Week 1: Tired. Delusional. It's Fine...

I went out to lunch today with three of my favorite homeschooling friends to celebrate one of our birthdays--not mine. All but one of us had households who started back to school routines this week, and the fourth is easing in.

We three who had started back into it sang the praises of our kids--how hard they worked, how they proved themselves, how they checked off all the assignments we gave them and kept a good attitude all the while. It was stellar--delusional, even. Then Candace said, "Wait a minute--can we just stop here and remember this moment for a few months down the road when we AREN'T having a week like this?"


Truth. 

We did have a great week if you count success in terms of things done, but life is not always about that, and I will have to remind myself of that again and again, I'm quite sure. I mean, we are not exactly novices at this, but every year we seem to go through through the same ceremony of planning, reworking, setting the bar, making the schedule. It always ends up sort of the same in the end--never exactly according to our original plan, but somehow, we always manage to get it done.

We had to make a couple of major lifestyle adjustments with this new-fangled plan due to the fact that we have not had a school routine for quite some time. Both kids (who are night-owls) wanted to get their work done earlier in the day and have more afternoon time free, so I made sure that they were up by 7:30 every day and working by 8:30. This Friday evening as I write, we are all completely knackered, but the productivity that resulted was very rewarding. They both completed all of their assigned work, finished early today and had the whole afternoon free to play and cut grass or do whatever else life called upon them (and me) to do. In my case it was to go out to lunch at a fantastic restaurant and have some laughs with friends. I realized once I was out I really did need some time out and away.

All her practice paid off and she had a great lesson this week!

reading for Tapestry of Grace

Biology...classification of stuff... 

Got their C-cards! It's official!

Let's see if we can keep this pace next week. I'm looking forward to tackling some of the new challenges with the older kids at our first co-op--Discussing Don Quixote, digging into the history of the world, Old and New, unraveling some government documents, and having fun doing it.

But let me keep in mind that we are off to an amazing start and things don't always stay this way--I've been doing this long enough to know that one virus or too many phone calls in a day can really throw us of a game-plan. Hopefully...after 15 years of this...I won't sweat it too much.