Changing around a few things can make a huge difference.

To start with, I think you need to know a few things about me.

The way it used to be (for the summer, last school year was bad, but not this bad!)
I would get up every morning between 10 and 11am.  Yes, I am not exaggerating.
I would then make breakfast for my children, who were also getting up about then.  Nothing fancy, cereal usually.
Next I would shower.  I would tell the kids to get ready for the day.  I would get out of the shower and get ready for the day.  I would get downstairs and they would all either be playing with toys, watching TV, be using the computer (not for educational things), or just laying around being lazy.  I would then start to get angry.   They would know this.  They would then go upstairs and get ready, showering, etc.
By 1:00pm (I am not kidding you), we would all finally be ready for the day.  Then we would begin schoolwork.  For the summer they just need to do 3 things a day.  It was (WAS-YAY) a huge to do to get them to do their work.  They would whine, make every excuse under the sun to not have to do it.  Excuses like, well none of my friends have to do schoolwork, and it’s summer (can’t you just hear that whiney tone). 

By 2 or 3 pm they would finally be finishing up their 3 simple things.  I would prepare lunch.  We would then do a family “quick clean”.  Which meant everybody picked up the main living areas of our house together.  This generally took between 15 and 30 minutes.

Finally the kids would have some free time to go and play or whatever.  Often times I would need to run errands, or run my kids around to various activities, karate, swimming, etc.  I live in a small town and most things close by 5 or 6pm.  Oh, yea, and I would have to pick up said kids as well, that is if I didn’t have to stay for their activity. 
Around 7ish I would start dinner.  Half the time I wouldn’t have anything planned ahead.  The other half, I wouldn’t have all the ingredients- it’s okay though, I am good at improvising. Haha. 
We would eat dinner and hang out as a family until I was done and worn out.  Which usually happened anywhere from 8pm to 11pm.  Those that didn’t shower in the morning would shower at night.  I would send them all to bed while I sat on the couch being grumpy that they weren’t listening and doing what I asked. 
I would stay up until between 1 and sometimes 4 in the morning.
It would start all over again the next day….

Ahhhh,  those days are gone!!  (Hopefully, they don’t come back!)

Here is how it works now along with some notes of what I did

First off I thought about what I wanted to change. 

I wanted:

• an earlier bedtime for all of us
• an earlier wake time for all of us
• some type of schedule that we all agreed upon
• not to feel so stressed out and grumpy over the way things were going
• to be able to keep up on household, mother and wife duties.

What we did first, is I told the kids I was unhappy about our days and we would be having a family meeting the next day to discuss a new family schedule that we would all be required to follow.  I told them to bring their ideas and thoughts.
The meeting went incredibly well, and you know what.  They wanted the same things I wanted.  YAY!
Our agreed upon schedule is this:
8 am wake up
9am start school work until 11:30 on individual studies
11:30 –12:30 lunch break, cook, eat, clean up, free time
12:30-1:00 mom reads aloud
1:00-2:30 mom teach group lessons and we use items we are currently reviewing.  I try to fit game time, art, etc. in this time occasionally too.
2:30 clean up for the day.
6:00 eat dinner
8:00 all kids in for the night/ start showers.
9:00 all kids in bed/ can read until 9:30ish.
11-midnight.  Mom in bed.


We have been at it for over a few weeks now and things have been moving so much more smoothly and I am not such a crank all the time now.  It feels like I have added insane amounts of time to our day.