How did you decide whether or not to homeschool your oldest child?

I'm at a crossroads: the memo came home from Stenni's preschool the other day, an official-looking memo about kindergarten sign-ups, complete with requests for vaccination records, birth certificates, sign-up dates and places in alphabetical order by last name, and all that jazz. Sign-ups are in less than a month. I still don't know if I want to send her to public school or not. I like the idea of homeschooling, but I don't know if I'm capable or organized (OR PATIENT) enough to really teach her everything she needs to know at home. I worry about her attention span. I worry that she won't listen to me. By all accounts, she is well-behaved at both school and Sunday school, but of course she's different at home with mom, which isn't to say that she's a terror or anything but we are both very strong willed and have been known to butt heads occasionally. So would she listen to me as a teacher or view me as an adversary? Who knows.
I'm not worried about socialization. For what we were paying for her preschool, I can send her to tumbling/dance once a week, plus all of the free events at the library and camp and VBS in the summer. But I'm really concerned that she will think that school at home is not serious enough and that I'll end up super frustrated. Also: I went to public school up til college. It wasn't super great for me, but I'm ok I guess, and nothing truly traumatic happened because of the school system. I'm not cool with common core or all of the testing, and I think it's a breeding ground for mediocrity because of the trend to teach toward the middle. Which is not the teachers' fault, they are only doing the best with the resources that they have, which are few and far between since people basically demonize them for the public. And to be honest Stenni is much more outgoing than I am, and infinitely better at making friends and making the best of a situation. She might just blossom in the school setting. Would it really be more for me than for her?
I imagine that a lot of moms have had these (and tons of other) issues in the past, so I could really use the wisdom of the world here. What was the deciding factor, or was it a more pros and cons thing? I know that some people feel super strongly one way or the other but really? I don't. I just really don't  know what would be better in the long run.
So other moms of the interwebs: How did you decide to homeschool (or not)? What were the deciding factors? Anybody else flying by the seat of their pants?
For our family, homeschooling isn't a religious thing, it's more that I feel like the classroom in general is more likely to kill creativity than nurture it, and might eventually squeeze all of the natural love of learning out of my Stenni. And that would be a tragedy, but of course it is also still a hypothetical at this point.
Can anybody offer any insight? Any great resources out there? Help!

so i've been married now for 8 years...

and that's quite a while, considering i'm only 27. some have been good, some have been bad, but i've loved them all.
hubs and i returned last night from a few days away in cooperstown and the surrounding area. i've got to say that every time i go away to central ny, there's a chance i won't come back. because i don't want to. i want to stay in some beautiful farm field or sleepy little town and just forget about the world. if hubs didn't work for the state (which has this silly little rule that you actually have to live in the state where you work), we would have moved up there already.
our trip was like magic. we did so much, but we didn't really do much at all. the scenery was gorgeous, since it's peak leaf season there right now and the colors were amazing. we hiked mt. wellington on lake otsego at glimmerglass state park. we took a walk on the oldest covered bridge in the country. we took in a baseball game at doubleday field, the birthplace of baseball. we went out to lunch and dinner everyday. we took long walks around the village. we stopped at wineries and general stores and cider mills and diners. we took our time driving and stopped in little town to explore. when we got breakfast at the bakery on the last day (yesterday, our actual anniversary), we sat at a cute little park where lake otsego runs into the susquehanna river. hubs told me to grab his ham and cheese croissant out of the bag, and when i reached in there was a little box with gorgeous diamond studs inside! how romantic my man is after such a long time! we usually don't do presents, but i thought that was so cute...he said he took them everywhere we went all weekend, looking for the perfect time to give them to me!
in honor of my husband and our anniversary, i want to share a link with you:
grooms blown away by their beautiful brides. some of the faces and reactions are priceless. hubs said that when i walked down the aisle, it felt like slow motion (like i was on a people mover going the wrong direction is what he really said) and he was worried i'd never get there. i'm so glad i did!

romantic getaway

 

hubs and i are taking a little sojourn in cooperstown, ny to celebrate our 8th anniversary (and the start of the baseball playoff season) but never fear! i'll be back next week to tell you all about it.

make yourself useful and...

plan yourself a date night.
if my last post about romantic movies didn't get you in the mood, here's something else to chew on...you need a date night. it doesn't need to be a romantic getaway, although i would recommend that you take one every once in a while. leave the kids (people kids or the furry kind) with grandma (or at the pet hotel, depending on how they are behaved that day).
now, date night can mean very different things to different people. hubs and i have our old standbys. we usually write them on slips of paper and put them in a hat and then draw one, when we're feeling semi-adventurous. the slips of paper say things like "drive-in and chinese food" or "hike at (insert park here) with a picnic" or "thai food and overnight hotel" or "nyc with carnegie deli and midtown comics" and things like that. this ensures that we don't do the same thing too often, and that we always have dinner and an activity. if we're feeling really adventurous, we make something up that we've never done before. last time hubs took me on an off-the-cuff date, we went ice skating. he has only been ice skating twice, and the first time was disastrous. this time was super fun even though little hockey-playing 5-year-olds were lapping us around the rink. ice skating leads to tons of hand-holding too, which is nice and can never really be not romantic.

of course, your date night should really be based on your idea of romance, as well as your availability and price range. if you have a while to plan, pick out a new outfit or get your hair done. it is impossible not to feel awesome with a new haircut and a nice dress that you just bought. but if there's no money for it? s'ok too. comb through your closet and storage bins for something that you haven't worn in a while, and rock it. i do this constantly, because i buy clothes then wear them a few times and forget that i ever had them (and often go out and buy basically the same thing. we'll attribute that to my poor short-term memory rather than my mild shopping addiction).
or even just do your make-up different. try this site for eye make-up tips: http://www.eye-makeup-tricks.com/. just doing that one little thing differently will spice things up a tad.
also, if you can't go away for a night or have to take the kids, you can still do something fun like taking a bike ride and packing a picnic, or strolling the boardwalk and having pizza. since stenni was born it's been harder to find time and money to go away on mini-breaks like we used to, but we go on more fun, cheap dates than we ever did before. free museum night? awesome date. ice cream and walking around the downtown of a place where we don't live? even better. when i'm really feeling low-fi? picnic on the living room floor with a good record playing in the background.
plan yourself a date night. it'll be worth it, i promise.
(sorry for posting this after monday. i was busy actually making myself useful. more on that later)