Why in the world am I doing this? Isn't my life hectic enough?

So this is my first post. I created a blog years ago but didn't link it to my email address (I made a new address just for it, thinking anonymity was the way to go) but then life got too hectic (hence the alliterative title) and I didn't post anything for a long time and then I forgot my password and eventually the name of the blog. So I'm starting fresh.

I decided to start blogging again because I think my stories might help someone else who feels like they are struggling. As I go about my week, feeling like my homeschooling, housework, and pretty much everything, are lacking, that nagging voice in me keeps saying, "What are you doing wrong?" But then I go to a friend's house for the first time, who I've always looked up to, and see that their house is just as messy, if not messier, than mine, and I realize, my crazy life is much like many other peoples. So this blog is for all you homeschooling mom's out there who think you're the only one who are losing the game of Tetris the dishes are playing in your sink, who's mountain of laundry is rivaling the most difficult day-hikes in your local guide book, and who's children can polish off an entire season of Ninjago in one afternoon.

Before I start telling you about my homeschooling experiences, I should probably fill you in on what kind of person I am. To start off with, I'm wordy (if you couldn't tell already), I'm a type A personality humbled into a type B, and my default answer when my brain is too frazzled to think clearly is "yes, I can do that." I'm also a mom of eight beautiful, intelligent, and talented children who sometimes think they rule the world and the not-always-doting wife of an absent minded professor who's hard at work right now on a Pinewood Derby car. I love homeschooling even when my kids don't, I am secretly an organized person (you wouldn't guess it looking at my life) and I'm LDS (Mormon) which means I operate on 6 or less hours of sleep without the use of any stimulants. This also means I might use LDS jargon here and there, since my faith is an integral part of my daily life as well as my parenting, but I'll try to define it as I go.

Homeschooling has been one of the best decisions I ever made. Having a large number of ADHDish kids, a very dyslexic second child, and another who borders on Aspergers, I'm extremely grateful the Lord planted the seed of Homeschooling in my heart long before my first child was born. He definitely knew what he was doing putting us on this path. It took seven tries to see a child who remotely resembles those children that so many of the curriculum/homeschooling books seem to be geared toward. You know, the ones who actually hold their questions regarding the universe for after you've gone through the lesson, the ones who are willing to start their letters at the top, and the ones who don't insist on answering every question with an opposite-to-the-correct-one answer.

Homeschooling has allowed my children to develop at their own pace, avoid becoming self-conscious about their weaknesses and quirks, and helped me to understand them far better than I ever would have if they spent the bulk of their day in someone's classroom. I'm also a curriculum addict. I love seeing different methods of teaching. I feel it helps me make a better informed decision as to what I should use for my children. Unfortunately, I usually don't have enough time in a day to try everything out, or even try a little of it out, and my kids get weary of my ambitions. So I tend to be a bit scattered in my methods and the best way to describe our home-school is "eclectic."

I wish I would have started this blog ages ago because then I could talk about some of the new changes we've made at our house and you could see how they've worked out as I did. But, I'm sure there will be more new things soon.  One change I'm just starting is to try to make my life less hectic. So if you struggle with the same problem, maybe my journey will help you along yours.