Who else is tired of hearing the words “polar vortex?”

Me, too, but like most of the country, we were affected by that huge winter weather system. We got hit with almost a foot and a half of snow, and had nighttime lows of close to -20, and wind chills in the minus 30s! Now, I know what you’re thinking…that’s the beauty of homeschooling, right? No matter what the weather does, or what decisions the public school makes, a homeschool can keep chugging along.

And that was my plan. Actually, I was pretty freaked out about getting back to work this week, especially after our last week of school before Christmas vacation fell apart due to illness. I knew Sunday night that Moose wouldn’t have school on Monday, obviously, but I had already planned for us to have a four day week, so we could enjoy Ryan’s last day of vacation with him on Monday. But on Monday night, we got word that his school was cancelled again on Tuesday.

That’s when I began to panic. We had already missed one day of school, and I was scheduled to be in court on Thursday (long story), so I had to figure out what to do about Tuesday with Moose home again. Remember, I was wanting to get back into the full swing of things as soon as possible. So I started panicking about what I was going to do.

And then…I just stopped. Stopped worrying, stopped trying to figure out what we were going to get accomplished, and how we were going to accomplish it. I decided that we just wouldn’t do school this week. At all. And I let go of everything else…all of my plans, and expectations, and worries.

It ended up being a good decision, because Moose’s two snow days turned into five (although I ended up not needing to go to court). Instead of school, we played games, and watched movies, and read books, and built a lot of Lego creations. Tons of Lego creations, actually! We just had fun. There were a lot of jammies days, even for me, since I didn’t have to worry about dropping Moose off in the morning. After how hectic Christmas was, I really think this week was a gift from God, forcing me to slow down a bit. It wasn’t a full vacation for me…there was still plenty of cooking and cleaning and laundry. But I didn’t have to worry about school or schedules, and that a much needed relief!

And that’s the other beauty of homeschooling. We’re not anchored to a schedule. We’ll make up the time we missed, maybe on a few Saturdays, or in the early summer, or whenever. Because we can. And for this week, I got to relax, without worrying about Christmas plans or lesson plans, or anything other than planning dinner!