Ah…”the best laid plans of mice & [wo]men” so the story goes…

Well, at the 11th hour, my vacation plans for Tofino have morphed into a trip to Savary Island instead. Fortunately the anticipated “budget” (mental calculations on what I expect to spend and I have a pool of savings but haven’t actually set aside “dedicated” money for) works out to be roughly what I anticipated spending on the Tofino vacation. It might even come in a little under but I’m not counting my chickens until the trip is over!

One of the things I dislike the most about planning is the inevitable deviations that happen along the way that, no matter how much you plan, you can’t completely account for. After I learned about how things would change, it just so happened that I had a friend who could host me at her cabin for my vacation week so that all I need to spend is travel to and from the island and my food & beverages while there. It shouldn’t be a far cry from what I would have spent to travel to/from and camp at Tofino. I’m so thankful for this option because my concern with cancelling so close to the departure date was that arranging another holiday of similar enjoyment for the same price would have been close to impossible. It’s all moot now, but I immediately felt panicky when I realized that my vacation would have to change last minute. “How will I ever afford this?!” I thought.

I stepped back and thought out my options and got creative with solutions and made a backup plan in case my first choice didn’t work. I recogize that I am very capable of generating new solutions but often I really dislike the mental gymnastics required for the task. At the time I just feel frustrated that all the careful planning has gone to waste and I think this is one of the cornerstones of my resistance to planning - whether financial or otherwise.

So now I’m in the process of planning a whole new vacation with less than a week till I leave. So far it’s gone smoother than I anticipated. Keep your fingers crossed for me… Let’s hope the vacation goes equally well!

Kat