On Writing and Blogging and Home Education

I know it's been awhile since I've posted anything personal or devotional.  The main reason for that is lack of time, of course. This year has been better than last year in terms of stress--I am not spread so thin, trying to do so many different things--but the things I am focused on this year have been just as time-consuming.  I am spending many hours a day with my three home-taught kids, especially on the tedious tasks of teaching one to read, bringing a beginning reader up to speed, drilling math facts, helping my 6th grader with writing projects, and sitting at the piano with one or another, lending confidence or help as new songs are learned. I have done this before, of course, but there is more required work and more accountability this particular time around, with the virtual schools that two are enrolled in, and the desire to please our fabulous piano teacher and continue the wonderful progress that B11 and Chicklet are making.

So I am thanking God for the time and energy I have right now to do this, and the patience He is giving me...because I'm not sure I'm going to make it through the whole school year this gracefully! It feels like so many other things in my life are piling up while I invest this time, which I trust and pray will pay off with more independent abilities as the school year goes by. I really don't like this beginning-level stuff, and I can feel the impatience and frustration under the surface sometimes. And I know that my biggest need is time for me.

I used to use blogging as an outlet, a creative escape, and even a way to get in touch with things I didn't know I thought or felt until I started exploring them in writing.  I used to find time to take one morning a week for a "sanity break," or stay up late to write a blog post or catch up on tasks.

But it just hasn't been happening for me lately. None of my kids are in a theater production this session, so I'm not taking the time while they are at rehearsals to write, as I used to.  Instead, for the last six weeks, I've had lesson plans to write and examples to find for the writing class I've been teaching at our homeschool group's enrichment classes, and I've had a few Sunday School lessons to plan, too.  Spiritually and emotionally, I have been preoccupied with cares that aren't really bloggable--meaning "able to be shared with the whole world." And I just had to quit reading other blogs nearly two years ago, so I'm lacking that inspiration.

Then a friend suggested we start meeting once a month to talk about our writing goals.  Though a part of me laughed at the thought of having any, I knew it might be an opportunity to stir the pot, so to speak, and I certainly wanted to encourage her.

What it's done has got me thinking about me, especially the part of me that has gotten lost somewhere in the busyness of being a mom, a homeschool teacher, a wife, a pastor's wife, and a church leader. There are so many demands on my time coming from all these roles; it's ridiculous to think about time spent on anything else.  But suddenly I am feeling urges to develop talents I was only beginning to discover, once upon a time.  I had promised myself that I could always go on and study further the oboe, the saxophone, piano, singing, drawing, painting, speaking, teaching and writing--all things I enjoyed and was good at.

It seems impossible, right now, to find time or money to sign up for classes or lessons. I don't know if I could even choose one of these things that I really, really want to pick up again. Writing seems the obvious one to keep developing, right here on my blog.  I know there is so much more I could do with it, if I really wanted to develop my identity and make a place for myself as a blogger, but that takes time, as much as it would to develop myself as a free-lance writer, novel author, screenwriter, playwriter or poet--all forms of writing I've considered trying.

But time I don't have...and time is also running out, in a sense.  My life is halfway over. I'm trying to live it as faithfully as possible, and I will never regret the hours I have poured into my children.  It was such a pat on the back to attend parent-teacher conferences at the Christian school, for Blondechick17 and B15. Teacher after teacher went out of their way to assure me that I had really wonderful kids.  They had good things to say about their academics, but it seems the main thing they wanted to convey were positive comments about their character, peer relations and work ethic.  Several times it came up that BC and B15 had been homeschooled up until last year, and each teacher registered surprise--they hadn't realized that--and then approval--"Well, you did a really good job!"

I hope that doesn't come across as bragging, but I need to record those words, for me. All the years of doing my best and worrying that it wasn't enough, it wasn't as thorough as it should have been or as comprehensive as they would have had in school, and knowing how much more I could have done if there had only been more time, or fewer younger siblings. And they are turning out all right academically and in more important ways. That's huge.

B15 encouraged me recently, too.  He's become friends with another family who homeschooled until this year; they just put all their kids in the Christian school, and he just commented on what good friends the siblings were, and then remarked that other students are always surprised at what good friends he and Blondechick are.  She has noted the same thing.  And it gives me another reason to keep putting in the time with their three younger siblings.

It's all a balance between gifts, callings and time.

Time is short, and I am out of it now.

How do YOU balance the three?