This is going to be all over the place

Hi friends.  I've had a lot of thoughts running through my head lately, and just your luck--you get to hear about them.  Yay!  So this post is going to be a little all over the place, because that's how my brain is right now.  All. Over. the Place.

The other day I was feeling annoyed because a change in practice schedule meant that I needed to have two people in two places at once.  But then I remembered that three and four years ago, it would have been three people and four places, with one of those places being a half hour drive away. 

That's when I realized that the real reason I'm annoyed is because the schedule seems so uncertain.  We got a paper schedule in June.  And I made plans based on that schedule.  And then I looked at the online schedule and it's different.  Like, completely different.  And sometimes, the online schedule is not only different from the paper schedule, but it contradicts itself.  Like, it'll say practice is at this time at this place and it will say practice is at this time at that place.  Same time; different places.  Oh, and I would say that probably about 10% of practices so far have actually been at a time and place and day that was on one of the schedules.

I realize that plans change--that it's unreasonable to expect that a schedule published in June would be exactly adhered to in August.  But it seems to me like it would be easy to communicate changes in a timely manner.  Like maybe a weekly email saying here's the schedule for this week--we'll let you know if anything changes.  So that if I, for instance, schedule a photography session on a Wednesday when there isn't practice, and then it turns out there actually is practice, I can let the photographer know more than 4 hours in advance that we're not going to make it.

As it stands, I have no idea today what the proposed schedule is for tomorrow.  My life does not revolve around this sport (although heaven knows, it does, for some parents).  I need to do things other than getting my kid to and from practices at random times each day, and it would make life so. much. easier if I knew when I would be able to fit those other things in.  Ugh.

I think the problem is, the coaches, they've been doing this forever.  They probably even have some reason for scheduling practices when they do.  But they don't realize that, for at least half of us, this is our first time.  We don't know why.  And even for those of us for whom it is not the first time, it is certainly not our 15th or 8th or 22nd.

Annoyed.  I try really hard to be a go with the flow person, but in my heart, I am a person who really, really likes to have a plan, and who really, really dislikes not having a plan.  It is easier for me (still not easy, but easier) to change plans than it is to not have a plan in the first place.  And it is (obviously, because I've been going on about this for a couple of hundred words now) really difficult for me to deal with not knowing if there even is a plan.

Just tell me the plan!  Please.  As soon as possible.  So I can react accordingly.

Fortunately, with school beginning soon, they can't really change the schedule too much.  I'm looking forward to that.

Well.  Would you look at that?  That seems like it's long enough to be its own blog post.  Turns out this post is not going to be all over the place.  That seems a little bit of false advertising.

Thank you for forgiving me.  I'll make it up to you tomorrow, or maybe next week, or next month, when I share one or more additional random thoughts with you! Don't you just love how specific I am?!  It's a plan.