Well, I have learned a few things from my bout with Mononucleosis. First, I can do nothing without God. He can take it all away in a flash. Second, how I got to this point? This one is a little hard for non-military/non-homeschooling folks to understand.
When we decided I would home school the children it was a gradual building process of work. Kindergarten was about an hour or two of focused work and more interactions with the world, like nature discoveries and book reading. First Grade and a Pre-K was more involved as Isabella was quickly excelling and showing signs to want to learn to read. This required more individual focus and lots of book reading, but actual schooling was two to two and half hours. Second/Third Grade and Official Kindergarten/First Grade was a little more focused work, but the oral reading was decreasing. Then we moved!
We had been pretty settled in the house when we began the homeschooling journey. Yes, we did some projects, but they were added in slowly and we did not try to kill ourselves over it. The basement had been built and our conversion of living room to dining room was a Summer project. The garden was part of our Kindergarten going into First Grade science curriculum. But it was not moving to another state into a new home on acres of land.
The children had been slowly building their activities also. First with swimming, adding soccer, gymnastics, ballet, tap, and cub scouts one at a time. The Aquarium and Seaport activities were part of our schooling programs. Karl and I slowly added to our church responsibilities from assistant teacher/nursery to Director of Religious Education and Confirmation Teacher. Then we moved!
I made the mistake of trying to pretend to my family that I could make our transition as painless as possible. I tried to overlook the obvious fact of our lives, we are a military family and we do move around. I wanted the children to not miss out on their activities that brought normalcy to their otherwise hectic life as military children. I tried to pretend we could get the house the way we wanted it within an unreasonable amount of time as long as I just worked a little harder and faster. I tired to live a double life of Farm Girl and Suburban Socialite by trying to make them both perfect. The Farm Girl by tackling the land and creating the dream we wished for while looking at the plot before we moved. I wanted to make it the picture in our minds within a couple of years so we could enjoy it. The Suburban Socialite by keeping the children in all their activities like soccer, choir, scouts, piano, etc. Karl and I resumed our church duties by tackling Sixth Grade Religious Education teaching responsibilities. I never took the time to just be and take it all in. I was moving faster than I could keep up. I was exhausted and landed myself in the Emergency Room. That was the breaking point!
I knew I could no longer keep up this ridiculous pace and live to enjoy it. Time was passing us by with memories of me being too tired to enjoy the moments. This was not going to work. All projects came to a stop. Luckily for the children their activities were slowing down for Summer Break, and their schooling was slowing down for a short break also. (We are taking all of July off.) I began to return to being me again. I was resting more, catching up on books I wanted to read, remembering what snuggling with the children on the sofa was all about. We found our way back to the fun of schooling instead of dealing with a check off list.
The garden is not going to happen this year. I missed the best planting window and Chester is still showering us with lovely farm gifts of fresh chicken eggs, fresh lettuces, cabbage, broccoli, and promises of tomatoes, sweet peppers, and green beans. The zucchini and squash might be a little slimmer this year as the long rains have caused some fungal disease on several plants. Chester only wants to share the joys of his garden and receive a few jars of my tomato sauce. His Step Children want the salsa. I think the lack of garden might push me to the Amish Markets this summer for fresh produce. I wanted to get to it last year, but time got away. I will only be harvesting lavender, onions, and garlic this year. I might get a few pots of herbs for my Birthday but that is about it.
As for projects, I have scaled down. Karl and I have something in works, but even that project got scaled down. We will be tackling the play structure but leaving out the patio/deck/retaining walls/planting beds of the rear of the house. We expect the project to take up the majority of the Summer working days. Karl is taking a week off plus an extra long weekend during July for working on the project and helping the children with a Summer Camp. The play structure needs to be built as we are a year behind on this promise to the children. The design details include a fort which will double as a camping space to accommodate four to five sleeping bags. It will include two swings, a 10 foot slide, climbing wall, lookout tower and sand pit. All of this is going to be placed near the trees to create a wilderness creative play space. I will be helping Karl as best I can, but when my body says take a nap, I need to listen. Several friends have volunteered their husbands to help Karl also. It will be nice when completed. The space will be a great escape for the children when life throws us curve balls to deal with.
As for the military mentality of hurry up so you can enjoy it. We do not plan on moving anymore. We have lots of years to visit the museums of DC, Mount Vernon, Monticello, and more. We really can not do anything with the largest amount of land until we have a the pond dug in order to drain the "bogginess" off the areas so we can get to the rest of the land. We tried to walk out to the back part of the land to see the boundary markers and stepped calf high deep in water and muck. This is going to require a contractor and a backhoe. So this huge project, upwards of a several thousand dollars, will be put off for minimally a year if not more. Karl says he will clear me a space in the vicinity of the future barn for next year's garden. It will be a large temporary space until the backhoe comes but near enough to the house and play structure for easy access.
