Yay they have long power strips @psychmomma ! I’ve been looking for one and my mom has one of those 20% off whole order coupons too
We bought our 15 ft surge protector about a month ago. Longest one we found prior to that one had 8 feet. DS was so excited about the 15 ft cord.
Good luck with your move-in @krnBoston – the main move-in day for first years at RIT is well organized with a lot of camaraderie. I am sure you’ll have a good experience. The main lesson we learned two years ago is to bring insect repellent to leave with your student! A lot of orientation takes place outside and late August can be unbearably buggy. The campus stores sold out quickly. Might be a good tip for many others, too.
I am starting to wonder what I haven’t thought of. Just today I thought about her supply of contacts, checked the bathroom and found she only has one pair left in her box. I ordered a couple more boxes which should come in next week. What else is lurking out there that just hasn’t occurred to me yet?
We have decided not to get any rain wear. She has several pairs of boots and an umbrella. Since she is just walking a couple blocks on city streets to get to her classes that should be enough. If that doesn’t work we’ll end up ordering something.
Dorm mountain is pretty much complete and not really much of a mountain anymore, more of an island with a volcano. But we found almost every thing I needed- most of it on sale and I even got a super comfortable pair of Sperry’s
@me29034 - my daughter’s actually pretty outgoing and confident, but I think I’ve tempered this confidence by telling her that it’s pretty
Indulge me please @readingclaygirl since I’m from California. I’ve seen “Sperry’s” crop up on threads and videos. Are they popular in the East? Midwest? I’ve honestly never heard mention of them before.
@Undercovermom1 Very popular boat shoes, preppy.
I’m in NY and I’ve seen a lot of people wear them before. I never had a pair before until know. @Undercovermom1 I just liked them and I’m very particular when it comes to clothes and shoes in regards to how they feel.
@Undercovermom1 Sperry’s, Topsiders or boat shoes are very popular on many college campuses. Each college campus does tend to have their own popular items. My S goes to Clemson and he found out that Bean Boots are a big necessity in the winter as it rains a lot and apparently gets very muddy. Where we live on Long Island, NY they are not popular at all. He’s not one to just get something just because it is the trend but since he liked them and they were functional, we got him a pair for Christmas.
Thanks @carolinamom2boys @readingclaygirl and @lvmjac1. Good to know. I think it will be interesting to see what different trends D16 comes back home with after living across the country.
We’ve heard that the Bean boots are a favorite at MHC to keep warm/dry, so we ordered D16 a pair after we were warned about back ordering. In fact, her boots are due to ship any day, if all goes well.
My sweet girl just asked for a pair of Bean boots without the lining for most of the year wear. She has Sorel Caribou’s for the winter (and has full length NorthFace and Abercrombie coats). We are trying to figure out if she should take winter coats/boots now or wait until we visit for the parent weekend in October. She has two short NorthFace and a light Michael Kors jacket which will be good. At the rate we are going we will be strapping duffel bags to the top of our SUV :))
@HappyFace2018 I would say bring the winter coats/boots at parents weekend. She won’t freeze with the short Northface’s. I’m planning to get my boots and winter coat when I come home Columbus Day weekend
Funny about that Ikea cart. I obsessed about the turquoise one since I first saw it in the catalog. It was a central piece for D16’s dorm room…in my vision for her room. But, alas, the cart is not to be. D16 rejected it. Sigh. If I had any place for it at the house, I’d get it for myself…even if I had to snag it from St. Louis. 
The only items D16 strongly demanded for her dorm room were a closet floor shoe rack, a clip-on incandescent bulb lamp, some microwaveable plates and bowls, her exsiting big stuffed animal pillow (like a body pillow), a down mattress topper, and a tall jewelry tree/holder. No Ikea rack allowed.
By the way, I’m seeing a ton of Ikea knockoffs turning up at Target. Interesting.
Because we had to be in D16’s college town recently for an advocacy group meeting, we decided to make a day of it, D16, DH, and me. We basically did recon. Visited her bank branch to set up her online banking/checking, picked up meds at the pharmacy chain and arranged transfer of her prescription pick-up to that location nearest her college, dropped by the public library to set up borrowing privileges, scouted the local public and YMCA pools, and did drive-bys of the post office, a couple of grocery stores, shoe repair, Mexican restaurant (she likes her plain burritos) and Red Mango, town hall, police HQ, movie theater, park, mobile phone store, town visitor center, train stations and local cab company, and strip mall.
D16 is the kind of kid who does better when everything is not brand new. I hope this tour will help reduce her stress that first month of college.
@carolinamom2boys, that sounds awful. I’m envisioning the Friends Sample Sale episode. LOL I usually avoid tax free days because of the craziness, but today wasn’t too bad. Of course, just going to Ulta and Sephora probably helped.
@mommdc, that’s the way I thought itunes match worked–everything would live on the cloud. So far so good on the 2nd time around putting it on the external drive. Now she’s deleting all our gross parental music, then maybe the library will be small enough that it won’t take up much room on her laptop and she can just pull it over from the external drive and not have to dink with that.
We still don’t have a dorm mountain. It’s like a sad little dorm molehill. I fear everything is going to stay in her room til the very last minute.
Thanks so much @readingclaygirl
Well 19 days and counting. She’s so excited which is really calming me. She has an Erin Condren calendar and she’s updated it with her classes, honors activities (and I think workout schedule). She’s been using these fine tipped Staedtler Color Pens since freshman year to take notes and do some artwork. TBH I’ve recently noticed how organized her notes/calendar is. I used to think she was a bit of a procrastinator when it came to writing her IB assignments but I was completely wrong. She writes everything down, re-writes it on index cards and just knows it.
She said she was so glad she worked for the first two months and would have lost her mind if she wasn’t active this summer. A few of her friends who graduated last year said they were super board waiting for freshmen year to start. Just watching her mentally/physically get her clothes/personal items organized allows for a deep sigh of relief. She’s ready.
Ah…relief. I’m taking off from work these final weeks before move-in. So, now it’s all about getting her ready (and finishing some home repairs). D16’s needs take precedence, however.
I’m glad we started in on the list of to-dos so early in the season and are still ahead of the game, I believe. We needed all the buffer-time that was built into our transition-to-college timeline.
So many seemingly simple tasks have turned into long rigmaroles (paying the college bill has required adjusting the bill to reflect all appropriate charges and credits, for example, which has taken weeks of back-and-forth forth). Rinse, repeat for laptop technology issues, health forms, securing syllabi, extra unexpected weeks for D16’s job, an unexpected weekly volunteer gig for D16, etc. And in the midst of the daily transition prep, the family car and my cell phone crapped out and both had to be replaced.
It’s a lot, really. I can’t imagine how I’d be coping if I hadn’t taken such a long running start.
But, I also know that if something doesn’t get done, it’s likely not the end of the world. As long as the college bill is paid, Stafford loans are secured, forms are all submitted, and she shows up to college with a charged laptop, cell phone, bedroll and dop-kit and gets herself to her registered classes on time…it’s all good.
Well, we are making progress here. Bought towels. We are “shipping” a box using WashU’s UTrucking business - they do an east coast ship service where they stop in different cities and you can pay to put a box on the truck and have it delivered to your dorm. We did two or three with my DD but with DS, we decided one large box would be enough. We were trying to decide if we needed to go get a large box from UHaul but it turns out the DD had a large UTrucking box from when she moved home from college. Today we packed the box to drop off this week. In went the bedding, desk lamp, tool box, desk fan and a few other items. I think between three of us, we can get everything else in DS’s luggage. Missing is the popup hamper I bought him some time ago. It is nowhere to be found. If I don’t find it in another week, I’ll have to order another one.
DS also got his meningitis shot this week. But the online health form won’t let him update that he got it so we need to contact health services. DH took DS to get new glasses today. The laptop we ordered should be delivered this week. Tomorrow is the send off gathering for freshmen and their families at a home about 35 minutes from us. I’m hoping DS will meet a few kids. It should be fun. I think going to this get together will really make things hit home for DS .We fly out 2 weeks from today.
On observation - I did not anticipate that DS’s last two weeks at home would center around him trying to watch the Olympics at every opportunity!
@PAO2008 I’ve been watching the Olympics a lot too. I always do but I had a conversation with a friend that made me think about why. By watching them, we are able to focus on something other than ourselves and the upcoming transition.