Today would have been Ava’s first day at school. Kindergarten, to be more precise. But as the saying goes, she missed the bus.

I’m very grateful that the homeschooling seed was planted in our minds early on because it took me a while to get comfortable with the idea. I use to resist the instinct to hyperventilate at the idea of NOT schooling our kids in the traditional sense. But fortunately we have a large homeschooling community in our area and we’ve gotten to know a lot of homeschooling families and kids, including a couple of incredibly amazing grown up homeschoolers.  I know that homeschooling DOES indeed work and the pros easily out weight any cons. This confidence enables me to take a picture of a school bus driving by the house this morning and I can continue breathing in a normal fashion.

I had the alarm set for 5:30 and got up early this morning to get caught up on house work. I’m working on this being my new routine. Instead of sitting down at my computer when I wake up I head straight downstairs to the basement and start a load of laundry.  This primes the house work pump for me and it’s easy to keep rolling once I hear the washer filling.  It’s like it flips the “get to work!” switch.  I have no problem doing house work once I get stared, but that’s just it.  Getting STARTED is the hardest part. Now that we are “officially” homeschooling I need to get into a regular routine here. I kind of feel like I’ve been goofing off all summer long, keeping up (or not) with house work with no real system in place.  If I’ve learned anything from regular exercise, routine is key!

I worked on house work until the sun came up and then headed out for a 4 mile run and was back again in just over a half hour. I planned to run today and will run Thursday and then it’s REST REST REST until the half marathon on Sunday!

I came back to hear the juicer purring and to find Zak standing over a sea of produce.

Fortunately he left me more than just a couple of tablespoons. I hadn’t planned to make juice today so this was a nice surprise. The man is hooked!

The usual: romaine, a beet, a cucumber, an apple, a lemon and a couple inches of ginger.

Juice held me over well and it’s just now nearing 10 and I’m having breakfast. Today’s fruit cereal combo is made up a diced banana, a couple diced prunes tossed in ground flax, topped with a small handful of sliced almonds and a little spoonful of almond butter.

I suppose now we should go do something homeschool-y, in honor of NOT back to school today!