The Consummate Planner

Me: Hello. My name is Jennifer and I am a consummate planner.
Everyone else in my imaginary room: Hello, Jennifer. Welcome.

Yes, I am a planner. I like to plan ahead - I think it's part of the need to "be in the know" and not be left completely in the dark. The more I can plan ahead, the better I feel and can move onto other tasks that need my planning or attention.

For vacations and trips, I like to plan out each day's agenda...what to do, what to see, where to go, where to stay...if there are restaurant recommendations, I like to throw them into the plans as well. The only things I don't seem to plan are breakfasts and bathroom breaks (I'm not a control freak!). This works out well between me and my husband because he's not a planner. He's very laid back...some have called him the most laid back guy they've ever met. If I have it planned, that's one more thing he doesn't have to worry about. In all, I'd say he has a pretty care-free life. (That's until I get all postal on his ass for not doing anything but that's another post for another day....) I like to say that my husband is on a 'need to know' basis. If for some reason we have to be separated, I will tell him where he needs to be and what time he needs to be there. This is just the way we work.

On my most recent trip, my friend Becky and I went to London and had a great time. The weeks leading up to the trip were fun with the planning of hotels, side trip to Ireland, figuring out what we could do and see while we were in each city, etc. Becky told me that I shouldn't try to plan everything - so I REALLY tried not planning each day. I only had a few requirements - I needed to go to Bath, the Tower of London, the British Museum and the Guinness Factory. The rest of the time, we just did what came our way. It was fun - I had a great time and I'm going back in November to do/see more stuff that I missed, and for a friend's wedding.

I plan dinners for the week - every Saturday night or Sunday, before I hit the grocery store, I break out the recipes and cookbooks and figure out what I'll be making for dinner each night and make out my list. Every Monday morning, I plan out my lunches for the week. Our cafeteria has a week-at-a-glance menu to tell me what the specials are, including the three soups and stews that will be available on each day. (I purposely do not bring in my lunch on days of seafood chowder, chicken chili and clam chowder. I LOVE soup!) I also just picked up a menu from Panera that tells me their five soups for each day of the week. The girl was nice enough to tell me that for the most part, the menu was correct but if ever I want to verify what the soup choices were for the day, I could call to verify...how thoughtful.

There are many other aspects in my life that I plan out - I don't go all out and have a five-year plan or anything but I just like to know what I will be doing or what I need to be doing, maybe, one week in advance. It's probably becauseI don't like surprises....maybe I just like to be prepared. Either way, I'd feel like my life was missing something if I didn't have anything to plan. It's because of all this planning I do that I feel like I'm now a pretty good planner. Extraordinaire? Oh, no. Novice? Of course not. Expert? Perhaps. But I wonder what I could accomplish if I concentrated all my planning energy to something bigger...like world domination!