We confront competing interests all the time in terms of the way our homeschool time is spent. It is particularly difficult this time of year. That is particularly true for Kelly right now. She has a very difficult CLEP test tomorrow (US History II) along with another one in May (Sociology), and a third one in June (Biology). She has a challenging number of Precalculus lessons to finish per day through the middle of June so that she can be well situated to finish Calculus next year and still have a decent summer break. There is a piano recital in May for which to prepare. Betty Blonde is heating up as we prepare for the big one year anniversary T-shirt and coffee cup give-away. What is good about all this is that it gives her a great opportunity to learn how to plan. One thing I have not really thought about is that, as kids get older and leisure time becomes more scarce, “down time” is an item for which it is important to regularly plan, too. It IS important to make time to play with the neighbor kids, go swimming, read a book for fun rather than for study, ride a bike, do a craft project, etc., etc. We are going through a very, very busy patch right now, but that makes down time planning even that much more important.
