Relaxing... A Little Bit...

I guess if I was a bit more regular about writing I wouldn't have to figure out what to start my post out with that doesn't include, 'wow, it's been a while'.

It's not that I haven't had anything to say, it might just be more that I'm trying to avoid thinking about some things these days. The 'Truth Project' is still there- I'm sort of avoiding it though. Instead, there are a couple of books that I purchased years ago that I'm finally reading about the power of the tongue and how it really can bring us down when we say negative things. They are very much in line with the 'Truth Project'- so I'm working on it, just in a much different way that I'd planned.

As for school, September/October were great but November/December saw my stamina for getting everyone up early onto our school work by 8 (ish), slow into 8:30 (ish), to 9 (ish). You get the idea. As usual this was starting to frustrate me, but I decided to relax a bit. And, instead of barreling through to the very last moment before Christmas to 'catch-up', I opted for Christmas break instead.

For some time I've been wanting to prepare better or rather more intentionally for special events- or rather 'faith' events (like Christmas and Easter), but haven't really figured out how. I'm very much against the commercialization of all of this stuff, yet I was struck with the thought that somehow even with all the extra trappings we needed to figure out for our family how we were going to find God underneath it all. And I realized that if I plowed my way to Dec. 21st with our school work, we wouldn't have even come up for air and Christmas would be over again for another year and we would have missed it again.

I won't lie to you, we may be stopped school, but I did not get anything put together to make our focus any better. I was just a bit more relaxed. Which, in and of itself, might have been all we (I) needed to do this year. I let the kids off the hook and tried not to count how much time they spent in front of the screens. I puttered away and trying to clean up/organize my house and you know what? I think it's okay.

Now, that's not to say I probably won't have some issues getting them back into school mode and we're seriously going to look at our screen time- but for the past 2 1/2 weeks, I'm not going to beat myself up for it. I needed a break to renew myself and that's how I got it.

Even for the next few months I'm looking at what's the most important things that I should be doing/teaching/ etc. for me and my kids. Where do I need to get more spiritual/emotional support to help me stay strong and focused? How much of the school work do I need to do and what can be combined or eliminated? I don't want to short-change my kids, yet I'm finding quite often there is WAY more material to cover than life allows (or at least MY life allows), so why freak out with the kids to get it done- it won't help them learn any better (or at all).

I think there is a certain confidence that you hit in year four of homeschooling (or so I've heard from some other moms). You've been around the block a few times and worked out some of the kinks but it's still a learning curve (adding more kids, new topics, babies growing into toddlers/preschoolers, etc.). Yet somehow, there's part of you that might just be starting to realize that you not only haven't drown but you might even be treading water (or dare I even say, some days, actually swimming with your head ABOVE water?).

These next couple of months might be a bit of a blur with not a lot of textbook learning. The older 2 have a homeschool camp that they will be attending on Monday's for the month of January and their community classes are starting up again on Thursdays. To top it all off, my grandmother is going to be 85 in March and so there needs to be some planning/time for a project that I want to do for her in there and a Precept Bible Study that I think I'm supposed to attend- which might take school down to 2 days/week. Eek! Not sure if that will work, but we'll see.

Well, that's about it for now. Hopefully as I start to get more clarity or 'truth' I'll be able to post more about the process.