Blog Challenge Day 21

Another moment.

So the last time I gave you my daydreaming moments during the day. This time I will give you my uber-planning moments.

These planning moments often involve lots of drawing, writing, computer generating and other Type-A activities. It can happen at work when during the later weeks of a student who is doing well, I pull out a scrap paper and draw up where I want to plant my vegetables this year, a schematic for an A frame for cucumbers and zucchini to grow on, or a calculation of how many more stitches I will need to add to a mitten pattern because my hands are manly sized, all while the student expertly navigates a culture with small hints or questions answered from myself. Many a student that has been through their Microbiology rotation can confirm these habits. This probably all ultimately is daydreaming again, but the kind that can be actually realized.

Some of these activities are also in my long term plan notebook. I have drawings for future flower gardens with the placement of all the plants in aesthetically pleasing arrangement (with some help from a Sunset flower garden plan book). I have a plan for our front porch, complete with addition, wider stairs centered on the deck, brick path and lighting. I have my vegetable garden layout from last year with what I planted where so that I can move the beds for this year and not plant the same thing in the same place (it could be bad for the plants, transmitting diseases and encouraging pests). This goes with the word document that I typed last year as my seedlings grew, so I would know what worked and what didn't. This year's layout for the veggie garden is on the computer in an Excel file and has the varieties of plants I'm putting in with the days to maturity for each, so I know when they should be harvested. I told you I was a planner.

The planning problem all comes down to two things...being overly rational and exceptionally idealistic. You see I want things perfect and sometimes that involves making mistakes. I can't always remember the mistakes and as Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So to preclude the insanity I make notes to be able to see all the mistakes and make it better the next time. The rational part of me loves the detailed notes and the idealist side of me loves the perfection and the imagining.

So, that's my uber-planning habit. And if you know me or have lived with me you know it's all true. I'm only upset when it doesn't work out ;)