Planning

In some areas of life I like to be spontaneous and adventurous. Examples would be how I got married (engaged for a month then married on a day I didn't have school), catching a great deal on a flight and going on a last minute trip, going skydiving, buying a stock I caught a good tip on, etc. But in most things, I am a major planner. I have to have a 1 year plan, 5 year plan, 20 year plan, and so on.

I need to know what I am aiming for, what I am working for, what I can expect, and what to do if things don't go as planned. I like to think that I can stay flexible because life is not predictable and therefore plans can not always be concrete. However I still try to plan for the unplannable! I will share my current plans with you:

1 year: be moved to NY, possibly in a rent house, Nick with a full time job, me with a part time job, Brad in school, working on baby #2, active in a local church

5 year: live in and fixing up an old Victorian house, plan for nice trip to Europe, own a 5th wheel vintage Shasta trailer, own jet skis, have chickens and large garden, get my BSN

20 years: children gone (or almost gone) from home, work as little as possible, home is paid off, retirement accounts are growing nicely, talking about where we want to retire at

For now, this is what I am basing my choices and actions on. I am trying to do the things today that will bring me to where I want to be. The downside of this way of life is that I occasionally feel at a standstill because I am waiting for "the next step" to happen and I am helpless until then. Examples are when we wanted to have children but suffered from infertility for over 5 years and had to do IVF, or now when we are ready to move to NY but have to sell our house first.

It is times like these I have to continually tell myself that it is all in God's plan and His will be done, not mine! He has given me the wisdom to make good choices and the courage to carve my own path. I owe my success and happiness to Him and I trust what He has in store for my life.

On a slightly different note, of course I am already planning on what we will do if we do not sell our house by August (even though it has only been listed for 1 1/2 wks). I presented my plan to Nick and he has agreed with it :) If our house has not sold by August, we will take it off the market. I will go full-time at work and carry health insurance for all of us. We will go see our Reproductive Endocrinologist Dr. Haas (who helped bless us with Bradley) and begin our TTC journey for #2!

We have always talked about having children 5 years apart, and we still 200% believe that is the right thing for us. We already know what our infertility issue is so we can cut right to the chase and begin necessary treatment for it. We are going to try some different things (read here) before jumping into IVF again. I haven't quite factored that expense into our plan....people say having a kid is expensive but $15,000 just to get pregnant is a bit excessive, ha!

I can safely say I have gotten to a point where I am ready for another baby, and I just LOVED being pregnant so that is no trouble for me! Brad will be starting school soon and independent enough to help out with little things.

So hopefully by the end of this year, I will either be in NY or pregnant :)