reflections on this way of life

The Future Holds Promise

~ shelli ~ Leave a comment

Just a quick thank you to those of you who reached out to me after my last blog post. I want to reiterate that while I do have many worries, I am generally positive and happy. Though we never found that ideal “village” to raise our kids in, we have made the best of what we got, and I’m so thankful that my husband and I can work together at home and give the boys our daily attention. Though the past two years have thrown many sad events in my path, I knew I needed to ride the waves instead of fighting them. But I don’t like writing blog posts and giving the impression that everything is perfect because that doesn’t help anyone. I hope I strike the right balance when it comes to that question of “what is too much to share online?”

Having said all that, I am indeed looking forward with much anticipation. I’m pleased with our school year so far. Sometimes I look at the calendar and wonder if we’re getting too behind, but then I wonder if I am pushing forward too hard? If both those things cross my mind at intervals, then we’re probably right on track! But we have never and will never look like a traditional school. We are goal-oriented and not “follow the public school calendar” oriented. My boys thrive with being goal-oriented because they both have goals, so they are motivated to work even if they don’t always love the work.

We recently reached a point where we felt we could take a trip because my youngest son became eligible and was vaccinated with the COVID vaccine. (Can you guess where?) We also took a lot of other precautions so that we could keep ourselves and others safe while we traveled. The main purpose of our trip was so that our eldest son could meet his new piano teacher face-to-face. What a joy that was! Most of his lessons will be done remotely, but we hope to go again sometime. We also decided to extend the trip a few days so we could spend a few days in the mountains and do some hiking. I will share a few photos from that trip in this blog post.

Both boys are taking more online classes this year, and so far I’m pleased with how it’s going, but I’m not sure it’s saving me time. It’s a different kind of busy. But it feels good to be the support person and not the plan-all-the-lessons person. I’m hoping to pull together a blog post about my younger son’s 5th and 6th grade curriculum because I’m way behind in that. Eventually I’ll create another PDF resource about 9th grade, but that won’t come until the year is complete.

October

~ shelli ~ 2 Comments

October is well on its way and the weather has been beautiful. I’m even starting to see a little color on the trees too.

Our homeschool year is going as expected, and it’s keeping me extremely occupied, to say the least, which is why this is a short post. This year is the most challenging as I homeschool both 8th grade and 5th grade. The 5th grader is no longer in the “easy grades,” as I like to think of them, and we are consumed with thoughts on how we’ll manage high school next year for my 8th grader. I spend my days checking my notes, making sure we’re ticking off the to do list and staying on task. It’s not always easy, and I juggle a lot, but I also make sure I preserve time for myself so that I have the energy to do the work.

The boys are older, and there’s so much to look forward to. I appreciate staying busy while we sit out this pandemic, but we also have those humdrum days when we just want to fast forward a little bit. I can’t wait until we (as a society) can get back to some sort of normal, if not exactly the same normal we had before.

Recently we went to the botanical garden, took a leisurely walk, and I cherished every moment. There were many flowers blooming, and I enjoyed using my camera. Outings like these have always kept me sane, and I’m happy to share some of the images with you. Please tell me how you’re doing in the comments. I hope you are well and that you’re getting out into nature too.

I promise I’ll write more next month. 😉

March Madness & Silver Linings

~ shelli ~ 1 Comment

I wrote my monthly post for March on the 5th, but so much in the world has changed since then that I thought another March post might be warranted. Whew. How are you doing? I hope your family is healthy and you are coping with the self-isolation that is so important for all of us right now. We have a high risk person living in this house, and there are many elderly people we know and love who are high risk too not just because of their age but because of their health too. Everyone has the right to live as long as they possibly can, so we’re taking this very seriously.

We are okay right now. As you know, we homeschool and work from home, so not much changes for us on a daily basis. However, it’s spring, and this is the time of year we love to go on day trips with the boys. It’s sad we can’t do that, yet we want to stay safe, and we want to keep others safe. So, we’re willing to do what must be done.

All of our outside lessons have been either cancelled or changed to a remote online (Skype, Zoom, FaceTime etc.) format. Last week was the first time trying that, and it went well. All of my son’s piano events, except for the state competition, have been cancelled. That’s a shame after all the hard work he’s done. The state competition was postponed, and now we’re working on a video to submit for the regional auditions. We’re grateful they are finding a way for the competition to continue, but it’s been a bit deflating as well. We’ve had to find ways to keep our spirits up and make the best of the situation.

For me, that has meant getting outside whenever possible. We’re starting to get spring-like weather, so I’ve been taking long walks and working in the yard a little too. I haven’t had much time these past few years to work on our yard, and I’ve missed it, so that’s a silver lining! As the weeks tick by (and I’m sure they will as this is going to last longer than we think), I’m hoping to find time for some baking, extra lesson planning, and maybe more art projects with the boys. We’ll see. Or, we’ll just stay as busy as we ever were because as I said, not too much changes in our daily routine!

For my 13-year-old, we bought him some new music, which always cheers him up. Now is a perfect time for him to move on to new pieces despite the competition. For my 10-year-old, and for all of us, we’ve been paying more attention to the birds outside and using our binoculars more. The boys are also taking occasional walks or runs with us around the neighborhood too.

Since it’s nearing the end of the year, and we’ve all felt pretty distracted, I’ve instructed my 7th grader to just focus on his priorities now: science, literature and math. He’s done a lot of writing this year already, so we’re slowing down on that, and other workbooks and things can wait awhile. I’ve surprised myself by giving the 4th grader more work to do on his own this year, and he just started using a similar rotation system that my 7th grader is using in order to pace himself and schedule his lessons each day. I say I’m surprised because I wasn’t planning on doing that with him this year, but sometimes things just progress naturally and it feels right to introduce him to stuff. This is the best part of homeschooling — kids usually show you when they are ready for something. That is, if you let them.

Another homeschool surprise that I wasn’t planning for this year: We started watching A History of the United States, 2nd Edition, on the Great Courses Plus, and both my boys kind of like it! (Though I have to explain a lot to the 10-year-old.) It’s really long, so I don’t know if we’ll finish it, and I’m also a little leery that it’s taught by three white guys, but we’re watching it with a critical eye and will be supplementing quite a bit over the coming years! Luckily my husband is a historian, so he’s good at supplementing our study of history, and he prefers focusing on social history more than political history.

Other than this, the 10-year-old and I finishedThe Yearling, and he’s also finished reading all the books in the Shiloh series by himself. He loved those. (Thanks to my sister for giving him the first book in that series!) Now we’re reading The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz together (thanks to my boys’ cousins for gifting us this book!), and he started the first book about some warrior cats: Warriors #1: Into the Wild by himself, and he says he likes it so far.

I’m still reading the James Herriot book that I mentioned in my last March post, and as for my 13-year-old, he’s still plowing through the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Although this is a very difficult time for many people, I hope that after it’s over, there will be many silver linings, such as:

  • people will value their community more and keeping using these new ways of communicating as well as meeting face-to-face
  • working from home will become more standard, especially for those with families
  • online learning will become a more viable option for those who need it and benefit from it
  • people might learn that slowing down is a good thing
  • certain professions will become more highly respected, such as teachers, grocery store clerks, garbage pick up, truckers — all those people who keep our society running smoothly (not to mention our doctors and nurses!)
  • perhaps some families will decide to keep homeschooling because they realize it’s working better for them?
  • and finally….people will learn how to wash their hands properly! (I credit my mom for teaching me to wash my hands every time I return home from somewhere.)

What are your silver linings during this pandemic?

Daily Life is Boring to Write About

~ shelli ~ 5 Comments

It was warm the other day, and we went on a little hike for the first time in I-don’t-remember-how-long.

Daily life is not boring. We are beginning to delve into ancient Greece, and I’m so excited that I’ll be reading all the Greek myths to the boys. I don’t remember them myself — this is an education for me too.

As the boys are steadily gaining math skills, I’m brushing up on mine too. I hated math when I was young because the classes I took pushed me forward in the curriculum before I was ready. This is what’s brilliant about homeschooling — you can stick with something until your kid really understands it. Then you move on. Why isn’t that common sense?

The boys and I are learning Spanish and Chinese, and you know what? It’s fun! But we are going slow-slow so that each of us have time to memorize everything before moving on to the next lessons. There’s a certain somebody who memorizes everything so fast (geez), but he wants to wait for us, which is so nice of him.

Classical music (and all kinds of music) abound in this house, and I’m so lucky that it’s a backdrop to my chores and activities. Competitions are happening, preparation, theory tests.

Stress happens too. A new roof. Falling trees. A pet that needs surgery. Why does everything always happen at once? This is why I hope that lots of families will find The Everyday Homeschooler compelling enough to buy.

We are turning into a gaming family. The boys have all kinds of board games they play together as well as their digital games. Lately they have enjoyed Munchkin and Star Wars Risk. My eight-year-old loves to win, and he forced me into bankruptcy yesterday in the original monopoly game (the first time we played it). :/

We are watching The Flash, and we love it. We can’t wait to see what will come next. My favorite documentary last week was First Face of America, which you should go watch right now at that link before they take it off the NOVA website.

Hold on my northern friends! Spring is coming.

Life may not be boring, but I can write about it only so much, or I’m going to bore you. I mean, how many times do you want to read that the eight-year-old beat me at Star Wars Monopoly? Or that the eleven-year-old played Mozart’s Fantasia for the thousandth time, or that I’m still a failure at cooking, but all the laundry gets done, and the dishes are washed three times a day. Oh, and I finished Gerald Durrell’s third book in the My Family and Other Animals series. (It was good!)

What I’m saying is that I may not be here very much, but I am here, living life with all its ups and downs. And I’d love it if more people e-mailed me, and I wish more people asked me questions and gave me ideas to write about on this blog. If you don’t want to, I understand. Because I know you’re over there living your life, which I hope is good and anything but boring too.

August

~ shelli ~ 4 Comments

Shadows in our yard during the 2017 eclipse. One more thing that made this August special.

As I always say, summer has a mind of its own, and this year has been no exception. August, especially, has been full, mostly of good things.

The boys’ birthdays are both in August, so this keeps me busy most of the month, and we usually take time off around their birthdays so that I can decorate, clean the house, and bake a chocolate cake from scratch, etc. We do not do big birthday parties. We have some family over for dinner and cake on each of their birthdays, and this year we had a “birthday play date” with two of the boys’ friends too. It was just like a regular play date, but it included decorations, cake and snacks, and a game of Star Wars monopoly. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.

For the eleven-year-old’s birthday, however, we changed our plans at the last minute because we found out that the Yargo Trio was giving a free concert, so we all went to that instead. This was also special because it was the eight-year-old’s first time attending a live, evening performance (that wasn’t his brother’s recital), and he did great! He even said he enjoyed it. So now I’m excited that this coming year might include lots of free concerts that all four of us can go to.

I finished up all the paperwork I needed to do to wrap up our 4th & 1st grade years. I finished making a slideshow from this year’s photos. I was disappointed that I got lazy this year and used my camera phone for most of the photos, and I took less too, but it’s still a fun slideshow to watch. I also gave the boys’ a certificate of completion, which really isn’t necessary, but it kind of makes the year feel complete.

I put all these things into their portfolio binders, and one of these days, I’ll figure out where to put the binders — binders are stacking up after these past few years of homeschooling!

Although I’m not planning to officially start 5th and 2nd grade until the first week of September, I’ve continued to do lessons throughout the summer. They have been “light” lessons, mostly readalouds and some math. And my big project was to find a Spanish curriculum that I thought we’d stick with. I found it! I will be sure to write about it in the future.

This month we also took the boys one day to the Georgia Museum of Art. We loved the paintings by Martin Johnson Heade, which was a temporary exhibit. (Click the link to see some of his work.) It’s fun to go to the museum once in a while and see what they have on display.

What else have we done this month? I have been organizing the new year’s curriculum, going through stacks of random resources that I’ve been given or bought at library book sales, putting away what I don’t need and setting out what I will use.

I’m also thrilled that I finished my small project: The Everyday Homeschooler’s Guide to Teaching 1st Grade. (Although, it’s really for any child between the ages of 4-8 or thereabouts.)  I have some other projects I’m thinking about, but they will get done very. very. very. sloooowly. Because my urgent to do list always takes precedence: plan daily lessons, laundry, fix breakfast, do dishes, teach lessons, fix lunch, do dishes, teach lessons, go to an appointment, laundry….you get the drift.

Random appointments and extracurricular activities have begun again. Piano lessons never stopped during the summer, except for the eight-year-old, who stopped them completely. However, he’s begun taking cello lessons, and he loves it! His teacher is great. We’re very excited about this change and can’t wait to see where it will go. So this year we’ll be looking for free cello recitals and concerts to attend as well as piano. 🙂

Although it’s always a struggle to keep a garden in this climate and on my budget, I’ve been enjoying the few flowers I’ve managed to grow and especially the butterflies I’ve attracted. I’ll write about that another time too.

What else do I want to write about on this blog? Let’s see. I have created a page for both book reviews and curriculum reviews that you can access from my right-hand margin. (The curriculum review page is not yet live.) I have a goal to write about the books we read both on here and at home/school/life, and I’ll also write more curriculum reviews for the home/school/life blog. So I wanted to give you a way to access all of those posts from this blog, but I also encourage you to follow the home/school/life blog because it’s a good blog too!

Once we’re settled into our new school year, I’ll write a post about this year’s curriculum, and later in the year I’ll write about what worked and didn’t work as I always do.

I’m also going to set up pages that is all about our history lessons. My husband let his History for Homeschoolers’ website expire, but I can still give you links to his lectures on YouTube. I’ll also write about how I’m teaching history to my boys as we go along.

But all of this takes so much time. I wish I could blog everyday, but my posts are random at best. This just means that our homeschooling life is full and busy, and that’s a good thing. I hope you’ll write to me in the comments section or by e-mail. Feel free to just chat or ask questions about what you’d like to know about homeschooling. You might inspire me to write a post. And I’d love to know how homeschooling or parenthood is going for you.

Thanks for reading.

What My Kids Have Taught Me

~ shelli ~ 1 Comment

Being is the great explainer. ~ Henry David Thoreau

When I tell people that I’m a homeschool mom, I’m sure most people think that I teach my boys everyday. But the truth is, they have been teaching me. They are the teachers, and I’m the pupil. They have taught me that you can be happy, if you find wonder in simple things. If you find wonder in nature, and you spend time in nature, you’ll be happier. If you can enjoy sitting down to sketch even when you aren’t the best artist, you’ll find joy and relaxation in that. If you have the courage to learn an instrument, you’ll feel good about yourself. Maybe they don’t realize they have taught me these things, but they have.

They have also taught me that you can accomplish an amazing amount of work, if you work just a little bit at a time. I learned this when they were babies. Nothing teaches a woman about time management better than having a baby. If you don’t use those few minutes a day when you’re not feeding or consoling or napping or doing something for your baby, you won’t accomplish anything. And I learned then that by working even a few minutes a day, I could complete things. Don’t get me wrong:  I haven’t accomplished everything I want to accomplish, and I can still get very frustrated about not having enough time to myself. But I do know that eventually I can finish my project, if I keep chiseling away at it.

Homeschooling has taught me how joyful it is to be curious and spend our time learning. It’s also taught me that to learn anything, I have to take it one step at a time. To teach my boys anything, I have to start at step one, break it down into bit-size chunks, and I have to digest it fully before I can explain it. (Something I rarely got to do in a traditional school setting when I had to move on in the curriculum before I was ready.) I used to be an “all or nothing” kind of person. Now I realize that I can be happy by investigating the small parts, spending time with them, and absorbing them. And I don’t have to attain perfection. It’s important to remember that it is the process, the quest, the journey, the learning, that counts.

The boys may be learning many things from me, but I’m learning much more.

I am also learning how important it is to be a role model. Because kids are more likely to do what you do and not what you say.

If I want my children to find joy in learning, then I better find joy in learning. Luckily, my boys are growing up in a home that values learning, nature, music, art, and all the best things in life. But as they get older, I realize how important it is that I continue to learn, wonder, and explore. It’s easy to get bogged down with daily chores and lesson planning. I can’t forget why I am doing this in the first place.

It’s about living a good life, but it’s about being a role model too.

Thoughts on Photographs and the Last Ten Years

~ shelli ~ Leave a comment

Due to several reasons, we had not been getting out for regular day hikes as much as we used to, and this made me sad. But last week we woke up, the weather was good, the time was right, and we decided at the last minute to go to the mountains for the day. (We never plan ahead for these things.) I can’t tell you how good this felt. My soul needs a good dose of nature. So included in this post are some photos from that hike.

Speaking of photos, I was also feeling sad that I have not gotten out to take real photographs in what feels like forever. My photography website has been neglected. My Nikon is collecting dust. Though I always had good intentions about pursuing photography more seriously, the life of a homeschooling mom proved to be a like an ocean wave that swept over all my prior intentions. Suddenly everything I once wanted to do isn’t so important anymore. My heart swells with pleasure at creating lessons, birdwatching, listening to classical music….all those things that my boys have brought to me. I know I will still pursue photography and all those other interests again someday, but for now, I am enjoying riding this wave.

However, I was determined to bring my Nikon with me on our hike the other day, and wouldn’t you know it, we were on the highway before I remembered that I had forgot it! How typical of me in my current state! At least my lovely husband bought me a phone with a decent camera, so I had something to capture our time on the trail.

Recently I also happened to look through some old photographs of my boys when they were babies, and it was a little shocking to me to realize that this was ten years ago for my eldest son. I mean, I know he’s ten years old, but to think that these photographs were taken ten years ago…that’s a decade! And so much has changed! We have different sofas now, but these “new” sofas are already starting to look old. The garden looked so green and fresh then, and we had grass too. Ten years of homeschooling and putting all our resources into our boys have taken their toll, and home improvements have taken a backseat too.

Yes, a lot of changes have occurred in ten years, including the fact that I’ve aged ten years. How young and thin I looked at 35! I was a new mother. A fresh mother. Now…..hmmm…..What will another 10 years do to me? **mockingly bites nails**

I have taken a lot of photographs over the years since I became a mother, and I’m so glad I did. As I scroll through a decade’s worth of photos, I notice how in ten, short years, I have already lived through a few different “stages” of my sons’ childhoods.

There was the infant stage. I remember breastfeeding, napping, breastfeeding, changing diapers, breastfeeding, going to the doctor a lot, napping, and breastfeeding. And we had a lot of visitors that year. (Family don’t visit as often after the “super cute” stage.)

Then there was the “nature stage,” which could also be considered the “science stage.” My memories are filled of visits to the nature center, snakes, making friends, walking on trails, discovering all sorts of critters, and realizing my son had a special interest in nature and science.

Overlapping with that was the “building” stage. He built with paper, cardboard, Legos, clay. He got into robotics. He took pottery classes. Life was rich with nature, science and creating.

None of that has gone away completely. He’s still interested in those things and does them when he has time, but I would definitely say we’ve moved into the “piano stage.” Or the “music stage.” And this is just another form of using his hands to create, right? A lot of time is spent everyday in this pursuit. It doesn’t leave much time for anything else. Not only does he practice piano, he reads about composers, watches classical music on YouTube, and enjoys attending concerts.

We are also in the midst of the “gaming stage.” Both my boys are deep into it. They play countless digital games and take them very seriously. They also love to watch other people playing games on YouTube. When I listen in on their conversations, it’s usually about a game, or their plans for future games. When they run around outside, I’m pretty sure they are imagining themselves in a game. Games have even increased their interest in history. In addition to this, my seven-year-old and I play board games or card games at least every other day. He’s my little gamer.

My seven-year-old also went through a “drawing stage,” and a “puzzle stage.” Just imagine drawings everywhere — on the walls, on the floors — and big puzzles all over the floor too. These interests still pop up every now and then.

Last but not least, my seven-year-old is still in the “bird stage.” It started long ago, and it’s still going on and on and on and on.

I see all these “stages” in my photographs, and I’m grateful I have a record of them. I am impressed with the longevity of these stages. People always tell me how children will flit from one interest to the next, but my boys have stuck with some of their interests for a good, long while. I know that proper support and tools inspire children to stick with things, but it may just be a coincidence too. Or my boys’ personality. I don’t know why, but I love it.

Notice, however, that I don’t call these moments in time “phases.” Somehow to me a “phase” has a connotation of something trivial that will pass whereas a “stage” is something that is natural and part of one’s development. It may or may not pass, but it’s an integral part of that development.

My husband and I take each of these stages very seriously, and despite criticism we may receive from other people, we know that it’s important to respect our children’s interests and consider each one as more than a “phase.” It’s what they are now, and we want to do whatever we can to help them do their best with it. We know that if they do their best now, they will do their best with anything they pursue in life.

I look forward to the continuation of these stages. I look forward to future stages. Really, it’s just one, big, magical time.

Right Along Here

~ shelli ~ 4 Comments

When I was young and traveling somewhere by car with my dad — and I think my Aunt Carolyn said this once too — I would ask, “Where are we?” and he would answer, “Right along here.”

When I thought about writing something today this seemed like the perfect title for this post because quite frankly, I don’t have any focus for this blog post. We have finished up our homeschool year, and we’ll be getting to the new one in due time. We just had birthday week, but we all got sick, so it wasn’t quite what anyone was expecting (and that’s okay), but it has driven me off the course I was expecting to go. I am not ready for anything. I have nothing checked off my to do list. And now I need to get ready for an upcoming adventure that I will tell you about another day, but none of that has anything to do with planning lessons, keeping house or getting work done. But that’s okay.

We’re right along here.

When I think about our daily life as homeschoolers, I realize that Life can interrupt us quite a bit. We get sick once or twice a year, or if we’re unlucky, more times than that. Some major house repair or a cleaning spree suddenly needs to happen. I realize we need to go shopping for clothes because everything is getting too small!  (Did I mention I have a seven-year-old and a ten-year-old now?! Wow. Just wow.) Or, I get tired, and I need to take a few days off. I need to watch Poldark on Amazon Prime. Life can toss you a wrench in many ways.

In short, Life is our routine with a series of bumps and interruptions that we navigate around and climb over constantly. And while sometimes that can be a little frustrating, it’s also good. It’s Life. Those bumps and interruptions make it more interesting, and we must embrace them.

We’re right along here.

So despite being sick, the boys had pretty good birthdays. My seven-year-old decided to first come down with the virus on his birthday and then give his brother and me the gift of illness. But he wasn’t that sick yet on his birthday, so he enjoyed a day of visitors and spending his birthday money, homemade cake and going out to dinner, etc.

My 10-year-old, however, was just about as sick as he could be on the morning of his birthday, so I did hear him said, “This is the worst birthday ever,” which I had to agree with, but by the evening, things improved. Now we are all recuperating and slowly getting back to normal.

Luckily I wasn’t as sick as I was in June. (Yes, this was my second summer cold. Hmfp.) You know, there are illnesses that make you go flat on your back, and then there are illnesses where you can walk around and do simple things, but please no thinking involved. This is how I felt. So on the first day when I just had a bad sore throat, I was able to at least walk around the yard, and I visited the praying mantis that lives on my son’s carnivorous plants (he’s a smart praying mantis, I think), and I found those beautiful little mushrooms, and I sketched a Carolina Chickadee. I haven’t been very good about sketching every week, but I do try to get the sketchbook out now and then. These down days are perfect for that.

Before we ever got sick and before the birthday week, I happily helped my son begin a new building project. He hasn’t wanted to build anything in a long time, and I think that’s because he’s so focused on piano. But I’m glad to see that when he has time, that urge creeps back up. Unfortunately, he never went back to finish this project, and I doubt he will. But, still, yay for the creative morning.

As I mentioned before, this summer didn’t quite feel like a summer. It was so hot that we didn’t get to venture into nature as much as I would have liked. But we did make it one day to Zoo Atlanta when we were pining to get out of the house. It was deadly hot, but the zoo has a lot of shade, and we were delighted to see that the flamingoes had babies!

It’s time for me to think about some posts describing plans for our 4th grade year and 1st grade year, and I’m sure somewhere on my to do list I have plans for other posts, but like I said…

We’re right along here.

Where are you?

Homeschooling Is My Compass

~ shelli ~ 2 Comments

There are times I get super busy such as when family visits or all our play dates and appointments get clumped into one week. No matter how much I try to spread out our activities, I go through periods of non-stop excitement and then the welcome reprieve of being at home for a few days with nothing pressing to do.

But…there’s always something to do.

It’s easy to think that we have this flexible lifestyle with all this time on our hands, but that’s not really true. I have to get the boys out of the house to socialize (What?!! Do homeschoolers do that?!!), and we have errands and occasional doctor appointments or what-have-you too. (Not to mention 3~4 weekly appointments/classes during the school year!) Then when we’re at home, I have to take the time to do the laundry, get the house into a “livable state,” plan homeschool, and oh yeah! Homeschool! My kids don’t always get to do anything they want to do. We have work to do! Planning it and executing it is a lot more work than you might guess. Even though I consider myself a “relaxed homeschooler” who doesn’t follow any prescribed deadlines or course of study, it takes a long time to figure out what I need to accomplish with the boys in order to keep them on track to becoming well-rounded, educated adults. (Actually, I think it would be a lot less work to follow the instructions in a comprehensive boxed curriculum!)

The mornings we do homeschool lessons are not always flexible either. There is a certain amount of work I need to do with the boys, even though I don’t worry about meeting certain deadlines or “mile stones.” I would like to cover a variety of topics, and I also want the boys to have time to explore what is meaningful to them. But it’s impossible to do all that — with two different children — in one day. I have to pick and choose what we do each day, and some items never get checked off the “want to” list.

On top of this, I take time to write, which is sometimes how I relax and sometimes how I…oh. do. I. dread. having. to. write. Or sort photos. Or any other mundane task that someone needs to do or it’s just going to pile up into impossible, insurmountable mountains of tedious work. (But sometimes I stop everything and watch a show on Amazon Prime too, and I don’t feel guilty about this!)

There are things that never get done. There are people I rarely go visit. There are weeds that never get pulled, and there are recipes I never try out. I can beat myself up over this because on one hand we’re flexible homeschoolers, and I really want to do all the things, but on the other hand, there are more important things — priorities — that must get done. I try to remember this.

And my #1 priority is my kids and their education! Luckily, spending quality time with them, doing fun things + educating them overlaps most of time. (When it doesn’t overlap: handwriting lessons.)

When I finally have time to sit down at my computer and I 1) don’t have a pressing deadline, and 2) I’m not bone tired, homeschool planning is my compass to  get back to what is most important. I make lists of what the boys are doing and what I want to do with them. I ask them if they have a project or idea they want to pursue. I think about the ideas I want to pursue with them. I also make lists of writing ideas, tasks to get done around the house, reminders for this and that….Because I’m growing older and I can’t remember anything anymore unless I write it down! 

But the thing is: when I think about the boys, their ideas, our goals, and I line them up on a page, and then I step into the activity room to get it ready for whatever lesson or endeavor we plan to undertake, I feel like I’ve finally made it back to the destination that all these busy days were part of and leading me to: our home, our education, a life well-lived.

And when I say “our” education, I mean our education.

Why Do I Blog?

~ shelli ~ 21 Comments

I sometimes ask myself this question. There is no reward in blogging except for the infrequent but kind remarks left in the comments. There is even less reward in writing a newspaper column. (I will comment no further on that.)

Sometimes I get tired of writing about myself because I wonder who really cares? There are millions of mommy blogs, and only a few people land on my site. I don’t expect them to stay or leave comments, though I would love for them to. I rarely have time to read the blogs I enjoy, so how can I expect others to keep up with mine? Unless it’s a relative of mine, I don’t expect people to care. I’m not being callous or negative…honest! I’m just stating a fact.

Sometimes I think it’s kind of silly that I blog or write anything publicly, but it also seems a natural transition from those days I used to fill notebooks with my thoughts and daily activities. If the technology was available back then, I probably would have blogged.

Blogging is like keeping a journal except that it’s more focused and more well-written than the scribbles in a diary. It is a practice. It is a meditation. It’s how I process my thoughts. It’s how I unwind. It’s how I make sense of the world.

Because I focus this blog on homeschooling (mostly), that shows that this is my main work. As I write out what my kids are doing, what resources they use, and how we structure our days, I’m able to see the big picture more clearly and understand if it makes sense or if we need to change something. How many times have I gotten an idea while I’m planning my blog posts? Many.

I have gone long spells without writing anything, and I’ve noticed that my mind starts to get a little muddled, and I feel less organized. Do other writers experience this?

I have noticed that when I blog like this — simple reflections on my life — I have more mental energy to put into my freelance writing.

I also think that writing helps me remember things. Sorting photographs, putting words to them, and recounting experiences helps solidify them in my memory. I have a pretty bad memory in general, so maybe this is why I feel the need to write everything down. (Or maybe I have a bad memory because I write everything down, and my mind doesn’t need to remember it.)

Writing in general is a very lonely process, and being a stay-at-home mom can be very lonely too. I suppose I blog for those infrequent but kind comments that occasionally connect me with another human being, someone who is going through a similar situation, someone I can reach out to and say, “Hello. Do you see/feel/do this too?”

Thank you to those who take the time to read my blog, and double thanks to those who leave comments as well. I really appreciate you.