Yesterday was an absolute roller coaster ride. It started out great. Claire and Alex had vacation bible school and seemed to have a blast. Too bad it’s only 4 days this week. When they got home Claire wanted to spend time doing schoolwork. So I pulled up the curriculum and she started. Not 2 minutes later along came Molly wanting to do some schoolwork, the same child who had told me no school until August. So she is now “official”. Then a few minutes later along came Alex wanting to do some schoolwork and there I was with all 3 around the dining room table working hard on schoolwork. I learned quickly that I need to make sure they aren’t working on certain subjects at the same time because Alex seems to require the most attention from me and when the other two need help it’s a hell of a juggling act. I also learned that Claire has a bad habit of writing “cause” for because. I know I have done that around here as well but I am going to nip that in the bud so that I can make sure to catch her when she does it. The girls also decided to help Alex with his schoolwork as well and we all played a game of word bingo. Well we played several games of it lol. First it was for the sake of bragging rights on who won. Then we played for a slice of cake (each child ended up winning a game to getting that slice). Then I upped the ante for the girls, whomever won the last game got out of dish duty for the night. All was good until Claire lost. She exploded into tears and announced she never wanted to homeschool again because it was so unfair. Can we say drama much? So she ended up in her room crying for awhile before I went in to talk to her about it. I think she understands and doesn’t care much for the ugliness that is life. But she did the dishes last night without complaining and is ready for today and whatever lessons I have them do. Guess what else I learned? My curriculum for the girls is a bit short. Ok so I am panicking because the state laws are “5 hours a day and 180 days a year”. I really need to reconfigure that for them going year round (maybe, more on that in a second) because I don’t have enough for 5 hours a day. Even counting daily life stuff. But I am not going to stress about that since we aren’t “official” in the eyes of the state as of yet.

Things went downhill later on. My pay at work changed and it changed in a bad way…….a way we were not prepared for. So basically in my job I got paid based upon how much time I spent on a client. And since there wasn’t more than 3-5 hours of actual work available to me during the week my boss was tacking on hours to equal 15 hrs since I was sitting around waiting for something to do. 15 hrs doesn’t sound like a lot but I make a bit more than 2.5 times minimum wage so it’s not real bad money wise. It’s one reason why I love tax season so much, we make tons of money. Problem is now my savings will be depleted quick to take care of regular bills and feeding kids now that my pay has changed. I no longer get those extra hours since I am not sitting in the office twiddling my fingers. And i am not exactly complaining about the loss of hours, honestly it is a fair assessment. What bugs me most is that when I announced my desire to work from home and homeschool the kids back in April, nothing was ever said about changing my pay and I honestly never gave it a thought. So when I got my check yesterday it was like having an absolute heart attack. So this insomniac got even less sleep trying to figure out what is next. Really I felt like throwing in the towel and sending my kids into public school because that would be the easiest thing to do. BUT then I remember how the day went (and yes, I know, it’s the honeymoon phase) and how much the elder two gushed over how they loved doing schoolwork that way instead of at public school…..I can’t do it. Like it makes me ill to think of sending them.  So I have concocted a plan. I do have to go into my office this morning to print some paychecks I created last night for a client. So I am going to talk to my boss and request that he get me some more clients. Hubs informed me that I will be taking on 3 of his clients to free him up for his out-of-office work but those 3 clients might give me 10 hours extra work a month. So I need more clients, at least enough to work each night for 5 nights a week. Then I am going to apply at Virtual Accountants and hope they take me on. If that doesn’t happen I start looking for night work. And I will start with my last 2nd shift job at a warehouse that sold electrical equipment. I left 5 years ago and left on friendly terms, or at least they told me if I ever needed a job to call them. I think I can nab that job because I always worked hard and they couldn’t complain about that. But that creates a new problem. That is not a job I can easily leave again because of the benefits to teh family (health/life ins, 401K). And I am not interested in giving up being an accountant. So come tax season I would be working taxes during the day and weekends and a warehouse job at night. That leaves like no time for school which means the kids “summer vacation” would be during tax season. That doesn’t sit well with me so I don’t know. Need to talk to hubs about that one.

Anywho it’s all very frustrating. On one hand I felt like I am being punished for my decision to homeschool. On the other I just feel like I can’t ever get caught up no matter how hard I try. I mean I am not a material person, pretty happy with who I am. I would just like to be able to pay the bills for longer than 4 or 5 months out of the year and not be drowned with the pressure of lack of income.

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