I know that alot of people write books and slice people up into lots of different categories based on a variety of premises but I'm just gonna slice em up into two categories. There's the people that plan their life and people that dream their lives. I meet the planners basically everywhere. They are very obvious. If you have a question about a school policy, they ramble it off because they read everything in it's entirety. They get up at a certain time, they go to the gym, they do certain laundry on certain days, they have storage rooms with clear plastic totes that are labeled for extra security, they do meal planning, they remember where they are going and when, up to a month in advance from a mental CALENDAR, they balance their checkbooks, have an organized junk drawer and rotate the clothes through their closets. I realize there are some who find this as mind blowing as I do and that is why I have created the other category. Basically everything that happens, happens to you , not because you made it happen like the planners but because when you should have been planning, you were dreaming. I don't even want to go into what happens to the non-planners in the grocery store and the resulting week of meals from this weekly catastrophe... A perfect example of this personality type would be my impact on my entire relationship with Jody. We dated with no plan... that I knew of although there was plenty of dreaming. Later Jody admitted that he had a plan but never divulged it to me. His plan was sabotaged by my lack of planning and the resulting first "suprise miracle" followed closely by two more. There was a brief time of planning, where we sold the townhouse and bought a three bed two bath home in Littleton but then we decided to move to Minnesota. We had no plan whatsoever. We had no plan and batta bing, lots of stuff HAPPENED to us. I can't help but think, that if we were like the couple on House Hunters that strolled out into suburbia, bought a two story house and furnished it for the "someday" that they have children, with a calculated plan... perhaps things would be a little more... planned.
Luckily for my children, Eden and Kait both seem to be natural planners. Kaitlyn plans all of her grandparents visits well in advance, she plans craft time each week, trips to the park, grocery store trips and even baths. She loves to make lists and phone calls to arrange playdates...Eden plans her birthday party six months in advance and regularly has planned marketing strategies of which today included starting a hair braiding business. She's made and "OPEN" and "CLOSED" sign to hang on our front door and huge posters to put out front tomorrow. I am only hoping she won't find it crushing if I am her only customer, but kids seem to be resilient, especially if they are planners because the next strategy is in the works before the first one has failed. None of this comes from me. I decided to start the fence repair project the other day and had no concept that I would possibly need more than a chop saw, a drill and some screws. As for measuring each board, eh, what's the big deal? I soon found out what the big deal was and suffered a laborous experience due to, as usual, my absence of ability to plan.
Even this very moment, I know if I want to come up with any creative Christmas gifts for people, I need to get on it right now. Will I do what I know the planners are doing? No, I won't. Christmas will happen to me just like every year. I will be a victim of it's chaos and confusion, hoping that if I make hot cocoa with a peppermint stick in it and sing Christmas songs to the kids every night of December, they'll look back on it fondly and think how special it was, without a clue of the clever "Martha Stewart Living" Christmases going on all around us.
I also know that I should have a list together of groceries I need for Thanksgiving. Will I do that? Perhaps, if I finish painting the bathroom that I started over a week ago and can't seem to get around to finishing the trim on. I do have to say, I'm not overly concerned, because I have sewn up Thanksgiving quite nicely. I have two planners coming to dinner, so it should be a cinch.
In closing, I have to say, that even though I push it, I don't plan and life really does just seem to be happening to me all over the place, I'm so happy. I'm just so happy. The blessings God has brought through my complete lack of planning have made up for all of the chaos of the process.
Now that I've written all of this, I realize quite clearly that Jody IS a planner... I just need to be on the planning committee. I could take the minutes.
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