We were on our group text with my brother and his bride yesterday when I mentioned my frustration with our current situation. We are leaving for our almost month-long Mediterranean trip next Monday and to be honest, we are in what I call the holding pattern part of travel. That part of every trip comes around twice. We are in the middle of the first holding pattern.

This holding pattern is the one where you have pretty much everything you can do to prepare all done but you really can’t start packing yet. You can do things like take out the garbage, turn off the water to your washer, put the trickle charger on the car, and set your light timers. We really can’t even pack yet because we need to wear some of the clothes we are taking between now and then.

Sure we can make lists of things we need to do but in the meantime, we really can’t do any of it until Saturday, Sunday or early Monday.

Early Monday brings me to the second part of the holding pattern. Normally we get to skip this part of the trip because when we fly domestically we almost always fly early in the morning. Sometimes at a god-awful O-dark-30. But when we fly to Europe, it’s another story. Most of the flights from Seattle to Europe don’t leave until late afternoon or early evening. That means that on Monday, we will be all packed and ready to go by 10:00 am or so and then we will just sit around until it’s time to head to the airport around 2:00 pm.

Our flight doesn’t leave until 5:20 pm. But we do prefer it that way when we are flying across that many time zones. When we go at that time it really helps us to fight the jet lag. We board (if the flight is on-time…yesterday it was two hours late) at 4:45, get settled in, and probably have a glass of champagne in our hands by 5:00. Then take off by 5:30. If that all works they serve us dinner (yes, we are in business class) around 6:30 we will have dinner. After that, maybe watch a movie and then try and get some sleep for 4-6 hours. Then we are awakened for breakfast and land in Amsterdam around noon. That to me is a perfect schedule. But it does involve that holding pattern.

So today I am taking up some of our current holding pattern by doing this post. And then I am going to an afternoon Mariner game with my son. Watch this space either tomorrow or Friday for the full itinerary of the trip.

Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting. —Joyce Meyer