Why do you Homeschool?

People ask me that sometimes. It's a good question, why do we choose to educate our children this way? After the kids' dance classes today I heard the following conversation:

Child: (whiney voice) Do we get to go home now? I just want to go home, I'm tired.
Mom: No bud come on! We have to go to hockey now.

That was it. It was 5:15pm. The kid might have spent 30 minutes at home after school, then dance, then hockey. He wasn't in dance but he still had to wait around while a sibling had dance class. Then he was whisked off to his hockey practice.

The time my kids get to spend at home, that's one reason I home school. On a really good school day where I put concentrated effort into things, Katelyn spends an hour in the morning doing songs and activities and an hour in the afternoon doing book work. Done. Other days it's even less. The activities they're in, and play times with other families compliment their school work.

That's just one reason and I could expand on it, but I think it's pretty simple. I'm thankful that this works for us, because I'm not naive enough to think it works for everyone. I know many people can't do it, won't do it, or haven't thought to do it. I'm not saying their wrong, just sharing one reason why we made the choice. Maybe I'll share another reason later.

Hibbidy-jibbidy. That's what's going on.

Look what I found on Pinterest today.

I honestly didn't know if I should file it onto my "funny stuff" board, or my "home organization" board. I mean do people actually do this? I mean real people, with kids, who have to cook and stuff. Seriously, if I tried to do this my kids would hate me by the end of the day, no one would eat. All day. I would collapse. I would call my husband in a hysterically sobbing mess on the floor. I mean, I call him hysterical on a good day, never mind trying to clean the entire house in one day. The image of it is hilarious. But also not, because it's a little bit too real to be funny.

The fly lady approach works MUCH better for me. Basically it's just cleaning up as you go. C-A-Y-G. I can still hear my mom saying that as I cook. Fly lady also has "zones" that you work on each week. I like to think my house stays pretty tidy usually, and once in awhile I give it a concentrated afternoon of scrubbing and call it good. That's reality for me. Usually. But lately it's been different.

Everything's different lately.


The whole reason for this post is to vent a little and give you all a dose of my real life.

Things I'm doing lately:
-Trying to educate my two oldest children.
-Trying to get a business off the ground, ok it's not that big of a business, but it's still something.
-Meal planning. Which is hard because I make everything so difficult by not doing things ahead of time, duh!
-Still getting the garden in and dealt with
-Keeping the house as tidy as humanly and realistically possible all things considered.
-Maintaining some important relationships, mainly my amazing husband
-Majorly cutting back on spending

This post was originally super long. I just wanted to vent about how tired and stressed I am/was trying to keep the basic things going in this household. It's funny the feedback you get when you vent isn't it? Some well meaning people will give you advice and solutions. That doesn't make me feel better, in fact quite the contrary. I just want you to pat my back and tell me I'm doing a good job!

But now I'm going to talk about missing Caleb. Yes again. Yes still. It's been more than a month since we had to say goodbye to our sweet babe. Hard for me to believe it's been that long. The pain has washed over me in a new way this week. It's been a really really hard week. Lots of tears. I try to keep myself really distracted, and so I've thrown myself into some sewing projects. It's nice to get stuff done, but I should know myself better by now.

I need to just let myself be held and comforted by the One that can offer me true freedom. It's so sweet meeting with Him. Jesus my saviour, lover of my soul. I've been so up and down and everywhere this week. Yet he is my constant. He offers me peace and rest.

This post is so scattered. I guess it's appropriate. If only you knew how scattered my head is these days. I can't begin to describe it, so instead I'll get some sleep.

Education in the Summer Months

Hello my two faithful readers (Mom and Anella), I sure appreciate you guys. Sometimes I like coming here when I get excited about stuff, and it's nice that at least a couple people listen. Anella when you told me about the Culture Swap thingy you guys are doing I got excited. So I went and checked it out. Mom, here's the web site if you're curious. www.worldwidecultureswap.com Basically if you sign up they put you in a group of five other families who you can then start emailing. You all commit to sending each other a package of stuff from your country. Flags, dried leaves, maps, photos, a letter describing what life is like here, stickers, a bit of candy, stuff like that. So you have to commit to sending 4 packages, but in return you also get 4 packages from four different countries! It's a great way to get kids excited about learning about geography. I remember in grade 4 our class partnered with a class in Russia and each kid was assigned a pen pal. It was great english practice for them, but it was a lasting memory for us. I still have those letters and they still smell the same. It was really special. We have a Compassion Child and even that has sparked huge interest in my kids to learn about Kenya and what life is like there. We've supported Mary for 8 years, but now it's getting really fun as the kids take over the letter writing and ask all kinds of creative questions about her life.
If by some odd chance some one else reads this blog, what are some other things you do for education during the summer?