So What's the Plan?

Lighthouse at St. Simon's Island, GA

I must have asked that question in about twenty different ways while on the trip with my mom.  Do we have a plan yet?  What's your plan for dinner?  Have you planned what time we need to get up?  If you haven't discerned this yet, I am not very comfortable when not in control.  I knew each step Andrew and I were taking in Paris, but this trip was a different story.  Mom just told me what time to be ready (well, at 6 a.m. you can imagine I had something to do with it), and we took off.  She had planned everything: driving directions, restaurants, shopping.  I was just along for the ride.  Or so she thought.  At least she just laughed off all my annoying questions. 

Me and mom while she spoiled me for four days.  I pay her back by doing most of the driving and carrying all the shopping bags.  Pretty even, don't you think?

Two days ago this was going to be somewhat of a humorous post about my need for plans.  That was until yesterday.  While sitting at my parents' house getting ready for lunch, I started having blind spots in my vision.  I always hope it is not really happening, so I kept turning my head to look at different things to make sure that's really what was going on.  Then I thought, maybe I the sun was so bright that it did it.  Moments later I knew the migraine was coming when the blind spots turned to squiggly lines in my left eye.  They start all the way at the edge and work their way to the center.  Then, I experienced the calm before the storm, as I always do, and there was a break between the vision problems and the actual headache.  I took half of a pain pill hoping that would be enough, but by the time I got home, it just wasn't cutting it once the headache hit full force, so I took the other half.  

I must say, I really enjoy summer thunderstorms, but with a migraine, it is about one of the worst things that can happen.  At least when your mom is tearing off that piece of aluminum foil (a surprisingly excruciating sound) or your husband is getting a fork out of the drawer, you can oh so politely ask them to QUIT MAKING SO MUCH NOISE!  That thunderstorm, however, was not so easily controlled.  

The good thing about my migraines is that I know exactly what causes them.  I always get them two days after I am really stressed out.  So, you ask, what exactly does a teacher stress out about during the summer when she seems to be simply traipsing around the world.  I will spare you the details of my to do list, but basically, it is all self-inflicted.  What is wrong with me anyway?  I did just get back from the trip of a lifetime in Paris, a relaxing beach/shopping vacation with my mom, and I am about to take a road trip across the country with my parents and brother (who I can't wait to have trapped in a car so he will actually talk to me, his favorite second mom/older sister).  Well, on the drive back from Georgia, I could feel myself stressing about the fact that my summer is almost over (I am teaching summer school), and I haven't accomplished any of the things on that infamous list.  How can I possibly return to face my students without first organizing my recipe notebook, creating videos of old family pictures, and reading East of Eden?  Anyway, my incessant need for plans and to do lists just didn't seem so funny yesterday.

Maybe this was cause for some of the stress.  Thank you IKEA, H&M, and Pottery Barn Outlet.  No really, thank you, it was worth it.

Part of my treatment for the migraine, which thankfully only lasts about four hours, was to lay by the pool today.  I was very therapeutic, and I didn't feel the least bit guilty about it.  Tomorrow I will get started on all those other things.  

Sweet Jake, can you spare some of that carefree spirit?

Maybe I just need me an uncle like this who will make up a game where you throw the ball on the roof, pick up the kid, and let him try to catch it.

Ooh, that's it.  Ice cream.  A panacea for all kinds of illness. Especially chocolate raspberry truffle in a waffle cone from Bruster's.  Oh, Andrew, I have a BOGO coupon!