How do you do it all?

How many of you have ever gotten that question?  I get it quite a lot, and most recently from Nicole over at Tired, Need Sleep (and I have to admit I often wonder the same thing about her).  So, here’s my answer:

I don’t, I cheat a little here, and a little there. 

I find what’s important to me and make sure that gets done.  So for me, here’s the super important things: that my kids are healthy and learning, that I maintain a good relationship with my husband (this usually means I get most blogging and comments done during the day, so I can spend time with him), that I stay in budget and can cook most nights of the week, that my house isn’t a total disaster (notice I didn’t say clean, I’m working on this, but it’s not there), that I spend time with my kids. (like the picture of my kid passed out on the floor in the midst of the mess?)

Now, with the time left over

I blog, I sew, I draw, I watch TV, and play computer games.  This means that some weeks I don’t get all the posts written I want to.  So, I’ve had a post I want to write about a horror dress I sewed a few weeks ago, almost a month ago, that hasn’t been written yet.  I also use this time to plan what we’re going to do, though sadly I don’t plan as much as I should.  I’m working on that.

How do I plan? 

I spend a lot of time looking up books on the library website.  Before the week I look up what we’re planning to study, ideally the night before I go to the library because I can only put books on hold that are checked out.  With my massive list of books, we go to the library.  There I will check out anywhere from 20 to 40 books for the week.  That’s what I choose, the kids always add in more.  From there I look at what the books talk about and choose different projects for the week.  I’ll be honest, most projects are thought of spur of the moment as I read the book.  That’s why most projects you see here aren’t super fancy.

Printable I create, those are created in Microsoft Word, not because it’s a particularly great program, but because that’s what I know, and it’s easy to upload.  Most of the art is either stuff I drew or from the Microsoft clipart library, to avoid having to track down someone and get permission to share their pictures.  I’m lazy, or suffering from a lack of time, you choose.  The nursery rhyme ones, which I sadly haven’t done in a while, are hopefully drawn out the night before or a few days before.  All too often, I’m sketching it as the kids are yelling to get going.  As you can see, I’m not a good planner for things like this.

Future Ticia 2021’s input

A quick statement, how I plan has changed slightly. Now I’m writing our history curriculum, and most of the rest if fairly hands-off aside from grading.

The kids apportion their time and plan for themselves. It’s been a many-year process to get there.

Many part of this are the same, only now I go to YouTube to look for videos on the topics we’re about to study. 

I still search the library extensively. I still make our printables in Microsoft Word, but I now also use PicMonkey, and the quality of printables has increased greatly.

Other things that I do

I try to get all of my errands done on one day, preferably Monday.  So, I try to go to the library, the grocery store and all of that all in one horrendous day, because as you can imagine it takes a long time to load them all up in the car, and it takes a long time to get out of the car, and any trip with the kids needs about 30 minutes added.  So, rather than spread it out over several days, and ruin several days of good concentration I try to get it all over with at once.  I also try to only schedule one playdate a week, which in some months or weeks is really easy, on others it seems like there’s someone asking to do something every day of the week.  Those weeks always feel harried and rushed to me, and throw me off track.  In general I try not to schedule too much, because I’ve discovered if I do or if I plan too much they kids get this crazy frenetic look in their eyes, and it’s never good then. (Princess is the only one I have a picture of from a recent shopping trip, she talks on that McDonald’s Play phone a LOT).

Well, I better stop lollygagging and actually achieve something, like as in getting dinner put together, and getting our craft from today finished (we’re doing a craft a day this week because I’m doing a speech on crafts with your kids and I wanted some examples to show them).  Wish me luck on that speech…….