Kind of in limbo.

This is what the sky seems to look like most of the time lately.  It's been stormy.

I'm not really doing much of anything right now.  We have to wait until Sunday to pick up the fair entries and see what the kids won.  I haven't felt good all week and am on an antibiotic, but it really doesn't seem to be working yet.  I've only got 3 more days to take it so I hope it improves me soon.  Consequently, I have been doing the bare minimum, working at my job and that's pretty much it.  When I don't feel good, I go slow and so it's been taking many many hours to get my work done.  For example, I'm not done tonight and it's 8:31 p.m.   Time for my husband to go to bed and my son to wake up for work.  When I feel better, I'll send in my letter of intent to homeschool and get started on the planning, pick up my exercise routine and other projects where I left them off.   I hope it's soon.

The last day of school?

Today is the last day of school for the county schools.  I almost celebrated by running into the school bus on our tiny little one lane road.  Now the city pool will open and we will start our summer routines.  These 3 weeks we've had in advance of the schools getting out have turned out to be just a rest period since I haven't been feeling too good (better today) and the kids just wanted to goof off for a while. Today, we finally got a pretty good start on the decluttering we need to do in my bedroom before we paint it.  When you are a homeowner, there's always a big old list of things that need to be done.  After we eat dinner, we're going to get in the pool so we don't have it too bad.  Ahh.  Summer.

I'm very glad.

That we have a light week this week.  We don't really have anything going on.  We need to focus on getting our house together, getting our summer chores done, getting our exercise program started and having a fun summer.  I'm so glad we don't have a party or baby shower any of the days this week after attending a party, a baby shower and then a party slash baby shower this weekend.  I don't know why those things seem to pile up like that, everything in one weekend, then nothing for a while, then 3 or 4 things, then nothing.  I guess that's actually a good thing.  Now we should be free to do our own thing until Father's Day weekend and I hope we accomplish a lot although now it's storming and that tends to make me not want to do anything.  :-P

Getting started?

Yesterday, we started on the spring cleaning.  We did a tiny bit during spring break, but we need to do the rest of it now.  With me working most of the day each day, it's a little difficult to get going after I finish work.  My attitude is the problem.  After I've worked, I want to relax, not get up and work.  You know?  But it needs to be done.  Yesterday was my day off from my regular job so I was able to get quite a bit done, but just a drop in the bucket.  We need to do some serious decluttering around here. (AGAIN).   I should take some before pictures, but that would be embarrassing, so I won't.  :-)  I also need to get started on the exercising.  I'm counting yesterday's several hours of cleaning as the beginning of my new exercise routine.  I was talking to my mother in law yesterday and she has found an indoor pool in our area where we can swim for 5 dollars, so I may swim at home this summer (the only exercise I will consistently do) and then swim indoors for the winter, thereby avoiding the exercise all summer and turn in to a slug every winter syndrome, which is my usual routine.

The kids are out of school and can do basically whatever they want all day except for the couple of hours that I want them to clean, but you'd think I was killing them to hear them complain.  They avoided the dreaded "why do we have to clean?" question, but instead asked "Why do we have to clean right now?" which they say is different.  :-P

Motivational Issues (again).

I did finally get most of the work I needed to do done yesterday, at least the basic cleaning.  If I had been on the ball, energetic and motivated, I could have gotten so much done.  I feel guilty about it, but I'm used to me now.  I know that there are things I'm feeling kind of down about and I know that does not make it a good time to clean.  I also know that I was very busy in the days leading up to Easter and I'm the kind of person who needs time to decompress after holidays.  I guess that's one advantage of getting so darn old, hmmm?  Self knowledge.  :-P   I also know that part of my problem with having a full, free day with nothing scheduled is deciding what to do and getting started. 

Anyway, today's a new day.  I'm just going to do the best I can with it.  I have to work, so for the first 7 hours or so I don't have to make any decisions about what to do, just keep typing, just keep typing. 

Counting Down the Days till Summer.

We have 28 more days of school to do this year. We are way ahead of our usual schedule, even with taking a spring break. The reason is, I think, that because the kids are so independent with their studies, they do them even when I'm gone someplace and so we don't miss as many days. Now that it's started getting warm, I hope it goes ahead and warms right on up because our pool is up and I want to get in it, but I want the water temperature to be at least 80. Right now it's in the mid 70s with a solar cover. Too cold. I am planning on focusing on losing some more weight and getting in better shape as part of my post-Easter resolution so I want to be able to get in the pool and exercise. I think I might have to make my post-Easter resolution a 2 or 3 days after Easter resolution since I anticipate receiving some chocolate bunnies and stuff and will need to get them eaten before I start on any diets. :-)

Spring Cleaning.

I was working and/or gone all day yesterday it seems and the kids chose spring cleaning instead of school work.  I had hoped that they would.  The spring cleaning really needs to be done.  It's amazing what a motivator 'no algebra" is and I also promised them pizza one day this week as a payment.  I am done with work today so I guess I'll have to join them for today's cleaning.  Can anyone think of a reason I shouldn't?

Please.  I really don't want to.

:-P

School issues and thank goodness.

Thank goodness we don't have quite as busy a weekend planned.  Maybe.  Okay, there's no sweet 16 party this weekend, which took up a good deal of my last weekend and I think that the grocery shopping can be postponed a while.  Today, we've got a women's luncheon which we are going to help set up for here in a little while and it will likely take most of the day.  Then after that I will need to work, since I didn't take off today, but did tell them that I would be gone part of the day.  Tomorrow, we only have 3 things we have to do, not 5 like last week.

Me, at 1:00 a.m. last night when yesterday's grammar was getting done.

The school issue that we are dealing with is procrastination.  They have their schedule and we've apparently given them too much freedom to get it done.  I'm going to have to remedy that as soon as I get the time to sit down with them and talk about it.  Mama is not happy. 

On the road again.

Yesterday was a nice day of staying home pretty much all day.  I did go see my mom, but she's only 3 miles away so I'm not counting that.  She and I played a game of UpWords and she beat me for the second time in a row, but that's still a restful kind of game and it was a restful kind of day.  Other than work, of course.  I always, always, always have to work.  I considered letting the kids take the week off and get the spring cleaning done but one of the kids (guess which one?) had already done a lot of his/her school work yesterday afternoon when I mentioned this so we didn't do it, but we are ahead this year and the spring cleaning bug has been biting me (this is very unpleasant) and I think next week we might do it. 

Today, we've got to go to 4H and someone else is teaching the lesson so I always like that.  I feel like I am coming down with the cold though, so I might have to make the decision to stay home due to possible contagion.  We will see.  I'm using Cold-Eeze zinc lozenges and I believe I feel better than I did last night.

Not much.

That's what we're doing today.  Oldest son is sick again and he's watching a McGyver marathon and the younger 2 are being supportive and watching it with him, because basically it's free screen time.  I loved McGyver when I was a kid, but now, it doesn't really hold my interest, so I'm not really watching it with them.  I'm doing other things.  Just to say we accomplished something, even though we didn't have much in the way of motivation, my daughter and I cleaned out half my closet and put in a shelving unit for it that I bought back in January.  Tomorrow, we'll try and get the other half, I guess.  We might need to take some time off from school and get some spring cleaning done.  I wish I could take off work too, but I can't.  I can, however, get up earlier and hit my work a little harder each morning, so that I'll have the afternoons to do the spring cleaning.  Doesn't that sound like loads of fun?  Yeah, I thought so.  That's how I did last years spring cleaning in the afternoons after work, but last year I wasn't working as many hours as I am now.  :-/

So far today

I have not really accomplished anything.  I did help my son a little with his resume.  I did load the dishwasher.  My son and I looked at colleges online and tried to make some decisions for him, but really haven't come up with anything yet.  That's pretty much the sum total of my accomplishments so far today.  In a little while, I'm going to the doctor and then my daughter and I are going to go to Hobby Lobby since my doctor's office is right across the street and then we are going to visit a friend's daughter who is in the hospital.  After that, if we are not too tired, we need to clean up this house.  I intended to get up today and clean the house before the doctor's appointment, but sometimes I just don't do what I plan to do.  :-P  I really don't like cleaning so I will use any excuse.

Motivation.  I need it.

Sometimes I just don't want to.

One of my kids kind of got after me recently for not doing something that he thought I should do.  I might should do it but I don't want to and you know, sometimes when you get up and work 5 days a week,  take care of a house, get groceries, take everyone everywhere they need to go and generally all around be responsible, you just don't want to do anything else that requires getting dressed and getting somewhere.  I think every now and then I should get to play hookey with no good reason.   :-P

Friday.

Youngest son set his alarm at 6:00 a.m. so he could get up and finish school today.  When I got up at 9:00 a.m., he was almost finished, working on handwriting while listening to an audiobook.  I kind of wish I'd gotten up early and did the same, but I really enjoy my sleep so I didn't.  One advantage of my writing my own schedule and working at home is that I get to sleep until I wake up.  Now the girl and I will be working most of the day and youngest can gloat that he's done.

Organization.

This is the kids white board school chart.  They decided that they wanted to be able to move things around from day to day and so they used this magnetic white board, magnets and wrote their assignments on card stock.  It's been working really well.

Saying yes.

Last night my youngest son wanted to play UpWords instead of doing his regular spelling and I just said yes.   I think it's important to follow the schedule and the rules most of the time, but sometimes, it's nice just to say yes to a more relaxed way of doing things.  It was good for him.  He got the rule of doubling the consonant at the end of a word when you add -ed or -ing reinforced over and over throughout the game.  He beat me, but I gave him 150 points to start with so I don't know if he really gets to have bragging rights.

I'm better now.

I've got today behind me and I feel better.  I just really got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  Certain kids around this house are still doing school work tonight.  They had this idea to change from a printed chart to a white board and they'd keep up with their work on it.  They asked if they could do all their chores in one day, all their writing in one day, etc. and I was fine with most of it.  So this week. they've been doing it and there has been some procrastinating going on and now it's Friday night and my daughter has had to do 3 writing lessons today, 2 French lessons, practice guitar, math, notebooking and I don't know what all.   She's been busy all day and it's 8:10 p.m. and she's still working.  The youngest son has a similarly long list.