Where, oh where, has my motivation gone?

I have hit a slump.  It happens every couple months.  What slump, exactly, have I hit?  The "I have no motivation to keep the house clean, but I am bugged by the dirty house" slump.  The problem is three-fold:
 1) Inevitably I get in a "media" funk and stop being as productive as I should be.  The little things go first, like making my bed every morning, and getting a load of laundry done every day.  Then the bigger things slip:  not unloading the dishwasher in the morning and letting the dishes pile up, letting the kids slide on doing their chores fully, ect.  Before you know it, the house that was neat and tidy becomes disorderly and chaotic. 

2) The children stop doing their chores.  This starts with me letting them slide on doing their chores fully.  If I am not doing my chores, out of laziness, who am I to enforce them doing theirs?  Then we enter the "I won't get my chores done and I'll just take the priviledge losses that go with that" phase.  You see, my kids are not allowed to use media or play with friends until all school and chores are completed.  That's all fine and good, except on the days that they simply don't care.  This causes a new problem.  I refuse to do their chores for them but I get bothered by the kids not doing their chores.   Then I NAG, AND NAG, AND NAG, because I want them to get their chores done.   

3) So, now we have a messy home that has gotten so out of control that mom gets overwhelmed at the prospect of getting everything back into order.  I enter shut down mode.  Shut down mode is where I am so overwhelmed by everything that has to be done that I do nothing at all.  I call it the "Mary Poppins issue."  I want to be able to just snap my fingers and have everything put itself back in order, but life doesn't work that way.  So, I do nothing, and the house gets worse and worse, and I get ANGRIER and ANGRIER until I snap. 

THEN the house gets cleaned with a vengeance, but no one is happy about the process because mom is a tyrant.  Life resumes as normal with everyone doing their work and mom checking chores to make sure they are done properly.  The house is tidy and runs well for a while.......until the next slump.  I KNOW that the solution to this whole issue is to just avoid the beginning steps in the first place.  It's a lot easier said than done.  So, if anyone has ideas to help "cure" my family of this reoccurring plague, please share your ideas!!!

VERY Opinionated Post

DISCLAIMER:  DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU CANNOT TAKE IT FOR WHAT IT IS: SIMPLY MY OPINION.
When I tell people that I homeschool I get many reactions.  Most of them are negative reactions, but I knew that would happen when I signed on with homeschooling.  However, there are some responses that REALLY bug the crap out of me.  Some of these include: 

"If things got bad enough I'd homeschool":  Just HOW BAD do things have to get?!??! Enough said.  If that's NOT enough for you, check out this post by another mom, that nailed my thoughts exactly on Why things are already bad enough.

"I don't know how you do it.  I'd never have the patience.":  I am not a saint.  Some days I have more patience than others.  I do this because the LORD CALLED ME TO DO IT.  If HE wants me to do it, then who am I to argue?

"It's ok to homeschool if you......(keep your kids on track, do it like the schools do, ect).":  Frankly I have some friends who subscribe to an unschooling philosphy of school and their kids are just as smart, or smarter than other kids their ages.  What really matters is the mother being ENGAGED in the education of her children.  Not the way in which she goes about educating them.

And my ultimate pet peeve............
"My children would never learn from me":  Do you want to know what that comment tells me?  It tells me that your children are holy terrors that run your home.  Do you not teach your children to be respectful?  Do you not teach your children to clean up after themselves?  Do you not teach your child to follow the rules?  Teaching your children academics is no different than teaching them discipline and courtesy.  Is it hard?  YES.  Do we have good days and bad days?  YES.  It's all about the expectations.  If you want to leave the education of your children in the hands of others, fine, but DO NOT tell me that you do it because your children CANNOT OR WILL NOT LEARN FROM YOU. 

And that is the end of my post.  Remember that this is simply MY opinion and it in no way reflects upon you or your decision of how to educate your children. I simply hope that the decision you made was based upon revelation for your family and not simply the traditions of society.