PLANS!

It's that time of year again--

I got that far and stopped. WHY is it that time of year? Can't we make plans any old time? How about September 10th? Or July 18th? Or--okay, how about your birthday? Or my birthday? 

If we really stop and take a look at our lives, aren't we "making plans" all the time? 

For example:

• my daughter and I spent over an hour on the phone this morning with varying success:
• trying to move an appointment from one day to another
• trying to figure out why one medical provider isn't doing certain things any longer
• trying to find out why two medical providers need the same test--and can it be done once for both
• time "on hold" better spent on other projects (never mind being #2 in the queue)

That's just one morning's "planning" in our lives. I don't have an outside job, so we'd naturally think, wouldn't we, that I'm available any old time? But my availability often requires a driver who isn't me.

Okay, another example. Today, Wednesday, my daughter has the day off from work. We made tentative plans for things around the house and yard. Now that we spent most of the morning engaged in the appointment book blues, we had to make different plans. (shuffle, shuffle)

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I know none of this is unique to us, nor to you. In current parlance, "it is what it is." But, dang, I sure wish it wasn't!

To prepare for this post, I did some online research for appropriate/pithy quotations about planning--making plans--anything in that neck of the woods. Here are some samples of what I found:

E. B. White improved my world every time I read some of his essays. And because of that connection, I enjoyed my world a whole lot more. I didn't have to do a lot of planning, either.

I like this one a lot--and I've found I can do both, wish and plan.

Sound practical advice. 

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So what about plans that don't bear fruit? Or that seem to fizzle out? Or leave us feeling--I don't know, cheated maybe. Or dangling . . . .

Some suggestions--maybe it wasn't time for that plan to work out. Or maybe we hadn't thought it through. Or, if my Grandma Jenkins had it nailed--"I didn't hold my mouth right!"

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I'll end on a humorous note:

Have a wonderful wonderful week--with or without a plan!

Blessings to all for 2026!

Thursday's Child