Ounce of Planning

To my son Tommy,


    Pretty soon we will be going on vacation.  Every year we try to attend the Frazier-Maggio Ocean City New Jersey vacation.  Lots of family getting together and spending a week or two resting relaxing and enjoying.


   If you haven't guess already, family is pretty important to us.  But this week I want to focus in on something else that will seem to totally dominate this weeks activities.  That is organization and planning!


    We will spend this week getting clothes packed,  readying the house, running out to stores,  going through checklists, and dealing with that feeling that we are missing something.  I always have the classic cliche picture of packing everything in the car and forgetting to pack you.   Of course I would never let that happen but somewhere in the back of my mind it is a fear.


     So why spend so much time planning and getting ready?  I mean it is not like we are going too far, or to another country.  Just a few minutes here at the house could save us tons of money and time and make our vacation that much more enjoyable.  The worst case scenario is we have to run back home to get something that is priceless or a major necessity, costing us a half dozen hours on the road and missed vacation for the round trip.  Daddy's cpap machine is one of the things that comes to mind that we have forgotten before on our travels.  Luckily you haven't overly attached yourself to any stuffed animals (you treat them all well and extol a fair amount of snuggle time to each of them) though every year we worry that we will be stuck without the right toy that you "have to have" or more correctly that you will "have to learn to go without".


    So that is why we spend so much time trying to get things right.  It is an important lesson for life.  They say "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" and that holds true with planning, vacations, work, health, organization, cleaning, you name it.


    So make your checklists.  Use them.  Save them in a safe place you can remember for next year.  That is something I tend to have a problem with as I rewrite a new checklist from the old noggin every year.  Of course if I had better planning skills and less procrastination skills, I would be using last years checklist with some modifications and save our family a ton of time.  Perhaps this year I put a checklist on line that we can use as a baseline.  I smell a topic for an upcoming blog or even a good way to get Mommy to become a guest blogger for the day.


    And finally, when you read this when you get older...go directly up to your mother and hug her for all the planning and work she puts in to getting us ready for vacation.  She is the one directly responsible for keeping us organized and in line and packed and ready to go.  Without her, you and I would miss half the vacation either sitting at home packing or driving back and forth or spending tons at the stores for items we have in abundance here at home.  Not that should ever be in need of more reasons to walk up to Mommy and hug her.


Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo