Planning

I love planning. I know, that may be an indication that I need some form of mental health assistance, but it certainly wouldn't be the only indication, so what the hell. I haven't always been the detail-obsessed planning fanatic I am now...I think it's an unexpected consequence of working as a Project Manager for well over a decade. Anyway, in my family, I'm the one who plans the trips - I book hotels, figure out the best places to eat, things to do, sights to see, etc., and put it all on an itinerary - yes, really, an actual written itinerary, usually a spreadsheet - to follow. Not that I'm not interested in or open to those spontaneous things that happen while on vacation - the great finds in out of the way places, like a delicious restaurant in a hole-in-the-wall looking building or a gift shop that sells handblown glass so gorgeous you wish you could buy the whole place. (Been there, done that...and by "done", I mean the wishing, not the buying. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford that whole shop. Or maybe that was fortunately, since there's now a toddler living in my house and if I had many gorgeous hand blown glass pieces strewn about the place they would either be hidden from sight, broken, or causing me great daily stress. But I digress.)

In addition to planning, I also love Disney World. Yes, I admit it, and I make no apologies about it. I'm a major Mickey Mouse fan, and pretty partial to Cinderella and Tinkerbell too. I had a pretty dark childhood, so I'm having a good one now, in my adulthood. I sincerely hope to never outgrow the desire to be childlike, which I find I can do quite well at Disney World. I actually hope that my sister will have a girl someday, not so Connor can have a sister (although that would be wonderful for him), but so I will have an excuse to go to Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and get "princessed" with her. I'm not quite crazy enough just to go by myself, without a small female child in tow. Although, I'm close. We'll see.) If you don't know what it means to be "princessed", you're clearly not a Disneyphile or a princess fan, which is just fine. If you think I'm nuts, I'm okay with that too...free to quit reading if it's really bothering you.

Anyway, the combination of loving planning and loving Disney is, of course, meticulous planning of trips to Disney. I'm currently deeply buried in details of our next trip - which is in ... wait for it... 6 months! That's right, we won't be there until November, but I've already booked our hotel reservation, and laid out a plan of what we'll be doing each day. Next up: dining reservations! Now, if you're a Disneyphile, you totally understand this: you know that one must make dining reservations 6 months in advance (or even further in advance, which one can only do if one already has a resort reservation) if one wants to be able to eat at the restaurants of one's choice, at the times of one's choice. (Yes, I'm also a lover of good grammar and occasionally enjoy using "one" in the sense of "the universal you" just because it sounds somewhat snooty and high falutin'.) If you're not a Disneyphile, and you're still reading this blog post, you probably just still think I'm nuts. (Or maybe now you don't, since I explained about why dining reservations should be made as far in advance as possible.)

Anyway, that's certainly more than enough blogging for the moment. I need to get back to my spreadsheet.