Compromise!

I'm an avid, sometimes overly-OCD planner by nature, so when it became evident that leaving tomorrow for the long drive north wasn't feasible, I immediately wanted a replacement date.  Planning is much easier when you have a concrete date and/or time line in place, at least in my opinion (I'm always right! Ok, alright... maybe not!)

Justin - my sweet, loving, dear husband - is NOT a planner.  His idea of planning is... well, there's really no way to describe his planning because he doesn't plan.  At all.  He's a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants planner, if there is such a thing, which means we clash in this area.  Normally, we balance out one another, as I've mentioned before, but typically this difference in planning methods just drives us both a wee bit nuts.

I gave him a nice, leather planner system for Christmas one year, and he carried it in his briefcase and car in plain view, which led me to believe he was using it!  For work!  For doctor appointments!  To mark my birthday and our anniversary!  I then made the critical error of opening it on his birthday in November (11 months after I gave it to him) so I could write a nice little happy birthday note and insert a little card as a surprise when he got to work.  I noticed that the month of November was blank except for the "YOUR BIRTHDAY!" note on November 14.  Then, I noticed that all the pages looked brand new - no dog-eared pages, notes sticking out, and there were NO WRITING INSTRUMENTS.  "Huh," I thought... "Strange, but perhaps he's just taking really good care of the expensive gift I gave him."  As I flipped through the planner in awe at the sheer volume of blank pages and months, I was initially irritated but started laughing when I realized the only things written in the planner were the reminders I wrote in the planner before giving it to him.  There was no notes - not even one - in his handwriting.  Even his name and contact information in the front was in MY handwriting.  As I continued laughing, I finally accepted that the act of me giving him a planner wasn't going to make him plan and I did what any reasonable person would do - I took it back to use it for myself, and it's been my planner since.  I know, I'm such an Indian-giver and I'm going straight to hell.  At least I'll have a plan of what to do while I'm there.

With one of our main points of contention laid out for the world to see, you'll understand why we now do not have a set move date.  It's called compromise, and apparently that's what married couples do.  To be honest, I never even knew the meaning of the word "compromise" until October 13, 2007.  That's when we were married and I was thrust into this world of compromise.  Who knew?

So, we will move sometime between now and 2012.  I'm being facetious of course, which is fun and all, but in reality, we will move sometime between November 5 and November 13.  A date range longer than one week would give me a strange rash and cause me to twitch uncontrollably, and Justin would explode if we set a specific date, so there you go!  See?  That, my friends, is compromise at its best, and no one ends up admitted to the hospital with a strange medical condition OR committed to a mental institution.


Chicago, here we come!  Sometime between November 5 and 13!  If this date range gives you a strange rash or makes you twitch, please send your doctor bills directly to Justin.