I was offered a photo session as a gift, and readily agreed to take advantage of it. I love being able to capture the seasons of our life on film. The best part? It worked out that we could do it while my father-in-law and brother-in-law were in town a few weekends ago. We hadn’t had new pictures taken with them since before my mother-in-law passed away in 2017.

Well, of course, we know the thing to do now is coordinate what everywhere wears when we take family pictures. So, I assumed all the guys had some sort of blue polo shirt and that it would be fine.

Several days before our scheduled session, I discovered that my in-laws did not have a light-ish blue polo. Oh. Okay. Change of plans. I was doing a Walmart pick-up order anyway, so I added some that were on sale.

Of course, Walmart being its wonderful self, they decided to ship the shirts. No big deal. They were set to arrive the same day as my in-laws and we usually get our deliveries early.

Around lunch, I started watching for the package. Not here.

Right before dinner, still not here.

Right before we were set to leave, still not here.

The best laid plans and all that. The good news was that all the guys still had a blue shirt of some sort. That’s fine. I don’t even care anymore at this point.

We go and take our pictures, all goes well, and when we get home, there is the package … sitting on my front porch. The guys thought it was hilarious. I teased them that they could all just match for church services on Sunday (that didn’t happen, by the way).

In life, there are things we have control over and things we don’t have control over. Delivery arrivals is one we don’t have control over. And it’s okay. The pictures turned out amazing anyway. And I think I prefer the fact that the guys aren’t all wearing the same shade of blue.

So many times in life, we have a particular way we want things to turn out. But that doesn’t mean it’s not as great if it turns out a different way. Especially when it’s something as unimportant as what people wear in photos.

What have you planned recently that hasn’t worked as you meant it to? Have some of your plans that didn’t work out actually turned out better than you thought?