For the past seven years, I have been primarily home alone during the school day. I have been able to choose how I spend my minutes, often changing my mind at a seconds notice. Having a schedule was not important, often just having a general feel for what I would like to get done that day for work and around the house. The flexibility could be a blessing and a curse. On days when life happened, it was easy to make the transition since there wasn't really a plan. When I make a plan, I tend to want to be quite type A and rigid with it. Perhaps this lack of planning came about as a self defense mechanism with little people around and plans being destroyed left, right and centre. The days it was a curse were the ones where nothing really seemed to get done simply because there was no real plan. Procrastination and the thoughts of "later" would often reign on these days. There were other days that despite the lack of real structure, life would get nailed and I would go to be all smiles. Really, there just was no consistency.
I spent a great deal of time looking into how to better structure my days with the changes we have made by adding homeschooling to the mix. One of the principles that seemed to be most taught is that a plan was necessary but it can't be rigid. Schedules are rigid in the school system because they have to be. That is the only way to manage a crowd and still get the learning done but it does not take into account individual needs or situations. That is the beauty of having one student - that need to have a rigid schedule does not exist. Yet, I do need to have a plan otherwise we may not get through all we need to.
I am finding it a struggle to make the mind shift from flying by the seat of my pants to having a plan, but not a plan that we are going to die making sure it happens perfectly.... So far I am loving this new role. It is so much more time consuming than I had anticipated though. The beauty is that is forcing me to be very present with daughter. No point looking backwards. There is much to get done. Can't look too far forward or I will have us both feeling anxious and overwhelmed. In the present moment is where we are trying to live.
As I am working to figure out how to structure our school days, I am struggling to figure out how my other life roles fit into the mix still. I have not found many blocks of time that are uninterrupted making work a challenge. I am finding that I am trying to fit more of that in at night after we are done schooling. My home is definitely looking more lived in than I would like but I am slowly finding ways to get little bits done and we are working to put things away as we go through our day.
The one area that seems to be struggling the most is kung fu. It is funny because I don't need huge pockets of time in a row to practice kung fu. It literally takes a minute to drop and do a set of push ups or sit ups or a form rep. When I sit and think about that, it should be simple to get this part of my life done. Yet, I struggle. Part of the issue at this point is recognizing the windows of time that I have where I can fit in a little something. They exist all the time. First step is to recognize them and then drop down and take care of business. Today I have not done well finding windows for my physical requirements but I have managed to find enough small windows to write this blog.
This week I have done more at home than I have for the last few months. I am starting to move in the right direction again. I will continue to focus on making a plan and being present as much as possible while recognizing the windows that I have open and then jump on through them.
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