Two Steps Forward...

• We had no internet for most of last week, and then I took the kids to visit my parents for three days. The lack of internet was a huge downer. I did have my iPhone but it's not quite the same as a functioning internet connection on my laptop with its full keyboard.

• I did manage to get a lot accomplished last week while the kids read a lot. I have more work I want to complete during the remainder of this week.

• However, last night when the storms blew through, a neighbor's tree fell into our yard, across the fence that is technically theirs. The good news is that we have no responsibility, financial or otherwise, for the fence to be fixed. The bad news is that we're dependent on someone else to fix the fence.

• This is how I feel:

Is It All Possible?

I've often lamented, to myself and others, that I just need to find "the answer." When I find that answer, I think, I'll be able to accomplish all that I want to accomplish. The fact that I don't currently merely shows a lack of willpower, initiative, creativity, or problem-solving ability. This, anyway, is the thesis from which I work.

What if my thesis isn't actually true?

I have a number of things that I want to do, and do well. Though you might not realize it upon walking into my house, I can be a perfectionist. If I can't do something perfectly, I'd rather just not do it at all, which actually does explain my house. I often let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

What if my expectations are simply too high? What if all the things I feel deserve 100% add up to more than 24 hours in a day? Maybe it's not that I need more problem-solving ability or willpower. Maybe it's simply that I've reached my limits, insofar as my life is currently configured.

My daily tasks & desires run more or less as follows:
- Schoolwork with EG, which includes checking her work, teaching her, and helping her stay on track with her work
- Schoolwork with FB, of which all but 10-15 minutes is direct instruction & sitting with him
- Parenting EG, FB, & PC
- any activities outside the house for EG or FB, which usually involve a period of “sit and wait” for me (I do try to utilize that time for reading or knitting when possible)
- knitting, 15 minutes average (in practice, I will knit a lot for several days, then none for several, and I often knit while watching television)
- reading, 30 minutes (a book I have not previously read)
- magazines, kindle books (I have a backlog), or re-reading, 15 minutes/1 chapter/1 magazine (whichever comes 'first')
- exercise of some type
- cooking or otherwise preparing three meals per day
- decluttering time, 15 minutes
- school prep, which generally takes between one and two hours weekly
- general housework, which may on a given day include vacuuming, laundry, cleaning bathrooms, or any one of a number of myriad tasks, not including the dinner dishes, the trash, or the litter box, ever, thankfully

Let's be honest. It's the world we live in, so I must also include...
- blogging
- email
- facebook and other social media

Then there's the current tasks of
- packing
- otherwise organizing to move

There are more sporadic tasks as well, like the duties I have for various community organizations, switching out clothes for a new season, choosing curriculum, and writing lesson plans.

Maybe, given the way our life is currently scheduled and otherwise designed, it's not all possible. No amount of waking early in the morning will give me the ability to drive to the Y, work out, and get back before dh has to go to work, not without my going to bed before the kids at night. I don't want to become a drudge; I do need leisure time. My ideal would be approximately one hour of television per weeknight, on average, as well as the above time for reading, knitting, and digital tasks.

I'm sure there are people that do everything I've listed on the list above, and then do even more. The question is not about theoretical possibility. The question is about whether I can do these things to my personal standards, and within the constraints of the schedule we have.

An example, then: I am unwilling to put the kids into the childcare at the Y, despite the fact that it is a "benefit" of membership. This is mostly because I had such negative experiences with it when FB was younger. However, the childcare at the Y is also closed for three hours each afternoon–the very same three hours which would be best for us! I'm not willing to yield on the time we devote to school in the mornings, nor am I willing to concede the children's afternoon activities or dinner as a family. The end result, then, is that it’s very difficult for me to utilize the Y. Now, of course, there are alternate exercising options, and the point is not to solicit comments and suggestions, because really, I can brainstorm. ;) In fact, the point is simple: as my life is currently structured, perhaps I truly can’t do everything I want to do. Perhaps I need to focus more on a few things at a time. These last two weeks have been a time for looking at curriculum and planning for the convention later this month; consequently, I’ve done less reading and knitting. Now that I feel I have a good handle on my plan, I can move back towards more reading and knitting. Perhaps this is how it needs to be; I simply don’t know.

I Miss My Books

Around this time last year, we thought that we'd be ready to sell the house soon. We took care of various needs, and the next items on the priority list were the remaining tasks to make the house ready to sell. Then the Spousal Unit's freelance work stopped for awhile. We've been paying for a storage shed for about seven months longer than we planned, already.

Now it's restarted again, and while again, we have some other obligations, we're going to be working on those obligations and the remaining house items simultaneously. We need to put up about six feet of fence, have some basic landscaping done, have one of the air conditioning units serviced, and have a section of drywall replaced (and possibly the insulation behind it). We'd like to have the house professionally cleaned just before listing it, but that's not absolutely essential. It's not a long list. In the intervening seven months, though, we've gotten used to the idea that we're moving "someday soon" versus "really soon."

The result is that I've got to go back and declutter some of the same rooms a second time.

The other result that we've kept living. We've done school this year. We've bought books and curriculum and science kits and toys. And in order to stage the house, I know what has to happen.

I have to pack even more books.

I miss my books. I've already packed so many. I hate that some of the kids' books aren't easily accessible for browsing. I don't want to pack any more books.

But I have to.

The only conclusion to which I can come is that I should wait until at least one item off the above list is done (the fence is probably first), and then pack as much as possible, all at once. Like ripping off a band-aid. And hope and pray that the house sells quickly, so we can move...

... so we can have our books back.

Just Keep Swimming

Since I last updated my by 1 July list, I haven't made as much progress. The remaining items are, for the most part, quite daunting.

I have finalized plans for EG's art skills study for next year. That's one big one! I have nearly finished the history of science lesson plans, but I still need to finalize my list of supplemental books and insert them at the appropriate places in the overall text. Setting up the timeline is merely time-consuming. I'm not entirely sure how to go about breaking the Art of Problem Solving texts into daily lesson plan chunks, so while I've done a first pass, I have no idea if it's adequate!

The big one, of course, is "make history pages for fifth grade." I've got to do this. There's no way around it. It's a huge project, though, and I suppose I've just been putting off the inevitable - that for a few days, I'll need to eat, breathe, and sleep history plans, just to knock it all out.

I have other lists that I keep as well; each is a separate heading in my "Master To Do" list on the computer. I'm working on two of the items listed under "By 1 August 2010," I've finished a number of things under "Moving Projects," there's nothing left under "Assorted," and then I have a list for each week, and I've been crossing out the majority of things on that list each week as well.

Why am I reciting this list? I'm trying to point out to myself how absurd it is that I feel out of control and as if I'm not getting enough done! Sometimes I look around the house and feel like I'll never be able to get it on the market. I feel bad that I'm not doing more schoolwork with FB. I should serve my children more vegetables with dinner, and the corollary to that is, of course, that I shouldn't be such a failure at CSAs. (Food goes to waste, because I'm just too picky.) I can't help being a supertaster, of course, and I can't help that I don't own a Time Turner.

So instead, I'll just focus on the fact that I finished knitting a scarf for FB last night, and that I have to choose what project to cast on next. That's me in the corner... with my fingers in my ears as I sing "La la la, I can't hear you" at my house and my list of things I should be doing.

Tomorrow Is A New Day. And A New Writing Program.

Just before our Thanksgiving break, EG finished Writing Tales 2. She's zoomed through both it and Writing Tales 1 since the beginning of this calendar year. Therefore, it's time to plod ever onward.

Into Classical Writing: Homer.

In an attempt to be prepared, I had bought all of the materials over the summer. I spent several days reading through the materials and felt that I had a good grasp on the program. I then put the materials away, and went about the rest of our homeschooling year.

The last two weeks have been... hectic, to say the least. As I referenced in a previous post, I've been feeling mentally down this past week, and between Wednesday night and Friday afternoon, several more things were added to the weight on my mind. Somewhere in between the summer and now, combined with the possibility of moving and every day life, I forgot that there was a need to, well, prepare for Homer. That there was something called a "Preparation Week."

Oops?

Luckily, it doesn't look like it's really an entire week of work, so we should be okay to move cautiously forward. I like how thorough the program is and honestly, I'm eager for EG to get started.

That said, I've been thinking over the past several months about the possible value of two writing programs. Many people use multiple approaches to math; since math and writing are, in my opinion, the two most important areas, why not two writing programs? Yes, it could lead to a high volume of required output, especially as a student grows older, but...

So?

Homeschoolers talk the talk about wanting to produce excellent writers, but there's also a lot of talk about not requiring too much too soon. No, it's not a good plan to turn a six year old from writing with ridiculous expectations. EG's not a six year old, though.

In practice, she was pursuing two different writing programs this autumn, since one of her co-op classes was creative writing. The two different aspects of writing were different enough in focus that she didn't seem to have a problem with doing "writing" twice. Actually, some weeks, she was doing it more like thrice, as we attempted to use IEW's Geography-Based Lessons.

I don't know what I might have her use in partnership with Classical Writing, or if I will continue to let a more creative writing be the secondary focus, but it's a thought that keeps persisting.

Where do we go from here? When does the end appear? When do the trumpets cheer?

Some days I'm not sure what we're doing, or why we're doing it, at least with regard to attempting to sell our current house and buy the one we like. Today is definitely one of those days.

To finish everything that we feel is necessary, we need just slightly more money than we currently have available. Part of it is, of course, that it's the wrong time of the year. We had Thanksgiving groceries to purchase, and have Christmas gifts still to buy. There's never a lot of extra money around the holidays. Of course, there's also a certain amount of reluctance to spend too terribly much money on a house that we'll be leaving. We're trying to focus our purchases on things that can leave with us, now, but there are still a few things that must be done to the physical house.

We met with a realtor about selling our house (our other realtor is a buyers' agent only) on Tuesday. He had brought some comparables but after seeing the house decided to pull new comparables. We got those listings this morning. Based on those listings, I don't think any of them are exactly comparable, but he seems to feel that they are. Worse, he thinks we should list it at a price that's about $20K less than what we hoped to get for the house. Now, I know that I don't have a lot of experience in real estate, but even looking at the same houses that he feels are comparable, I expected a suggestion about $10K more than what he did suggest.

And buying the new house is dependent in large part on the selling price for this house. We'll be using what we have after closing costs and paying the mortgage to make what we hoped would be a substantial down payment, thereby reducing our monthly mortgage. If we list at his suggested price, even if we sell quickly, we won't make enough to buy the new house and still live month to month. This is obviously not a good option.

I can't help but feel like it's my fault. If I had been less impatient, we could have finished staging the house before a realtor ever saw it, just like one of my staging books suggested. If I had just been feeling less down this past week, I could have started on the prepacking, and it would have looked less cluttered. If I had just done something different, I could change what price he suggests for listing.

Of course, it's not a binding suggestion. There are smaller homes in the vicinity listed for more, and frankly, that would be a red flag to me as a buyer. Why, I'd wonder, is the larger house listed for less than the smaller one? I'd suspect there's something that's being hidden, or that the owners were really desperate to sell, and would accept really low offers. Neither of these things are the image I want to project.

So today's a day to ponder, I suppose. I already felt mentally assaulted this week for various reasons - this is just one more! I feel so overwhelmed and I don't know where to start, so instead I just watch television and read the internet. Not the best coping skills, I know, but I feel so overwhelmed and so out at sea that I don't know where to go.

In Which Pens and Pencils Overtake My Desk (and My Life)

I admit that I have a Thing about supplies. I like a well-sharpened pencil; a good eraser could make me weak in the knees. My philosophy with regards to pens runs along the lines of "the more, the better." To know that there is a full supply of paper in the household is to have mental peace.

Eventually, though, you have more than you expected. Eventually, you might, for example, have two big pencil cups full of pens and pencils, more pencils in a drawer, and Sharpies and pens taking over your desktop.

(I didn't mention the Sharpies? I adore Sharpies.)

A good pen sticks with you. It's the first one for which you reach, at least until the next shiny pen introduces itself to your routine. You remember the day when the old pen came first, though, and you can't bear to discard it or - worse - pass it along to a spouse or child. They might not treat your cast-off with the respect it deserves! They may not grasp its worth immediately! Worst of all, they may be the recipient of its final ink.

Clearly, that's not the way to winnow your pens to a manageable size.

I want a clean workspace. I don't have a drawer under my desktop, nor are their drawers at all with my desk. I have a separate storage unit with two drawers, a shelf, and some filing slots. The bottom drawer is far too deep for writing implements; the top drawer is full of technological accessories - picture cords, iPod cords, slips of paper with scribbled passwords, battery chargers, and wall chargers. It became the designated holding spot for those things long before I attempted to get a handle on the Writing Implement Situation. When I first bought my pencil cups (which, naturally, match both each other and the legs of my desk), I thought my problems were solved. There were - for about two months. Maybe not even that long. More pens found their way into our home (complementary with package, complementary in conference freebie bag, not complementary at Office Depot...). Eventually, I stopped trying to fit more pencils and pens into the overstuff cups and instead just began putting them "neatly" on my desktop. There's only one issue with that.

Pens (and pencils) roll.

I still have no solution. I don't even really have ideas, except for the thought that Sharpies deserved a container reserved especially for them. Perhaps the real kicker is the knowledge that it's not just me, anymore. I can see signs of this disorder in EG, as well. Just ask her about her pencil box, pencil pouch, and pencil bag. All of them are, naturally, full.

The Best Laid Plans

Even Organized Mom has days that, well, you just want to rewind and redo. As we said in elementary school, I want a do-over!

This is a busy week here; every extracurricular activity with which the kids are involved meets this week. At the end of the week, on Saturday, I'll be at a BOLD event most of the day. Even this coming Sunday holds no respite; there's a two hour Girl Scout meeting for EG followed by a talent show and Court of Awards for all of us to witness. All of this to preface that in my head, yesterday was to be my day of rest before the onslaught. It didn't happen that way, for reasons both good (celebrating my mentee Girl Scout's Gold Award) and bad (attending visitation for a friend's husband, killed in an accident at age 39).

EG is a particularly sensitive, perceptive child, and accordingly she's been affected by my agitation since Friday afternoon. This friend is active in the local birth and breastfeeding community, homeschools, is (was?) the primary organizer for the BOLD event listed above, and is an all around sweet person. She has six kids, ranging in age from 21 to 2. To find out that she's been left a widow at such a young age was and is hard to take in. She and her husband clearly adored each other, and today, she had to bury him. I didn't hide the fact that I was upset from EG (I couldn't have!), but even had I managed, I know she would have felt it.

All of that said, it's unsurprising that her work today has lacked focus. She's at Master's Academy now, and this afternoon later she has a Girl Scout meeting. If it were any other activities, I would have made her stay at home to complete some work, but I don't feel it's an option today, for various reasons. It can't be that bad, you say? There's nothing she's actually completed enough to use a check mark beside it in her assignment book. Nothing! This after getting up at her usual time, and working straight through (aside from breakfast and getting dressed) until 11:30. Usual time, by the way, is 6:45 am... not exactly late.

Meanwhile, FB is running a low grade fever and is extremely lethargic. He's not at Master's Academy today. Yesterday he ran a fever early, then seemed fine the rest of the day, so I ascribed it to a different cause. Last night, though, he cycled between warm and that clammy coolness of sweating a fever. Today, he's practically devoid of energy.

Purple Child had an appointment to have her picture made while the older two were at Master's Academy, but we've had to postpone that. I forgot to put our crockpot meal together in time for it to be ready for this evening. My daugher's new Girl Scout leader requires they wear their uniform at every meeting, so after I pick her up (early) at Master's Academy, she'll have to change clothes in the van. The math club I facilitate may have to be canceled for lack of participants. I need a new cartridge or whatever it is called for my printer - the laser printer that was brand-new just two months ago. I have a really neat new book and I've not read any of it since Thursday.

Stop the ride, I want to get off.