First of all, although my goal this year is to homeschool 2-3 hours a day (Tuesday through Friday), the reality is that it is more like 1-2 hours a day. That is enough time to get everything done that I need to do… IF I wasn’t addicted to blogging itself, perusing homeschooling forums, and reading about homeschooling. If it wasn’t for those addictions, things would be much easier.

I’m a night owl, and thus do not get up very early. I’m happy if I can get up before 9am. I haven’t even had breakfast yet and it’s almost 11am. Satori’s already had her breakfast and she’ll be drinking a carrot juice with me in the next 20 minutes. Then we’ll tackle about one hour of homeschooling.

After that I’ll encourage her to play while I do my own stuff. We will probably take a few hours today to go to Boulder to get groceries. We’ll hang out at a nice park enjoying the beautiful weather. Then, I’ll hope we’ll get to a second hour or two of homeschooling in the late afternoon.

That’s it. I have no strict schedule. I have a very relaxed and casual approach. Some days we might not even get to homeschooling at all! Some weekend days we’ll put in an hour. We homeschool year-round, so I don’t worry about sticking to a schedule.

I slack. I am currently slacking on history, art, writing, and music. I can go for months without doing some subjects.

We eat simply. I buy a lot of books and am obsessed with homeschool planning so I don’t have a lot of money or time to cook gourmet meals. Well, who am I kidding, I’ve never been much of a cook.

We don’t hire cleaning help. So it’s not unusual for me to take an entire day or two of from homeschooling to clean the house. You may only see pictures of neat rooms in this blog, but rest assured that they were tidied up before taken. I can’t concentrate in the middle of messes, so I try to keep the main areas clean and tidy, but sometimes that’s not possible. Currently our bedroom, playroom, office, and garage are a whirlwind mess.

If I’m in one of my homeschool obsession moods (you’ll know when I blog a lot), then I may not have time to take care of myself the way I should. I think I’ve gained 5 pounds or more since last fall. I hate that, and who wouldn’t. So this past week that I’ve been not blogging, but have been exercising and eating healthy. We’ve been enjoying the nice spring weather outside. Getting to know our local ducks in Boulder Creek…

I seem to have quite a bright daughter and I worry that I don’t challenge her enough. (This could be a separate blog post.)

I also am aware that it seems that I spend a lot of money on homeschooling books and such. I guess I do, but that’s just where I put my priority. We don’t buy often clothes, shoes, purses, fancy house stuff, expensive dinners… Here’s my signature tag I use on the homeschooling forums, and the truth for me is even worse, lol.

“If I have a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.” – Erasmus

I follow links coming into my blog sometimes and I see what some people think of me.

What I do have is passion. Whatever I decide to embark upon I put 110% of myself into it. That reflects in the way this blog is organized and our homeschooling aspects are detailed so thoroughly. I can’t help but make lists… lists of books we read, lists of curriculum we use, lists of homeschool area photos, etc… But it also probably doesn’t show the real me. In real life I’m not so organized.

That’s brutal honesty. I can’t do it all and I’m not as on top of things as some people believe. There are some things I cannot change about myself, but some that I can. I’ll try to take the things I can improve upon and work on those.

Although I love blogging everyday, and love hanging out on homeschooling forums, I need to have a healthy balance. (I think I blog about this at least once a year.) I am going to try to blog just a few times a week, rather than everyday. I am going to limit my time on forums. I’ll be making sure I get my healthy “me” time. I’ll be trying to hit up the neglected subjects, while at the same time, keeping my relaxed attitude so we can take advantage of the beautiful spring weather and just being happy as a family.

Let’s see how it goes.

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Started it off with a green smoothie for breakfast, Satori wanted some of mom’s, now she’s sporting a ‘Moothie Mustache!

Yumm… She sure guzzled that up fast.

I had wrapped up a little gift but Satori found it and was so sad that I let her have it. Here she is sporting a Beco doll carrier with Poppy her baby.

Beco doll carrier

Satori babywearing

And to top it all off, Satori said Mama looked even more beautiful than her today! (She always is concerned about being the most beautiful, so this was a surprise!)

Now, off we go to another party!

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Well, not to worry, the majority of my research and shopping has concluded, so now I can focus on a balanced life. I’m hopping on that treadmill again, buying healthy foods and getting more sleep. One of the healthiest things I love is a green smoothie.

I had never heard of these before last fall, when I started trying to eat my raw foods. Since then, I’ve noticed mamas on all my favorite online hangouts talking about their green smoothies. The key to a green smoothie is to eat leafy greens in a digestible and palatable way. Above I threw in spinach, banana, blueberries, strawberries, broccoli sprouts, and grapes and then blended. I must disclose that I got a very powerful blender for my green smoothies but you can use any normal blender. Normally I also like to grind up fresh flaxseeds and add them to the smoothie for some Omega-3s. Here is our smoothie being blended, with 14 seconds to go.

Blended Green Smoothie

Normally your smoothie will turn green! Some mamas get tricky to get their kids to drink the smoothie, so they use red “greens” to make it more red. I wouldn’t throw in too many sprouts, as certain things have too strong a flavor and sprouts seem to be one. Try all kinds of greens, mix it up, and all kinds of fruits, avocado, you name it. You can leave the leaves on the strawberries, they’ll blend smooth.

Luckily, my little girl loves our green smoothies! I never hear her beg for a spinach salad, but she will whoop in excitement for her green smoothie!

I make a big batch and drink it for breakfast or take it on the go.

Green Smoothie on the go

For more information on green smoothies, head to:

http://www.welikeitraw.com/rawfood/2008/08/green-smoothie.html
http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/

http://www.greensmoothiequeen.com/

and the book that got me started:

Green for Life

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