Raising Up Hackers (Part 1)

(By the way, we made it through December.)
(That's what my last post was about and I was told I should update all my readers.)
(So there.)
(All 3 of you can consider yourself updated.)

I hit a wall this last week. I laid in bed Sunday morning completely overwhelmed. Like, to the point where I just laid there and looked at the ceiling. It's all I could do.

I was so overwhelmed by everything I really couldn't even think what to do. What would help?

Would it help if we weren't so busy? Well, not really. Our schedule is do-able.
Would it help if we had a maid? Well, of course it would...but that's not exactly in the budget.
Would it help if I had a mother's helper? Well, yes...but what would I even have her do?

I decided what I needed was a nice, older woman like Michelle Duggar had that comes over to do my laundry. And my dishes. Where are my Titus 2 older women???

Then I decided it was school that was killing me. It's simply taking too many hours lately. My whole day is filled with that.

You know, pioneer women might have taught their children to read, but I know they spent precious little time on that compared to daily chores.

Housewives in the 1950s spent their time on the house. But their children were in school.

Working moms have to do a lot (it's hard, I know), but their houses look better because everyone is gone all day long.

Homeschoolers are the only idiots trying to completely educate their children and completely keep house at the same time. And about a million other things.

It's just not possible, I tell you. Not when we're doing school pretty much like the public school system.

It's time to think outside the box. I was OK with that in elementary. I had no need of school being exactly like the classroom when the girls were younger. I absolutely would take them to the museum and consider that checking off several subjects at once for the day.

But approaching high school has kind of got me freaked out. I thought, "It's go time. No more taking it easy. It's time to get real!"

Yes folks, as if we haven't been doing "real" school all along!

So I left the Christmas break with a renewed purpose. It was the second half of 8th grade and I had to get with it. High school is 6 months away! I haven't been practicing keeping records! I haven't been grading! We're all of us going to starve!!!

OK. Whew. I'm calmer now. Sorry.

So we launched January by getting up at 6 a.m. every morning. Sweetheart is doing physical therapy now but that was no matter. We had to get serious! And for about a week we got every single subject done. My checking-boxes-off self was very pleased.

And I was exhausted.

And the kids were unhappy.

And then I read or listened to three things.

...to be continued...