So I've declared today my "mental health day".  I have ignored the laundry, the vacuuming, and even the kids to a large degree.  I just really felt like I needed to do some things for myself, and so I have. I updated my website, and just playing with that for a while was very cathartic. 

I have realized over this past school year that I am, at my very core, a homeschooler.  We tried the private school route, and that was a wash.  Just going and touring the local public elementary school was a traumatic experience for me.  No, I am a homeschooler, and at my very worst, it's so much better than anything anyone else could give to my children.  I've been homeschooling them for 12 years, and that is the one thing of which I am absolutely sure.

I have also learned, this past year, that all those extracurricular activities really don't make for a great homeschooling experience.  In fact, I am beginning to think they can lead to its demise.  Over the past year our lives have been so hectic that we have often not even seemed like a family anymore.  Advent was such a sweet season, because almost every night we all got together around the Advent Wreath and read our devotions and prayed together.  We didn't sing together this year, because my piano is still in storage, but just being together like that was so nice.

I wish I could say the same thing about Lent.  But somehow, this Lenten season has not been as cohesive as I had hoped.  I know it's a timing issue.  Our new house is almost done, and the closer we get to being finished, the more time Gaylon spends working on it.  And now Kendall is working with him when he's not in school.  So I'm getting that scattered feeling again.  But that's okay, because I know it's just for a short season.  In just a couple of months we will get to move back to our new home, and things will start to get better. I am going to spend the summer nesting. 

I think my kids need to nest, too.  Alex and Faith are about to go crazy sharing a room, and there is so little space in there that there is really no way to keep it clean. They are gonna love having their own space again.  We all are.  And I can't help but look forward to the next school year, and imagine what it will be like spending the Holidays in our new home. 

Right now, I am just 'going through the motions', doing the best I can to get myself and my children through each day.  It is increasingly more difficult.  I had to stop and remind myself last night when I was so exhausted and all I wanted to do was climb in the bed, that I was cooking dinner, not because I 'had' to, but because I love my family, and I wanted to take care of them.  That made it much easier.

But the 'mental health day' was a good plan for today.  And tomorrow should be really good, because everbody but me and Faith will be gone all day long, so I should be able to get lots done housework-wise, then I can play tomorrow afternoon.  Maybe have plenty of time to work on that afghan.  Or dig up some dead relatives on ancestry.com.  Or sleep.