New Year, New Spreadsheets!

The downside to being gone for Christmas Break is that there is no time to clean out the homeschool room, the kids' closets, or do a real good washing of the kitchen floor.  Instead, I come home 2 days before I am planning to start teaching and have to empty the rotten veggies from the fridge, unpack the  loads of suitcases and boxes of gifts, grocery shop, and get the kids back onto a schedule that gets them to bed earlier than 11:00 and up earlier than 10:00.  It is a great blessing to travel back to see family for Christmas, but the return trip of driving 18 hours (and riding in the back seat next to the toddler so that sick older son could have my front seat) celebrating New Years Eve in a hotel  trying to make it "fun" for the teenager and other kids, and all that work awaiting for me when I got home (not to mentioned being jacked up on caffine, sugar and nasty McDonalds) isn't the best way to start out a happy new homeschool year. 
And, I tend to be one of those who loves to start out with great expectations, best intentions, and all my duckies neatly in a row. 

But I did get some beautiful color spreadsheets done that display my new and improved schedule for the homeschool day.  Bonus:  I made new school work planning sheets for the kids that are spanky colored and better lay out each days' work. 

So although I started today 2 hours behind schedule and with a headache and a hang-over feeling from fighting off my older son's virus -- the day did happen without too much difficulty.  Adverbs were introduced, Psalms 23  studied, Multiplication taught, the minute hand of the clock practiced, a playdoh bob the builder sculpted, fractions divided by decimals and converted to percents (or something like that) and even had time to watch Pride and Predjudice with the 9th grader.  Somehow, 4 things didn't get done.  This is the perpetual problem of a homeschool mom optimist who has the faulty idea that more can be accomplished in a day than possible.

Which brings me to my favorite New Year's Resolution:  I will stop when I have 75% of my day's work done -- make time to play with the kids -- and then see if there is time left for the rest.  If not, so be it.  No one will die over it!  Like that?  My kids do (and I do too) and I have gotten to the second world in Super Mario Wii !