Day Five (weekend)

I am so much more organized!

We hit the stores yesterday and loaded up on office supplies.  File folders, filing box, labels labels labels, every subject gets a color and a section.  Purple is our color this year so the metal mesh box that's holding the stapler, punch, extra spirals and copy paper looks as though it belong with the rest of the stuff.

Banker's spirals and workbooks all have a spot and they're in their spots.

I worked on his schedule, daily breakdown, for an addition week so he has specific instruction for academics on a daily basis, down to the chapter and lesson specifics, until March 1.

I know we were going to use this week to judge the work load and I'm ready for it.  I have a bunch of courses lined up, grammar, typing, additional pre-algebra, programming and blogging to add to the mix if (when!) we determine his current academic load is too light.  I didn't want to not prepare the lessons pending a determination of the load so I worked flexibility in to add content as required.

Yeah, I'm feeling less frantic today.  Should color coded file folders, files, and labels take this much of the edge off?  I have a horrifying feeling the answer is yes.  Simple organization has done wonders to make this room go from a kitchen to a classroom/office.  It all goes away so nicely that today is IS a kitchen, the place where I cook and create, where we laugh and gather and visit. Tomorrow, it'll be the classroom, the lab, the office and the morph from one to the other, now, will be seamless.

I sent a, "hi...we're new in town" email to the AAH yahoo group and I got a ton of replies about groups and clubs.  Math, science, soccer, minecraft and even an email about geocaching (ya cool!) so even the finding humans to be near fear is much reduced today.  I will go through and try to organize the information tomorrow.

I had a hours long conversation with a longtime homeschooling friend and got more fabulous links to courses and classes online, to information about high school and college, about plans for the future and how to make them without losing your mind.

I look at the calendar and realize we are packed solid with trips, friends coming for lunch, guest Pug sitting, friends for sleepovers, happy hours with out of town friends and a birthday.  Already, how did we have time for school?  I can't imagine adding 3+ hours of drive time per day back into the calendar.  Have we slipped so easily into the freedom schedule?  That being said, Banker claims he's going to start every day at 7 this week, he may set an alarm ? that remains to be seen.

We are doing a road trip to Fredericksburg on the 27th with laptops and iPad to share what we have and gather what we need.  There will be wine and friends included, I can't think of a better way to spend time getting even deeper into my home school groove.

I am more than a little surprised at how, after a mere 3 days of being out of the academic rat race, much happier I am in my skin.  I feel better than I have in a very very long time.  I kind of feel as though I exhaled a bit.  Did middle school affect ME that dramatically?  I mean, I'm worried, frantic, happy, sad and all those mother things for Connor of course.  This exercise is for him, to give him the best opportunities, the best choices and experiences.  To set him up to be as successful and happy as he can possibly be as he proceeds through whatever life has in store for him.  That being said, what's happening to me in this?  Something has, something dramatic and it was immediate.  I don't have near the 'life' dread I had last week, I feel, more like 'me' in my head.  My committee isn't nearly so angry, or frightened?  Something is going on here.  I'm not going to attribute it to the jump just yet but I have to acknowledge the timing of it all.  Coincidence?

I feel less like buying him a kitten today, less as though I need to over compensate with 'other' things to give him joy...less as though I've done something awful and ever so very very slightly less like I will break him.

I'm going to take a research free day.  I'm going to be at home, just at home, today and exhale some more, I like the new feeling of it.

/