What Do You DO All Day?

When I complain life is too full and too busy, I often get, "the look."  The look that says, what do you do all day that makes you feel like your life is too busy?  You don't work, don't you have all the time in the world to do any and every hobby you want?  Or even, my life is way busier than yours, so I don't want to hear it.

First of all, my life is blissful.  I have an amazing husband who is insanely good looking, is hard working, is a great provider, cracks me up, and is my best friend.  I have a daughter who is bright, sweet, calm, kind, thoughtful, and always in a good mood.  All three of us have our health.  I live near family (for now), I have great friends, a great church, and the list goes on and on.  Life is good.

I absolutely adore homeschooling.  I never thought I wanted to do it, but every second of it is absolute heaven.  I love planning for the day, planning for the week, planning for the semester, planning for the year, planning through graduation.  Lesson plans are bliss.  I love teaching Kara.  She is very smart and easy to teach.  She loves to learn and is very self motivated.  She spends her own free time researching more things to teach herself.  She watches educational youtube videos for fun.  She is a dream.

So, let's get back on track.  My days are busy.  They look like this:

I wake at 7:30, Kara wakes at 8:30 or 9:30.  We eat when she wakes up and my NON-morning person of a daughter spends about an hour watching cartoons, eating breakfast, and generally finally feeling awake.  Usually it's about 9:30 or 10:00 by then.

Kara spends about 45 minutes brushing her teeth, her hair, getting dressed, making her bed, and doing her physical therapy exercises.  (This is when I shower and help her with all of her things.)

Around 10:30, we start school.  That lasts about 2 and a half hours.

Then we have lunch around 1.

(If school doesn't happen before lunch, it's not going to happen that day.  I am able to sneak in some reading before bed, though.  She can listen/read aloud for about an hour at night.)

Anyway, after lunch (around 1:30), we always have somewhere to be.  Every single day we have to be somewhere before 2 is difficult and school is usually the first thing to skip.  :-/

Mondays I work at the church and she does school independently at my mom's house, or my mom helps.

Tuesdays we leave by 4 so we can go to dinner, then Awanas.  We don't get home until 8:30 or later.

Wednesdays we have to be at PT by noon, so leaving the house by 11:30 with lunch already eaten means little to no school.

Thursdays Kara has pottery or horse lessons.  (We used to do both every week, but it was too much, so my compromise is to do only one a week.)

Fridays we catch up with my family or friends - homeschool group, Bethany, Stephanie, Lara, Kim, etc.  I also like for Kara to Skype with Michael's mom in the mornings.  (This is precious school time, but Mamaw time is more precious.)

In the evenings Kara does bath, PT exercises, and clean up from 8 to 9:30.  She goes to bed at 9:30, but draws until 10:30.  Then she has to start falling asleep, which takes 30-60 minutes.  (I have been asleep since about 10:15.)

Saturdays we have birthday parties, horse lessons, or whatever.  Sundays we have church, then Kara goes to my mom's house for the day, spends the night, and I pick her up after work at the church.

Somewhere in there we have to make time to help friends who are moving, do Bible study, wait for the Orkin guy, be home for a delivery, clean the house, plan for meals, do dishes/laundry/etc., shop for household items, and actually do lesson plans.

This is why I make little to no dinners, this is why I pay a friend to clean my bathrooms, this is why I appreciate my mom grocery shopping for me.  This is why I don't read my own books (just Kara's), this is why I don't get out to take pictures nearly enough, and this is why I am always tired.

I want to cut some things out, but I don't know what.  During Kara's casting, we will cancel horse lessons and maybe pottery too.  We will stay home from play dates more, and maybe Awanas too.  After casting, I am going to work on getting Kara up earlier so we have time to do everything.  We homeschool so we don't have to get up early, but I just don't know how to get it all done if we don't.  Especially on the days she sleeps until 10!  When she was little I couldn't wait until she slept in, but I don't know how to live life with a kid who sleeps in so late.  I thought since she was a night owl we could just do school at night.  Let me just say:  that doesn't work.  Morning or nothing.

Here is what my idea of a perfect schedule looks like:  school every morning from 8:30 to 11, lunch, then every afternoon free to take care of the house, do lesson plans and Bible study, and have fun with my hobbies (knitting, reading, photography, etc.).  The end.  lol!  Oh yeah, then I cook amazing dinners Michael and Kara both love.  *sigh*  I'm really not a lazy person, I promise.  I'm just tired of it all.

Now we are adding house hunting, land hunting, house planning, moving, etc to the list.  Fun, fun!

Aaaaaand, this is why I am enjoying this break as much as Kara is!  The problem is, I want a break from everything else so we can do MORE school!  :-D  I promise life is good, it's just a little full.  I want more down time for selfish reasons, but also so I can get quiet with the Lord!