Planning

I am the first to admit that I am not the most organized person in the world. The one exception is my calendar. The church board has an extended meeting in January during which we schedule almost all of the church events for the year. Several times a year a colleague and I sit down and choose worship themes for the next several months. Each week Daughter and I figure out supper menu and a chore schedule for the entire week. Now there is obviously flexibility built into our schedule, because I never know when I’m going to get an emergency call and have to go to the hospital or the funeral home. My preference, though, is to have things scheduled and to work ahead so that I can handle the emergencies that arise.

As soon as we received the Special Olympics Softball schedule, all the dates were added to my calendar. We live about 160 miles away from my sister, brother, and parents. There was one game on the schedule with a question mark beside it that is about halfway between family and us. Daughter desperately wants other family members to come watch her play (all her friends have extended family in the area—she has always felt different because her extended family is so far away). I contacted my sister and brother and told them about this game near them, and they said they would do everything they could to be there. The game is scheduled for this Thursday, and there was a question mark by it. At last Tuesday’s game I asked if it was going to happen. They weren’t sure. They did decide, though, to cancel the practice that had been scheduled for Wednesday. I’m not going to complain about that, though I have learned that the practice schedule doesn’t mean much—they’ve also decided late on a Tuesday to have a practice on Wednesday.

My sister called Sunday; she was working on her calendar and wanted to know what was going on with the possible game on Thursday. I told her I didn’t know. I promised I’d ask again at Tuesday’s game for more information.

This evening I was on the phone with a colleague who is preparing to move. She’s going to sort through books and take some to the AAUW book sale on Thursday. I told her Daughter and I would be willing to come over on Wednesday to help sort books and load the books marked for donation into her car. I decided to run these plans by Daughter.

“I have practice Wednesday night.”

“It’s not on the schedule.”

“I know, but Boyfriend talked to one of the coaches and we’re going to be practicing Wednesday.”

In the big scheme of things, I suppose it’s relatively minor, but I find it annoying. People in this area aren’t real big on planning and scheduling things in advance. A mandatory athletic banquet was once scheduled for the same time as a youth group event we’d had on the calendar for over six months. It was scheduled at a time that is supposed to be kept clear for church events. When I complained, I was told that when they’d looked at the calendar the previous week to schedule it, that was the only time available. If you know you are going to have a spring athletic banquet, why don’t you put it on the calendar at the beginning of the school year, or at the very least at the beginning of the spring sports season? People just don’t seem to think that way around here.

So here it is Monday night. We may have a practice that wasn’t on the schedule on Wednesday, and we may not have a game that was on the schedule on Thursday. It’s a good thing I know how to be flexible. I’ll get Daughter to the events that weren’t on the schedule, as it’s not her fault and I’m not going to punish her. It would be much easier, though, if people could schedule things in advance and then stick to the schedule!