Captain Me Planet

no write.  And today won’t change much.  BUT, I just had to come by and say I’m still considering myself on break, as I am still queasy, very tired, and just plain creatively at a loss.  If you are one of the 3 people who stop by here from time to time, hi.

#4 seems fine.  In the 13th week, the end seems far, far away.  2 U/Ss seem normal.  More can be told in about 6 weeks.  More importantly, I’ve started obsessing on how large I’ll be at the end of this thing.  Wah wah wah, I know.  It’s just that I’m nearly bedridden with the extremely low level of energy I have, and have no nutritional balance whatsoevah…a couple of weeks ago, all I could eat was biscuits and gravy, 3 or 4 times a day, everyday, for like, 3 days.  I’m telling you I have muscle atrophy already.  Another, just oatmeal cookies.

Oh well.  It is what it is.  Maybe I can inquire about this little thing called a c-tuck… 

It is bright blue outside.  With projected temps of low 90s today.  And the pool just opened.  Summer is here.  Forget the silly June 21 official start date.  Here, away down south, the AC is now running nearly around the clock.  It’s summer.

The Colonel and I are busy busy busy.  Painting, flooring, repairing, replacing.  There can be a lot to do in a 47 year old house.  And why rush?  We are considering a move to Atlanta.

I hear most buyers don’t like exposed steel i beams, studs, and unpainted sheetrock.  Although, I’ve grown quite fond of it all.  There’s just something about it that’s all so, I don’t know, urban?  Utilitarian?  Industrial?  No wait, I’ve got it.  With everything such a mess, there really is no need to clean all that well.   That, I love.

Atlanta?  My old home.  A better market for the Colonel’s career.  More restaraunts.  And the grandparents to take the children nearly whenever I wish (Hi Mom. Hi Dad, I love you.) That’d be worth a move to Timbutu.  Not that there’s anything wrong with Timbuktu.  It’s just the place you say when you think of something remote.  And it sounds funny.  Timbuktu.  Timbuktu.  Where is Timbuktu?

So there’s a job.  They seem to want the Colonel (naturally).  But we’ve yet to hear what the actual offer.  You know the details of the money, the benefits, the whens and hows.  It may not all come off.  We’ve been nosing around in Atlanta for months.  But in light of this nosing, the house really ought to get done.  

So that’s how we’ve spent our Memorial Day weekend.  Children begging to go to the pool while we say things like don’t you wanna help paint?  Hey, go haul this stuff to the garage for me, who wouldn’t want to do that for fun?  More cause for future therapy, I’m sure.

And I’d like to send a shout out to a new cyber-friend.  Zackintosh, who is from Pakistan.  How he found me, and decided that I was at all interesting to read is beyond my capacity of reason, but I feel all internationally important now, so I wanted my other 7 visitors to know in just what kind of illustrious company they keep.  And how far and wide my witty scribblings reach.  Hi Zackintosh, in Karachi.  Hey, that’s cool to type.  Karachi.  Karachi.  Karachi and Timbuktu.  How many times do you get to type both those words in the same post?  

 

I just posted a cartoon.  It basically makes fun of many public school atmospheres out there.  And since we homeschool, and get so many critical questions about whether or not we’re doing the right thing, what about socialization, aren’t we over-insulating, my first reaction was ha!  this is hysterical.  And I posted it up tout suite, at about 4 this morning, when I couldn’t sleep. 

I have a dear dear lifelong friend.  Whose heart is as honestly desiring the best for her children, as any I’ve ever met.  Who longs to raise her girls unto the Lord.  And whose children go to public school, in a small town south of Atlanta, GA.  Friend, I will keep your anonymnity, but I’d like to quote you here.

You KNOW I love you, and I KNOW your heart and that you do not sit in judgement of people who don’t homeschool.  But, cartoons like the one posted … are very hurtful.  Yes, it’s true, a lot of terrible things go on in public/private schools.  But, a lot of terrible things go on at home, in families, too (and at church and the grocery store and at the office and basically everywhere in life).  I have a very close friend whose family homeschooled and her father also slept with her from the time she was 11.  The truth is most of us want to protect our children…most of us are doing the best we can, praying and making decisions accordingly…seeing something like that comic implies that some of us are intentionally putting our children in harm’s way with no regard for them.  which, as you and I both know is NOT true in most situations.  Things like that just give fuel to the judgemental, "we are right and you are wrong" group of people out there.

I think she may be right.  The cartoon is a (sometimes) truth in jest, yes, but just may be more harsh than I intended to be, and add to that judgmental fire which I have no desire to fuel. 

Thoughts like that pop into my head.  Primarily as a response to the dubious questioning we often get, for our choice. But maybe should be screened a bit more carefully.  What my friend says is true.  Most parents are doing their very best.  And their best, and where and what they’re led to do, just may not look like our household. 

I asked the Colonel about it.  I set him up.  Hey, look at this (show the cartoon).  He chuckled.  And then I showed him my friend’s email.   And he poured his coffee.  Thunk on it.  Added sugar and cream.  Stirred.  And said I don’t think that’s very Christ-like (the cartoon, not my friend’s email).  Now, I’m not quite as tender as my sweet husband, and sometimes I get perverse pleasure out of being controversial and hard-headed, but he might be right.  And if he’s not, I respect his gut on things enough to acknowlege I may have been hasty.

And even all that aside, and if I polled a thousand people who all said it was funny, and not hurtful in any way, shape or form, any thing I would or could ever due that would be hurtful to my friend, I am sorry for.   Her feelings count more than me trying to figure out if I was right or wrong to ever post in the first place. 

I love you, friend, and I am sorry if that silly cartoon caused any hurt.   Thanks for pointing out another perspective.

Fellow homeschooler Holly posted this.  And I LOVE IT.  I can’t seem to figure out how to make it not bleed over, but I think you’ll get the point.  The 2 nearly lost words are "daughter’s", and "experience".

Before some parents of children in public or private schools get riled, I know this is not every child’s experience.  But if you are not aware, it is the sad experience of many. 

a dear friend from waaay back.  The fabulous Renay, who is one of a very few women my Colonel thinks of as highly as he does me.  Sings like a rock star angel, escaped a very bad situation in the first part of her life, to enter the blessings she has now, and has a beautiful boy.  That it seems, she is homeschooling.  She is brave, and she is beautiful.  And when I first met my husband, she made me jealous!

She just began a blog, first time ever, if you stop by here, and kind of like it, check her out, and say hello and welcome. 

Hi Renay! 

 

HA.  Big big HA.  But, I have been asked a question.  DJ said:

How long does it take you to clean up in the morning. I spend my whole morning cleaning and doing all the odds and ends. (Don’t get me wrong, my house is far from perfect.)
I would love to be finished with it all and free for the whole afternoon.

I would love a maid.  But, no such luck. So, this is what I try to do.  Try.  Monday is get it together day.  In a good week.  Run the laundry not tended to over the weekend.  Clean bathrooms.  Vacuum most of house (not terribly thoroughly, but enough to pass).  Some dusting.  Mop?  Sometimes.  Get in each of the children’s room and assess howm much has been stuffed in the recesses of the closets, and under the bed, and get it out for them to put where it goes.  Generally, the idea is to have most things where they need to be, and the house considered "clean". 

I’ve done a million "organizers".  Motivated Moms.  Fly Lady.  SHE system (sidetracked home execs, can’t find the link right now).  My own systems. Dozens of them.  And in the end, I end up feeling beat up by them.  At first, if it’s written or typed or recorded somewhere, I feel freed.  Aaaahhh.  I won’t forget to clean out from under my bed.  One day, I’ll get to it, because it’s scheduled in the system.   Breeeeaaathe.  But then, I begin to see the lists, the cards the notes, that go on and on and on, not checked off, or filed, or tabbed.  And I start to get anxiety attacks from all the stuff I’m not doing.  And I don’t focus on what I am doing.  And doing well.  ThankyouverymuCH. 

So, currently, I’m back to what seems to be screaming the loudest in my psyche.  This past Monday’s house top to bottom included getting that little attachment thing on the end of the vacuum (that’s what that’s for) and dusting Private Girly’s room stem to stern.  The blinds.  The mouldling.  Baseboards and tip tops of doorways.  But it took, like, 45 minutes, so I didn’t do the boys’ rooms.  I will next week.  Maybe.  If I feel like it. 

Basically, Monday is for if you come over, you’ll think, oooohh.  Clean house.  But if you start white gloving the place, you’ll think, ooooohh, not clean house.  But the toilets and bathrooms are sanitized and look spiffy.  And there aren’t pretzle bits under my sofa.  But maybe under the cushions.

And then, every couple of months, I get to the deep stuff.  Or not.  Depending on how it’s bugging me.  I figure I’ve got the rest of my life to have shiny window sills.  I only have now to be with the children, and hang on to my sanity.  Speaking of windows, I currently appear to be living in a bad episode of The Munsters.  They. must. be. washed.  But, the storm windows are painted on, and it’ll take The Colonel and a big chisel to get them off.  So, another day, and probably a weekend project.

So how does this relate at all to DJ’s question?  After spending the bulk of Monday getting in order from the weekend, with the children’s help, and not schooling that day (other than in how to run a home in a tidy manner without griping about it, and THAT counts big time), the following weekday mornings consist of maintenance.  And takes about an hour or so.  A-hem.  When all the planets are aligned, and I’ve found a lucky 4 leaf clover:

6:30 up, work out clothes on, teeth brushed
get on treadmill, email, write,

8:00 - 8:30 wake children, put them on their morning routine, hop in shower and shout out in intervals are you doing your morning routine?

Their routine is make beds, see that each of their rooms is picked up, clothes on, jammies in jammie drawer, take all dirty clothes to mudroom to sort.

9:00 ish breakfast.  Run and fold one or two loads of laundry.  Depending what’s in dryer from day before (I try to keep a load going, folding just one or two loads each morning, so it doesn’t pile up and get me in my sleep).  Make sure dishwasher is emptied and ready for day.  Clean up kitchen with kids.  Have them take their laundry and put it away where it goes, like Mommy does.  Brush teeth.  Report back for duty by…

10:15 ish.   Whatever has not been put away from night before, toys, books, shoes, whatever, do it now.  Begin lessons at…

10:30ish.  Continue til 12:30, at which time we break for lunch, and have the rest of the afternoon free.  Maybe now is the time we’ll make the volcano.  See friends.  Grocery.  Whatever.  And this whole thing is predicated upon my getting up on time, which doesn’t happen everday, so I readjust as necessary, and not doing more than a couple of hours of directed school.  That’s where my semischooling comes in.  I figure they’re learning all day, but that time is where I put in my 2 cents.  Make sure certain things are covered.  So they can fill out a job application and move out of my house some day.

And I should say this.  I have a very poor history of moderation.  In my own assessment.  If I’d just cleaned, which I did all the time, I used to not be able to sit down if a piece of lint was in my line of vision from 20 feet away.   Or, I try to reeelaaaaax, and let some stuff go, and soon, we couldn’t get out the doors for all the pile up.  So for me, this is where I’ve struck a happy medium.  And I don’t want to spend precious weekend time doing housework.  Maybe remodeling, or in the yard, but not in the house with a toilet brush.  The house is 2600 sq. feet, and this is the best I’m willing to do, and still laugh, and cut up, and feel good about the state of things.  Otherwise, no laughing.  Just cleaning.  Clean, little children, cleeeeaannnn.  You can eat after you cleeeeannnnnnnn.

Don’t get me started on how I try to fit in yard work.  We’ll both be here another 3 hours.

Hope this helps, DJ!

 

 

Now that the type isn’t white, would you archive me again?  You rock, you know.