Last Friday I wrote out our week in review and looked at what all we’d done, and it was another busy week. I hit publish, went about my week, and realized I’d forgotten to set goals for the coming month, and take a moment to see how I did with the past month.
My big goals for January:
- Do dishes every night before bed.
- Get kitchen all put together
- Get back into a school routine
Well, I didn’t do so well with those goals. Most nights in January I collapsed into bed without having gotten the dishes done. I did however get my kitchen put together. The mess from Christmas is gone, and for the first time in months I can see my kitchen desk. And it’s stayed clean for about 2 weeks now, which is usually a good sign it’ll stay clean.
I haven’t done so well with getting back into a school routine. We spent January running from one emergency to another, or so it felt. I don’t really think there were that many, it just felt like it.
The great irony is on Tuesday I’m going to be a guest panelist for a G+ Hangout on Air with Bright Ideas Press talking about homeschool scheduling. I kind of feel like it’ll be the blind leading the blind, about the only thing I can say is “Get Illuminations, then fix it to what works for you.” I don’t think that one sentence will fill a whole hangout though. Do you?
But our time has been filled with other great things. I may not have gotten dishes done, but we made cookies, and the kids performed shows. Complete with invitations and posters promoting the show.
Princess participated in her first awards ceremony where she got badges for American Heritage Girls. However the poor girl has a non-ambitious Mom who leaves finding badges to the girl, and so Princess didn’t have all that many badges this time. She didn’t care one bit though.
I did get some sewing done, I made about 20 frogs, and actually got decent pictures of the whole process, so I’m gonna update that post with better pictures and an actual real tutorial. I now have about 30 frogs, and would like to get a few more to make the “steal the frog” game work a bit better.
We had random mystery men show up at our house. Eventually the mystery was revealed to be Superman, but for a long time we were wondering who was that man with the strange nose and glasses.
Princess and I went to the Frozen Sing a Long during the Super Bowl with my Mom.
And all of this rambling led to a point, I’ve set new goals and thought about a few things. Namely this week I realized what we were doing for dishes was not working, I was feeling frustrated and over-whelmed doing all the dishes. Yes, the kids unload the dishwasher and frequently reload it. But, I had dishes I was doing for things I didn’t even eat.
New goal: The people who DID NOT cook the meal will do the dishes for it.
I’ve also been rethinking my lesson plans for school. Every week I cram in as much as I possibly can for us to get done, and every week I look at the schedule and say, “Well, we didn’t get this done, and we didn’t get this done, and ooohhhhh, that we didn’t even touch.”
I need to learn to be more realistic. There has to be time for cleaning, and grocery shopping, and “Mom woke up with a headache, don’t talk to her” days. I’m not really scheduling that in.
New goal: Schedule a realistic week, no more super weeks that leave me tired
We’ve also gotten back into our bad habit of watching TV together as we eat our meals. It’s easy, and we talk around it, and I suppose it’s somewhat social, but I’d prefer we eat at a table with no TV. To do that I need to make sure my table doesn’t look like that bottom picture there. Covered in random crafts, school supplies, and I think paint we’re thinking about for our room.
New goal: eat 5 out of 7 meals at the dining room table, not in front of the TV.
One thing I have done well with is leaving my kids room to be kids, and to cuddle, and enjoy being kids. It’s been a rough week with some discipline problems and general frustrations, but it’s also been a good week of cuddles, and memories, so that’s been good. My final goal for the month:
New goal: get upstairs back in shape, again…
It was there, and then I slacked on checking to make sure it was clean, and I got a few things I didn’t have an immediate plan for placement, and you know how that goes.
Now, the kids are in bed, Jeff is at a men’s retreat, and I think I’m going to take the advice I gave someone else earlier and go read a good book while curled up by a fire. Doesn’t that sound nice?
Yes, a book sounds very good – even better if the dishes are done 🙂
Shhhh….. Jeff was out of town so almost everything we did was on paper plates.
I really like your goals. I like how you have reassessed past goals that you have not attained and thought about why that was so. I fail at some of the very same things (I bet that doesn’t surprise you.)
Not at all, through conversations with friends I realized one of the benefits of homeschooling is we don’t have to be on the same schedule as the rest of the world, so stop worrying about it. Just get it done at your pace, and suddenly that was very freeing.
Great goals for this month! I am going to keep chipping away at my yearly goals. Which means less tv and more reading and handiwork! However, the olympics are totally sucking me in!
Good luck with Google+ hangout and setting realistic schedule for a week. I know from experience how hard it really is!
My guys do all the washing up and drying up at our house (no dish washer) and it was only when they took over it got done! Homeschooling more than one age group is more than a full time job and then we wonder why our house isn’t pristine. I think you do a great job and cuddling is always the most important thing to be done….everything can work around that, I think! I hope you have a wonderful and not too busy week this week!
I like your “people who did not cook will do the dishes for it” rule!
I need to get my non-cookers to clean just a little more. They help out some.