How I've changed the way I pack

This past weekend my husband and I went away overnight.  In the past, I had gotten into the bad habit of using either bags (those re-usuable cloth grocery bags or misc bags I had around the house) or baskets to pack our stuff.  I would start out with twobags thinking I could pack all of Darryl's stuff in one and mine in the other . . than I would add a third for toiletries . .. and forth for shoes . . .a fifth for snacks . . you get the idea.  Than, when we would get to the hotel or where ever we were staying, we looked like bag people hauling in all of these bags.  I got "smarter" after a while and used a laundry basket to put all the bags in (wow, doesn't that look impressive LOL)  Even though he has never said anything, I know my husband did not enjoy carrying all of that stuff nor how it looked when we walked in anywhere.  So this time, I planned.   I decided, I didn't care if I needed to take our big suitcase even for one overnight trip, it would look better to roll in one large suitcase than to carry in 24 little ones.  But, I was able to pack a bathroom bag and a carry-on size suitcase.  We even had room left over.  Usually I cannot use the bathroom bag because stuff will not fit so, I organized it this time around. 

First, I had two plastic containers that fit side by side in the bag:

Now, one of the containers, I use every day.  It sits on my "vanity" shelf in my closet and holds my make-up and such.  I added my contacts/glasses to it.  Than in the other one I put things like our deoderant, medication, shaving stuff and so on.  This keeps all of those little things together.  When we got to the hotel, I just pulled out the containers and placed them on the sink; everything stayed together so it made packing to go home easier as well.

Than, I used the space left around the sides and top to add those things that don't fit in the containers:

Things like my body spray, hair gel and body wash fit along the side, shampoo and hairspray slide down along the front (not visable in the picture) leaving room on top for hair burshes.  The only thing that I don't fit in this bag now is my hairdryer (yes, most hotels have one which works for most people but, due to my curls, I must use a diffuser which only fits my hairdryer!)  My hairdryer fits nicely into our suitcase :-)

What a differance taking time to pack neatly did for us this weekend.  This bag hooks over the handle of it's matching suitcase, which than rolls making transporting very easy.  My husband thanked me several times for taking the time to do this - he commented on how nice it was to not have to carry all of that stuff!!