Back

The Art of Flexible Planning: How to Navigate Life's Unexpected Twists | Day 283 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Oct 12, 2023· 3 minutes

Plan with a pencil, always!

It is a good thing we are flying high on energy and that we are used to troubleshooting and changing our plans.

The boxes planned to be sent to Denmark were to be delivered on a specific date, but that date was changed less than 24 hours before, pushed back into our dental appointments in Barcelona and the day we were saying goodbye to the grandparents. 



Logistics is always a funny one to figure out: seats in the van, timing with the dentist and airplane, timing with who gets hungry when, and can the dogs be accepted in the taxi - all that stuff when we move the big group take up a lot of our planning hours.

I remember about 12 years ago when a friend pointed it out: We are mostly calm when sh** happens. She watched our family of 6 +1 dog when we could not start our car at 11 pm mid-winter trying to go home after visiting her in the countryside. Kids small, infant, 3, 6, 10 - something like that. It was no big deal, really - you can only control what you can control, and after that, it is just troubleshooting mode. And sometimes chaos control.

Panic will not help.

Falling out with each other will not help.

Just a quick analysis: What is urgent? What pieces do not move? How do we get to peace again fast?

So, on this day, Jesper picked up his parents, then the boxes, and drove to the drop-off, then to the big BCN parking, then via taxi to a lovely cafe to drop off the parents before running to the dentist. Meanwhile, the kids and I took the morning train to BCN, standing all the way, enjoying the fantastic view of the Mediterranean. And walked to the dentist.

At 11.25, we were all done with that, met with the grandparents, had ice cream, visited Ravid, the hardpan artist, walked to the restaurant - unfortunately, both grandparents were robbed in the street on the way - and had a good long debriefing of that, and a nice lunch, before we drove them to the airport, and from there to the house we have rented to have space to get everything ready for the trip to Mexico.

All boxes ticked.

All good.

With love

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our lives like this, and we get very happy when we get your feedback. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 

More images on Facebook

“There is no way I am leaving England without seeing Stonehenge first,” my youngest child said when we did our planning day in Forest of Bowland a we…Read more
This is the key to football as a religion. The loneliness. Or, more precisely: The human craving for belonging. There has been so much lost in modern…Read more
William Turner is epic. And the exhibition was special. I think we spend two or maybe 3 hours staring at how he describes the ocean, the clouds, the …Read more
We walked the streets, passed the club where the Beatles took their first steps into fame, the whole rock and roll area with live music (of varying q…Read more
Here begins a little bite of the road trip, just the five of us - as planned on our pausing day in Forest of Bowland. Liverpool was on the way to Sto…Read more
We met Annas' family at the castle in Normandie in the spring, and we all got along very well. And it was a pleasure to visit them in Kendal, even th…Read more
We stopped at the most magical and beautiful place to have lunch in the grass by the river under the trees. Literally magical. We crossed the river t…Read more
When our friends went back to Denmark, we decided to rent the lovely house for an extra day just to have some peace and quiet. Since the beginning of…Read more
Not many adults take the time to play. This is too bad. A D&D adventure is a great experience to share with loved ones; any game, any play pretend, a…Read more