I’m frustrated, I can’t get a post written these last couple of days.

I start writing, and then one of eight bajillion things going on around the house gets in the way, and I lose my momentum, and it’s gone.

I wanted to write about how, when I was out driving yesterday, I was listening to the dj on K-LOVE talking about how being a Christian is about having a relationship with Christ – not about rules, or good works, or following some archaic methodology for how to get to heaven. And the thing is – they have to have been saying that my whole life, you know? Why didn’t I hear it, or really GET it, until last year? Why did I waste all that time? Why did it take so long, not only to find my own way, but to start showing my kids the right way?

I had another post written on how much I appreciate all the pastors’ wives in my life…from the ones at church, to my sister-in-law’s mom, and my cousin’s wife. They all give so much of themselves – they sacrifice time with their husbands, and sadly are the subject of a lot of judgement from other people merely because of who they are married to…and it’s not an easy job! But that post didn’t get finished either.

Homeschooling went great Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday? CRASH and BURN. I found out last night, after Pez had gone to bed, that he never took his ADHD meds, and this child, without them, is unable to focus on ANYTHING. I thought he was taking them when I told him to, but obviously, I need to be better about supervising him actually taking the pill. He literally accomplished NOTHING yesterday, so today we start over and try to move ahead. Sadly, I think he’s going to have to do some work on Saturday to get back on track.

Family Morning Devotions? We’re still doing them, but we’re going to have to change things up a little. Since Lemon Drop started conditioning for Swimming, she is going to school 3 days a week at 6 AM. Hubs is getting up to take her, and since he has something one other day each week at 6:30, he decided he’s just going to get up every day at 5 and go in early.

From an FMD perspective, it’s kind of crushed things. We’re still doing them, but we’re doing FAMILY morning devotions with only half our family! I think we’re going to start doing them at dinner instead, which will only be a problem on Wednesdays when we have church to get to. Either way – it’s not dead and gone. WE’re still doing it. The kids still nearly sleep through it, but we’re doing it.

From a family perspective, it seems like we’ve been a little more disconnected the last few days. I don’t know why – with Hubs coming home earlier from work, we end up being together for more of the evening, but he’s been going to bed early, while I still have to stay up with the kids, so we’re missing that time we used to spend talking before we went to sleep each night. We have always spent so much time with each other that when we don’t, we really start to feel like something is wrong! SO we’re going to try and find ways to fix that.

AAAAAAnd…now BonBon is demanding bubbles, so that’s all I’m going to get written today!

Ok, it may not have appeared that way to you, but my blog has been toast for about a week.  Our host did some sort of maintenance, and ended up blocking our internet provider, so I haven’t been able to get to my blog, or my email, since then.  Obviously, my life doesn’t end if I can’t blog – but of course I kept having things I really wanted to blog about, but couldn’t.  Do you think I can remember a single one of those things now?  No.

SO…I’m back amongst the blogging, and in the midst of a flurry of activity around our household.

Scouts starts up again tomorrow night, and Hubs has joined the steering committee (which I was already on in multiple roles), so we are both going to be busy with that.  School starts for the oldest 3 on either Wednesday or Thursday (they have different schedules), so we’ve got last minute stuff for that.  I’m still pulling the curriculum together for Pez, and gearing up for homeschooling.  MOPS is starting up,  so I’ve got planning meetings for that, and on top of it, we’re starting a whole new “family schedule” which will include a devotional time for the whole family every morning before the kids and hubs go off to school. 

Whew.

I know it’s not that much.  I’ve juggled more than this for years.  For some reason, though – it just all feels kind of overwhelming. 

I need to start making lists for myself again.  I’ve gotten out of the habit, but if this homeschooling thing is going to work, I need to get myself back in the organizational saddle!

You know, they always say “it’s the little things in life that make it worth living”.   I don’t know who “they” are, but I get it.  The times when my husband stops to pick up chocolate covered strawberries on his way home, just because he knows it will make my day, the way Pez can get BonBon to laugh uproariously by making silly faces and noise, or the times when my kids just come over and give me a hug for no reason in particular…those are the small things that just make life awesome.

The bad thing is, it’s also the little things that can trip you up.

This week, and last week, and the week before, the thing that has tripped me up is the inability to find our 3-hole punch.  Seriously.  I decided a couple of weeks ago that I was really going to get on the ball again.  (hahaha!)  I printed off household management documents (menu planning, organizing, goal setting), and got all geared up to fill them out and put them in a binder.  (Ren’s sister would refer to this as a CONTROL JOURNAL.  Because I am a reformed “control freak”, I can’t call it that.  So we’ll just call it my little household binder.  MLHB for short.)  I was all motivated.  I was thinking of everything I wanted to write down, all my goals, all my menu plans…it was going to be AWESOME!

No 3-hole punch.

No way to put all my little organizational papers into MLHB!

Instead, all the paperwork has just been sitting here, unloved and not filled out, hanging like a cloud over my head.  It has also been cluttering up my dining room as it sits in the stack of unloved papers I don’t know what to do with.  Intellectually, I REALIZE that I can still fill everything out.   I could probably even get rid of a lot of the rest of “unloved papers” if I would get on the ball with this.

The lack of my 3-hole punch has paralyzed me!

I realized, thinking about it, that there are a lot of times in life when I let the little things get in the way of me accomplishing everything I set out to do.  Whether it’s housework piling up, Bible reading, praying, or even working on my relationship with my husband…there are far too many times when I have let something small get in the way of handling what really needs to be done.

We officially made the decision to homeschool Pez.  I’ve got the paperwork filled out, I just need to make some copies, get some things notarized, and send it off.  Making this change is going to require an overhaul of how we do almost everything around our house on a day-to-day basis.  It means a new schedule, new organizational requirements as I have to keep records of our homeschooling, and it means I need to take care of all those things I let slide far too often that will get in the way of me focusing on educating.

I just have to stop letting the 3-hole punch be the sucker punch to our success.

(Seriously, I could have saved myself all that hassle for $9???  Which I could actually get for free since I have Max Perks credit? There are moments when I am actually not terribly bright.  Shhhhh…don’t tell my husband.)

One of the things I don’t think my children will truly grasp until they become parents in their own right is that punishing them REALLY DOES punish us as parents as well.  School ended for summer break last week.  I checked grades online, and found out that all of my kids had a grade that is below what we consider acceptable, and far below what we know each of them is capable of achieving. 

They know our expectations, and I pay pretty close attention to what is going on with grades throughout the term. Whenever we see that there is an issue, we generally again reiterate to that child that they need to bring homework home so we can check it, and we just really watch things to try and help them achieve.  Well, when the grades that are bad are on quizzes and tests, then there’s not a lot we can do.  Each of our children is responsible for filling out an assignment notebook on a daily basis.  This is an expectation of the school system, not from us – but something we think is very good for them to do.  Unfortunately, when they aren’t good about filling it out, or don’t note upcoming tests and quizzes, or they just tell us that they’re done studying, it’s hard for us to know if they truly have studied.

But the long and short of it is, all four of my school-aged children are grounded this week.  Grounded for grades means no tv or internet, which – no – it’s not the end of the world.   In fact, it is probably even better for them in the long run, because it will mean they either have to go outside and play, or read.  Thankfully, I have three kids who LOVE to read. 

The downside though, and I KNOW this is how it’s going to end up – is with them laying around whining to me about how BORED they are!!  And, if they’re not able to watch tv, *I* can’t watch it either, because they’ll just sit there and stare at it anyway! 

So it looks like I need to plan some outings, and chores for the kids so they can earn their way out of the full week of grounding!!