We're Planners(alternate title: How many times can you use the word plan, or variations of, in a single entry?)

Aaron and I like to plan things. We're sometimes spontaneous, but only about little things like ordering pizza spur of the moment instead of making the dinner we had planned, or all of the sudden deciding to buy a new pair of running shoes (I'm in love and can't wait till they get here). We're just crazy like that!

This weekend Aaron and I were talking about future plans. We had originally planned on this being the last month I take birth control and that we'd start trying for a baby next month. Then we realized that this interfered with some other plans - mainly a winter filled with cold weather fun such as cross country skiing (which I'm sure my doctor would discourage were I to get pregnant), snowshoeing, geocaching, and the like. We're also not where we had planned to be financially at this point (see: unplanned buying of a car earlier this year), and Aaron wants to (maybe) look for a new job. So we decided to make a new plan.

Our new plan includes a winter full of fun (and free) activities such as cross country skiing, hiking, staying home and finishing old projects that need to be finished, saving a lot of money in the process, and starting to look at houses (the reason for the big money saving plan). It also involves waiting until next May to start trying for the baby. That's when my prescription for birth control runs out anyway, so it kind of makes sense. Once we talked out the details of the plan (I'm telling you, we're just a barrel of spontaneous fun!) we shook on it - this time there will be no delaying it, no matter how scared or nervous or unprepared we feel.

A good sign that this plan may actually stick is that yesterday on his way to work, Aaron was listening to NPR and heard a segment that really inspired him. The segment was talking about failure, and how it can be a good thing. The speaker was telling about how he wished for his daughter to fail after she graduated from college, because if you have immediate success, you are only trying things that you already know how to do and aren't challenging yourself. Failure is a necessary part of learning new things.

Aaron and I discussed how, as planners, and apparently major control freaks, we tend to play it safe, trying those things that we already know we're good at or that we've spent aeons researching beforehand so that we at least have a fighting chance going in. We really don't go for things that are outside of our comfort zone. I think this is why we've been putting off a baby for so long, even though before we got married we thought we'd have one right away. We've already put it off about 6 times past our original planned date, and have delayed all sorts of other plans too because, basically, we're just to chickenshit to make important and life-changing decisions.

Last night Aaron decided that he's ready to fail (or at least take the chance that he might fail), and I agreed to the same. Even though we have this current "baby plan", once the time comes we're going for it. We're also going to try other activities that we might not otherwise think about trying, like looking for new jobs, maybe, or perhaps even moving far away. It's scary but we're up for the new adventure(s).

It's about to get a whole lot more interesting in the "Ca" house.