Homeschool, day after Labor Day

For some reason, I think I can not start homeschool unless the house is immaculate, which creates a huge pressure. Also note to self: Getting up any later than Creed results in immense guilt and mama bear grumpiness. Remember, napping with Creed yesterday actually felt really nice. I'm tired mentally. I'm exhausted physically, though not entirely completely. It's just the lists … you know the ones I'm talking about. The lists that run in the hamster wheel of my mind every single night. Enough already. I got it. Theres too much to do and I don't want to do it anyway. If only there was another me to clean the house, mow the yard and do whatever else I need to do because only then will it be done just right, enough so that my anal self would approve it's "completeness." I exhaust myself. I tangle myself in these webs so this is the question, "how do I unravel them?" The first step I suppose would be accepting that the "if only's" and "what if's" are not only counterproductive but completely unnecessary. Did I mention I'm trying to quit smoking? One and a half months later and still on the wagon. This past week I succeeded in being "patch free."

I'm gluten and lactose intolerant so it's definitely a challenge being on a budget and planning grocery shopping. I try to buy organic produce as much as possible along with hormone and antibiotic-free meat. As I spent $100 on groceries my only thought was I need to go back to work so I can afford to buy groceries. I wanted to give it all up today. Could I go back to work? No. There's no possible way I could leave Creed. Creed, by the way is my three-year-old son, who lives on one speed only, fast. Why walk, when you can run. He acted like an ape climbing the shopping cart and running throughout the store and I wanted to scream, but didn't, of course. When we got home, trying to fight my own tears, I read him three books and rocked him to sleep before putting him to bed, which isn't the norm. As I was rocking him I heard God tell me this too shall pass and I was immediately comforted. And it's true. Soon he will be out of this stage and I will miss it terribly. I try to live each day slowly. I want to soak up every single minute of this precious life. I think to myself, what did I do with all of my free time before? Every second seems to be accounted for now. While I love schedules, I feel like I live in a box, well …. kind of anyway. The same thing, day in and day out.

Do I really have the patience for homeschool? I don't know. Does the answer to that question even matter? Probably not, since this is what I'm determined to do anyway. I decided to start the day after Labor Day. That's when we started growing up and besides there's still some cleaning and organizing I must do, or so I think. I'm not sure when the end date is yet, but I know the month is May next year. Our curriculum is free online from the website, abcjesuslovesme.com. We are using the two-year-old curriculum, plus a lot that I'm adding because I was going to start last year, but didn't. Instead I spend the entire year picking up everything I would need from Care Help, Goodwill, and any other second-hand store I could find, not to mention Ebay and Amazon's used books. I also created a school room and decided to use the Cat in the Hat because I didn't want to have to redo the room in a couple of years. 

The kitchen is a mess and I'm fighting the urge to put it all right again because it's Sunday. We missed church this morning because I dawdled the time away, sitting around in my pajamas. When I looked at the clock for the last time it was 20 minutes before church would start and there was no way I could get us both dressed and drive 30 minutes to get there. Oh well, alas we shall try again next Sunday. Normally I would beat myself up about this all day, but have decided to let myself off the hook, go figure. When Creed gets up from his nap we'll head to the library and I'll try to keep myself together, hoping my little darling will behave "quietly." Yep, I'm laughing in my head. Tomorrow I'll labor on Labor Day and start fresh on Tuesday. Here's hoping there won't be anymore panic attacks before school starts. Three in three days isn't a record, but hasn't happened in a very long time. I'll chalk it up to trying to get it "all done" before homeschool starts on top of everything else.