The Best Laid Plans

I am a planner. It is in my nature. I have an unhealthy obsession with school supplies and get down right giddy about back to school shopping. Nothing makes me quite to happy as an empty notebook or blank planner pages. So much so that I collect them. My wildly disorganized office is full of stacks of notebooks and planners in use, discarded, or waiting for their time.

I can schedule and map out action steps with the best of them. Making to do lists and figuring out what needs to be done to reach a goal are a piece of cake.

But the best laid plans.

You see there is a flaw in all my planning. Though I have been a mama for almost 8 years, almost with out exception, I make plans failing to take into consideration this crazy bed head and her two big sisters. Despite careful thought and planning I am rarely able to accomplish all I set out to do.

With this toddler's big sisters starting school last week I set out to take steps to grow my blog, as well as submitted my application for the largest, juried show our area has to offer. I made plans to grow my offering at this show and introduce new products. I started doing yoga. I added name to my happy mail list. I attempted to rearrange the girls bedroom.

I forgot my pint size companion was on a sleeping strike. I forgot that I was running on fumes. I forgot that when we move toward what God is calling us to there will inevitably be set backs. There will be road blocks and distractions and there will be other work to do.

And I would like everything to be simple and clear cut. I wish the answer was as tidy as forget the to do list and play all day. Forget the dreams and focus on the dishes. Or, forget the dishes and sew up a storm, your family needs the money. But it's never all or nothing. I am a mother, and a wife, and a friend, and a writer, and a creative, and a church member and all of those things require my attention. So some times and answer is to cut back on the to do list and some times the answer is to stay up till 11 pm to knock it out. Some times the answer is rest, and some times the answer it to kick myself into high gear and get things done while the baby plays and the kids are at school so that I can cook dinner and do home work when they get home.

I really like planners. I like the boxes and the lines and the check marks. And life is so much messier than my plans. It's complicated and pushes back far more than I would like. There are days when the hats I wear get confusing and I am not sure which is supposed to have my attention at the moment. Life isn't as easily as defined as I would like to think on my notepad pages.

So I keep trusting that as long as I keep moving forward, and doing the next thing, that it's all leading to the perfect place for me.