Real Structure….Really?

I thought it might be interesting to write about our typical week. I must admit that I like reading how other people do things and I thought maybe other people do as well. Of course, that being said, it is my putting this out there for anyone to read and that always takes a bit of courage or vulnerability. Hoping I don’t sound like a nut job, but then I think I am a nut job, so I am not sure why I worry about it…hee hee.

I resisted any kind of routine or schedule for many years. I don’t like them. I prefer to just kind of figure it out but between starting to homeschool 5 years ago (wow, has it really been that long!) and my oldest child seeming to need some structure, I have gone kicking and screaming into a typcial week. I won’t call it a routine or a schedule as those words just annoy me, plus there are so many times that the ‘routine/schedule’ need to be modified that I can’t call it that anyway.

I suppose I like to blame my having a ‘typcial’ week on my oldest child as she seems to need the structure(i.e., behave and function better if she knows what is expected of her, which makes for a much happier family), but if I am really honest, I need it also. If I didn’t when I didn’t have any structure, I got almost nothing accomplished and the cold hard truth that I need to accept is that if I intend to do as much as I do, I am going to have to have some type of structure. Otherwise, I would just veg and read books and such and so on and laundry would not happen and our house would never get cleaned because I detest those things. I doubt that we would be where we are in our homeschool. Snowflake still might be doing 2nd grade work and since she is in 4th grade ummm that won’t do now will it. So, I have adopted a general pattern for our week that we use with a lot of modifications so I don’t go crazy.

A typical weekday looks like this:

7am – Mr. T and I get up. I exercise. Sometimes Mr. T does too. I love the days I get to go out in the great outdoors and run! I am currently trying to run 3 days a week. As per my Dr., post hip surgery, I am not allowed to run more.

8am – Time to wake the kiddos. Snowflake will now proceed to take an hour and a good solid bit of yelling to get her to take a shower. Have I mentioned that no one in our family are morning people?

8:45 am – Pipe dream it is really 9 am or later, but we keep trying – Breakfast – then kids run off to play for a while. I read facebook, email, blogs, pinterest (was there any doubt of that!) and all manner of fun things and usually look up and it is 10:15 and think, ‘I guess we better get started and not sit here all day on the computer.’ 🙂

10am – We start our school day

12:30 pm – Lunch

1:30 – Back to school

3:30 – Snack – sometimes we are done with our school work by now, but often Pumpkin has been done for an hour+ and Snowflake finishes around 4 or so. It is about 4-5 hours per day for Snowflake. I think she could get the work done in 4 hours but alas my child likes to take her time with things. Wish I was more OK with this, but I am so much more the let’s get this done and go on to other things type. Deep Breath and relax…

5 pm – Time to make dinner

6 pm – Dinner

7:25pm – Time for kids to get ready for bed.

7:45 pm – Pumpkin has some quiet time

8pm – Pumpkin’s bedtime

8:15pm – Snowflake’s quiet time

9:15pm – Snowflake’s bedtime and time for Mr. T and I to party like it’s 1999….we did it we made it through another day! and really Mr. T spends hours playing games on his computer and I watch TV…don’t we party hard! Haha!

I’m breaking out in hives now at having written that and reading it back over. It sounds so conventional and boring and so so routine! I’m even a bit embarrassed to sound so routine and conventional like there is something wrong and bad about it…like I need to take a nice hot shower to get clean now. But alas, it seems to make things better at our house when we use this general structure. I am not so stuck that I can’t and don’t change it and I am one of the first to throw it all out the window for a fun last minute thing (like meeting my uncle up in DC a long while back [the girls still talk about that fun uncle who pushed them on the swings] or a last minute field trip to the American Girl Store….who wouldn’t do that!). Anyway, I feel like I need to let you know that we are not total stuck in the muds.

There are a few things I try to get done everyday in and amongst the homeschooling.

• I get 1 load of laundry done every day. Meaning it gets put in the washer, dryer and put away all in one day. Well, the truth is it usually gets put away the following morning, but since 1 load gets put away every day, I count that as 1 load per day. I used to do laundry a different way, but I have found that this way works best for me because usually regardless of how many other things we having going on, I can get 1 load done.
• I clean for 15 minutes per day. OK now that is really a lie. I think I will post another time about cleaning and what I have found that works for me because I thinking cleaning is a stupid necessary evil. Anyway, I try my darnedest to find 15 minutes during the day and set a timer and do some detail cleaning. Small short amount. I probably actually do this anywhere from 1 to 4 times per week.
• I compete 1 item from my to-do list. This is a new one for me. I used to try to do 10 things in a day and it never worked. Then I would get so behind I didn’t know where to start and I would save them all up for the next time we had a break from homeschooling. Well that wasn’t working and I was missing important things. So, I wrote up my list, put it in a folder and started trying to just cross 1 thing off the list per day. You know what….it started working. I can usually find 5 minutes to do one of the things on the list. It feels great!