A Guide to Clearing Your Schedule

The perfect way to stress out an organized and extremely busy person? Leave her calendar at her parent's house, 45 minutes away from where she lives. When I got home after a relaxing weekend in Fairfield, I noticed within seconds that I didn't have my calendar. My sister, Carrie, helped me tear apart her car (waking up my sweetie pie niece...sorry Lillie). Not that it would be easy to find in the messy excuse for a car my sister drives. It didn't help that she parked under my parent's bird-infested tree all weekend. Actually scratch that, maybe she'll actually wash it now (love you, Carrie).

My mom found my calendar in the room I had slept in. She said it blended in with the bedspread. That is NOT going to help me figure out what time Austin's soccer practice is or what day I see my chiropractor. She read off tomorrow's schedule for me and said, "I'll photocopy July and we'll e-mail it to you and then drop the calendar in the mail. You'll have it in a couple days." She must have heard the anxiety in my voice. I've checked my e-mail at least five times and it hasn't come through yet. I guess I could just stay at home tomorrow and find out from the phone calls where I was supposed to be and at what time I should have been there. That actually doesn't sound like too bad of an idea to me. I like days when there is nothing on the calendar. Doesn't happen too often, but it's nice in theory.

I called my mom back an hour later. "We just e-mailed it sweetie. And you know, don't let ANYONE tell you that you don't DO anything. I looked through June and July and you have a full-time job! I can't believe the things you do every day." Tell me about it... Too bad I have no idea what any of them are right now. Some days I run on auto-pilot. I check my calendar before bed (so I know if I need to set an alarm or not) and first thing in the morning (so I remember what I read the night before). I am quite sure that I can get through the next couple of days without it. The biggest problem really, is that I get phone calls, make appointments, schedule meetings, play dates, coffee with a friend, and a million other things on a daily basis. We might make it to all of our events tomorrow, but too bad that I wasn't able to write down which day is girl's night out or what time Sam's swim teacher changed his lesson to. We SO won't be at either of those things.

I've tried the "calendar hung on the wall" thing. I've tried the Palm Pilot thing. I've tried the "scribble a bunch of things down on random pieces of paper" thing. I need it with me to function properly and smoothly. The "carry the calendar around everywhere with you" thing works the best for me. Until I do the "leave it on a bed in another town and try not to freak out" thing. I better go check my e-mail again...