The Missing Planner Saga

Everything is a saga this week and I’m chronicling them because I am working on practicing upping my word counts for NANOWRIMO next month.

I am a Day Planner enthusiast. I use one year in, year out, have done since I was a freshman in high school. It always lines up with the school year, even as an adult, because I’ve always bought one-year academic calendars and I started in August and it ends in July every year and I get another one. Over the years the things I’ve used it for have changed, but I always use one. Those of you that see me in person know that I also use my phone calendar. I have an online Google calendar for each of my family members and one for the whole family. I’m pretty obsessed with keeping it up to date and I get pretty annoyed when people don’t keep up their end of the bargain with their calendars. There is quite a lot of overlap with my two systems, but it is not 100%. My paper planner tends to hold a lot of things that my online calendar does not, like personal schedules for crocheting things, when to mail cards to loved ones for weird anniversaries of things that probably don’t make sense to anyone else, passwords to things I use fairly frequently yet didn’t get to make the password for (I remember ones I made), notes about what I’m writing, when I want to blog about certain things, gift ideas for the kids and the cousins, kids current sizes, colors I like for painting the other half of the bathroom, stars and triangles and hearts and circles to remind me about progress with different things or pain levels or how many headaches I’ve had lately. It’s my brain outsourced, basically. I feel lost without it.

The last full day we were in Florida everyone was supposed to come home from church and pack up all their stuff. I knew this, and I knew that at least one of my kids was going to need help, so I spent my time at home in the morning washing clothes and pulling stuff out of dark corners and drawers of forgetfulness. I was just about done in my own room, one drawer mid-way to clear, when the kids started pounding on the door to come back into the condo.

I slid the drawer closed, set the bag I was working on down beside the bed, and went to open the front door. The kids exploded in, each telling me in their separate ways simultaneously what their dad had told them to do as soon as they got in. It was basically exactly what I had told them when they’d left: come in, change into play clothes, eat some lunch, and then start your packing.

I got busy taking laundry out of the dryer and putting more in. I moved on to showing kids for the umpteenth time how to roll their clothes to fit them all in their suitcases. I tried to get people to do their homework.

I completely forgot about the drawer I was emptying.

The next day, I double checked the kids rooms, looking under beds, inside closets, and even into drawers I knew they hadn’t used. I double checked their bathrooms for forgotten toiletries. I double checked the kitchen for hidden food, forgotten laundry, and dirty towels. I double checked the living room sofa for items that slid between the cushions, behind the entertainment center, and under the edges of the sliding curtains. I double checked my bathroom, my closet, the other closet, the dresser, the other part of the bathroom. I looked under the bed, under the chairs, behind the headboard.

I completely forgot about the drawer.

So we traveled home. I dug a few times into the bag that should have held the contents of that drawer. I thought it felt light, but several people were reading books out of that bag, so I didn’t really think about it too hard.

This morning, amidst the chaos with the dogs, I reached into the bag to pull out my planner so I could make today’s To Do list. It wasn’t there. I looked through the few bags left packed. Not there. I thought I spied it on my bedroom floor peeking out from a pile of books, but that was just a scrap of the fabric I used to cover it.

Panic set it.

Everyone else was calm about it: “Just call the condo and have them look for it. They will mail it to you.” I know, I know. But I need it to make the list so that I can remember to make the call when the condo office opens. If it’s not on the list, it doesn’t get done.

So I printed a copy of the online calendar for this week. It’s not the same format as my paper planner. I started writing things in that I thought I remembered I needed to do. I dug out last years planner and stared at this weeks list from last year and I felt a bit calmer. I added a few things I wouldn’t have thought of until it was too late. I tried to remember if I had any tasks from new positions I’ve taken on this year (I haven’t. Sorry!)

Once I ran around and dealt with dog things for a while, I finally had time to call the condo office. Well, first the resort hotline, which was just booking. They gave me the resort office number. The resort office transferred me to housekeeping. Housekeeping said they had a book and some glasses from that room yesterday, but it all had been sent on to Owners Services. They said things usually take around a week to get back to the people that left them behind. Housekeeping took my name and number and sent it on to Owners Services and said that they would call me soon. Seven hours later they did. Owners Services took my name and address and phone number and said they were calling another service to come to pick up my book and glasses – I did ask about that then because I lost my planner, not a book, and a pile of papers that was also in the drawer, but no glasses. They said they only had a list in their location and hadn’t actually ever seen anything but the list – and this other service would call me tomorrow or the next day to set up shipping and payment information.

So I still don’t have my planner. *sigh* This week ahead is going to be rough.