The Importance of Holidays

I need a break - I mean, I really neeeeeeeeeeeeed a break.  Not from my children - they're gorgeous as always & I still love being with them.   I'm not so keen on all the mess they create, but I have plans to train them in the art of Tidying Up After Yourself.  Unfortunately I have so little energy at the moment that it's still more in the realm of 'planning' than 'reality' at the moment - so I'm going to have to have my break.
I think it was the official school holidays that got me thinking (again).  Before we joined the ranks of Home Educators, the summer school holidays were always a really big deal that we looked forward to for ages, and made the most of - squeezing as much enjoyment out of them as possible.  Now they really don't feel that different to every day life - especially as we don't really have any HE structure.  The boys get up, mooch, watch TV, play, read - whatever they like - and learn while they do all of the above - whether 'term-time' (weekdays or weekends) or 'school holidays'.  It's a bit like when we adjusted to weekends - there wasn't such a big distinction between Mon-Fri, and Sat/ Sun as there was when the boys (and I) were in school - and we had to find our own way to differentiate.  Having fun all the time is a definite benefit of HE, but somehow we still need to find different ways to enjoy ourselves at different times, otherwise even fun can somehow become monotonous (who knew?!)  Now we have the whole month-and-a-half stretching out ahead of us, and are feeling a bit restricted, as some of the HE groups aren't running, plus we are now pretty spoiled and prefer going to parks etc when there aren't huge crowds of other people around - and even more so, the holidays have lost that 'special' feeling.  So I'm feeling a bit restless.  Our search for a late break continues - hopefully we'll be able to go away at some point in the next month - but whether or not we go away I have decided that I'm going to give the blog a rest for a week or so.  You see, that feeling of needing to pay close attention to everything we're doing is exacerbated by blogging.  It's like I'm watching and learning all the time, because we're still in the deschooling period, and that's the sort of person I am anyway - but by having the blog (and blog readers) there to report to every night, it's a kind of self-imposed accountability to make an interesting observation on a daily basis.  And I think it would help me relax, to just have some time off feeling obliged to watch-and-learn.  Maybe I'll still be as vigilant, trying to assess how much or how well the boys are learning - or maybe I will actually chill and just veg for a bit.  If in a week or so's time you come back and find me rocking in a corner, it's possible that the boys have done nothing but watch Spongebob Squarepants - but I'm hoping to try and regain that summer holiday feeling (especially if the weather plays nicely).
Should anything interesting happen, for example caterpillar-wise, I'll hopefully pop in and let you know - but otherwise I'll be back after maybe a couple of weeks :)  Home Ed friends local to me - I'll still see you at the pre-arranged trips - I'm not actually going away (well not yet anyway)...
Happy summer holidays everyone!  Back soon...