Calendar

I like plans. I like days when there are plans in place and I can follow the plans. Or at least have a plan to attempt to follow for the day.

Life at our place has been just on the shy side of chaotic. This is not new. Life became chaotic, and wonderfully so, when I first started dating the woman that would become my wife. At first it was subtle. Joint decisions on where to eat, what movie to see, where to take a vacation for the weekend, who got Ben for the week. That sort of thing. Then came marriage, that beautiful arrangement whereby we are now legally obligated to be with each other all the time. That increased the chaos.

Just when we were getting used to that arrangement, the Boyo magically appeared. OK, not so much magic as basic biology. But still it threw our world once again off its axis and spinning wildly and giddily out of control. The second offspring, Sweet Pea, knocked whatever sense of balance we had right out the window.

And as the children grow and create a chaotic bubble / wall of noise, another phenomenon occurred. Somehow both sets of parents, mine and my Wife's, are unbelievably getting older! It shouldn't be surprising, as I know I am getting older, and my kids are getting older. Even the bananas on the counter are getting older. So it makes sense that they are getting older, too. What this means though, is increased medical problems. And I am torn, torn, torn between my duty to the Wife and Kiddos, and my duty to be with my parents as they age.  Chaos multiplied.

So, somehow we fell into the pattern of living day to day, getting the bills paid, the kids to their obligations (school, scouts, and lots of other stuff) and not really having a plan for any of it.

We have a family calendar that has on it all of the things we must do. Job schedules, school schedules, extracurricular activities, medical appointments, and the like. It is crammed full on most days.

There is also a list or two or three of "things to do" in other areas of life. Triathlon training, yardwork and housework, various projects for various people. But the things on those lists are thrown in as time allows, and sometimes time doesn't allow.

Result? Chaos.

So the Wife and I sat down with our calendars again today and started plotting out everything, and I do mean nearly everything, for the next few weeks. On our calendars right now are work schedules, kids schedules her exercise schedule and my exercise schedule (I'm not waiting until next year to re-train for my triathlons). What we will be adding to the calendars are specific tasks from the "to do" lists, so that we can get those things on an actual schedule so we can have a plan to do them on a specific day. Or at least a plan to attempt to get them done on a certain day.

We are hoping that by scheduling everything but bowel movements we can regain some sense of balance in our chaos riddled world. We're even doing menu planning weeks in advance so we can avoid the nuisance of having to decide what to have for dinner each night. That shouldn't feel like a chaotic decision, but somehow it all adds up.

We are pretty flexible with the schedule, and have promised each other that we will not panic if the day doesn't go as planned. It's hard to fluster a nurse and a medic with unexpected events, so we shouldn't have a problem there!

So, a calendar project to try and bring some order to the chaos. Life is chaos, and beautiful. We endeavour to make some sense of the chaos every day. If nothing else it gives us a goal to shoot for.  Wish us luck!

More Later