chaos [key-os]: a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order.
Would you be surprised to know that while I spent the summer talking to you about your schedule, my whole world was in chaos? It was a good kind of chaos, in that there was a moving forward going on, and eventually a physical moving – to a new house. But the “new” house started out as a really old house, which had to be peeled to its bones and put back together before that move could happen. Then of course, there was the actual move, which is a hateful task. Honestly, I painted for at least 100 hours, but that was still better than the actual move from one house to the other! And the best part, (I say sarcastically,) is that I still have to paint the former house and get it ready to go on the market.
It was an amazing experience, a learning experience, for me and my kids. But after the first three months of this experience, I felt that summer break had to end. School just had to get back on track. But how?
I’m not here to tell you how I waved my wand and created four more hours in my day and a pleasant atmosphere in which to do a lovely day of school. No. I’m not that good. I’m just here to tell you some of the ways my schedule helped and some of the things I did to move forward each week.
I have my weekly schedule broken down by day, which means that Tuesday always includes Shakespeare and Thursday always includes Plutarch. Each day includes with things we do together, and things the kids do separately. However, I have one severely dyslexic child, so “things they do separately” still includes me working with him. For the most part, I have to be fully involved in all four hours of their school day.
Frankly, I just didn’t have four hours each day during this crazy time, so I had to make some adjustments.
Maybe you aren’t renovating an old house, or moving. Maybe you have a new baby, or a sick parent. Maybe you are sick or have a child that is rebelling. Maybe you have had to take a job outside the home or it’s harvest season on your farm. I don’t have all of the answers, of course, but I would sum up in this way.
- Take the time to make your schedule up, then you have something to follow without that being just another decision for you to make.
- Be flexible. Sometimes the ideal is just not attainable.
- However keep moving forward with school. Don’t give up.
- Know that this is just for now, so live where you are. Enjoy that infant or those distracting toddlers, sit with your sick parent, put your whole heart into that rebelling teen. You will not get this time back.
- Enjoy the people in your life even if you all seem to be on edge and angling for a fight. Make time for the fun things you all enjoy.
- Make time to notice and enjoy the beautiful nature God gave you. It’s a gift. Don’t ignore it.
- Start each day with some standard routines no matter what. You don’t have a full day to “catch up”, so you need to “keep up” with some of the basics. You decide what those basics are.
- Get plenty of sleep at night. Don’t burn the midnight-oil and then be a grump the next day. Stress makes us more short tempered anyway, but add lack of sleep to that, and you have a bad combination.
Blessings. It’s all blessings. I love my new house, and it looks like this week we will finish a full, complete week of school inside of 5 days. We will get back to normal at some point, or find a new normal.
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| One of our new neighbors. We noticed eggs one day and then the next day there were babies! We were able to watch their progress every single day until they finally took off on their own. |
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| Can you believe this silly neighbor?! Unfortunately this little guy didn’t make it. He disappeared long before he should have been able to make it on his own. |
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| My son learned how to use many tools and one day he used them to make each of the kids a bird house. |
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| Whenever we had a day at home, I packed. I had boxes and boxes of books. Cocoa says, “Don’t forget to take me.” That green stuff on top of the boxes is moss my girls collected. If you have never studied moss, don’t put it off. It’s so cool! |
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| My brother in law was point-man on the whole project and he would say to my son things like, “Hey, build your parents a closet.” If things didn’t go well, he would just help my son take it down and start over. He was so good at letting him try things. |
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| Lots of calculations. |
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| A little nature study going on…and a little freaking out on mom and dad’s part. We had no running water yet, or soap, and ya’all know some of those cool mush are poisonous! She lived. |
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| This is a sunrise, people, not a sunset. Just saying. 😀 |
This is an extremely encouraging post! Thank you.
Thank you for sharing!
It is good to "hear" from you again! I hope your settling in continues to go well and that painting at your old house isn't too arduous. I had a season in life where we were building a new house as owner/builders and we were living with my in-laws and all was crazy and busy and a mess. And I painted for hours upon hours (with a baby in a backpack and a two year old and six year old as "helpers", no less) and did electrical work… I still look back on that and wonder how exactly we managed to keep going!
I remember all those "helpful" comments too about putting my daughter in school or using the stack of workbooks method of education. I really like how you describe accommodating the work of education with the work of the house project, how you made modifications and stretched things out rather than abandoning ship. It is great testament to the fact that a CM education can be done in a variety of circumstances (if your flexible and thoughtful in your planning), not just in the ideal circumstances.
I really appreciated this post. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. So encouraging and helpful!
I SO needed to read this! New CM Momma here and number 8 really struck a chord with me!
"What we CM families are doing is something extra special, which I’m not sure can be understood by all others. I know that sounds so rotten, and exclusive, but frankly, the kind of encouragement I needed was not, “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Maybe the kids should go to school this year, while you get things settled.” Or, “You know, there are these DVDs you can pop in, which will teach the kids without you.” No, the encouragement I needed didn’t look anything like that."
YES! I've only two friend in real life that homeschool. Neither of them CM families. And I feel a bit like I'm on an island. I'm so blessed and thankful to be here, but sometimes I'd just like a CM friend that wasn't just on a FB group, yanno? (Not to minimize that at all…they are LOVELY women and I firmly believe a gift from God. But a friend in skin would be nice.)
Thank you for sharing that…for making me feel normal and not elitist. 🙂
Encouraging, thank you
This is so encouraging, Nicole! Thank you for sharing! We are currently house hunting and trying to get our house ready to list. I keep putting off school; plus I’m new to CM so that makes me more hesitant to do this while things are hectic. This is encouraging though to wade in and at least start a schedule, ease into it, loop it if necessary, and keep moving forward. Thank you!
Rachel, you may find that your school time ends up being the peaceful and treasured time in your day, while you are otherwise enduring a lot of change and hectic times. Hang in there.
~Nicole
This is just what I’m going through right now (minus prepping for market), except it’s dragging on into the school year and we have yet to get on a normal schedule! Maybe one day. In the meantime, the boys have helped us fill out the county’s application for a permit to replace windows, including measuring the house and drawing to scale for the one of the permit’s requirements. Unfortunately we are not handy, so they don’t get to learn the work alongside us, but we plan to paint together, so that should be a good experience. I’m taking the opportunity of the house being stripped down, replumbed, and rewired for our general science to be about “the way things work in the home”.
Thanks for reminding me that you and others have been through this, too! I’m making sure that Bible, hymn, prayer, and some kind of reading happens every day. The rest we do as we are able, by God’s grace. Thankfully, like you said, nature observance continues since the habit is already built.