I am a woman of agendas and routines.

Not by nature, but by necessity.

My inner nature thinks that doing things by the seat of my pants and in a more spontaneous fashion is the right way to do things. It’s a little more fun, a lot more exciting and you just kinda let things happen as you go!

I call it my Squirrel Philosophy: HEY LET’S PAINT! ON A BIKE! WAIT, LET’S GO TO THE BEACH! WITH OUR PAINT..LEAVE THE BIKE! YAY!

You also never get anything accomplished. And you wear yourself out from high-energy spontaneity all the time. And you kinda look like a spaz (gotta keep that on the down-low, if you know what I mean).

So then all you have are long, draining feats of failed free-spirited dreams. And that’s no fun.

So, to combat this dichotomy of “free-spirited creativity” and “utter, utter failure with everything I do,” I started creating agendas for myself.

I remember in college, at the height of literature classes, I would mark down hour by hour when to write, when to eat, when to sleep, back to writing, walk outside briefly to remember that the world does not end in my little apartment, and then back to writing. In the end, I had my degree and most of my sanity (and an extra 10 pounds from stress eating, but that’s not important).

Anyway, so over a decade after college and I am a pro at agendas. My meal planning is on an agenda, house cleaning is agenda’d, homeschooling is agenda’ed to the point of mastery…and my Pomeranian puppy is on an agenda.

Because…why wouldn’t you?

Bed at 11, no more potty breaks at 4:30a.m. (yay!!), up at 7:30a.m. and straight into the bathroom for puppy pad, walk at 10, nap at 11, play during the afternoon, nap at 4, long walk in the evening and hang out until bedtime again.

But you miss one day of the agenda  and everything goes to pot. Which is what happened last Saturday.

We went to the zoo, which is one of my favorite places in the world; but we can’t take our little dog with us. So he stayed home.

Even though I took him for a little walk and tried to get back to our agenda when we got home, the little guy was thrown off his routine…and proceeded to tell us about his opinions on the matter all night long.

No sleep for me.

Thankfully, I have LEARNED FROM THIS, and I have stuck to the normal routines like CRAZY, and everything fell back into place.

No more sleepless nights.

But the long walk is mandatory. Ain’t nobody got enough coffee for sleepless nights.

You gotta admit, he’s pretty good company even at 3am.