Friday Five: You Can't Take It ALL With You

From Singing Owl over at RevGals:

We will be at a chaplain's convention when you all are answering the
Friday Five Questions. I'll look forward to reading your answers next week when
I get home. At the moment we are trying to get the car loaded so we can hit the
road, so this will be a simple F.F. This running around madly in order to leave
has me wondering: what are the five things you simply must have when you are
away from home? And why? Any history or goofy things, or stories?

We're home from the hospital with our newborn - YAY! Of course, that means we're not likely to go very far for the next few days. In two weeks, however, we're going back to my hometown, Wakefield, Nebraska, for the 125th Anniversary Celebration at my home church, Salem Lutheran. So, maybe some of these items will make the list at that point.

1. iPod. Frankly, I don't leave the house without it anymore. LOVE that little gadget. Great music, audiobooks without the requisite 84 CDs, several hours of battery life without carting along a big recharging cradle or filling landfills with dead batteries - what's not to love?

2. Running shoes & clothes. I can't always guarantee I'll use them, but I always pack at least enough shorts & shirts for a run every other day. Unfortunately, I don't sleep well in strange beds, so sometimes my runs go lacking in favor of more sleep. But there is truly no better way to get a feel for a new place than to go on a run and investigate it.

3. A good book. Like the iPod, I rarely leave the house without reading material.

4. Cell phone. Okay, so this is rapidly becoming a "stuff I SHOULD take with me" list. Yes, in an ideal world I'd never leave the cell behind, especially now that I've gotten my PDA phone. But I don't live in an ideal world, do I?

5. Coffee. Never, ever leave home without good coffee. 'Nuff said.