Today I’m working hard on various projects in the making…and reflecting on something I have learned over the years from all my experiences and especially the failures. One, never give up. And two, don’t rely on or trust others with my dream again. Learned that the hard way. I know I will need to work with others still, and must […]
Doing some reorganizing and decluttering and I found an entire crate FULL of kids’ music! That’s right! This is a square milk crate and it truly is ONLY filled, right to the top, with kids’ CDs! Yes, I did have a bit of a kids’ music habit once upon a time…having been a preschool teacher whose specialty was music […]
This post was inspired by my (at the writing of this) 10yr old son. I wrote this post several months ago and for some reason never hit publish. Since then I got offtrack with all that I wrote here. Today I rediscovered this post …at a time when I really needed to remember what I had written here, and rededicate […]
I shared the state of our school room/art area/”Big room” last post…That actually hasn’t changed yet. So today I want to talk about overwhelm. You know the feeling. I know you do. You can’t be a mom in America and not me intimate with the feeling. But I feel like homeschoolers in particular are familiar with this feeling because […]
Hi! You don’t know me from Adam (LOL!) But I just wanted to take a second to put a bug in the ear of all the bloggers, podcasters, Scopers (that’s the people making broadcasts on the new Periscope app), curriculum developers, authors, etc out there that are producing resources in this booming industry for homeschoolers. I have a request. […]
Not sure where this train of thought will take me…but I woke up today and immediately got on Facebook, as I always do, and got into a conversation on Facebook that made me think… The conversation content isn’t entirely relevant because my thinking went into a different direction, as often happens, and got me thinking about why I have the […]
I hate blogs that make homeschooling seem like it’s super duper fun and always goes well. Moms who only blog about their good days, I feel, are doing a great disservice to the image of homeschooling. Yes, homeschooling is a wonderful thing…and yes we do often enjoy the freedom to do what we want…but every day is NOT sunshine and […]
I am a member of a TON of Homeschooling groups on Facebook. A TON. Seriously. I like feeling like I have my finger on the pulse of the homeschooling community. The common thread, which I literally read in post after post EVERY.SINGLE.DAY (no joke), is the STRESS that we are all feeling. The stress of getting started and not really […]
Are you like me and you’ve tried a multitude of different homeschool curricula only to have them fail to work for you? If you are having a difficult time finding something that works for homeschooling your children, you may relate to this…. I have a new plan for the new year. Yes, another one. We’ve still not had a super successful […]
CC Image courtesy of Robert S. Donovan on Flickr Gaps in my children’s homeschool education don’t concern me. I hear homeschoolers express fear over the dreaded “gaps” in their child’s education all the time. It’s all over the internet, particularly rampant among newbie homeschoolers. But veteran homeschoolers are living in this fear as well. I truly believe it’s causing unnecessary stress, […]
I woke up this morning, as I do every morning, thinking thinking thinking. One thing led to another…and I started to have a sort of epiphany. Sort of. I’ve gone around this idea for a little while now, but I’m starting to feel like I’m formulating a sort of plan now. I need to get this down on paper (virtual paper) before […]
I am a minority amongst a group of minorities. (Using the word “minority” to mean literally “a number that is less than the whole number”, not in any way saying I have ANY idea what it means to be a racial minority.) One cannot assume nowadays that homeschooler=Christian. BUT, truth be told….religious homeschoolers still very much outnumber the nonreligious. […]
Just tickled pink right now! I turned the tv on a little while ago, thinking that the kids hardly ever get to see some of the morning shows on PBS because we just haven’t been turning the tv on lately except in the afternoon when their favorite shows are on. Frankly, I’VE missed Curious George! Lol! So I just looked […]
Laying in bed, sick with a cold, listening to Pandora on my phone. I plugged in Kenny Loggins, one of my favorites, and it started with his heart wrenching, but oh-so-lovely “Forever”…not a song that reminds me of anything in particular but feels like it must to many. It’s such a strong song. Started me thinking about how songs often […]
I am horrible at consistency. Seriously. Horrible. But I understand the value of being consistent and keep striving for it. Blogging is something I’ve wanted to be more consistent at for awhile…but with everything else I’m also trying to improve at (the biggest of which would be getting my house to stop being such a pigsty!)… Blogging just keeps getting […]
I read an interesting article this morning, which I found because someone had tweeted that site’s previous article about altered history textbooks. Fascinating, and scary, stuff! It makes me really wonder what books to believe, and what I should be teaching my children! But then, I’ve had this discussion before on the Secular Charlotte Mason yahoogroup (LOVE that group, by […]
Saturday I got a blast from my past. Very interesting to me because I just am usually not exposed to this crap anymore these days…so I really notice it when it happens. A kid was visiting a neighbor and lurking around the kids playing in my yard…I still don’t really know what he was saying and if things were truly […]
OK not really…but I AM making more money with my businesses and I feel big things coming!! I’m really excited by it all! At the same time I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed with life right now…but that is pretty much a given with me. I hate the feeling of overwhelm and just tonight I’m starting to feel like its smothering me […]
i woke up this morning after having some very vivid dreams about moving to jersey (where i spent my high school & early college years) to a fabulous old house i used to live in with lots of big rooms…that house was in a cute little town of freehold (bruce springsteen’s “hometown”, which isn’t so small anymore)…but in my dream […]
i’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking on how to get enough time to do things that are important to me…and it occurred to me that i’m REALLY glad now that our tv consumption is at an all-time low. what a time waster tv can be! there’s really not enough time in the day for me to get all […]
We’ve all heard it. Probably a million times. Here’s my response today to a teacher/friend on Facebook telling me: “I don’t know how you do it.” Well, it really all depends on how you look at education. 🙂 And I fully respect everyone’s right to their own views on education. just as much as I respect everyone’s right to their […]
I’m always evaluating our homeschooling adventure and thinking up new ideas to grab my children’s interest and enrich their lives with new learning experiences. I’ve not yet found what I would call my “groove” and don’t in any way feel like an “expert” at homeschooling. I’ve read and learned a lot about this subject but I sincerely feel like even […]
let me preface this to say i’m not writing about anyone in particular here except myself. this is just me, talking out loud to myself and sharing my thoughts today with anyone interested in reading them. today, as with every day nowadays, i got up at 6:30am and headed out for my walk, plugged in to my mp3 player. i […]
just wanted to take a minute to rant about how people treat video crews. probably other service people as well. most of y’all reading this probably won’t ever run an event that you’d even need to think of this…but perhaps you have a spouse or family member that you can pass the word along to. or maybe you will have […]
I’m going through some old video tapes and found an old Oprah show that caught my interest. It was a show about domestic violence leading to murder. The part that caught my interest was an interview with an abuser that beat all his wives, and nearly killed his current wife…he was a cop and he and his wife managed to […]
“I don’t know how you do it all!” and similar comments is something I hear at least weekly from everyone. From strangers, from friends, from loved ones, from EVERYONE. And while I know it is well intentioned, it really wears on me sometimes. Hearing it so much, it starts to make me feel like maybe they mean I am doing […]
this is all coming from an email i just got just now, so bear with me as i just need to vent… i just had someone email me because he says that he knows that i am trying to promote nonviolent games and that he made this video where he interviewed his friends and thought i’d find it interesting. well […]
i mean “the gift of giving” in a little different sense. usually its used to mean that its a gift of giving something to someone, right? i am thinking of it in terms of giving my kids the gift of learning to give. its on my mind a lot lately, during this season. i’d love to hear how other people […]
i think. but maybe not. i know i can do better. i struggle constantly with being what i think is a good parent. and i guess in the scheme of things, i am doing pretty good. but lately things have started to feel like they are going in a direction i’m not happy with. case in point, my 4yr old […]
as always, my brain is going a million gazillion miles a minute. i’m actually feeling really happy lately about not being on the go constantly. its a nice change. i really enjoy being able to know that i don’t have tons of things to work on. still things to do, but not like crazy planning stuff like the discovery center […]
