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

We have seen a lot of European Cathedrals, as in very many. It is one of my passions to visit them, as I find them all astoundingly beautiful, Read more
Sinead O Conor died. Fjord's best friend called. When we finally went for a little walk, the rain started again. We shared the wash. Discussed shampo…Read more
Walk and talk is just as perfect together as dahl and rice or sunshine and beach. Here are some observations on England as we walked there, some thou…Read more
On Learn Nothing Day, 24th of July, I launched my podcast, which I am doing with 3 Ladies, two in this house in The Midlands and one in Tenerife. The…Read more
Four long-time unschoolers, Sarah Beale, Luna Maj Vestergaard, Carla Martinez, and Sara Beale, join forces and dive deep into the world of unschoolin…Read more
The sunshine in the garden, the writing explosion, the driving, the arrival in sisterhood, the laughter. Perfect. Just perfect. Read more
Learn Nothing Day combined with my genuine shock reaction to a new-to-me three-letter diagnosis inspired this text about leaving children be, accepti…Read more
Martin’s family introduced us to Wilderness Wood, a beautiful project close to where they live, where home-educated children take classes in woodwork…Read more
Last year just around this time, we did not make it to England. Paperwork not in order. We had another great summer adventure, and it was all good. B…Read more