Not So SAHM

When your schedule messes up your schedule

I like things neat and tidy. I live inside that box. As a homeschool mom I should have learned to let this go a long time ago. For a rule follower, list follower, in-the-box follower I can be flexible. . . sometimes. I can’t yet consistently roll with the flow, though. When things aren’t fitting inside my box I feel anxious, get short-tempered, and contend with feelings of failure. Can anyone else relate?

I am getting better though, and it seems as if what kills me is actually what ends up making me stronger. If I can just. adapt. to. change.

I like to have a schedule. One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is the organizing and planning part. You know, where you lay out all the curriculum, the calendar is printed out month by month, and you plan out everything you want to do and the days on which you want to do it. (I know! Silly to plan so far ahead, and yet it’s so fun to plan!)

And you have the days each week you’ve planned to stay home and just get school done, and then there are the not so frequent days that you’ve planned to schedule all the appointments (because we know that always works out the way we want it, right?).

But then, what to do when your whole week is an endless mix of meetings, doctors’ appointments, a field trip, a snow day, several trips to the grocery store, your husband has a day off of work, etc, etc?

What do you do when your schedule messes up your schedule?

Ripping hair out is not an option, I have determined.

This past week was yet another chance for me to practice growing, because this past week was one where my actual schedule royally messed up my intended schedule. I rarely have a week that can be considered “normal”, but this past week came close to my definition of chaos. So, instead of pulling out my hair, or even yelling at my kids, I told myself at the beginning of the week. . .

“It will be ok.”

And it was. I figured out what we could ditch for the week (spelling and science) and had the girls do as much of their workbook work as they could by themselves (I was in a bunch of meetings, and one day did the monthly freezer cooking). We practiced Spanish in the car. We reviewed what we had learned in history in the car as well. My older daughter’s writing assignments just had to be pushed back for a week. My girls did some math at the table by figuring out what Infinity characters they wanted to buy and how much they would cost, including tax.

And we survived. Is my paper schedule messed up since we didn’t get several things done? Yes. But I’m still breathing. And my girls are still learning. And thankfully I fill all that out in pencil.

It’s definitely not something I want to happen every week, but by allowing myself to let go a little and think realistically, I can survive and maybe even step one foot outside that box.

What about you? What are ways that you deal with schedule changes, especially if you are a schedule follower like me? I look forward to learning some things that I can add to my toolbox.
NotSoSAHM
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Love in any language (well, 8 of them) – Valentine’s craft

For Valentine’s Day, our co-op is having the kids decorate boxes and exchange valentines cards. The girls are almost finished with their box, but I wanted to show you the valentines we’ll be handing out.

I found the idea on Pinterest by searching for Valentine’s and the Silhouette machine. Once I saw this one I knew it was the one I wanted to try and quickly went over to Lauren’s blog: The Thinking Closet. She has a great step-by-step tutorial. I love using my Silhouette machine and this was a great chance for me to learn a couple new things!

I used the same font as Lauren (she includes a link in her post). I sized the colored hearts to be 3″ so the black hearts and words are about 2.5″.

I used a glue stick to adhere the wording onto the colored heart.

On the back, I wrote “love” in . . . and whichever language it is. Lauren used several languages with accents. I ~~am lazy~~ didn’t have the time to figure out accents on my keyboard so I eliminated those and added one or two that had “plain” letters.

And. . . I couldn’t forget Russia. An ode to the Olympics. . .

I also didn’t bother with Cyrillic.

All in all it took two pieces of black 12×12 paper and 2 pieces of colored 12×12 paper to make 32 Valentines.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

P.S. If you haven’t been introduced to a Silhouette machine yet, head on over to Silhouette America. It’s a cutting machine that can cut any design or font that you have on your computer. It cuts so many different materials, too. Paper, vinyl, fabric. . . You don’t need cartridges, just your imagination and a computer!

AdventCalendar2012 — Advent Calendar for 2012 and 2013

I create an advent calendar each year for Christmas using my Silhouette machine. Here’s the one I’ve done the past two years:

Here’s the one I’d like to try this year:

It’s found here: Home Stories A to Z and the photo above is credited to Beth.

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Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

A little Throwback Thursday pic.

We visited the Outer Banks of NC this summer, including the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It is the tallest brick lighthouse in the US, and we climbed to the top. A beautiful view, both the lighthouse itself and the 360 from 198.49 feet up. That’s 269 spiral steps.

To read more about it visit the NPS site.

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Hawaii (to warm our winter bones)

Unless you’re located south of the Equator you’re probably getting sick of the cold. It can’t be just me. Wanting to strangle poor Punxsutawney Phil made me realize that I needed a boost of Vitamin D and some temps above 60.

If you’ve been feeling the same way then these pics are for you. We went to Hawaii this past summer, and right about now I wish I were back there. Hover over the pics for captions. Click on them to see a larger size.

Warm wishes to you!

Aloha

Fresh fruit

The rock in the center distance is in the opening sequence of Jurassic Park

Waikiki

Painted Eucalyptus – naturally is colored like this!

BLUE

Mino’aka (smile)

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Indoor rock climbing and sky diving

This happened recently:

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We learned how to belay and then took to climbing. You could climb without ropes if you didn’t go above a certain line. This was our first time climbing and it was a lot of fun. The day after, I realized I hadn’t used my forearm muscles like that in just about ever. It works your traps, too. I can attest.

This happened a little less recently, but still in the vein of indoor extreme sports (extreme is a subjective term, no?):

http://youtu.be/bcUb-bC7rZ0

This was New Year’s Eve 2012. Such a blast! Even our five-year old (at the time) enjoyed it. Best NYE ever!

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Snow Days

Living in the South, we don’t see snow as much as we did in D.C. The girls are so happy for just the couple inches that we get each year. 3″ didn’t yield a lot of depth but the good times were endless.

And we made Snow Candy.

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The snow cream was easy to make. A half stick of butter, a cup of maple syrup (augmented with a little corn syrup b/c we didn’t have enough); boil until it thickens; drizzle onto snow. It hardens up quickly.

Delicious, crunchy toffee.

Hope you had fun with any snow that you got, too!