It's Wednesday...

We're chugging along with our week. Books have been read aloud and noone is starving. I've been making an effort to get less coffee and sugar and more sleep. More effort is required.

The Girl Child is in fine form this week. We are experiencing the fallout of every emotion known to man. Generally, by the end of the day, she's thoughtful and apologetic. Ah, puberty.

Monday found us at the local sledding hill and outdoor rink with a few other homeschoolers. Good times. The Boy Child dressed in goalie gear and played between the pipes. He didn't do very well considering most of those playing were adults. But, noone minded - even The Boy himself - and everyone had a good time.

Monday night things got crazy. I made three dinners. There was the one for us before The Boy's regular Monday night hockey game. There was the dish and dessert for my extended family's impromptu pot-luck family dinner which I was very clear that I wouldn't be able to attend. But since I'm part of that mixed up dysfunctional conglomeration, I sent food and The Girl Child as a delegate. And, of course, we had to eat a proper dinner after hockey. That evening, Mr. A and I had a long conversation about effectively saying 'no' to my family. Doing so may involve a pre-recorded message on my answering machine and a neon sign on my door.

To celebrate my new-found and, as yet, unpracticed assertiveness, my brothers and I attended a late night hockey game my brother-in-law was playing. Along for the ride was my very pregnant sister-in-law, married to one of the brothers. We're trying many things to goad her into labour. It's not working. Good times were had by all. The coffee and Bailey's helped.

Tuesday saw school work interrupted by one of the aforementioned brothers. This particular brother has been overseas for a year and his four-week visit home is drawing to an end. He'll be taking off for another year abroad at the end of the week. We're happy to interrupt schoolwork for him. We enjoyed a rousing round of G-rated Skattergories and he entertained us with stories of his high school antics (food fights and unsupervised 'gatherings' and such).

Today is Wednesday. We're halfway there, says The Boy Child. I'm not sure what is waiting for us at the end of the week, but apparently it's anticipated. On the docket today is some schoolwork. As well, we're hoping to get a new little person welcomed to the world before a certain uncle has to depart. It's not looking good. There's been some talk of peering in my sister-in-law's windows and scaring the daylights out of her to get labour started but I'm trying to downplay such antics. Things do get a little crazy - yet entertaining - when my brothers get together.

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Schedule Woes

Mrs. A doing her best to keep her stick on the ice.

Why oh why do routine and the regular scheduling of daily events elude me?!

Seriously! How hard can it be to do the same things every day without stress and disaster?!

Monday was great - but I had three weeks of holiday time to psych myself up for it. I guess I forgot to include the rest of the week in my visualization exercises.

Tuesday morning was when things started to fall apart. Things stayed relatively dismal until Thursday morning when I felt a glimmer of hope that the weekend was coming. By Friday morning I was dragging again, trying to catch up with my week. Then I recalled the "More"bucks Tall Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha Non-Fat No-Whip I was going to get on my way to the library. Some perking up happened. Things were looking up until The Boy Child and The Girl Child had an ugly sibling moment while playing outside at the end of the day.

Mr. A rescued my sorry self from the depths of The Pit of Parenting Despair by means of a last-minute babysitter and a date at a fancy restaurant. We proceeded to blow all $110 we had in gift certificates in one meal. I had wine, appetizers, an amazing pasta concoction (truffle and cheese and mushroom sauce) and cappuccino. I even brought a dessert home for the babysitter. It was lovely. Somehow though, I don't think Mr. A's employer would reward an unproductive week - including many Must-Do's left undone - by sending him out to dinner to drown his sorrows in a bottle of Dienhard Reisling.

So, what is the problem here? Priorities? Standards? Motivation? Adult ADD?

I need a plan. The plan cannot include the implementation of any new 'tools'. Anything requiring more of my attention or more organization or more list making is banned. I don't need a household management binder or an email every twenty minutes or cue cards in a box. I need a good kick in the a$$. Perhaps regular performance evaluations would be a good idea. Don't tell Mr. A I said that.

Wish me luck with the upcoming week. I will do better to keep my stick on the ice. I will strive to keep people fed, clothed, cleaned, educated and safe from piles of clutter. I will strive to do so in a complaint-free, drama-free, un-martyr-ish fashion. Perhaps the first of my 12-in-12 should be A Peaceful Routine At Home.

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Happy New Year! (and some Link Love)

How's that for a creative, attention grabbing title? Weak, I know. But really, I hope you had a good New Year's celebration as quiet or as feisty-spicy as it may or may not have been. I hope you're looking forward to seeing how 2010 pans out. By the way, are you a 'twenty-ten' kind of person or are you more in the 'two thousand ten' camp? Mrs. A. needs to know because I keep waffling.

The New Year and I have a Love-Hate relationship. I love beginnings: clean slates, starting lines, fresh starts. I hate the stick-with-it-ness that I inevitably and predictably procrastinate my way out of. Therefore, there is a noticeable lack of resolution proclamation around here. The disappointment is just not worth it. I do, however, have a few ideas percolating in the background...but nothing I'm willing to lay claim to just yet.

This New Year has started off on a positive note for me. There are new beginnings happening in the bedroom. Real actual furniture has been purchased. That's it, just furniture. This may not be very exciting for most folk, but I'm over the moon. One of the pitfalls of starting a family before establishing a household is the persistent lingering of the college bachelor pad homestead: practical before pretty and pieced together before planned. But no more - Mr. A and I will soon have a proper grown-up bedroom. In our search for a proper dresser, Mr. A and I found ourselves purchasing a complete bedroom set. More economical in the long run. Next month will see us purchase proper mattresses so we can replace the outdated, hand-me-down waterbed I've been sleeping in these last ten years. To distract me from the wait, Mr. A. purchased me paint. I LOVE to paint! So I am now the proud owner of a half-painted bedroom half-furnished with real furniture. (If the novelty of staring at my half-bedroom wears off, I'll paint the downstairs trim until the mattresses are ordered.)

I'm also excited about our New Year homeschooling plans. The last few evenings I've had our books out, getting organized for this coming week, Week #14/36 of our homeschooling year. Happily, I don't have a lot to do due to the work I did planning things out in the fall. New additions to our work arrived under the Christmas tree thanks to my supportive and overly generous mother-in-law. The Girl Child has a new art program Artistic Pursuits. She'll also be taking art classes with a local artist who is highly skilled in graphic design and technical illustration. As part of my thrown-together-in-desperation science curriculum, we'll be reading our way through Galileo for Kids: His Life and Ideas. The Boy Child is keen to use our telescope so hopefully the calendar I bought Skywatchers 2010 will be a daily reminder to do so. Although I am excited to resume our daily bookwork, I can't say that the kids are. I've been visualizing the appropriate parenting methods - patience and clear communication of expectations - that I will employ to deal with any slugishness or resistance. I should have a good week in me before I have to resort to bribery.

I figured that a New Year requires a little virtual closet cleaning as well. I've pared down my blogroll reading list. My goal is to spend no more than an hour poking through cyberspace on my daily blog-crawl and related side-clicks. I do love my blog reading. Good writing, ideas, inspiration and even a bit of entertainment all available with a couple of clicks. I'm such an instant gratification kind of girl. So here's what's holding my attention lately. Peruse at your leisure:

• A Small Corner of Nowhere - check out Audrey's blogroll as well
• Boarding In Bedlam - great writing by Arby...I love me a HSing dad
• Cake Wrecks - this would be part of the aforementioned entertainment
• Free-Range Kids - parenting inspiration and confirmation of philosophy for me
• Handmade Homeschool - check out Sarah's New Year's idea for 2010 - 12 in 12. Inspired!
• Home Spun Juggling - Cristina, her writing and her comics are long-time favourites
• Nurtured By Love - ideas, inspiration and good writing
• Peer Into Our World - Debbie's gone private for now, but a wise and wonderful HSing mom
• Pioneer Woman - Doesn't everyone read here? This one has 'ideas' and 'entertainment'.
• The Homeschool Classroom - more ideas...
• The Woman's Colony - a lot of articles...play catch-up on the weekend with coffee
• Totally Smitten Mama - beautiful babies, cool crafts and really thoughtful writing
• A Knitting Nurse - I keep coming back for Rudee's writing...and knitting

I hope you'll forward any favourite haunts my way. After all, I'm a quick reader. As long as everyone doesn't get all ambitious by blogging every day, I should be able to keep up.

I'm off to rest up for an early start tomorrow. I find it best to return to a regular schedule after holidays by scheduling early morning guests..my dad should be popping by around 8am. Hopefully I'll be dressed and have the dog walked by then. It's always good to have Monday morning ambitions.

♥Mrs. A.

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