Monday, November 17, 2008

Crap!

I have a confession to make. Mess makes me grumpy. Really grumpy. For me mess is a little like PMS. I start to feel a little tense, a little snappish, a little off. I don’t really know why. Everything on the outside is okay so why am I so uncomfortable, like my skin is crawling? OH, now I know, PMS.

Mess works the same way for me. Life gets busy; we end up driving down to Houston a few times in a week. We are all a bit preoccupied with SDB, etc. Then Sir D gets a head cold. Then I get a head cold. Then I start to get better, but I’m grumpy. Something’s not right. My skin is crawling a little. What’s the deal?

Then I look around. There are three baskets of clean laundry in the living room waiting to be folded and put away. The living room floor needs to be vacuumed. The girls room is messy, the boys room is messy, the back room is messy. The hall has baskets of dirty laundry in it because the place where the baskets go in the laundry room on the shelf has other stuff on that shelf that is not supposed to be there and needs to be put away in its proper place. My room is messy and my desk is cluttered, and now my skin is crawling. Then I grab the ringing phone and my finger sticks to a smear of honey. THAT’S IT! I CAN’T STAND IT ANYMORE THIS PLACE IS A PIGSTY!

So what to do? We had a pretty unproductive week last week since I was sick. The kids still did some school, but I was not on it, and as my good friend who has been homeschooling forever says…You don’t get what you expect, you get what you inspect. I did not inspect much last week.

Really I should just cancel school for a few days and clean this place up. We’d all be happier for it, but how? We didn’t get much done last week. Next week all the public schools are off and the kids have youth group and church activities planned, not to mention I’ll be busy baking. I really don’t feel like we can afford to take any more time off.

That’s always the rub. I know that homeschooling is more than the academics, they need to know how to cook and clean and live with other people. But they need to know how to read, write, add and subtract too. If I were reading this on anyone else’s blog I’d tell them to relax. Clean the house. The academics will always be there, there will always be more to learn. Get things back on track at home and everything will run smother.

Great in theory, but now that one of mine is taking college classes in highschool and the other is about to enter highschool and there are two more trailing ever so closely behind them, I realize I don’t have all the time in the world anymore. 8 more years. That is all I have to teach them. And that is Ann. The others will be done sooner. 8 more years. I don’t know how this happened. I used to make myself not even think about how many years I’d be homeschooling when Ann was a baby, the number was just too overwhelming. But now? Now it just freaks me out.

I have 8 years or less to teach these kids what they need to know before they fly away from my nest! And my house is a wreck.

Crap!

(Told you I was grumpy.)


7 comments:

Happy Mommy said...

Mess makes me really grumpy too! And wow only 8 years... I haven't even started to school our daughter yet and yes I have so many years to go it's hard to think about somtimes. I love it though!

Tonya said...

Oh, I so know how you feel right now! If we could just stop all required activities for a couple of weeks (and have Eric home), our house just might be finally clean and have pictures up! Once you get behind, there is almost no way to catch up. But our oldest is already behind in math - how can I take even a day off?

I do understand...

rainydaymichele said...

I understand! I can sympathize as I am grumpy when our house is out of control. I might just take ONE day off from the studies, put everyone to work first thing in the morning, and attack! Then celebrate with delivered pizza or something which takes little effort on my part. And then just hit the books a little harder for a day or two to catch up. In reality it's hard to do, but it's worth a shot!

Anyway, sending big hugs and understanding ~

Halfmoon Girl said...

What about half and half? Maybe school will seem like a treat after an hour of hard cleaning!

randi said...

I am EXACTLY the same way about messiness! It makes me fell stressed.

Feel free to take the day off school and get caught up with the house. That way the rest of the week will be better and more productive!

justjuls said...

I can't even concentrate in a mess so this would be a no brainer for me. One day sounds like it would do it - can you call it off one day?
As an unschooler let me tell you - your kids will not fall apart if you don't get much done - I promise. :)

Tricia said...

I know, I know, I know. I would have told myself to take a day off.

That is what we did. I forgot the boys had a job today, so the girls and I decided to have a CLEAN IT UP ALREADY! day.

It's not done, but it's a lot better.

You'd be proud of me Juls, we had HomeEc day and I don't even feel guilty! :o)