So, I thought I’ve give you guys a bit of an update on what has been going around here.

The first, biggest piece of new news: I’m working.

Okay, yeah, I was working before, but now I’m working more. And not just for myself. I’ve started working part-time as a career coach for a national outplacement company (that’s the organization that your company brings in after a lay-off and tries to help you find a job).  The job is a virtual, work-from-home position, and I can still have complete flexibility with my schedule. And I’m getting paid pretty well, so that’s great.

Going back to work “for the man” has been quite an adjustment for me. Heck, I haven’t worked in corporate America for almost nine years! And it’s been since my youngest was born that I worked for anyone else at all! I’m getting used to it, but at least this is with a good group of people and a well-run organization. I don’t think I could last otherwise.

And yes, I am still doing my own coaching business. Working for this other company is mainly to fill in the holes in between my personal clients. The new gig has seriously attempted to take over my entire existence, but things are slowly settling down as I get more into a groove and get more organized. And though I really do like this company, I really look at it as a temporary measure while in the growing pains of my own business. I am looking forward to my own personal coaching business exploding and doing that exclusively again soon.

We are actually still homeschooling. Most of the time I feel completely crazy, but we were crazy before homeschooling entered the picture! No, we’re still committed to homeschooling at least through this year, and looking at whether or not to continue in the fall again. Frankly, I’m having too much fun to stop. And I am eager to all the fun that we can have doing cool stuff when we get past the learning-to-read-and-write phase. My oldest is now reading like a fiend. Today she told me that subtraction facts were just the coolest ever. (?? – Really? Whose kid are you?)

My youngest is still working through her letters – this week is letter I for insect. It’s gonna be fun. Last week we studied water, and it was snowing so hubby turned that into part of the science lesson!

But trying to work, even part-time, while homeschooling, is not easy at all. I’ve just had to get crazy-super organized in order to stay afloat the past few months. And giving a huge shout-out to Hubby and the girls who have truly STEPPED UP in helping out. Hubby has taken over a lot of field trips and science-y stuff and doing them on the weekends.

The girls have been amazing about helping me out with the house related stuff. Really. They’re not quite at the point where I can say go _____ and not be very nearby supervising, but they jump in and do their share with a great attitude. And everyone has been pretty forgiving when the housework just gets put so far down the to do list that dust bunnies grow up and produce their own little clan before I can get to them, or laundry might take a week to get folded (which I hate because as soon as you’re done the process has already had to start over again), and dinners have become a lot less adventuresome and a lot more “thrown together.”

And one big project we did over the holidays – we flipped rooms. We flipped their bedroom with the tiny room I was using for my office. Then, since their bedroom was bigger, we are now able to have their classroom and my office in the same room. Oh my goodness, the difference that has made ALONE was worth the insanity of switching the rooms. That of course also meant I needed to reorganize the basement room which is now all playroom space instead of half-school and half-playroom. It took an entire Saturday of purging, cleaning, moving stuff around and “decorating” but the results were totally worth it. It’s an adorable play space now and feels so open and uncluttered.

Our days typically go sometime like this – hubby wakes up at an ungodly hour (not that early to some of you, but before I personally think is a sane time to start the day), and heads out. The girls usually wake me up at 7:15am – though it’s been dark enough lately that I’ve been getting to sleep in until 8! I love it even though that throws my day off. We dress, get all those morning things done like brush teeth and make beds and put up little girl hair in pony tails, and then head down to eat breakfast while I try to throw in some quick cleaning like running the dishwasher, starting the laundry, whatever.

We start school at 9am and we are done by noon. Yup, we can get an entire day’s worth of curriculum of kindergarten AND first grade in three hours or less! Then it’s lunch, and by 12:30pm I’m working. We’ve found a Spanish speaking babysitter to come in two days a week to play with the girls and work with them on their Spanish, and the other days they will go down for “quiet” time for a while and then just play on their own downstairs, with me spot-checking on them in between client calls. (I’ve been checking out educational-related videos from the library, too, which is helping keep them happy.) Then at 5pm, I’m back downstairs cooking dinner and attempting to squeeze in some other house cleaning chore before Hubby gets home.

So, it’s working out at the moment. And I’m a firm believer in the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rule, so as long as this is working, we’re gonna just coast as long as we can.

In other big “news,” I’ve gone gluten-free this month. I tried it on a whim, and surprisingly, it has been really good for me health-wise. I’m not having reflux-related flareups hardly at all (except when I cheat), and I’m feeling a lot better. I’ve found some gluten-free substitutes (bread, crackers, pancake mix) and while they are edible and not the cardboard I expected, they really aren’t that tasty. Maybe it’s like using a nicotine patch; using gluten-free bread to break my cravings for wheat/carbs? Hope so, because my next goal is to go wheat free. I think that will “cure” some of my health issues. I am sick of being sick.

And to round out all that fun, my husband and I are both involved in different Bible studies at church. The men’s groups are going through Experiencing God, and I am leading a women’s Bible study group on One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Amazing book, by the way. Everyone should read this book.

So, that’s about the extent of our lives right now! Throw in a few inches of snow so far this year, getting the yearly winter cold, our oldest going to a cheer leading class (they made my baby a flier which apparently is the person on the top of the pyramid and the one they THROW IN THE AIR- thank God I was not there to witness that and only found out afterwards!), the girls involved in church choir, and going to one very WEIRD homeschooling group party that I will definitely think twice about going to again. (Let’s just say I was overdressed. Clean clothes, brushing my hair into a barrette and no makeup, and normal decent hygiene, and I was overdressed. Yeah, not even kidding.)

Our lives are never dull, that’s for sure.