Best Way to Pack a Suitcase

The best way to pack a suitcase is by using a bit of care and thought about what your immediate needs are going to be when you first open your suitcase after your arrival at your destination.

Sounds a bit obvious, doesn’t it? If you have ever lived with a “panic packer” then you will know precisely what I mean. A panic packer is one of those people who leave packing their suitcase until fifteen minutes before departure from the house and then they just throw anything in. Actually, once it stops being annoying it’s funny. The way they then have to throw everything out of the suitcase because they packed what they first needed first which means it ended up in the bottom of the suitcase. And if the material is crushable, then the next lot of panic is to find an iron.

Those kinds of packers are the direct opposite of a “petite packer”. A petite packer is one of those people who roll everything up into the smallest possible size ever so carefully, and then squeeze it between items to either stop rattling or damage to breakable items. The great Houdini would have been proud of them.

Then we get the “weight-packers”. These are the packers who drive you nuts by asking which the heavier item is; the dress or the coat. I mean surely they can answer that question better than anyone else when they have both items hanging off their arms?  These weight packers aren’t too bad to have around if you need a suitcase packed. At least your things are much easier to find at the destination place and usually arrive in a pretty good condition.

The heavier items being on the bottom of the case means that the lighter ones are on top and if you arrive at your destination at night, the first thing one usually looks for are night clothes.

But the way I like to pack and have all my clothes in wearable condition is quite simple really. Over the years I have done a lot of traveling and I can sure tell some hairy yarns about how suitcases travel. The first thing you as a packer have to be aware of is that no matter which way you pack, there is a very good chance that your suitcase may not even arrive at your destination or at the same time you do. So never put anything into your suitcase that you aren’t prepared to lose. 

My packing method is similar to a well-run garden nursery where you have the bigger bins for the bigger gravel or stones and the smaller bins for the lighter items. I am a folder and not a scruncher. When I say folder, I don’t screw everything into the smallest size possible but I do keep the same fold up system as in my bedroom drawers.

I always put the big bulkier items at the bottom. Then I layer those with my underwear top left, stockings in the centre left  and sleepwear bottom left; shirts top right, shorts/skirts/slacks bottom right, jumpers and cardigans centre top. Shoes are cleaned and dusted, placed toe inside heel and put on the inside top of the suitcase along with a big plastic bag for dirty laundry.

Packing a suitcase is a personal preference but the best way for me to pack my suitcase is in using an organized system born from experience.

Women's Nylon Stockings for Christmas

If you are an anxious lover and you have started thinking about what to get your 'significant other' this Christmas then you won't go far wrong with a pair of special stockings. These special stockings can be whatever suits you best; fishnet, sheer, patterned, silky thigh highs or whatever you choose. But I do strongly recommend you check out her proper size.

How to do this without her knowing? Good question and you may need to use some "Dick Tracey" (pun intended) tactics here. It's amazing really how women know when someone has been into their lingerie drawer so you will have to be very discreet. Before you touch anything in her drawer after opening it, take a good look at how everything is set out. Most women know to within an inch where a certain pair of stockings lives and if you don't put them back exactly right you will get a question or comment about "someone's been into my drawer!" and we don't want that, now do we?

Just be sure to put everything back exactly as you found it after checking what sizes and brands are on the spare stocking package labels. Most stockings don't have sizes on the stockings themselves so you will need to read the new packages. If there are no new packages of stockings in there then you will need to invent an excuse to get her downtown and into a mall without raising her suspicions.

Once you are in the shopping centre or mall together, see if you can entice her into a lingerie shop or super department store and past the lingerie section. I'm sure while you are in there and looking around, see if you can discretely get her sizing from her while you pretend (or honestly) admire something and say that you think that would look nice on her. Women love these types of comments!

That way you may also get her dress sizing and this will be a big help to most shop assistants working in a lingerie shop because they will then know what her stocking size is most likely to be with a 96% accuracy. Depending on the style of stocking you end up buying this close a fit will be pretty well comfortable for her to wear.

Now that we have the stocking sizeing sorted out why stick at buying only one pair? Why not buy her a pair for a few occasions and when she wears them she will be able to remember when she wore certain others. Memories are precious and better when shared.

My Story of a Stocking Accident

It's not too surprisingly really that the most embarrassing moments of your life happen when you least expect them. It's also probably not too surprising either that these are the stories of one's misspent youth that makes a person laugh in hindsight. I was fourteen at the time and dressed up to the nines and thought I was "as smart as a rat with a gold tooth" as my Uncle Jock used to say.

My Grandmother always said "pride cometh before a fall" and they were both right as usual. I was off to the pictures on a sunny Saturday afternoon and I was going to meet my boyfriend outside the theatre because I wasn't supposed to be 'dating' any boy. Back in those days (early-mid 60's) here in Australia we still called the movies the pictures. They were always called that until the advent of a lot of TV programs from America came in on our TV's and slowly "the pictures" has slowly disappeared from our language. However, that's another story.

I met up with my girlfriend and she dutifully admired my attire. We were both as excited as two hens on the one nest and weren't paying too much attention between giggles and shared hopes as to where we were walking. I wasn't very experienced at that time with wearing high heels and even though by most standards they wouldn't be considered 'high' they were much higher than a bare foot kid from the country was used to balancing on. We were about to cross the street to the picture theatre when disaster struck.

My friend pointed my boyfriend out waiting for me in front of the picture theatre and he saw us about the same time and waved. I waved back just as I stepped off the footpath onto the road and stepped on the side of a pot-hole in the bitumen and down I went, landing like a cat on all fours.

I heard this terrific rip and felt my knee go straight through my nylon stocking, my handbag went flying out in front of me onto the road and my beautiful yellow frock was smeared with black bitumen stains! My boyfriend hurried over and helped me up just as another girl walked by with her friend and noticed who I was meeting there and said sarcastically "You have really fallen for him, haven't you?" and the pair of them giggled all the way across the street. I was too mortified and embarrassed to even feel the hurt from my grazed and bleeding knee and my hands stung with gravel rash.

I couldn't go home again and change because there wasn't time and my friend had already bought our tickets. So I went to the ladies and cleaned up as best I could but I felt absolutely miserable and then sore. I never even got to hold hands with him because of the gravel rash on my palms. But when the lights went out he did put his arm around my shoulders (eventually!) and give me a cuddle. The anticipation of "will he- won't he" was adrenalin pumping stuff to a fourteen year old girl who had just taken off her stockings and was recovering from a most embarrassing situation.

Women's Stockings and High Heels

In the winter time it's very tempting to wear the thickest pair of stockings in your lingerie drawer but if you are planning on wearing a pair of high heeled shoes, this may not be the best look overall. High heels on a woman are very attractive and so they attract people's eyes to your legs and seeing a thick pair of school-girl type tights is unattractive.

High heeled shoes should be worn with the finest stocking fabric. "The more sheer the stocking, the more cheer the girl" was one of my Grandmothers favourite sayings but she lived back in the day's when guys were allowed to wolf-whistle a girl.

If your high heeled shoes are backless, that is they attach either with a slim strap around the top part of the heel, then you need a pair of stockings that doesn't show the heel. Some really well made stockings have a thicker fabric around the heel for comfort and durability but if you are wearing the grocery-store version, some will have a thicker heel and others won't. Choose a pair of suitable stockings to wear with backless high heeled shoes simply because it is more flattering to the rest of your leg.

The other possible problem you may or may not be aware of is how well you appear to manage your high heeled shoes. It looks uncomfortable, dangerous and clumsy to be tottering around in shoes that have too high a heel. Not only does it make you look as if you are balancing on stilts rather than sashaying down the street, it is actually very dangerous to your long term health. That is, women who wear too high a heeled shoe too often, will end up suffering severe back problems when they get older.

And these days guys aren't allowed to wolf-whistle you so you may as well be comfortable instead.

Nylon Stockings and Summer heat

Summer is fast approaching here in Queensland Australia and the heat during the day is increasing. I was in Brisbane this week and I noticed many of the younger office girls are no longer wearing jeans but they have started wearing skirts and blouses and stockings. So the morning must be a bit chilly still becuase as soon as the days start to get really hot, those stockings will no longer be necessary to wear except when dressing up to go out again at night.

This is both good and bad because wearing stockings does make a woman feel kinda special.....

Oh well....there's literally no point in sweating over it....and stockings can become very sticky and clingy and awfully uncomfortable on a really hot day!