Busy days

One of my absolute favorite things about homeschooling is that we get to sleep. There are no alarms going off at 6am, no routing small children out of bed so they can rub their eyes and shuffle off to the bathroom still yawning, no scramble to make sure breakfast is eaten and lunches are packed and papers are signed and put in backpacks so the little ones are on time to school.

Nope. I sleep until 8:30. Because I can.

Mr. at Home hates it because his "office" is in the bedroom and while he's tapping out emails or code, I'm blissfully snoozing behind him. BUT I have found that my arthritis is much better if I sleep more and sleep later. I haven't had to take any medication for it since I became a stay-at-home mom. There are also many times that I'm up late or up in the middle of the night waiting for my allergy medicine to kick in. Sleeping later helps make up for that lost sleep at other times.

Of course, when my day does start, it hits the ground running. It's a balancing act, an exercise in multi-tasking and patience as everything has to be done at once. Like today...

Get dressed in cleaning clothes.
Get the girls dressed and make sure they've eaten.
Have them pick up their bathroom.
Make sure K brought down her uniform to wash.
Start a load of laundry.
Time K in her speed drill.
Start L's school.
Fold laundry.
Chop veggies.
Get everything in the crockpot for ham and bean soup.
Start a blog post.
Assure L that she *can* follow the teacher's directions and draw a clown.
Write some more on the blog post.
Help L with the clown's mouth.
Write a little more on the blog post.
Rotate laundry.
Fold a load of laundry.
Write another few sentences on this blog post.
Assure L that it's just a tiny red mark and she's not bleeding to death.
Realize it's too late for me to eat breakfast.
Do part of my Bible study homework.
Review social studies chapter 3 with K (NC habitats and natural resources).
Check L's handwriting work, putting hearts around the best ones.
Start lunch - taco ring (the ground beef can't wait any longer).
Write another few sentences on the blog.
Continue cooking lunch.
Threaten L that if she gets up one more time....
Fold another load of laundry.
Add a couple of things to this list.
Clean off the table.
Set the table with the help of L.
Eat lunch.
Clean off the table with everyone's help.
Clean the kitchen with K, who unloaded and loaded the dishwasher.
Rotate the laundry.
Finish cleaning the kitchen.
Help L figure out how to work around the "system error" message that keeps popping up in the middle of her on-line class.
Scrub the cooktop.
Sing the "Kindergarten's Over" song.
Wipe off the table.
Polish the table.
Sweep and mop under the table.
Fold another load of laundry.
Sweep and mop dining room and kitchen.
Make a pitcher of tea.
Write a few more things on this blog post.
Throw the last load of laundry in the washer.

Did you get tired just reading the list? I do admit it was a little busier than normal. Keeping a log of what I accomplished was rather motivating.

Now, I'm going to pour myself a glass of tea and sit a spell before the craziness starts again just in time to get a shower, dinner, and everyone out the door for church or softball practice.