Homeschool prep and planning have been my summers for over 25 years. I have graduated six students, and only two are left this year.  For the first time in a couple of years, I decided to declutter school cabinets.  These many years of homeschooling equate to a lot of stuff.

A lot of books, a lot of curriculum, and a lot of accessories.  This year I was determined to tame a couple of our cabinets before the school year started.  As I was going along I began to amass a pile of compasses and finally ended up with this:

Why do I have so many of these?  With eight children, I have more compasses than children — not all of them even took geometry.  That’s the way with homeschooling for so many years.  There were chaotic years when I couldn’t find supplies I knew I had, and these were cheap.  Some of these, I don’t ever remember buying — which usually means, that when people know you homeschool they tend to give you miscellaneous supplies.  I love that!

Between chaos and generosity, I have a lot of things.  I did what I usually do, I put them all together and put them in a drawer.  As long as I am homeschooling, I think that I could need that someday. I often pull books off my shelf for the next child.  If one method isn’t connecting, I may have another way to go by just shopping my supplies.

However, my time is short.  I have maybe two years left and my nearly 30-year career will end.  I had no idea I was in a career. I knew that my job was to work myself out of a job, but now I am getting close. I feel that I should get rid of some of the things — extra compasses maybe?  I just can’t bring myself to do it.

I am hanging on to the things — even all the compasses.  I still have two children left, I might need them someday