My Annual "You can't do all the things" post
Okay. We're almost done with August so it's time for the new school year reminder. My homeschool facebook pages are filling up with questions. The bright, shiny, new homeschool moms are full of optimism, morning baskets, and unfilled laminated charts. They are posting all of these great blogs and pinterest ideas that they've only just discovered. They are precious, and I love them. They quickly realize that things are not going as smoothly as they expected, but they're still overflowing with hope that everything will be pintastic once they find the right curriculum/organizational method/meal planning calendar. They remind me of myself before I was overrun by the actual work of homeschooling.
Then there are the homeschoolers that have a few years under their belt. Their oldest might be around 9 yrs old followed by a stairstep of youngers. These are the ones that are looking around their house and realizing "Wait. What if this can't get better? What if this is it?!" The house is a mess. Dishes keep piling up. The laundry is perpetually behind. Cooking has hit a new low of basic with spaghetti showing up on the dinner table three times a week. These are the moms desperately posting right now. They're begging someone...anyone to give them the magic secret to be able to do it all.
How do we keep the house clean, make somewhat healthy meals, get through our school plans, get the kids to their practices on time, do our quiet time, exercise, take a shower, do our hair, stay up on current events, read that new book everyone else seems to have time to read, go on a date, and not die or walk around with a coffee IV drip. I humbly submit that we are starting with a false presupposition. We are assuming that we can do it all. We think we are deficient. We're being lazy. We're too disorganized. If only we could be better, then we could do all the things every single day.
Y'all. This is a lie. There is no organizational method, no chart, no book, and no nutritional supplement that is going to magically multiply our time and our energy. It is simple insanity to think we can subsist on minimal sleep, goldfish crackers, and coffee while trying to squeeze four full-time jobs into the limited hours of the day while our little minions follow behind us undoing half our work and complaining about the other half. Basically, stop it. Just stop it. No. You will not get all the things done. It goes against the LAWS OF SCIENCE that God established at the beginning of the world. With that, I introduce the next group of homeschoolers.
We are the ones with kids who have either graduated or are close to graduating a child. We have done this long enough to realize that clean enough is really okay. Spaghetti a few times a week isn't really all that bad. Nobody even knows about the dust under the couch nor does anyone actually care. After thirty-three bright, shiny, new homeschool moms have shared all their blog links and unicorn plans of how they're going to keep it all together, we stick our head in the door and tell the mom begging for a miracle cure "Nope. It's not going to happen. You're not going to get it all done and maintain your health and sanity. And that's okay."
Some days I get an incredible amount of work done. This past Wednesday, I did all the laundry, cooked a nutritious lunch for my family AND an extra teenage boy with leftovers that my husband took for his dinner at work. I sat on the porch with Jon and drank coffee while everyone else did their work quietly. I cleaned up the kitchen after lunch. I took a shower. I sat down and did math, handwriting, and Daily Grams with two kids. I checked in with my oldest and read through the info for his dual enrollment course. I handled not one, but two emotional people. I even took my vitamins. I think. Wait, did I actually take them...yes. Yes, I did.
Wednesday, I did all the things. ALL. THE. THINGS. I checked every stupid box there is to check, and I have no freaking idea how I did it. I cannot begin to tell you how or why I got everything done well. I wish I could say it's because I made a new control board last week. I wish I could say it's because I slept well the night before, but I've slept well many nights and totally blown my day. I've had nights with awful sleep and gone on to slay the following day. It's not the vitamins because I definitely forgot to take them a few days last week and only took them after lunch on Wednesday. They can't explain my epic morning of accomplishment.
I have no choice but to lean back on the sage wisdom of Dr. Ian Malcolm and his chaos theory. Some days we get up and everything goes exactly right. Some days we get wonderful and unexpected news from a friend. The kids do all of their school work and chores without my nagging...reminding...who are we kidding, it's nagging. Lunch comes together on time and tasting not terrible. We go to bed and feel like everything is right in the world. Then the next morning we wake up, begin our day the exact same way, and velociraptors have replaced our children, lunch burns, and at the end of the day, absolutely nothing was completed. It's chaos theory being lived out in my home every single day.
There is no secret. When those unicorn days happen, ride the wave of euphoric feats . Enjoy it. Even cherish it. But there is no scenario where you should take full credit for it. Take some credit, but recognize that you could have been awakened to the cry of your velociraptors, and you have no control over them. You could wake up to your body telling you "Nope. Not today. You're going to need a nap by 2pm."
I say it again. There is no chart. No system. No book. No podcast that will tell you how to get it all done well every day. Just get up every day, try your best, and leave the results to Jesus. Ultimately, the results are all up to Jesus anyway. Let's just acknowledge that and move on with a tiny bit of trust.
With that said, I will tell you the one thing I have discovered helps me. When we moved to Raleigh, NC in 2014, we knew nobody. My calendar was a barren wasteland of empty boxes which was a total change from the hyper-scheduled lifestyle we'd left behind in Charleston. I slowly added one thing at a time until I felt that squeeze to let me know I'd reached my limit. I was disappointed in how few things I could commit to and still do my life the way I wanted. And then I got over it because I liked the light feeling that came with not being over-committed.
Last year, I knew my limits, and then I blew past them because there were so many good things I wanted the kids to participate in. I'd left myself with no margin for life to butt in where I didn't want it to. Life always butts in, and it did for me last winter. I burned myself out, but I didn't have time to have the emotional breakdown I wanted. I crawled my way to the end of every commitment, and then made NO my default answer to everything so I could reset.
This school year, I've been somewhat militant about building margin back into my school schedule. Months ago I blocked out Sunday evenings as my time to put my week in order. Every Sunday evening around 7pm, I leave my house and go to Starbucks where I plop open my planner and fill in my week. I might send out a few emails. I usually write for a good hour. A few weeks ago I did my online grocery shopping, but I'm nixing that because...grocery shopping. Ugh. Basically, I know where my limit is. Last year, I chose to ignore what I'd already learned and paid the price. This year, I'm back to my limits.
You know, now that I think about it. Maybe there really is a secret. Not a secret to get all the things done because seriously. It doesn't exist. Stop thinking there is a way to do it all yourself. The secret is the word NO. No, you won't get all the things done. No, the world will not end because your house is a wreck some days. Or most days. I've had piles of books in my house for over a year at this point. There is NO judgement coming from me. No, I cannot be on that committee. No, I cannot sign up for more than cups and plates on the Sign-Up Genius. No, I will not be at church every time the doors are open. No, I am not cooking tonight because we have leftovers/sandwiches/frozen pizza. Wait. I actually count baking a frozen pizza as cooking. No, I do not feel bad about frozen pizza. No apologies. Just...no. I can't. Or maybe I just really don't want to. That's okay too. We are not obligated to nearly as many people as we want to believe.
So. All that to say...No, you will not get all the things done every day. YES, that is okay. Now move along and do your life. =)
Then there are the homeschoolers that have a few years under their belt. Their oldest might be around 9 yrs old followed by a stairstep of youngers. These are the ones that are looking around their house and realizing "Wait. What if this can't get better? What if this is it?!" The house is a mess. Dishes keep piling up. The laundry is perpetually behind. Cooking has hit a new low of basic with spaghetti showing up on the dinner table three times a week. These are the moms desperately posting right now. They're begging someone...anyone to give them the magic secret to be able to do it all.
How do we keep the house clean, make somewhat healthy meals, get through our school plans, get the kids to their practices on time, do our quiet time, exercise, take a shower, do our hair, stay up on current events, read that new book everyone else seems to have time to read, go on a date, and not die or walk around with a coffee IV drip. I humbly submit that we are starting with a false presupposition. We are assuming that we can do it all. We think we are deficient. We're being lazy. We're too disorganized. If only we could be better, then we could do all the things every single day.
Y'all. This is a lie. There is no organizational method, no chart, no book, and no nutritional supplement that is going to magically multiply our time and our energy. It is simple insanity to think we can subsist on minimal sleep, goldfish crackers, and coffee while trying to squeeze four full-time jobs into the limited hours of the day while our little minions follow behind us undoing half our work and complaining about the other half. Basically, stop it. Just stop it. No. You will not get all the things done. It goes against the LAWS OF SCIENCE that God established at the beginning of the world. With that, I introduce the next group of homeschoolers.
We are the ones with kids who have either graduated or are close to graduating a child. We have done this long enough to realize that clean enough is really okay. Spaghetti a few times a week isn't really all that bad. Nobody even knows about the dust under the couch nor does anyone actually care. After thirty-three bright, shiny, new homeschool moms have shared all their blog links and unicorn plans of how they're going to keep it all together, we stick our head in the door and tell the mom begging for a miracle cure "Nope. It's not going to happen. You're not going to get it all done and maintain your health and sanity. And that's okay."
Some days I get an incredible amount of work done. This past Wednesday, I did all the laundry, cooked a nutritious lunch for my family AND an extra teenage boy with leftovers that my husband took for his dinner at work. I sat on the porch with Jon and drank coffee while everyone else did their work quietly. I cleaned up the kitchen after lunch. I took a shower. I sat down and did math, handwriting, and Daily Grams with two kids. I checked in with my oldest and read through the info for his dual enrollment course. I handled not one, but two emotional people. I even took my vitamins. I think. Wait, did I actually take them...yes. Yes, I did.
Wednesday, I did all the things. ALL. THE. THINGS. I checked every stupid box there is to check, and I have no freaking idea how I did it. I cannot begin to tell you how or why I got everything done well. I wish I could say it's because I made a new control board last week. I wish I could say it's because I slept well the night before, but I've slept well many nights and totally blown my day. I've had nights with awful sleep and gone on to slay the following day. It's not the vitamins because I definitely forgot to take them a few days last week and only took them after lunch on Wednesday. They can't explain my epic morning of accomplishment.
I have no choice but to lean back on the sage wisdom of Dr. Ian Malcolm and his chaos theory. Some days we get up and everything goes exactly right. Some days we get wonderful and unexpected news from a friend. The kids do all of their school work and chores without my nagging...reminding...who are we kidding, it's nagging. Lunch comes together on time and tasting not terrible. We go to bed and feel like everything is right in the world. Then the next morning we wake up, begin our day the exact same way, and velociraptors have replaced our children, lunch burns, and at the end of the day, absolutely nothing was completed. It's chaos theory being lived out in my home every single day.
There is no secret. When those unicorn days happen, ride the wave of euphoric feats . Enjoy it. Even cherish it. But there is no scenario where you should take full credit for it. Take some credit, but recognize that you could have been awakened to the cry of your velociraptors, and you have no control over them. You could wake up to your body telling you "Nope. Not today. You're going to need a nap by 2pm."
I say it again. There is no chart. No system. No book. No podcast that will tell you how to get it all done well every day. Just get up every day, try your best, and leave the results to Jesus. Ultimately, the results are all up to Jesus anyway. Let's just acknowledge that and move on with a tiny bit of trust.
With that said, I will tell you the one thing I have discovered helps me. When we moved to Raleigh, NC in 2014, we knew nobody. My calendar was a barren wasteland of empty boxes which was a total change from the hyper-scheduled lifestyle we'd left behind in Charleston. I slowly added one thing at a time until I felt that squeeze to let me know I'd reached my limit. I was disappointed in how few things I could commit to and still do my life the way I wanted. And then I got over it because I liked the light feeling that came with not being over-committed.
Last year, I knew my limits, and then I blew past them because there were so many good things I wanted the kids to participate in. I'd left myself with no margin for life to butt in where I didn't want it to. Life always butts in, and it did for me last winter. I burned myself out, but I didn't have time to have the emotional breakdown I wanted. I crawled my way to the end of every commitment, and then made NO my default answer to everything so I could reset.
This school year, I've been somewhat militant about building margin back into my school schedule. Months ago I blocked out Sunday evenings as my time to put my week in order. Every Sunday evening around 7pm, I leave my house and go to Starbucks where I plop open my planner and fill in my week. I might send out a few emails. I usually write for a good hour. A few weeks ago I did my online grocery shopping, but I'm nixing that because...grocery shopping. Ugh. Basically, I know where my limit is. Last year, I chose to ignore what I'd already learned and paid the price. This year, I'm back to my limits.
You know, now that I think about it. Maybe there really is a secret. Not a secret to get all the things done because seriously. It doesn't exist. Stop thinking there is a way to do it all yourself. The secret is the word NO. No, you won't get all the things done. No, the world will not end because your house is a wreck some days. Or most days. I've had piles of books in my house for over a year at this point. There is NO judgement coming from me. No, I cannot be on that committee. No, I cannot sign up for more than cups and plates on the Sign-Up Genius. No, I will not be at church every time the doors are open. No, I am not cooking tonight because we have leftovers/sandwiches/frozen pizza. Wait. I actually count baking a frozen pizza as cooking. No, I do not feel bad about frozen pizza. No apologies. Just...no. I can't. Or maybe I just really don't want to. That's okay too. We are not obligated to nearly as many people as we want to believe.
So. All that to say...No, you will not get all the things done every day. YES, that is okay. Now move along and do your life. =)
This is my personal pic of a lavender field in Maui. It is my mental happy place. Cherish THAT.
Comments
Post a Comment