I WILL SURVIVE!!
- By : Cynthia
- Category : Cindy, Homeschooling, Life
For the non-homeschooling moms that read my blog, please don’t take offense, but I have to admit that I sometimes get a little jealous this time of the year when I’ve spent all summer catching up on things that didn’t get done during the school year, preparing for next year’s co-op, making plans for our homeschool, and ordering our curriculum, etc. Now the summer is gone and we’re ready to jump back into the school routine with barely a day or two break here and there.
I nearly cried when I put the next 2 weeks schedule on the calendar. There is one day the week after next where Josh has a co-op class get together from 2:00 – 4:00 followed by football practice sure to start around 6:00. Emily has her first volleyball game at 6:00. Nathan has soccer practice at 6:00. Tim & I both have worship team practice – at guess what time? 6:00! Ok.. so there are only two of us that drive and we both have to be somewhere. Amanda will still be gone on her 400 mile bike ride so she won’t be able to help chauffer any of the other kids around. I’m assuming my mom or Tim’s mom will read the blog and see that we have 3 kids who have to be somewhere at the same time that Tim and I have to be somewhere and perhaps one of them will have pity on us and offer to help chauffer kids about. We can probably miss the first part of worship practice (dinner – sorry band, you’ll probably need to order pizza that night) and catch Em’s game since it’s within walking distance of our church so we could technically be there by the time our actual practice starts and not miss much, if any, of Em’s game. I didn’t look at much of the schedule beyond that week.. It’s TOO SCARY for even me to look at. After reading this hopefully you’ll REALLY appreciate the YOU TUBE video down below (LOL) and understand why this time of the year (well most every time of the year if I’m to be completely honest here) I feel a bit jealous of moms who don’t homeschool. I know that everyone is busy, but add homeschooling on top of a busy schedule and well let’s just say.. here’s my own quote:
Sleep is highly over rated and resting is for the deceased!! ~cynthia
I’ve been doing marathon errands, paperwork catchup, and planning so that all the loose ends that have piled up around here can be caught up before we start school next week. Tim and the boys are off 4 wheeling and fishing. Em is staying the night at a friend’s house since she had activities in town all day. I dropped her off at 5:30 this a.m. and then came home. I’ve been doing a TON of things since then. ALL DAY LONG. I haven’t even had time for a nap although I need one after yesterday’s marathon.
4:30 – up to get ready for town
6:00 – Tim and Josh left for work
7:00 – Nathan and I get ready to go to town to pick up Emily
8:00 – pick Em up from volleyball
8:15 – get Em breakfast
8:30 – Drop Em off at work
9:00 – go to my eye appt to recheck my new contacts and buy some (dare I say it?) reading glasses.
9:30 – Go place ginormous $1800 science order for our co-op and ask that the other keyboard player from our church who plays opposite me hand pick our order (LOL)! Hope he didn’t mind!
10:15 – drop off laptop that has a virus so our computer tech person can fix it while visiting with the other admin team person about some upcoming co-op things we need to figure out.
10:30 – Go to a friend’s house so I can sit down and do some bookwork borrowing her calculator since my early morning brain forgot to pack one along for the day. Nathan got to play with his friend. My friend and I looked at some projects for our first unit and visited after I finished my bookwork.
11:45 – Head CLEAR across town to pick up Em and drop some books off at a co-op mom’s house.
12:15 Amanda calls to say they are heading for lunch. They will order something for Tater and I and we’ll meet them there.
12:30 Drop off books
12:35 Meet girls for lunch
1:00 – Amanda goes back to work. Em, Tater, and I go do some errands – the bank, oil change, drop off a few payments, go to the post office, etc.
2:30 – Go pick up our ginormous science order that comes in 3 HUMONGOUS boxes and is *perfectly* packed by my keyboard player friend! Not a single mistake on our order! YEA!
2:45 – Go back to friend’s house from this a.m. to sort the order. Leave some for her since she is one of the Zoology teachers, leave some for the Biology 2 teachers who will stop by her house to pick them up.
3:00 – head to the clinic to have Em’s sports physical. Find out that they don’t have any forms so we have to go somewhere else… hoping to already have been headed home by this time…. not gonna happen now.
3:15 – return my reading glasses. They give me a headache worse than reading without glasses. I’d rather have a less severe headache and barely be able to read instead of being able to read great, but feeling like I’m dizzy!
3:30 – drive by the car detail place to write down the phone # to call and make an appt for the YUKON to be detailed tomorrow (today)
4:00 – Find another clinic that does sports physicals and this one DOES have the form. YEA! Costs 2x as much as the other place, but at least it’s done now and it didn’t take long. We would have waited in line about an hour at the other place.
4:30 call a co-op mom to see if she can meet me at Walmart to pick up her microscope since we’re running late. Head out there to meet her.
5:00 – stop to pay for the 1/2 beef we bought last week. They don’t take credit cards and I rarely carry a checkbook. So, they let me take the meat anyway and I told them I’d stop off with a check the next time I was in their area.
Add in a bunch of phone calls and such and that’s about how our day went. I took a nap after supper while Tim and the boys went to town to get ready for their 4 wheeling/fishing trip this weekend. Em also napped.
Earlier this week we had lots of activities. After one day in town I came home to see our new drum set had been delivered. Called our drum teacher (plays on the worship team opposite us) and he and his wife came out on short notice to set it up and have dinner. I had a couple of meetings at church. A co-op meeting. And LOTS of phone calls.
So…. that’s how our week has been. How was yours? I sometimes wonder what it would be like to not have the responsibility of homeschooling on our shoulders. I imagine being able to keep my house up without needing a house keeper one day a week, keeping up with my organizing things without having my organizer friend come about once a month, washing my own windows instead of hiring someone to do them 2x a year, working in my own flower beds instead of having our Grandma Helper come for weeks on end thorughout the summer, cooking all of our own meals without needing to go to the Dinners Served place, and the list goes on. This is how pathetic I am (LOL)! My friend and I finally made time for a pedicure and we WORKED on co-op stuff through the entire pedicure except the last 15 minutes or so. The tech said the next time we come she’ll not allow us in if we have notebooks and clipboards in hand (LOL). I guess we’ve done this before! Oh well… at least it was an enjoyably productive time.
Now to the YOU TUBE video. I can so relate to most of this. I won’t list our license plate here on the blog for all the www to see, but my IRL friends will know that at times it seems like we do live in our car. I don’t think anyone can say our family is anti social (LOL). I’m fairly certain we are gone more than we are home…..
Cynthia, take a deep breath & make sure you pencil in some "me time" on the weekends if you can. This is what my summer looked like. I still don't feel like I even had a chance to enjoy ANY down time! Then all of the sudden I'm getting calls for fall sports – do the boys want to play? Yikes! Do I want to do a co-op this year? Yikes! I said no to some stuff but some stuff yes. Busy, Busy, Busy! I'll be sure to post soon about my schedule. It's not as nutso as yours right now, but oh my – I can so relate!
LOL – Cindy – we had some parodies like this at Mom’s Night Out last year….I was going to go looking for some to put on my blog as school begins. How funny.
Honestly, reading your last few posts exhaust me, but I know that you enjoy being busy! As a friend can I share what I learned during our busy years? Totally in love and NOT condemning your choices! IF you start to feel like this schedule is too much – nip it in the bud before it kicks you in the fanny. ::snort:: If these are things you all want to do, and you are feeling capable to handle it – you go! IF you begin to feel those tell tale signs of sress – bail quickly! LOL I learned the hard way (by not bailing fast enough ::snort::) that its very possible to be so busy with good and important things that bad things happen. LOL
I’ve said since Stacia was born that sleep is for wimps but God has been convicting me lately that sleep is His idea – and exhuastion seems to be a migraine trigger for me – guess I’ll slow down one way or the other. ::snort:: Though I’ll probably still encourage myself by saying – sleep is for wimps! LOL
Whew! My head is spinning just reading your post, Cynthia! Praying for peace:)
P.S. Glad to read of Amanda’s looonnggg bike ride–hoping that means she’s healed sufficiently from her accident.
My own motto, at least for this year:
Academics are highly overrated.
Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration. But we are focusing on GOOD things, and the fruits are already visible. If we don’t have time for it, I can eliminate more and more of the busy work that school sometimes can create–and let my kids really learn.
Tired just reading it.
We’ve had a frantic first couple months of the school year and it’s nearly done me in…..and it is less things than you have going on!