paperwork, keys and stuff. By the time we were finished, there were 11 suitcases and 3 carry on. (yes, we did just send a truck out West and no, I don't know how this much stuff still remained!).
The night before we left, my mom came to me in the hotel room with a stack of her favorite sweaters. She hadn't packed them back at the house because she didn't want them to get crushed.
I pulled out the magic Electrolight Expandable Packing Cube and handed it to her. It is a rectangle of whisper light fabric, rimmed with zippers that expand to allow the cube to accommodate even more. This travel cube is part mesh for breath-ability and smooth so there is no risk of snagging. My mom slide her sweaters into my neon yellow packing solution, zipped it shut and said, "that's perfect!" and handed it back to me. I found a place for it in the last bag and we were packed.
Do I love the idea of having a separate clean expandable pouch to pack my clothes in when I fly to Houston or take a road trip to Vancouver? Yes! Am I even happier when my mom can relax and have her concerns taken care of? Absolutely.
Thank you, Lewis N. Clark, you did it again.
I have a serger and I love to buy silky fabric at the fabric store, serge the edges and have a new beautiful scarf to scrunch around my neck. That said, I sometimes (sometimes? always) get carried away when I am "making" and I end up with a huge collection of scarves, all of which I want to bring with me on my trips.
So "Scarf Management" has been on my mind. I was struck with this simple and effective packing system for scarves when I was getting ready for this last my trip to Seattle. I was in my office and I came across this pale pink multi-pocket file folder (intended for papers) and thought: scarves!
It worked like a charm. I folded each scarf into a medium size square and slide each right into the pocket. No snagging, no becoming unfolded, no problem!
The next time you are packing for a trip, look on your desk to master scarf management!
I can prove my theory about "The Power of Cute." I believe that things that can be cute, should be cute. I know from experience that people respond to beautiful colors, pretty pictures, unexpected touches.
The power of cute is when you add a touch that people notice and appreciate, even value more because of the effort you made. Cute is free. It is the difference between making cookies in the shape of a watering can, instead of a circle. The cookie cutters cost the same, the effort to make a cookie is the same, but one harnesses the power of cute; the other does not.
Okay, my story...
Because I make Delight Totes (day bags that feature my magazine covers), I have the artwork I created for many gorgeous magazine covers. Here are some displayed on the wall in my studio.
I decided that the Delight covers would make awesome luggage tags. I printed them to fit inside small laminated pouches and included only my name and phone number on the other side. They turned out really...cute.
When Dan and I were leaving on our trip to Dallas last month, we had 4 suitcases and 2 carry on bags. I put my new Delight luggage tags on in a hurry and when I pointed to a bag and asked Dan, does that one "have a tag" he said yes. When we got to the airport, I noticed that it did indeed have a tag, it was just an ugly old red plastic one that he had written on with a Sharpie pen to update the phone etc. Not cute, but it was accurate and would do the job.
We checked our 4 black non-descript bags: 3 with a Delight tag, 1 with an old tag. The polar vortex snowstorm was in full steam that day and we couldn't fly out. Some flights did make it out (it was -14 degrees), but it took us three trips to the airport to finally get on a flight (that actually took off) for Dallas.
When we got to baggage claim in Dallas, we were looking for our 4 bags that had been "in the system" for 4 days without us. The computer said that they had made it to Dallas days before we did.
Baggage claim had at least 300 bags in rows and sections waiting to be claimed. It was a mess. We walked up and down each row and couldn't find any of them. Alarmed, Dan went to the luggage claim woman and showed her our claim checks and the "arrived in Dallas" printout. She looked at the name on the paperwork and said, "I know where they are!" and rushed into the little glass office.
She returned rolling the first of 3 bags. The only bags she had pulled aside and kept in her office were our 3 bags, tagged with Delight. We thanked her, but said their was still one missing. She was surprised and helped us look bag-by-bag through the other 300 pieces of luggage. We finally found the 4th bag (tagged with the plain tag) among the masses of bags. We were relieved, but I couldn't get over the fact that the Power of Cute had given three of our bags such special attention.
Same black bags. Same flight. Same "priority yellow sticker." The only difference was my pretty luggage tags. They somehow sent a message to this women that I cared about my bags and the contents. They "stood out" to her and she treated them accordingly.
That is the Power of Cute.
