The Homeschooler's Reality?

I am a night owl. It is just the way I was engineered and I don't mind it so much, although my beloved Mr. Clean is the polar opposite in that regard.

Last night my shaven sweetie had to be out late working (he came home for dinner and Xena's soccer game and then went back to work; HUGE brownie points scored there), so I decided to do something perfectly logical like rid the house of every conceivable dust bunny after the kids were tucked all snug in their beds with visions of "whatever" dancing in their heads.

Here is my dilemma. I hate/abhor/despise dust and filth and clutter. However, I am a homeschooler and the two seem to sometimes go hand in hand as I am trying to raise my kids with brains like Einstein and hearts like Billy Graham. You see my conundrum.

So after my students were in bed and my hubby off I started with the family room. I moved every piece of furniture in the room and dusted, vacuumed and wiped until my heart was content. I even rearranged furniture. With one huge exception.

We have an entertainment center and television that must weigh about the same as our minivan. When we moved in three and a half years ago we treated ourselves to a new television and entertainment center and I dare say they have never been moved since (1,2,3,... all together now, "ewwww"!). Granted I have dusted what can be seen and moved, but this behemoth is caddy corned in the room and it is 5 feet wide by 5 feet tall, so there is a cavern behind it that can not be reached.

I could stand it no more. I was going in. Squeezing my forehead in the corner to take a peek I was horribly ashamed, embarrassed and never going to let my mother in my house again (the sight just might kill her). Remember all the Indiana Jones movies with scenes of Indy making his way through tunnels and spaces that had not been explored in, say, 500 years or so? You get the picture of what I was facing. Plus there was kid "stuff" back there completely covering the floor. I know I have told them not to throw things in the house, so since they would dare not disobey, I have no clue as to how all that stuff got back there (naive moment now over).

Obviously I could not move it myself so I busied myself obsessing over the rest of the room until at about 10 minutes to midnight my hero swept in after driving over an hour back home. It was all I could do to let him close the door before I pounced on him begging him to help me move the mountain in the corner. Although I am sure there were much better things he might have wanted to be doing at midnight (number one being looking at the backs of his eyelids), he acquiesced.

Soon after he was in bed while I continued my mad passion until 1 am. And all I got completed was that one room. Now today I am tired and cranky and do not want to do anything but continue my assault on dust bunnies, but my number one priorities still need to be educated.

As homeschoolers are we permanently resigned to only get 1/2 of everything else done until the children graduate? If so, it just may be another three years before I venture behind that entertainment center again.

I best get into my teaching role now. I have minds to help form while they sit on dusty chairs.