Another WIP...

It never ends.

I get a lot of inspiration from Ravelry. I have been spending a lot of time on this social network and the more I see, the more that I want to knit. However, at the moment, I am very pressed for time. I have a constant battle between all of the things that I have to do, and all of the things that I WANT to do. It. Never. Ends. Especially with kids.

Since I started homeschooling my daughter, I have had less time to do anything else - housework, taking care of the dogs, relaxing, and worse of all, knitting. Then how do I spend a lot of time on Ravelry, you ask. Well, read on.

My days go like this: I wake up, drink a wee bit of coffee with lots of milk, make breakfast for the boy ("Crunchy cereal please!"), an egg burrito for the girl (cereal and oatmeal never fill her), breakfast and lunch for the man (this changes daily), remind her to get ready for the day (get dressed, and brush her teeth and hair) while I prepare the day's lessons.

I start her off with Math. Our kitchen table is our classroom. We tried having her do her lessons in her room - too distracting! The first day I taught her from home, I went in to check on her progress 30 minutes after she started and she was still on the first question because she started playing with Buggi. Grrrrrrrr. So now, we sit together at the kitchen table. I sit parallel to her, so she can ask me questions if needed, and I can check that she is not distracted by something. Here is where I spend my time on Ravelry. Personally, I hate people watching over my shoulder. I figure that if she knows that I am present but not hovering, then she will be more comfortable working on her own. Sometimes this works, sometimes not. It's still a work in progress. The problem is, if I leave the table for too long, she "forgets" she's supposed to be doing her schoolwork. So I need to stay in the immediate vicinity so that she stays on task. Therefore, forget about walking the dogs with her brother so she can work on her own, forget about cleaning the bedrooms, forget about playing a game with the boy, at least until her lessons are over for the day. I am glad that my son enjoys drawing and learning his letters, so he is not watching the TV all day.

Between all of this and keeping the kids occupied after "school" is over, I have less knitting time. I am grateful that we belong to a charter school that we have to visit every week for her Spanish class and my bimonthly meeting with our home teacher. I am grateful because this trek to the school gives me an excuse to stop at the nearby McDonalds. It has a nice children's area where both of my children can play and cushy chairs where I can sit down and knit. This is the only way I have been able to work on a shawl that I am making for a Christmas present.

Other times, I sneak in a few rows in other projects in between my chores, but only when my kids are playing and getting along in their room. Each time I start a row, I pray to the knitting gods that a fight won't erupt until after the row is done. It is only after the kids are in bed - 8:00 pm - not a minute later! - that I can get chunks of projects done.

Being Sunday, I have given myself permission to do nothing (well, okay, almost nothing) and surf through Ravelry, I found a circular shrug that I think I want to make. I like it because I can use any yarn at any gauge. It's super cute and perfect if you want something to wear on top of a tank top.

When am I going to have time to do this? I dunno. That's never stopped me from casting on before.