MY ORGANIZED LIFE--TAKE ONE: While I was in St. Louis in July, I resolved I would begin life again organized. I decided to get a planner at Target for $3--the kind normally sold to college students, I suppose. I started filling it out. Unfortunately, I forgot to add "pack new planner" onto my to-do list for July 25, because I returned home without my new life-altering planner. I called my mom and she found it in the room where I was sleeping. She asked me since I left it, could she have it? Of course it would cost just as much to send it as to buy a new one, I said sure. It's yours, mom.
MY ORGANIZED LIFE--TAKE TWO: I only had three days here before I left with my husband Eric on our trip to the Oregon coast, so I swung by Target and bought a new one. I nearly forgot to go, as I didn't have a planner to put it on my to-do list, but managed it between stocking the house full of groceries for Bianca and grandma and pulling cash from the ATM.
A couple days into our trip, Eric and I were fighting over what to do in Cannon Beach. Unlike Eric, who likes to just get into the car and see where it takes us, I wanted to plot out our week. We fought for an hour, then spent the next fifteen minutes putting everything we wanted to do in my new planner:
TUESDAY: Drive to Tillamook to tour the cheese factory (boring--I wish we hadn't listened to that damn girl at the bed & breakfast who said we just had to do it). Eat at Newman's at 988 (which turned out to be an overly stuffy too-expensive-to-feel-comfortable-in restaurant that left me hungry as they ushered me out, which gnocchi always does, why do I keep ordering it?). So much for that. We ended up fitting a nap into our day that was not scheduled into the planner, but I'm glad I made room for it.
TO DO: Find conch shell large enough to hear the ocean for Bianca. Stop letting Eric pick fights with me about planning things. (He scribbled in later: Stop provoking Eric into a fight.)
WEDNESDAY: Eric golfing nine holes in Manzanita (while I do a little writing at the B&B by the fireplace watching the ocean view from my window). Check out the caves at Hug Point. Drive back to Astoria to retrieve my jogging clothes I'd left on Monday. Then pick up a pizza and eat at our room. Yes, I was sick of eating out already. Too much seafood. However, the pizza was filled to the brim with crab meat. Good, nonetheless.
THURSDAY: Five-mile hike at Cape Falcon. (Unmarked two-hour nap before dinner) Dinner at Nehalen River Inn (best food of the trip by the way)
FRIDAY: After B&B breakfast, check out of Arch Cape House and drive to Ashland. Grab a quick bite. 8:00 pm. A Winter's Tale at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. (Worth every penny.) Ridiculous hour drive to our B&B in the mountains.
SATURDAY: Drive home.
As I sat in the car long after I had the patience to be pleasant, I marked in my planner things I need to do in the next several weeks: finish getting pieces of uniform for Bianca to start school, shop for school supplies, get-to-know-teacher meeting, get my chapter two ready for my writing group meeting next week. My vacation is over. I'm now the mother of a kindergartner and have a lot of responsibilities. Much more than last year. I'm pretty sure Bianca gets reprimanded if I get her late to school in the morning. Now, with all these added pressures, I've got to stay organized.
AND CUT--THAT'S A WRAP
