I don't have the energy to send my kids to school

I often hear people -- some homeschoolers, some not -- comment on how hard and time-consuming homeschooling is.

Maybe.

I've been enjoying a book called Queen of the Castle: 52 weeks of encouragement for the uninspired, domestically challenged or just plain tired homemaker.

The author apparently has two sons, ages 13 and 14 at the time of the writing, who attend school. I found this passage to be very interesting:

After thirty-six weeks of school, times two kids, I figure I ...participated in twenty-three field trips, class parties, and bake sales ... and helped study for seventy-two Bible-memory-verse tests. I bought (and sold) wrapping paper, magazines, raffle tickets, and jog-a-thon laps. Signed 108 permission slips and forked over ninety-seven dollars for incidentals. Helped complete one state notebook, one state float, one report on the Nile, one static electricity/balloon experiment. Carpooled seventy-two hundred miles, not counting practice for football, basketall, wrestling, baseball, and band.

'Nuff said!