Calendar

Mine. Yours. Ours. I’ve been using an official planner to keep myself organized. There was a time when my lesson planner was enough, but those days are gone. One kiddo is adulting and the other is smack dab in her teens. Hubby’s work schedule changes frequently so I have to keep track of that, too. I took a break from having said little boxes tell me what to do, but that week is over, so back to the boxes I go.

I could use the ones in my phone that will give me notifications, but said notifications get ignored. I’m a paper planner type of person with a side of phone calendar. Dates are transferred to the official keeper of time.

Keeping work at work, I focused on personal & family dates for the rest of this quarter and the next one. That takes us into summer break, and hopefully, a summer vacation. My niece turning fourteen two weeks ago launched us into birthday season. For March, it’s two friends, an aunt, a niece, and two nephews. There’s also a wedding I missed, an anniversary, and everything Lent related from our church calendar.

In April, it’s two nieces, a nephew and his mom, my sister-in-law (both on the same day), an uncle, my dad, two cousins-I might have lost count. Add Mother’s day in May, a niece’s birthday, a quinceañera, all of the extra celebrations, end of the school year shut down the library frenzy, and my parents’ anniversary.

Oh, and there’s testing. So much testing!

To plan ahead for S.’s appointments, I take a look at her testing calendar. AP exams. Uh-oh. AP exams. When are they scheduled? I poke around on the school’s testing website and find them. I pencil them in their proper calendar cells.

Then I get sucker punched to the gut. Wait. I did pay the registration for AP testing. Or was that last school year‘s World History test? Uh-oh. I check my inbox and search. It’s gotta be here, I rarely delete important information.

Sure enough, I have the testing confirmation and receipt. Calm down, heart, don’t jump out of my body. I jot down the two dates in May.

Returning to my inbox, I see the subject line: Important Info for S’s Senior Year.

It’s from the school’s photo company. Senior portrait session appointments are available for booking next fall. I start filling out the form and stop in the field to add her phone number for notifications. I don’t know her number and I’m not in the mood to check. It’s the last chunk of March. I’m working with end of this school year’s dates.

I’m not ready to go there yet.