Well life is definitely not dull these days! I spend mornings either reading scripture or organizing the schoolwork for the day, next is breakfast, the kids Bible lessons, and dishes. Then we are onto laundry (which I hang because the hot weather has to benefit me in some way!) while the older kids read books to the younger ones. Then I take over the reading while the four older kids pull out their math books ans settle down to work.
When the older kids finish, I have them either journal or do some free reading while I work with the littles on their math. Then we all settle in for our unit study. Generally it takes about an hour and a half to two hours to read/discuss/work on projects so by two or three we are done with school for the day and at that time they can pretty much do whatever they want. The boys settle in to the living room with huge stacks of books sounding out short words and asking for help on the bigger ones. Tristan finds a quiet corner to read his Harry Potter books (AGAIN!) Heaven goes to her room to build playing card towns, and Mack and Ash generally play together. No stress, just individual interests!
By 4 pm we are eating and waiting for Chad to get home, then it's off to the gym for two hours. We are home by eight where the kids get about and hour and a half to watch one of the hundreds of dvds we own (or a redbox dvd, if it's Monday....their free that day!) and off to bed while Chad and I stick our noses in books.
Wednesday is park day with our homeschool group and Friday is "life skills day" we clean, we bake, we get the house ready for our usually busy weekends and then we try to head to the library in the afternoon.
So here is the thing, I have almost a hundred shows recorded on my DVR to watch. Mind you, I "couldn't live without them" just a few months ago but now I find myself trying to settle for sitting down and watching them, when there is so much other stuff I would rather be doing. A huge part of me wants to go cold turkey and cancel our satellite service, but the small part of me that hangs on to my old behaviors is clinging to it like a security blanket.
I guess I never expected, to enjoy my own life so much! All of the stress I had when the kids were "doing official school" just melted away and I am enjoying just hanging out with my family. Yes, there is still stress (no way around that with seven kids!) but we are thinking, reading, learning, and talking. So I am starting to see that there isn't much room for the distraction of tv!
Love and Hugs,
Mary
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