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

Viareggio was a lovely rest; oh, did we enjoy sleeping in our own beds. We chose this spot because there was some street art at the harbor and some s…Read more
Five years on the roads, and I see the pattern. The marketplaces are worked by the same products and same people; more or less, the landmarks and mai…Read more
In the silent chapel, one message came clearly to me: Let peace fall upon you. In my life, it was my grandmother's words, and now God did a replay fo…Read more
Hope is not an illusion. Hope lifts us out of what is; hope is how we transcend. Not just spiritually but on all levels of life. When we dare to hope…Read more
It is so easy to be annoyed with other people, and it is a common trap to believe your perspective is proper and that others got it wrong. I sometim…Read more
Just hanging out is a great luxury. In the morning, we all did our thing: The teenagers went for a walk and a croissant at the vegan, gluten-free bak…Read more
Why do we travel to see churches we might forget? Why do we read books that might fade from our memory? Well. Because we are alive. Because the proce…Read more
Work is when we engage and take part. But the concept has become hollow, focused only on the monetary outcome. This is part of the suppression of wom…Read more
Sometimes I feel like a sheep when in big crowds of tourists. Yet at the same time, I am happy for all the other people who get to visit epic places …Read more