Everybody can relax now

We live totally by our date book. We don't make a move without first consulting the pink book as it is called this year. Other years it has been the blue book, the stripy book, the red book and I can't remember all the colors we have had. It is a student planner so it goes from the last week of July one year to the first few days of August the next. I was beginning to panic because we are starting to schedule things for August and I had no where to write them down. The last few weeks I have been going to Target to see if the school supplies were out yet and with every trip I have been walking away disappointed as there was lawn furniture where the school supplies should have been. Finally, on my last trip the hoses had been moved to the clearance section and the school supplies were in their rightful place. The kids and I quickly located out the date books. My eyes darted over the shelves of planners to find the one I love and have used for years, I open it up and someone had the bright idea to change it. There were times printed on each of the days, I am assuming for the class periods, I hope it wasn't just to irritate me. Well, this just won't do and my smile turned up side down. The kids, sensing something is amiss, tell me everything is going to be okay and start showing me the fine features of other planners. One has a place where a picture can be slipped into the front cover, one is fabric, one is a pretty color, one has a pen holder, etc. After much deliberation I did pick out a new one. It's not the same. I transferred all the info into the new one. I don't like it. I may get use to it. I am sure I won't love it like the old one. I hate change.

Here is what we keep track of in the planner.

• Web site passwords
• confirmation numbers
• customer numbers
• Dad's work schedule - it is different every week
• who he switched shifts with if there were any changes
• all the places the kids need to be - dance, 4-H activities etc.
• things coming up we may want to do to
• appointments
• if we are having company - don't want them knocking and we forgot they were coming!
• anything we have sold, eggs, farmers' markets, rabbits
• things that are due, fees, forms
• minutes from meetings, brochures, business cards, cards we exchange with each other, memos and anything I will need to find at a later date quickly
• when we put animals together for mating and when they may be due
• the days animals are born
• addresses and phone numbers
• books I want to check out or look for at the library
• things we are going to be studying in the future so I can look for materials when we are shopping
• almost every day I write down what we did, anything fun that happened, something funny the kids said, house/car repairs, the weather and other things of note.
• birthdays and anniversaries
• how far I walk every day and how long it took me
• what we gave the kids for birthday and Christmas presents

I keep all the books from years past and enjoying looking through them once in a while. They are really more like diaries or a journal by the end of the year. It surprises me when I look back at ones that are from when Dancer was a baby and something in there will allow me to remember the actual day. Without our date books all those memories and little details would be lost.