When You Just Want To Throw In the Towel

I really do just want to throw in the towel.  I just want to sit around and read my books, haphazardly selected from the libraries we visit regularly.  A biography about a writer whose family lived in Paris for a year, check; a novella about an turn of the century boat wreck cum survival story, check; a slash and dash murder mystery, check.  Unfortunately I cannot merely curl up on my couch and read.  At the root of my discontent is that our curriculum is really not working for us.  I can't put my finger on it exactly which is probably the real root of my discontent.  I hate NOT being able to pinpoint the problem.  If I could then I could merely excise it like a tick - pick the offender off, pinching it between my fingernails and then washing it down the sink.  But I can't.  All I know is that we are all edgy and crabby and not learning.  The unit study method was selected so that I could join the bulk of our learning time into one group session which would be made either less or more difficult based on the child.  We did a couple of units and it seemed ok.  But the main issue is that there is much independent reading to be completed by the students - again an ok principle but a flawed practice in a home where one child is primarily and auditory learner.  I can only read so much in a day.  and I love to read aloud so that in itself says something.  More than that, I think, is that the books are not particularly engaging - I wouldn't want to read a biography of Isaac Newton that spent whole pages detailing mathematical language and infinite equations.  It also doesn't feel rigorous enough either.  Ugh - i struggled just typing that sentence because I struggle with this whole idea of rigorous academics vs. an educational environment.  So I guess what it filters down to is that I am bored, not learning, and don't really know what I want our homeschool to look like.  And that, my dears, is a ginormous problem.  if the captain don't know where she's headed, the whole crews going to mutiny:(