Here’s the second installment of Moving with the times by guest blogger Dick Clark.

I am an expert planner.  Really.  I have even taught planning at the graduate level in a major university.

As we prepared for this move I developed detailed, week-by-week plans of what needed to be done beginning the middle of January 2011.  I allowed time in February to complete preparation of the income tax organizer for the accountant and set aside a week in early March to visit the grandchildren in Oregon.  I was sure I was taking all contingencies into account.

Realtors were chosen on time.  Home improvements that were needed before the house could be shown were planned, contracted, and completed according to the schedule. We placed our deposit on the unit in the retirement community just as planned. Then things went haywire.

Everyone knows the real estate market is bad – here and in most parts of the United States.  So sure was I that we would need to allow 30 to 60 days at least to sell our home, I forgot one of the basic tenants of good planning:  there is a difference in events that you can control and those over which you have little influence.

There was one of those “out-of-our-control” events the day our house was listed.  On that afternoon we received a very good offer and the house almost immediately went from “for sale” to “pending inspection.”  Of course the inspector could find a deal breaker of a problem, or the appraiser could say the house is not worth as much as our buyer is offering but neither of these actions is very likely.

So now, champion planner that I am, we have to scramble to find a place to live when the deal closes.    So much for being an expert.