The Fragility of a Plan...

   Today was to be a somewhat rainy day. True, we had a lot of that wet stuff yesterday, but the forecasters told us to look for more of the same today.

   So I planned...

   Catching up on some emails that needed to be sent out, taking care of necessary chores, working on some pictures from our short trip last week, reading (both aloud to my wife and also on my own), etc.

   No earth shattering plans, just a wish list of getting some things out of the way and relaxing in the presence of a lazy day. .

    All of this I planned for the hours after breakfast and before supper. Of course I wanted to take my usual early morning walk, my quiet time with Scripture, prayer and perhaps some writing.

   But something happened in the time before breakfast, way before, say around 1:30AM when the fire alarm went off in the condo. Now this is not a "sleep on through" quiet ring, but a somewhat blaring alarm that is designed to not only wake you up from a sound sleep, but a "get yourself up and check it out" vibrating noise.

   So we did.

   After walking out the front door and moving down to the telecom room where the fire alarm controls are located, I pressed the alarm silence button, and quiet reigned again.. I did not change the message on the screen, just quieted the system.

   After discussing a proper procedure with my neighbor who had come down to also silence the alarm, we decided to leave everything like it was, so that the firemen, or whoever came to check on why the alarm had gone off in the first place, might be able to troubleshoot the problem.

   We found no evidence of any fire or smoke or anything else wrong, but I wanted to be sure to alert the fire people to what we had done. Not knowing whether or not the alarm system had an automatic phone alert to the fire dept., I waited up a few minutes to see if anyone responded to the alarm.

   30 minutes and no response, so I went back to bed and eventually to sleep.

   But all of the early morning going ons, caused me to sleep past (way past) my normal rising time, and it was 7:30 before I woke up, just in time to get the coffee on and think about breakfast. No time for reflection and exercise.

   But there is still time after breakfast, right?

   Supposedly, but then comes a call. We knew the elevator was shut down when the fire alarm activated, but did not know how to get it operational. Anna called from our condo management company around 8:30 and said she was downstairs and would call the elevator servicing company so we might find the solution to getting it going again.

   Anna called and we were told where to find the reactivation panel, and what the key to fit it looked like. After looking in several places, we finally discovered a key with a label that fit what we needed, as did the key in the proper slot.

   The red light went out and the elevator door closed and was operational. It had only taken an hour to get all that done, so by 9:30 it was back to breakfast.

   Eating, dressing, laundry and clean up and a short walk and then, is there time for some planned things?

   Not to bore anyone with details, but it is obvious that plans must be flexible. I missed my quiet time, breakfast was very late, the morning sped by, and then it was lunch. Before we knew it, the day was over, and my best hope for getting some of my wish list done was to plan again for tomorrow.

   It is now 9:30PM, and I finally have a moment to put some thoughts down.

   Hold your plans loosely, you may not have as much control as you think.

   Plan and be Flexible

   Hard and fast plans are extremely fragile..