What? Can't we just do what we want when we want? Isn't that the point of home schooling?

Oh, Thing Two, I remember when I thought that way. I thought the world was just so unfair, because adults obviously did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. What they wanted always seemed to interfere with some important project of my own. For years after I was supposedly a grown-up adult I kept trying to pretend that now that I was, well I could.
That was when I lived in Cloud Cuckoo Land, where, first, cue the spooky flashback music, then picture me discovering these surprising details about life as a "grown up".

Not only is there no free lunch, but you make your own. Right after you, oh heck, do those dishes you couldn't be bothered doing after breakfast, which you also didn't bother to do after supper last night. Let's see what's for lunch? Oh right, you had that for supper... so that means there isn't anything for lunch until you go to the store... except that, after supper you decided to go to a movie, and bought popcorn... and now you have no money to go to the store with until after next payday. Which is when? (Looking at calendar): Oh! Gosh! You thought it was Saturday! You were supposed to be at work 4 hours ago! Ouch.

So much for adults getting to do what they want, whenever they want. I try to stay out of Cloud Cuckoo Land now.

Sometime, Thing Two, I'll tell you the story of the big green mold monster that ate my first apartment's tiny kitchen. But right now, I'm going to remind you that, yes we do have a schedule here in HSNowhere. Not only do we have one, but when we made it up last December, on the 14th as you can see right here, I wrote down, "I agreed" and put two lines under that. Do you see? On one of those lines, I signed my name, and on one of those lines you signed yours. So, yes, our schedule is right up here clipped onto the calendar, and yes, we do have to leave on time for the walk at 7:15, because that's when we need to get going to have enough time for all the things we want to do this term, and of course, the things like, ugh, math, that some of us think we don't want to do.

That's just a bit of review of the kind of conversations Thing Two and I had this past week. Happily, Thing Two remembered what she learned last term about the walk routine. Its more fun to enjoy what the walk offers than to whine for an hour while I, to keep my temper in check, rely on a mantra taught to me by my cousin Abby and repeat: "This is a test. This is only a test. This is a test of the emergency kid network parent testing system." Then I laugh.

Here's the schedule, which we did a remarkable job of following this past week, congratulations to us. More detail to follow. Now, I'm off to do those dishes I didn't do over the weekend. On the bright side, I remembered what day it was, and went to work.

                January 10th to April 1st 2010 Schedule

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri
7:15	Walk	Walk	Walk	Psych Walk	Walk
8:15	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast
9:00	French	Riding	French	Independent	French
10:00	Independent	Riding	Independent	Independent	Independent
11:00	MLM&M	Riding	MLM&M	MLM&M	MLM&M
11:30	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
12:30	DDM&M	DDM&M	DDM&M	DDM&M	DDM&M
1:00	EntrePship	Woodlot	Psych Read	Woodlot	EntrePship
2:00	Kids Yoga	Diorama	Diorama	Diorama	Diorama
3:00	Kids Yoga	Music	Music	Music	Music
3:15	Kids Yoga	House Elf	House Elf	House Elf	House Elf

Key
Independent = Independent Studies, or prep time.
MLM&M = Make Lunch, Music & Math
DDM&M = Do Dishes, Music & Math
EntrePship = Entrepreneurship
House Elf = Household Tasks