When life gets too busy…

Life has been over the top hectic lately, and it’s been hard to find time to just relax and unwind.  My daughter has scheduled activities 3 days a week, with back to back activities on two of those days.  We end up being out of the house for several hours those days.  On days when she doesn’t have activities, we have to go grocery shopping, do housework, run errands that don’t get done the other days, and fit in appointments with doctors and dentists.  I’ve recently had to go to the dentist quite a bit for work, so it seems as though a lot of my so called “free time” is being spent at the dentist’s office.  We also need to find time throughout our day to do school work.  We go on outings with our homeschool groups, and we attend a homeschool gathering every other week too.  We don’t seem to have much down time.

My husband’s side of the family is currently having a lot of life events, so our weekends our pretty booked up with baby showers, birthday parties for kids and adults, and bridal showers.  That, of course, means in my “free time” I have to shop for presents for all of the above listed life events.

But the thing that is suddenly taking up a good portion of my down time is the fact that I’ve decided to start working from home again.  Between training, getting my new business set up, and marketing…I am starting to feel drained.

I’ve been a stay at home mom since I had my daughter four and a half years ago.  I planned to go back to work full time after she was born, but when the time came…I just couldn’t do it.  I wanted to be a full time mom.  I did, however, immediately get a job working from home.  I worked from home for 4-5 months before realizing that it was taking up more time than I had anticipated, and I still wasn’t spending as much time with my daughter as I wanted.  My job was requiring me to be in a closed office all day and on the phone taking calls.  I made the hard decision to stop working completely, and focus on being a full time mom.  It’s been a wonderful experience.  My husband makes enough money to support our family, and my mom lives with us and contributes to the household too.

For awhile now, I’ve been debating about finding a part-time work from home job so I can have more spending money for school supplies, educational trips, and family vacations.  Then a change occurred in our lives that helped me decide it was time to take on working again.  My mom found out she was going to be laid off from work soon.  My mom receives social security and has inheritance money set aside for emergencies, so I know that she will be fine.  The problem is my mom is a giver.  She will give and give, until she has nothing left to give.  I didn’t worry about it before since she was working and had the extra money to spend.  I figured it was in her right to spoil her grandkids and take her daughters out to lunch, etc.  But now, I am worried that she will still want to do things for everyone in her life, even though her budget will be significantly smaller.

With this weighing heavily on my mind, I decided it was time for me to start giving back again.  It was time for me to start bringing in some money and being able to give to my mom.  I want to have the money to take my mom out to lunch, and to make sure she doesn’t have to worry about too many household expenses.  I don’t want my mom dipping into her inheritance money to pay for monthly expenses.  My mom is a wonderful mom, and she can be very selfless.  It’s been awhile since I’ve had extra money to really give back to her.

The problem is managing my time.  Luckily for me, I am still able to work from home and will be able to set my own hours, but it will take up most of my free time, which I didn’t have much of to begin with.

I know there are many moms out there that have multiple kids, have part-time jobs, or even full-time jobs, so I know it’s possible to still be a homeschooling stay at home mom.  At the same time, I realize it will be hard.  Some days I may want to throw in the towel, or I may want to hide in the bathroom and scream.  I am trying to remain positive though, and find ways to make this transition smoother.  It’s been rough lately trying to manage our time and get everything done, but eventually we should find our groove.  I’m hopeful.

For all of you homeschooling moms that still work or have large families, how do you manage to get everything done?  How do you find time for yourself?  I am horrible about taking time for myself.  I will need to make more of an effort to take some ME time.

Please feel free to share your stories with me.  I’d love to hear them.  Just remember this is a place for sharing and support.  Please refrain from negative comments.  I think all of us moms need a little support and understanding from time to time.  🙂

Kindergarten Daily Binder

I was on pinterest yesterday and saw an idea for a binder.  The one on pinterest was called a Rise and Shine binder.  I liked the idea so much, that I decided to create my own Daily Binder for my daughter.

Right now, our binder has 10 pages, but I will probably add more later on.  The binder has pages about the day of the week, the month, the year, the number of days in a week, the number of months, the season, etc.  It covers counting by 5’s and 10’s.  It has the names of the days of the week, the names of the months, numbers, and seasons.  I wanted to make a simple binder that we can work in every day, or at least on school days.  I think this binder will be a nice starting point to begin our day.  It will set a nice routine for us.

Here is the pdf file for our daily binder.

KindergartenDailyBinder (1)

I printed ours out on bright colored paper and laminated it.  Instead of laminating, you can put the pages inside sheet protectors, which is less time consuming and cheaper.  Either way, she can write on the pages with dry erase markers, then wipe it off when she’s done.  (Laminated pages can be a little harder to clean off than ones inside sheet protectors, especially for young kids.)  Laminating the pages or putting them inside sheet protectors is easier than having to print out new pages everyday, and it saves paper and ink.  I also made some laminated number cards to use with some of the pages in the binder.  I put it in a pink binder, since pink is my daughter’s favorite color.  I showed it to my daughter, and she’s ready to start using it on Monday.  Happy weekend!

Do you have a daily binder or daily activities that you use to start your day?

Reasons to have Homeschool IDs

Homeschool teacher and student ids weren’t something I thought about until recently.  I would order stuff online from educational websites, and I’d think it was unfair that I couldn’t get a teacher’s discount.  I would think about how it’s unfair that my daughter won’t be able to receive student discounts at various places, like at movie theaters.  But it didn’t occur to me that we SHOULD have ids.

Then I started seeing IDs for sale on certain sites, like the Home School Legal Defense Site, and I saw free IDs that you can print out and laminate yourself on other sites.  I started thinking how beneficial it would be to have IDs.  Something kind of official stating that we homeschool.

I started to do some research and found out that at certain places you CAN get a teacher or student discount if you have a homeschool ID.  What?!  I wish I knew this sooner!  Discounts aren’t the only reason why homeschoolers should consider having IDs made, but it’s a darn good one.

Here are a few of my top reasons for having homeschool IDs:

1.  If you are ever questioned by a police officer, or other official, you can prove that you are a homeschooling family.

2.  You may be able to get special discounts for entrance at local museums, zoos, plays, and other field trip locations.

3.  You can enjoy discounts at educational stores, arts and craft stores, book stores, and office supply stores.

4.  It may be your child’s only form of ID until he/she gets a driver’s license.

5.  It makes your child happy to have an ID card they can show to people.  Somehow it validates homeschooling for some kids.

There are many options online for obtaining IDs.  I printed some off a free site and laminated them, and they came out great.  Those were really just temporary cards for us, until the ones from the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) arrived.  We love our new ID cards.  The ones from HSLDA are really nice.  They are hard cards, not laminated cards.  They look very official.  They are a little pricey considering you can print your own at home, but I think it was worth it.  You can order the HSLDA cards at the site below, but they are only for HSLDA members.

https://store.hslda.org/teacher-and-student-photo-ids–hslda-members-only-c281.aspx

I’ve recently heard several stories about homeschooling parents being stopped by law officials and questioned about why their kids weren’t in school.  It sounds like having an ID card can come in quite handy in those types of situations.  The HSLDA card states that Homeschooling falls under private school laws, and it has the HSLDA information on it.  I am now carrying our cards with me in my purse, just in case.  HSLDA advises if you are ever questioned about homeschooling, to contact them immediately to make them aware of the situation.

Do you have teacher and student IDs?  If yes, have they come in handy?  I’d love to hear how others use their cards.