Not Following Anyone?!

I don't know what happened. I must deleted ALL of the blogs that I'm following somehow. I really don't know how that happened. I had to start from scratch today and try and find all of those great blogs that I used to follow. I guess that is what I get for being away so long and not reading all of those great posts. If you know that I was following you and I now am not, let me know. I tried to add everyone again.

Life Distractions

Sometimes life gets busy and somethings get put on hold. In my case, it was like dominoes, because one thing affects others and those things affect yet others. The first thing was dealing with a mess all the time. Our house got out of control and I wanted to fix that. I wanted to throw things out and give things away. Maybe we could sell some things and donate. I thought that it would be a good time to go through EVERYTHING. I don't just mean the clutter that is sitting around, preventing company or a babysitter from visiting. Yes, this means that my husband and I haven't been out without the kids in a VERY LONG TIME. I was intending to go through all boxes that haven't been unpacked and all papers not sorted, and all storage areas. The things that haven't been done yet I wanted to have done. You know all those little things that add up. Fixing things, putting bed frames together that are just sitting in the utility room, the Ikea coffee table that came without the proper screws to complete it. I just wanted to feel like we are living in our HOME and not dealing with a million moves by sitting back and watching the clutter pile up around us like skyscrapers. I didn't want to feel like this was a temporary location for our family. I'm tired of not painting, or setting up the furniture exactly how we want it. I want all things to have a place!

I wanted all of this to happen by the end of June. It turned out to be a bigger job then I thought. I'm still not done. Why? Because I'm not super human!!! I need to deal with that important fact. Most of what I talked about in the previous paragraph I would have to do alone. My husband is a hard worker and does large jobs that come up (he painted our walls), but he needs to work (ALOT). He has a full time job all day and he is working on his own work at night. He may not have work as of 2014 and he needs to try and get some income on the side to help us out incase he needs to go job searching again.I hope we don't have to move. My Dad still has cancer and our kids wouldn't be able to take ANOTHER move. So, I understand why he  can't help much. The kids don't help much... well, because they don't. Honestly, I'm overwhelmed, so I can be assured that the job must feel like climbing mountains to them. I am the stay-at-home-mom who keeps the house up. This is more my job then any ones. So... I trudge on alone.

Well, guess what happened in July that set me back? It's not a bad thing, but it really took a lot out of me. Zoe was bumped up in gymnastics. This meant I had to go to bed early even though I'm a night hawk and up early (5 am). No parent can ever be sure if their child is going to make it to the Olympics one day, but if we can provide the necessary training time to potentially make that happen, why not try. Or maybe she'll get a great scholarship to a big U.S. university, fully paid. It's happened often enough to see it as a true possibility. So each weekday I drive her in, while I sit in the car and read (not supposed to watch her, because it's distracting) and drink coffee. Not much is open that early and I didn't want to spend money. It should have been a nice relaxing break, but my OCD kicked into high gear as I thought about all of the things NOT GETTING DONE at home. I've never been diagnosed with OCD, but I assume that THAT is what it feels like. It took the whole summer to finally relax while waiting for her to finish training each morning. By the end I was a pro and settled into the role of taxi mom.

 The other thing is drag racing. We ended up having two cars to race this year. My husband raced the Mustang and Austyn raced a junior dragster. Zoe may race next year, but this year she sat out with me. Well, I didn't exactly sit. There are clothes to wash, dry, fold, and pack. There are meals to plan, grocery lists to write, food to purchase, and pack. There are camping and kitchen supplies to collect up, and I didn't mention unpack when we get to the trailer in our pit spot. While there, I do all homemaking chores like cooking, cleaning, and being sure that everyone has what they need to race. I listen to the radio station and notify everyone when they are called up to the staging lanes or when there is a problem or important information to share. It's not every weekend, but usually 3 weekends a month and sometimes we go to another track and camp inside the car trailer, which can make for even more work on my part.

With gymnastics and racing I was POOPED!! I was tired ALL THE TIME!! Not much organizing happened. I was just too busy because of the races that all I could manage was to do what needed to be done each day for us to function (a little homeschooling thrown in there), packing, and the consumption of large amounts of coffee. I did very little with our homeschool group. I took a break from the group and from blogging to organize and then I took a break from those activities to keep up with my kids' sports.

Now I'm back organizing. The early morning drives into the city are fading into my memory and racing season is winding down. Hockey season is starting and gymnastics has moved to after school hours. I have energy again and with  MY time at night (remember my natural night hawk tendencies) I have been getting caught up with organizing. There are still many things to be done, but life can't wait any longer. I will have to manage both for a while, and get my energy from the excitement of seeing things come together. Having my own time at night has really helped. Even when I stay up late, I feel so much better seeing that things are coming together nicely. It's hard to believe how bad things can get in a home. I think that living out of boxes for so long didn't help. Someday we will be fully settled. I'm not sure when, but it will happen... someday!

Enough is Enough!

I've been on an almost impossible mission to go through our ENTIRE house and sell stuff, donate things, throw out garbage, and sort. Most of my friends assumed it's less then a week job. I can't even imagine that!!! How do people do it so fast? Maybe it's because we have moved too much and accumulated more then one of many things because boxes didn't get unpacked? Maybe it's because we are major consumers and didn't even realize just how bad it was? Maybe it's me being rushed here and there so much that I just throw things where they'll fit? I don't know what it is, but there were boxes that haven't been opened in years!!! I have gotten through the toy room and made it a project room and then we went through it again. I went through every bedroom, part of the kitchen, and the homeschool room and I'm doing it again right now. I went through the stuff in the rec room, the living room, the dining room, the bathrooms and we sorted through the garage. So, what do I have left? Storage areas, the utility room, the kitchen, and the school room/spare room again. I also have to clean up my desk, sort the files on my computer, go through pictures, and sort through all of our papers. Speaking of papers, what do I do with them all? The current system I started to follow to deal with them isn't working. I've read many books on the subject, but many of those books don't address homeschool work.

Anyway, I really need to get back to blogging. I've worn myself out with early morning gymnastics, late nights, drag racing on the weekends, and housework. Summer is almost over and I've decided to not plan our homeschool year for the first time ever. I'm not purchasing anything and I'm not making a list of books to purchase. I'm not making a flexible schedule. I'm just going to try and finish off my home organization enough so that I can spend as much of my time with my kids and help them learn in life. Some days I feel so discouraged, but I have a personal plan to try and get myself back into the grove. My early mornings will be put to an end in September and that should help me TREMENDOUSLY!

So, without a homeschool plan and just a plan to be with my kids as much as possible to help them learn this must make us official unschoolers. I hope that this will be as exciting of a year as I anticipate. I can guess what we'll be learning, but that is going from current and past interests. Who knows what interests will come up in the future. Exciting!!!

I need this! My blog is just another thing to motivate me to hurry and finish my current goals!

Busy...

Hi guys! I've been busy and unavailable to post. I will try and catch you up on things when I get a chance. I have so much to share lately. Thanks for understanding!!

Book Sharing Monday - The Pout-Pout Fish

This is a cute book! I know that we are getting to the point that we are reading way less picture books and more chapter books, but we will always enjoy picture books like this.

The Pout-Pout Fish is always pouting and all of the other animals around him ask him to not be so down, but his excuse is always that he can't and doesn't have a choice. What he doesn't know is that he does have a choice.

iPad Photo Manipulation

Zoe loves to manipulate pictures on her iPad. 

One App she uses is called PhotoBooth and it automatically came on the iPad.

The KidFace App puts paint on your face. She likes to take pictures and place themed face paint on them.

Book Sharing Monday - A Quiet Place

This book is a great book about a quiet place. We all need a quiet place sometimes. I'm not sure why, but my kids aren't all that interested in quiet places on their own. Talking to other parents, I've learned that it's a common thing of today. If your kids take time to themselves somewhere quiet, be glad. I remember going off on my own, as a small child, and playing in the back yard. When we lived with relatives in the country my kids went out on their own all the time without even thinking, but at all of the homes we've lived in they refuse to go outside alone. My theory is that homes with small yards in subdivisions don't promote kids to go out on their own.

So, all that being said, this is a great book about a child being in a quiet place and surrounded by nature. My kids didn't really enjoy this book as much as I did. I think they couldn't relate to it, since they don't do this much. Being afraid of bees and wasps make it even more difficult.