The Curriculum Fair

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If you think surfing the net and looking at vendors' curriculum choices is fun, you should try going to a REAL curriculum fair. "Fair" warning, though...you need to either walk in with a budgeted amount that you MUST spend (lol) or you might walk out with your wallet uncomfortably lighter (and your charge card burden uncomfortably heavier). This year we are going through a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Seminar, so we had the foresight to budget for the yearly convention ahead of time. The budget wasn't as large as I would have liked, but the money was free and clear, set aside for JUST curriculum. What a wonderful concept that is. It was as if I HAD to spend that money. No worrying about if it was too much, or if I was taking money from somewhere I needed it more (like the dinner table, for example). Just free and clear license to use it all up (and I did!).

In any case, along with my envelope of carefully budgeted money, I also went in armed with my "List." It is a much thought out list of all the things I needed to find at the convention that are much harder to find anywhere else, such as planners and manipulatives and some reading materials our library does not carry. I am all for free (you can check out my site homeschool-for-free if you doubt me), but some things are not made cheaper by getting them off the internet (such as planning pages), more long lasting by buying them at the dollar store (like manipulatives), and other things are just worth having in print (like certain books you will use again and again, especially ones you want to carry out of the house).

"The List" made it much easier for me to NOT get too distracted by the many neat booths just filled with loads of cool educational materials GUARANTEED to make my homeschooling year better. I didn't realize how much easier it was until later when I realized that the usual anxiety over not having been to see absolutely EVERYTHING before closing time was missing. I zoomed in, surveyed what was there, made my choices, and I was outta there!

Here's what I accomplished at the Curriculum Fair:

• I was able to cross a few things off my list of possibilities for next year after having seen them enough to know they would not quite work for me and my family (catalogues are great, but can't tell you the whole story).
• I was able to choose from several types of planners for next year and get what I really wanted, knowing I had seen almost every possibility.
• I was able to get a few freebies and to get an evaluation test to administer to one of my students to determine his math level for a later purchase.
• And finally, I was able to affirm a few choices I had previously made and take advantage of convention prices and no shipping costs. It was a real win-win situation.

Actually, it turned out that my adherence to my list was not only beneficial to my pocketbook and to my health, but it seems that my restraint was also rewarded. Can you imagine my excitement, when having walked out of the Used Curriculum Sale (conveniently located next door to the New Curriculum Vending Hall) having made only about forty dollars worth of purchases (and I got a LOT I can use for that much) AND feeling pretty darn good about not spending money I didn't need to spend, I later found out that they had opened the doors after final pick up to allow folks a chance to "glean" from the remaining items (rather than donating them or throwing them away)? AWESOME!!

I was in the middle of a conversation when someone told me and believe me, my friend (who IS still my friend) is probably wondering if I have super-speed as a super power because I ran-walked down the hall and started looking for treasures faster than the speed of...something fast. Zooooooooooom! Now you see her, now you...hey, where is she going?

My oldest son thankfully found me immersed in a pile of potential freebie finds and followed me around carrying a box, good-naturedly ribbing me about dragging home more than our sagging bookshleves could hold...but don't think I didn't notice the two or five books he slipped into my box for himself! My number one best find of the day was a box of tapes from previous conventions and other Christian speakers that apparently nobody else wanted (I was in there pretty close to the end of the line), so I grabbed the whole thing up and have been happily listening to the tapes as I drive along ever since. My mom even borrowed some the other day to listen to herself and laughingly called it my "tape ministry." Who knows, maybe that WILL be something I do with my bounty of tapes sometday...

It was quite a fun surprise and a fantastic end to a great convention. God is so good to us in so many ways. All thanks go to Him for that sweet treat!! (and to the organizers of the Homeschooling Convention's Used Curriculum Sale).

Here are my top tips for surviving a Curriculum Fair:

1. Budget ahead of time. It is so much nicer to spend money on what you need (or just want) when you are not causing a shortfall somewhere else. Talk it out with your husband and decide a reasonable amount to invest per child and determine how much you will need to set aside monthly to meet your goals. Find creative places to pull the money from, such as the grocery budget, by using coupons and putting the money you saved in the "Curriculum Account" instead. Sell old stuff you didn't like or use and put that money away, too. Clean a neighbor's guesthouse or watch someone's pet and save your pay. Let the kids start their own fund using money they earn doing jobs you want done around the house or by working for trusted friends and family. They'll have more fun shopping in your wake if they can keep their eyes peeled for a bargain, too.

2. Get informed. Do your primary initial research ahead of time. Do NOT wait until the day of the convention to get ideas on how you want to teach math to your third grader. Ask friends what they use, inquire at co-op or support group meetings, or post a query on a forum online, then take all the suggestions and start looking them up. Many sites offer trial versions, trial periods, or at least sample pages for you to look at. Request catalogues, compare prices, and see how much of any of the supplemental materials you need for any given program are available at your library (the more you can borrow for free, the better). You may wish to visit your local homeschool second-hand store (if you have one) or check out Craig's List or e-bay (or any other online vendor) before deciding to pay full-price at a Curriculum Fair. Swap meets, library sales, yard sales, thrift stores, and sometimes even public school discard boxes are good sources of cheaper (or possibly free) materials that may meet the needs you have. See my post on How to Homeschool for FREE (or at least, more inexpensively) before you go to your Curriculum Fair.

3. Make a list. After you have compiled a list of "wants" that you haven't found yet, whittle it down to your actual "needs." Don't discard the "want" list. Just keep in mind that every bank account has a limit and even the strongest-willed person in the world can be sorely tempted to go overboard at a Curriculum Fair. It all looks so GOOD! Go to the fair armed with your two lists, shop for the "needs" first, then with what is left, HAVE FUN!

4. I HIGHLY recommend taking a suitcase or rolling basket to carry your purchases so you don't break your back (or the back of your teenager) toting all your finds around. Actually, though, our Fair this year had a booth that for a low fee would box up your stuff and hold it for you to pick up later. I thought that was pretty nifty.

5. Also, remember to take a bottle of water...shopping is thirsty work...and maybe a snack or two (convention prices for refreshments do not tend to be cheap...they were charging three bucks for a soda at ours and two bucks for a small bag of chips). Oh, and my mom recommends a sweater as they sometimes really turn down the ac low to compensate for volume of people in the room and it can get quite chilly.

6. Lastly, PLEASE remember to give your kids a break once in a while by stopping at the booth with the cool science gadgetry. ;-) Many science booths are usually good for a few laughs, a few sparks, and maybe even an explosion or two. If you can just refrain from wanting to buy all that interesting stuff, you will be fine...

Well, if you get a chance, let me know how you made out at YOUR local Curriculum Fair this year. I'd really love to know what cool stuff you found. I might want to get one, too.

Blessings,

Heather

**Check out posts about MORE topics like this one by visiting the TOS Crew Blog Cruise archive HERE. Enjoy!

Blog Walking---Week One

There are over 200 members of the 2010-2011 TOS Homeschool Crew. That is a LOT of bloggers, homeschoolers, excited reviewers, potential friends...

One way to get to know them all (in a small way) and to see what other folks out there are doing with what they have is to take a weekly "Blog Walk" of ten of the Crewmember's blogs.

Here is the list for Week One. I hope you will enjoy "walking" with me.

1. Reaping a Harvest

2. Pink & Orange Coffee

3. Live, Laugh, Learn!

4. Mrs. Mandy's Musings

5. The Fantastic Five

6. Refined Metals Academy

7. Just A Moment in Time

8. Providence Farm

9. My Journey

10.Petra School

Curriculum Review---Molly's Money-Saving Digest---January 2010

Some people say that e-books and e-magazines are the wave of the future. Now I finally understand why.  I saw a lady at Physical Therapy the other day lying on one of the tables reading her Kindle (a digital book reader from Amazon) while they had her hooked up to one of those TENS machines. Her e-book reader was small enough for her to comfortably hold, but large enough for her to read the print easily.

I have a laptop and think it's fun to take it to Barnes and Noble or Panera and work for a few hours, kid-free, but the thought of reading an entire magazine or book off of a small screen has never seemed interesting to me. I am one of those die hard give-it-to-me-in-print types of people. I love my Old Schoolhouse Magazine  issues to death-by-dog-earing. At that moment, however, as I looked at my HEAVY book bag on the floor (it was heavy because who can ever pick out just one book to take? What if I am not in the mood for that book when I need a diversion? Better take five more just to be sure!), I finally got it. I could load ALL of the books I am currently reading onto one book-sized machine that would fit tidily into my purse. Oh my. Now I know what is going on my Christmas wish list. Money for a Kindle.

On to Molly's Money-Saving Digest...I checked and it CAN be loaded onto a Kindle. Imagine that. Being able to "page through" and read any of them any time you are out and about without lugging them all around with you...On the other hand, if you are still currently Kindle-free like me, you can set up a file on your desktop (or where ever) for all of your Digests and refer to them whenever you need to find a recipe or a printable form. One of the nicer features of the Digests is that many of the pages are printables revolving around whatever theme they cover that issue. So, if you have an interest in getting organized, not only does Molly discuss effective ways to get organized, she also provides you with the tools you need to do so, and she lists quite a few links to websites that cover similar issues.
The current price for Molly's Money-Saving Digests is $4.95 at the Old Schoolhouse Store for about fifty pages of articles, recipes, printables, and frugal ideas. This newsletter/digest is published by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, with the symbol of Molly Green being used to represent "every woman." Did you catch that I said "symbol" of Molly Green? Maybe I am the only person who didn't already know this, but I was somewhat disappointed to find out that Molly is not a real person. I had imagined her ponytail bouncing (like mine) as she jumped out of her car to race toward the bargain table at yard sales and flea markets (like me), bargaining down an already pretty good bargain (like me!). However, I was pleased to discover that the adorable watercolor of "Molly" was done by talented artist, Kim Spitznaugle, with the intention of representing the spunkiness and creativity we all have to employ as moms, especially in a strained economy. I can be spunky and creative. Cool! There are, in reality, many contributors who share in the making of the Digests. My favorite in this issue was Marmee Dear of the Homemaker's Mentor in the Back to the Basics column. (Please don't tell me she's not a real person either. Is she? Because her last name is Greene, too. No, don't tell me!!)

Seriously, the pie baking lesson by Marmee Dear was my favorite part of the newsletter. It made me want to go flour up my center island immediately and start the dough a rollin'. I will readily admit that I like cooking quite a lot, so this column's clear instructions, appealing pictures, mouth-watering recipes, and country kitchen advice won me over easily. A few weeks ago, I spent every morning in the pursuit of baking the "perfect" fluffy biscuit. It took about a week of adjusting recipes before I was really pleased with the result, so anything that would shorten that trial and error process would make both me and my kids happy (they had to eat the rejects, "perfect" or not)! I absolutely can't wait to try the "fancy topping with pecans." It sounds divine. I think I will look in the cupboard tonight and see if I have anything that can go in a pie, just so I can try this topping. Yum.

The "Summer Fruit Pie Secret" had me thinking ahead to this season's crop of blackberries and blueberries with much enthusiasm. Just today I noticed that the flowers have come out on those prickly vines you love to hate. We finally decided to rid our own yard of the nuisances, since there are plenty along the side of the country roads out here that nobody picks. Last year I could have picked a bucket of berries every day and there still would have been more. Perhaps a future issue of the Digest will have some useful tips on canning pie fillings. Or maybe one already has.

I am definitely in need of the "In-a-Pinch" pie crust. I made an "egg pie" (quiche to grown-ups) about a month ago and thought it was great, except for the crust. Dry. Blah! I never would have thought of using mayo in a pie crust recipe, but I am willing to try. I am willing to bet it will be a good deal more moist than the one I made. I also enjoyed reading about Marmee's grandmother doing the bulk of the baking once a week on Saturdays. I'd love to get to that point, but not just yet. It sure would help with the rest of the week, though. Maybe, taking that step would help me make the next one happen instead of the other way around, if you know what I mean. That's certainly food for thought...

The forms for budgeting, calendars, and lists look useful as well. We are enrolled in the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace seminar this quarter and these forms are pretty similar to his basic set of budgeting forms, which we have used since week one of the program. I do have my own templates for some of the other forms, such as the daily to-do list and the calendar, but I thought that the Family Clothing Inventory List was something that I would like to print up and use right away. I have all the kids' shirts stacked in piles on the floor of our master bedroom and the PLAN is to pull out the too small stuff and the majority of the long sleeved shirts to give their drawers a more less-cluttered feel. I keep waiting for all the clothes to get washed so that I can see everything at once. I have finally decided that this is a mistake. In a family of eight, the clothes will NEVER all be washed at the same time. Why did I think that somehow I would be able to accomplish this super-woman-like feat?

In any case, in the course of coming to this conclusion I realized that the reason there is so much chaos with my laundry is that there are sometimes (often) too many shirts and pants per child. My habit is to buy shirts as I see them on the 50 cents rack at the local consignment store. Sometimes one of the kids won't grow into an available shirt for a year, but at 50 cents each I am willing to wait. In the meantime, they can use it as a nightshirt! Then we store the shirts by color in large, stackable clear organizer drawers and once a week, one of the kids gets to pick the color for the day. I was expecting extras in the white category, but instead I found I had too many shirts in every category. Oooops. Now I need to weed out the worn out ones (there are shirts in there from my 18 year-old's toddler days...I am all for thrifty, but there is also ridiculous). During the process of folding those many shirts, I noticed that my third youngest is rather lacking in the shorts/skirts department and my fifth youngest needs new shoes. These printable pages would be a great way to keep track of that sort of thing and I could carry them with me when I go to thrift stores and yard sales, instead of passing up good bargains because a child is unavailable for try-on, AND I might save myself some laundry duty time by cutting down on excessive duplication of inventory (ie. clutter).

"Molly's Menu" was one of my favorite parts of the newsletter (did you notice I seem to appreciate food things the most? Hmmm.) Several of the recipes were right up my harried-homemaker-six-o-clock-was-an-hour-ago alley...five ingredients or less, thank you! I shared the newsletter with my second-born, and he wants to try the chocolate chip cake recipe and the vegetable soup recipe on his day to cook next week. Very semi-homemade, yet looks delicious. Being inspired by this menu is one of the reasons that for the last two weeks I have actually done a good job planning (and executing!) a menu. I used to do this all the time, but fell out of the habit when my husband went on crazy shift work for the military. It turns out the kids missed the menu-making and I was presented with a long list of favorite menu-items they wanted me to prepare. I have also done a better job of keeping up with the shopping since making our menus, and the corresponding shopping list based off of Molly's example, so if there is more peace in my home around mealtime these days, I will have to give "her" the credit.

Other features included in the newsletter, but not discussed here, are a Directory of Links to favorite related websites, an article about ways to "Evaluate, Prioritize, and Organize" around your own home, an article about "Feathering Your Nest" frugally (decorating), information and forms needed to teach a lesson on banking to your middle school aged children in the Kids Korner (includes mock blank checks and checkbook ledger), and reader tips in "From My Mailbox." I am of the opinion that if you can find one or two things in a publication that really STICK, then it was well worth its price. I found at least three that I am very enthusiastic about, so this one earns its keep. I'll bet you can find plenty to like about Molly's Money-Saving Digest, too.

As an Old Schoolhouse Magazine subscriber, I have seen ads for Molly's Digests before. The main thing that kept me from ordering one the last time I saw the notice was two-fold. First, there is the fact that I am a print-and-carry sort of gal, and the thought of printing all that information PLUS the cost of the Digest seemed more than I could justify. Now I can see that you glean what information you can from an initial reading, then print only what you'd really use, such as the forms, a recipe, or the children's lesson.

Second was my inability to choose just one Digest out of the half-dozen or so offered at the time (there are now more than a dozen). Several of them looked like something I and my family would find interesting (Gardening, Making Money From Home, Family Vacations, Photo Treasures) and I just couldn't decide, and then not knowing for sure if I could justify the expense (remember, in my mind I was tallying ink and paper, along with the product cost) and before I knew what happened, I talked myself out of doing anything. Now that I have seen one, I am sure I would like them all.

I guess I will have to wait until they do a special and stock up...after I finish saving up for that Kindle to store them all on, of course. =-)

By the way, I checked the Old Schoolhouse Store and found out that there are several options for purchasing Molly's Digests right now. One of them is a cd of all 12 of Molly's Money-Saving Digests from 2009 for $49.95. You'd get all of last year's Digests and you wouldn't have to choose. Sounds good to me!

Visit Molly Green at Econobusters and sign up for the A Minute With Molly e-newsletter, and receive a free Menu Planning E-book.

I did receive this product for free from TOS Magazine for review purposes. However, that did not influence my opinion on this product. What you read here is my honest opinion about how the product was useful and relevant to me.

Posted by Heather Drinkwater at 10:41 AM 0 comments

Curriculum Review---Help Lord, I’m Getting Ready to Start Homeschooling My High Schooler!

Reality Television is big business these days. Every time you turn on the TV, one channel or another is running a reality program. From Survivor on CBS (does anybody believe that is reality anymore than professional wrestling?) to Ace of Cakes on Food Network, there is a reality show to fit all kinds. I am a 19 Kids and Counting kind of person. I find it interesting to see what another homeschooling family does to manage their studies and the demands of a large household. Their family atmosphere is something I aspire to, and though most days I feel that they surely do a better job with 19 than I do with 6, since they seem so NICE, I never feel bad about that. Best of all, I have seen several things in the show (and in their book The Duggars: 20 and Counting, which is great!) that I have implemented and found very useful, such as the "buddy system" and the idea of the family closet. I suppose some people might wonder why I would need to learn these things from a TVshow, but if you consider that I come from a two child family, you can see why "how to live in a large family" is not one of the skills my mom passed on to me. Unfortunately, our church has only one other large family who homeschools, so I don't have an abundance of real-life examples to turn to for advice. Hence, my interest in using the mothers of books and video to inspire me.

Which leads me to today's review of Help, Lord, I'm getting Ready to Start Homeschooling My High Schooler! published by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. It is a compilation of stories written by homeschoolers about how they navigated the sometimes choppy waters of homeschooling through the high school years. You might think that since your children are years away from high school that this book doesn't apply to you. Instead, consider the fact that sooner or later, God-willing, you WILL get there. You just can't avoid it.

Seriously, it is never too early to start thinking about how you will make it through those challenging times. In fact, earlier is probably better, since making decisions in the middle of a crisis is much more difficult than when they are made ahead of time. The high school years wind up seeming like a looming mountaintop to so many of us because the content is tougher, the demands are higher, and because the END, the GOAL, the NEXT STEP for which you have been preparing all these years is finally in sight. Are you ready?? That is the question all of the parents in this e-book asked themselves, in one form or another, somewhere along their journey. They asked themselves whether they had done enough, whether they were doing the right things, whether they were going the right direction...Does that sound familiar? It did to me.

Since I have homeschooled one son (so far) all the way to graduation, I felt like I saw a lot in this book that resonated with me. I remember asking the same questions the featured families did, and I remember finding many of the same answers along the way. I found myself wishing that this book had been available to me before I entered the high school years with my son because at that time I felt so alone. All of my friends had mostly younger children. The ones who had older children wound up putting their high schoolers back into public or private schools within a year. We thought about it. God had other plans.

Our first major bump in the road was a big one. We struggled painfully through algebra with no sign of a finish line in sight. In retrospect, it was probably too early for him to be taking it, even though he is smart and his father and I had taken algebra at the same age. To make things worse, my son was sure it was because I couldn't teach it well enough for him to understand. On the other hand, I was sure that if he'd just LISTEN and then retain the info for longer than thirty seconds we might get somewhere, and much to my regret, my impatience occassionally showed. So eventually, we tried another curriculum.

Another six months went by using this one and he hated it, too. I was sure he was just trying to get out of finishing it. The truth was, his brain simply wasn't ready for some of it yet. What is it about ex-public schooled parents that makes us think we have to do everything by the book? If only someone had told me to get out of that way of thinking back then...Instead, the only advice I got from friends was "Try Sylvan." That was definitely not in the budget, so we got a tutor. That didn't work either. We tried something else for another several months, doing only the topics he hadn't covered already this time. Finally, he managed to finish the algebra requirement, hating math more every step of the way. Resenting it.

After that, he took a hiatus from school to do a five week long mission trip, then spent another six months doing an apprenticehip in his current field, farriery. Both of those were definitely God things. Then, we moved. Finally, we got back to "doing school," and after evaluating the options with my husband, we took our son off of the college-bound track and gave Consumer Math a try, instead of calculus. Thank goodness for that!! Our son wound up LOVING it and powered through it quickly because it made sense to him and seemed useful. Amazing. And since he owns his own business now, he does use that math all the time. He did NOT need to learn about sines and cosines and theorems. He did need to learn about accounting, how to stay out of debt, and taxes.

If only someone had told me to seek after God's will for each individual child's leanings earlier, and to take only the classes that fit into that child's life plan, we might have beeen spared the difficulties and hard feelings of those two years. Kelly Rotenberry has a similar story in "Help, Lord!". She says, "We just couldn‘t seem to find that one thing that mattered enough to [our daughter]—that one thing that she was passionate about. Well, guess what we learned! A lot of that comes with maturity.That is something I really wish we had known then. It would have made life easier. I wouldn‘t have felt such pressure to push her toward graduation goals." That advice, heard years ago, might have spared us the pushing about math (and other things) while our son tried to discover what he was passionate about. Once he discovered farriery and set his own goals, everything else came naturally.

That is why I so enjoy books such as Help, Lord, I'm Getting Ready to Start Homeschooling My High Schooler!. This world is not perfect and we do not always have a friend nearby who can give us the information we need. We do not always have a local support system we can turn to for Godly advice. But we can always find a book to read. I am not saying that a book replaces prayer or going to God on our knees, but I do feel God can use many ways to show us things that will help us, such as the Duggar's concept of the family closet (everyone's clothes are kept in the same area instead of different dressers in different rooms), which incidentally, helped me reduce my "getting-four-under-six-dressed-in-the-morning" time by a LOT. Wow. If you only knew how much easier my life has been since that one change.

I think this book will be inspirational to almost anyone who plans to homeschool through high school. On that note, may I please say, with conviction, from experience, that unless GOD tells you LOUDLY and FIRMLY that you should put your child back in public education, or even private education (and I concede that there may be instances where this is true), do NOT give into the temptation to throw your hands up and say, "I just can't do it. I can't teach algebra (calculus, physics, Spanish)." If your child needs that particular subject, GOD will provide a way for them to get it. Give it all up to Him and hang in there.

That doesn't mean that some sound anecdotal advice about how to accomplish the things a high schooler needs can't be useful. Indeed, sound advice is infinitely useful. Proverbs 19:20 (NIV) tells us, "Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise." I believe this collection of real-life stories from thirteen homeschooling moms, one is even a homeschooling graduate turned mom, constitutes wise advice and good instruction. I am listening. Will you?

Help, Lord, I'm Getting Ready to Start Homeschooling My High Schooler! is 116 pages long and contains 13 stories with teaching styles varying from Delight-Directed approaches to more Classical approaches. One writer's son did an extensive apprenticeship like mine. Another's son qualified for early dual-enrollment, graduated from high school with a two-year degree and is now serving as a medic in Iraq. Another had a student with learning disbilities and praises God that their son was able to graduate from an adult home study program, and eventually make an incredibly good income in the field of fiber optics. Had he stayed in public school, he would have quit at age 17 due to problems he was having there. Wow! No two families used the exact same approach to their children's education, and honestly, none of them really used the same thing for every student. That in and of itself should tell you something important. Every homeschooling journey is different; what works for your friend's child may not work for yours.

That thought leads me to the one overarching theme in this e-book that I cannot emphasize enough: Look to the Lord for your answers. Pray over your children as individuals. Listen to your children. Stay active in their lives. Figure out what your student's strengths are and build them up. Plan an individualized course of study for EACH child and help them make their post-high school plans around their particular educational needs and leanings. Don't study something just because someone else told you to, unless it is exactly what your child needs. Be flexible. And definitely feel blessed that you are able, through God's help, to give this gift to your son or daughter because it opens up so many doors. The possibilities are endless.

Homeschooling allowed my oldest son to do two apprenticeships with farrirers, and to have a job training horses and helping run a boarding stable. His other love is landscaping and when he was younger (13-15) he worked as a costumed Junior Interpreter for the Colonial Williamsburg Master Gardener, and put in over two hundred hours working with the Master Gardeners in Florida. When we moved to our current home in Gloucester, VA, he started a landscaping business, earning $15/ hour at age 16. Upon graduation from high school, he completed farrier's school, already has about eighty horses he cares for, and will be able to support himself quite comfortably (completely debt free) within a year, maybe even six months.

Following a traditional path of public high school would have had him stressing about SATs last year, making a school choice based on his scores and our finances (or financing), and potentially squirming at college this year in crowded freshman classes of 100-500 students, mostly racking up debt. He's a one-on-one, outdoorsy kind of guy, and while he may eventually get his degree in history (his plan, not mine), right now he is happy working with his hands, getiting dirty, meeting interesting new people, and working on building a reputation of reliablilty and skill. I am so proud of him. Can you tell?

What I'll bet you can't tell from all that is that our homeschool high school years had many tense and uncertain moments. We went through a lot of trial and error to get here. What I wouldn't have given to have been relieved of some of the mistakes we made by having had some good advice (other than how to write a transcript for college) on a personal level about homeschooling high school...

I could live in the "If only's" and probably get stuck there, but I'd rather move forward and grasp hold of the reality that is today and look toward where we are going. If I can prepare a bit for the next step in the journey, then that would be great. What works best for me is to see the methodology in action (I guess I am a hands-on learner, just like my son), and this e-book lives up to that style.

In fact, I have already picked out one thing from the book I am doing to use when my next child turns fourteen. PeggySue Wells says that in her family, volunteering is part of the curriculum from age 14, until they get a job or graduate. I like that. We place a heavy emphasis on helping others, and our oldest son always helped out a lot, as an Awana volunteer and on multiple mission trips, but it wasn't a FORMAL part of what we chose for our curriculum. I think making it a formal, required part of your child's education is a good idea. Formality encourages consistency and committment, which are both good things.

Anyway, if you are at all like me, and you enjoy the occassional fix of reality programming, why not join me and begin preparing for the path you will follow for your potential (or current) high schooler? Download a copy of the e-book, grab a cup of tea, and prepare to be inspired. This e-book is "reality programming" you can actually use!

I have one more idea. If you have a chance, why don't you invite a few friends and start a discussion group, in person or online? This book would be excellent for that purpose, as each chapter covers a different family and is a self-contained learning experience. I find that one chapter is not too difficult to find time to read, even with a busy schedule. Read alone or with friends, this one will challenge you, and hopefully, spur you on to approach your homeschooling high school years with eagerness and enthusiasm instead of uncertainty and dread. If you do wind up reading this e-book, or have already, please feel free to leave some of your thoughts about it on the blog. Maybe we can get a discussion of sorts going here. I still have five more to graduate (so far!) before I am off the hook...

Here is a link to The Old Schoolhouse Store page for Help Lord, I’m Getting Ready to Start Homeschooling My High Schooler! It retails for $12.45, which seems reasonable since it is 116 pages long, has thirteen chapters, and five pages of the authors' recommended resources. The review at this link gives you more details about the content of the e-book.

You can also preview the product here. This preview includes the Table of Contents, Amanda Bennett's Introduction, and one family's story.

By the way, I wanted to mention that if you wind up enjoying this e-book as much as I did, two of my favorite homeschooling books are Homeschool Open House and Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days by Nancy Lande. These books are very similar in format to Help Lord, I’m Getting Ready to Start Homeschooling My High Schooler! In them, the author/editor collects the stories of homeschoolers from all over the country and shows by anectodal tales (many written by the homeschooling families themselves) how a typical day in their houesholds goes. I've learned so much from those books through the years. How nice it is to see an e-book in a similar style that focuses on the important subject of homeschooling during the high school years.

I am hoping that the editors get a good response from this e-book and start working on one that focues on "homeschooling many young ones in the toddler/prek/k years." Now that's one I could definitely use!

I did receive this product for free from TOS Magazine for review purposes. However, that did not influence my opinion on this product. What you read here is my honest opinion about how the product was useful and relevant to me.

Proud Mom!

Our local library has an annual bookmark contest centered around National Library Week. This year's theme was "Communities Thrive @ Your Library." My second son, Tex, and oldest daughter, Ladybug, decided they wanted to try their hands at entering, partly because the winning prize for each age group was a $20 gift certificate to a local New/Used bookstore, and the Runner Up's prize was a $10 certificate to the same place and they both love to read.

Tex had the brilliant idea that they ought to incorporate the Bookmobile into their drawings since the Bookmobile takes the library to the community. This idea was of particular significance to my children since the Bookmobile, and Mr. Mike, the Bookmobile librarian, visits our house every other week. Yes, Blessing Farm is an official Bookmobile stop. That's pretty cool, isn't it? It's just one of the many ways the Lord has blessed us at this place. We bought the house from...guess who? The previous driver of the Bookmobile and her husband! Before she resigned her post she was kind enough to sign us up as a stop because she knew we homeschooled. Kind of a newfangled house contract signing bonus. Isn't it awesome how God makes a plan come together?

Anyhow, not only has the Bookmobile blessed us by stopping here, but our neighbor, whose son has medical issues, has ordered books on tape for him time to time, and another large homeschooling family from our church who has an autistic son (he can't handle the library, so they never go) joins us for lunch, fellowship, and book club twice a month. A third homeschooling family joins us occassionally to visit the animals, play with the kids, and pick up books. On the weeks when we have even one of those groups join us, I believe we exceed the checkout total of all Mr. Mike's other stops combined! What can I say? We read a lot of books.

In any case, the kids spent quite a lot of time getting their bookmarks just right and they both turned out quality products. I was ultra impressed by Ladybug's attention to detail. She drew the Bookmobile, complete with the crab and heron painting on the side of the Bookmobile...I didn't even remember there was a bird included in that mural. I asked her if she was sure there was a bird there and how she knew, and she answered, "I see it every time the Bookmobile comes, Mom." Duh. I see it, too, but I didn't remember it. Is that old age or lack of attention to detail? Both, I think. I checked the Bookmobile when we pulled into the parking lot to drop off the bookmarks and she was absolutely right. Wow.

Tex was also very creative in that he decided to add many of the stops the Bookmobile makes to his drawing to represent how the Bookmobile takes the library to the community (as if bringing it to our mish-mosh of individuals and families wasn't enough!). He even added people at each of the stops, and a picture of himself, in front of the Bookmobile, arms overloaded with books. Now that's realism!

In the end, their hard work paid off, and they both won prizes! Ladybug won 1st place for the Kindergarten division, and Tex won 2nd place for the 6th grade division. They both learned a valuable lesson about how hard work can pay off, and they made some new friends at the library in the process. Mama gained some wonderful photo opportunities AND some neat additions to their portfolio notebooks (I was the only parent to ask for the original bookmarks back...do you believe it?).

Now both of them are eagerly anticipating a well-earned field trip to the bookstore AND looking forward to the Summer Reading Club. They just can't wait...Neither can I.

Don't you just love libraries and books? I am so glad my kids do!

Proud Mom Update: I found out from Mr. Mike, the bookmobile driver, that there were over 500 entrants in the library's bookmark contest. And TWO of my wonderful children won prizes. WOW! =-) You think I was proud when I originally wrote this post? You should see me now!! We are so very blessed.

Independence Day Memorial

On July 4th, a dear friend, Barbie Cumberbatch, celebrated her Independence Day from this world and her welcome into Heaven. For two years, she fought breast cancer valiantly and with grace. She was a true example of courage and perseverance to us all.

The proud author at her book signing. How awesome!

During her final months, she was blessed to be able to publish a children's book, Blessings Come from Kindness, about a little boy who learns the power of being kind to others in spite of circumstances. That is a lesson Barbie definitely understood, and I am so glad she was able to share her story with others. She leaves it as a legacy for her two precious children, a loving husband, cherished family members, and many friends. 

My folks at the book signing. They considered Barbie to be their "other daughter."

I was honored  to attend her first and only book signing on June 6th, a week after Boo's birth, mere weeks before she went to be with Jesus. To think, she was concerned about me being out too soon and doing too much...

Barbie holding Boo and with me. I am soooo glad I was able to be there.

Barbie, we miss you already, but we are so comforted to know that you are with your Redeemer, Healer, and Abba Father in a place where there is no more cancer, no more pain, and no more tears. We are so blessed that we CAN rest secure in the knowledge that we will see you again someday, if we trust in Christ ourselves.

We will always love you, friend, and we will treasure the many sweet memories we have of you.

May God bless your family and bear them up during their time of greiving, and bring to them the help and care they need most.

With much love from us all.

Your family and friends

Bubba's Blessing Ceremony

Just before Bubba's 18th birthday, his father and I discovered the concept of having a Blessing Ceremony. Now, this is something that would usually be done when a young man was just entering his teen years, so not having been exposed to the idea previously, we were a bit behind the curve. However, we decided that the idea of using our prayers, words, hopes, and dreams to bless him as he embarks on his journey of manhood was a Biblically solid one and worthy of doing, even if a bit late. Here is the first of several pictures of our small ceremony, held at church, on his birthday. This picture shows Ma and the little kids (two are missing...hmmmm...where are they?) standing on one side of the garden to "send him off" to cross the bridge to stand with the men. I recalled some sweet memories of Buuba as a boy and spoke of the positive qualities he had then that have grown into God-given strengths: determination, conviction, intelligence, motivation, physical strength. Tex spoke a few words of his own that were heartfelt and sweet about how Bubba is a good older brother and that he hopes to do as good a job being one, too.

Here are the men, including the pastor, my dad and my hubby, and several family friends, who are waiting for Bubba to cross the bridge. The little kids gave him flowers and kisses before sending him off.

This shows Bubba listening to the wonderful comments, prayers, and blessings that others shared in honor of him. The Pastor gave a very nice devotional and a new Bible, my father reminisced about Bubba as a child, and his own dad praised him for being such an upstanding young man and gifted him with a cross made from hoseshoe nails (Bubba is a farrier). Other close friends prayed for him, passed on special gifts, and promised to walk alongside him on his journey.

Because we were in a large outdoor space, the family crossed the bridge shortly after Bubba did, so we could clearly hear the wonderful comments and prayers for him. This shows my mom going in for a hug of congratulations following the final prayer for Bubba's spiritual growth, safety, and success.

Here is a picture of our family following the ceremony, including Nanny and Poppy.

A proud Mom and Dad and their firstborn son.

What good is a ceremony without a celebration/potluck afterwards? Since we are in the South, we went for fried chicken and all the trimmings...plus a cake and a lot of Sweet Tea (Bubba's favorite). Here he is opening a few gifts after showing off his album of cute (and sometimes embarassing) baby/childhood pictures. It was a real celebration of who he is and who he is becoming. (The Wild West decorations were courtesy of the Men's Father's Day Breakfast...they actually fit Bubba's personality to a "T!")

Our son. We are proud of you!

Counting my Blessings

Not every situation that is used for good by God is pleasant at the outset. I know we'd like things to be clear, and easy, but the reality is that blessings come wrapped in all different sorts of packages. Some are obvious and overt, while others are more subtle, or perhapes even disguised as difficulties.

Recently, our sixth child, Boo, was born a month early. This is one reason I have been so delayed in writing another post. For months I have felt poorly…you may recall that I mentioned I was on limited activity and using that time to write books with my children…Well, one reason for my being on limited activity was the unexplained contractions I kept having. Unfortunately, these never went away.

In fact, things started worsening, in spite of my cooperation with the guidance to stay put at home as much as possible. While my headaches improved for a brief time during the middle of the pregnancy, suddenly one set in that was so unrelenting, I could barely function. I was finding it painful to breathe, and was actually having to hold onto the wall to walk at times as it hurt to straighten up and even to move. I woke up every hour at night in discomfort and was in general miserable, struggling to be a good mom to my five kids and to wrap up the school year quickly. At my last OB visit, I asked why things had gotten so painful and why I would feel so poorly when I never had felt this way before, and they told me that since I was older, of course the pregnancy would be harder…I am VERY OLD at the age of 41, after all. Argh!

Anyway, one morning after I spent an extremely restless and painful night having regular contractions, along with a horrible headache, anxiety, and difficulty even breathing comfortably, I finally had enough and tried to call my OB to tell them I wanted to come in to be seen. I knew something wasn’t right. They had confirmed I was already beginning to dilate at my last appointment, and I have a history of rapid deliveries, so I was genuinely concerned about something happening while I was alone...well, not alone, but at home with five kids for company and no adults nearby! After waiting for hours, and trying two more times, I finally figured out that they had no intention of calling me back, even though the message was tagged as URGENT.

Blessings abound in mysterious ways…I finally got fed up with my OB and called my dad and oldest son (who was visiting my folks an hour away) and asked them to meet me at the hospital near my parents’ house to pick up the little kids, so I could be seen at the ER there…and thankfully they did. I felt I really needed to be seen. I am pretty tough since I am used to living with migraines, but things had escalated beyond my ability to cope gracefully. I really had just enough left in me to make the drive to the hospital and hand the car keys to my son. I also called my husband at work and he met us there, and thankfully they admitted me immediately.
The kindest doctor saw right away that there was a REAL problem and hastened to run some tests, discovering that I had a very bad kidney infection AND a migraine AND I was in true labor. They administered medication to relieve my pain and other symptoms (hallelujiah! pain free for the first time in weeks!) and hoped labor would stop once I felt better, but no luck. It turns out a bad infection can trigger labor and that is what happened. I recalled that there were multiple indicators over the last several weeks, maybe months, that should have alerted my own OB to a kidney problem, but it was all attributed to my "advanced maternal AGE." Argh again!! What is it with doctors these days thinking the early forties are OLD? But God was there with me and even though labor progressed to delivery, which was a month early, Boo came out a quite well developed 8 lbs1 oz…I can’t imagine him being any larger and me still managing
to deliver him! My heart goes out to women who have 10 lb+ babies!!

Welcome to baby Boo, born May 30, 2009...We love you!

Wait though…here is another miracle…for some odd reason, though I was ready by most standards to deliver…fully dilated, wanting to push, Boo did not descend fully like all my others have…until the LAST minute when he came all at once. God knew he had that cord twisted tightly around his little neck several times and couldn’t withstand much time with it that way. If Boo had spent much time that way lower and tighter, he would not be with us today. I now understand why the nurses were concerned and why he was seemingly in stress from time to time in the later stages of labor.

Wasn’t the Lord wonderful to have used my horrible illness for such good?!! If I hadn’t been in the hospital already and the doctors hadn’t been so attentive and they hadn’t already treated me for my illness and they hadn’t decided to go ahead and deliver me THAT day, the ending might have been a different one. I can’t be upset about the time I spent in pain with such a blessed ending. I can’t even be mad (well, not too mad) at my personal OB (whom I have not seen again) since going to the other hospital turned out to be such a blessing. In fact, I’m REALLY glad my OB never called back, because the hospital I wound up delivering in was MUCH nicer than the one I was supposed to go to. That was a nice little bonus, don’t you think? ;-)

Through all of this I have learned that no matter what is going on, we should remember to praise God for His mercies each and every day. You can’t possibly imagine what He has planned, but it is bound to be amazing.

Rainbows

Last night we had a sweet surprise. My husband called while he was on the road home from work and warned us that if it wasn’t raining where we were, it soon would be, so we all hustled to pick up things in the yard and feed the animals before the rain hit. My middle son was out feeding the dogs when I felt the first drop of rain and I hollered at him to hurry in before he got soaked. He started running immediately and it seemed he was actually running just in front of the rain. I have never seen him run so fast! We laughingly ran up on the deck and through the sliding door into the kitchen just as the heavens broke loose. The three little ones joined us and we all stood at the door watching the rain pound the deck boards, glad that we had managed to get everything done and could now just enjoy the rainstorm. With dinner smelling so delicious in the crockpot, the prospect of a rainy evening was not half bad. The kids always love to use rain as an excuse to make a fort, or play a board game, or both.

However, the rain did not last very long. Only about ten minutes, maybe. There was still plenty of light outside once it was over. In the spring, summer, and fall, any shred of daylight means that my kids will want to be outside, and the prospect of fresh puddles of water to splash in certainly makes that sound even more appealing! Don’t you just love (generic) crocs and galoshes? They are so easy to clean up that you can feel free to let the kids just be kids without worrying about the mess you have to clean up later on! Anyway, as we gathered their shoes back up to put them on, my oldest daughter noticed that there was a rainbow forming over the neighbor’s cornfield, stretching over our house and pastures and ending in the woods beyond. My goodness, it was BIG and beautiful. Absolutely brilliant.

What is even neater is that just last week, after I was put on orders by my OB to "limit your activities, etc.," I decided to use my extended hours sitting in my bedroom at the computer to start working on our dream of writing children’s books. We started by writing one for the littlest child, then the next oldest, and so on. We had worked our way up to the third youngest and you can guess what her story is about from the title of this post…a rainbow! And not just any rainbow, but a rainbow specifically over our house, Blessing Farm! How much fun is that!? It was like a little present from God. Just a reminder that like that quote, "Yesterday’s history, tomorrow’s a mystery, but today is a gift…that’s why we call it the present" so eloquently, yet simply states…we need to appreciate each day for what it is. A gift from God.

In any case, the kids did not hesitate to jump into the moment and start appreciating things. All three little ones immediately ran outside in their bare feet to jump in the tiny puddles on the deck, oohing and ahhing over the rainbow. My middle one, ever helpful, ran in search of my elusive camera so we could capture the moment with a photo for the book. While he was looking in the car for the camera, a second, not as bountiful, rainbow formed right under the first and we were awestruck. We stood there, reveling in the impressive display. After a few moments, and quite a few snapshots, we noticed that the second rainbow had faded, and that a small section of the larger one had begun to disappear. It was the oddest thing to see bold and clear colors arcing over the forest, and another leg of colors arcing from the farmland, then this crystal clear gap in the center. Within another minute or so, the whole thing was gone and we decided to go back inside since it had started to lightly rain again.

What the whole thing made me think of this morning was how God used the rainbow to promise Noah that he would never destroy the earth and its creatures again using a flood of waters. The rainbow is a symbol of God’s promises. Then it crossed my mind that like the rainbow over our house, the rainbows, or the blessings in our lives, sometimes come in bountiful spleandor, with clear, vivid colors. Sometimes you even get more than one at a time…What a miracle that is! Other times you get one with a few holes in it, and that is harder for us to deal with, but still worth appreciating. Even more often, you see nothing at all, and that is when we falter. But what we need to remember is that even when we don’t have visible evidence through a beautiful rainbow, the colors are still there. They don’t go away just because we don’t see them in that way. God’s promises to us are always there, too, even when the way seems hard. He loves us and is with us and wants us to be with Him for eternity, so we need to rejoice in those things He gives us, even when times are tough and the rainbows, or blessings, are unclear.

The funny thing about the way God works is that He often uses those rainstorms to bring out the rainbows in our lives. I think that is what I need to remember for today. Instead of focusing on the storm, focus on the rainbows ahead, and enjoy the gift of the day. Enjoy your day…it’s time I went to enjoy mine!

Beginnings

It has been over a year since we bought our little blue house and fifteen acres way out here in the country, but less than a year since we moved in. The old farmhouse required a lot of renovating…and still does. We had to completely redo many of the walls and ceilings downstairs, reconstruct the rotting bathroom on the first floor, and add a bathroom upstairs for the children to share. We knocked out a window in the very small kitchen and added a sliding door and a deck to give us more room...at least during the temperate months. A friend and my oldest son helped tear out rotting kitchen cabinets, resize and remount the usable ones, and paint them. Every room needed a fresh coat or two of paint. Most of the fixtures needed replacing.

But the bones are good and the property is BEAUTIFUL. There is a peace people feel when they turn onto our long, winding, tree-shaded road and drive leisurely out into the countryside past country estates, horse farms, and old homes. Green grass, shady trees, bright flowers, singing birds, dancing butterflies, orderly crops, waving neighbors...all the nice things you find way out here in the boonies. I felt it the moment we turned down that road for the first time and started praying right away that THIS would be the home we'd been praying for. A peace settled on me that lasted even through the tour of the too small, too run down, too-much-work-needed place.

I'd like to tell you that the peace stayed no matter what. We bought the house knowing that life would be tough for a while, while we got things ready to move in, and even past that, but more came at us than what we foresaw, from unexpected places, and it threw me for a loop. I'd like to say I got through it gracefully, but even though I think I did all right, I do think there were things I could have improved. The one thing I wish I could change is the way those hardships have affected my percption of this beautiful place. I sometimes now feel it is a trial rather than a treasure. As a mistake instead of a blessing. How sad. I am ever so grateful for it, but aware of what transpired that did not go so well and that sometimes colors everything.

I suppose we moved in too quickly. We had been staying in my parents’ home for some time…all seven of us, plus our three dogs, two cats, three horses, one pony, and two potbellied pigs! They were very gracious to allow us to stay for so long while we searched for the house God wanted for us, but we all felt it was time to get the "new life" we planned out in the country started, and we were anxious to see what that new life would bring. Now I look back and see where we are and wonder if it might not have been better to stay put and get more done before moving in. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess. At the time, the pressures were real, and the choice to move seemed clear. I feel more strongly now that waiting to start will give you a better start, and I think that understanding will benefit my kids, if I can teach them that lesson. It's just that I was eager to get started on what we all felt God had for us, that the idea of any more delays than necessary seemed ridiculous (mind you, this was after spending a year with Navy hubby gone, having a baby six-weeks early the day after our move, thankfully selling a house in a sluggish market the day of the birth, and even more craziness too tedious to list).

The funny thing is that in spite of my eagerness to begin "living the dream," I often feel we still haven’t quite started yet. It seems there is so much to do and so little time in every day…or at least there is limited energy (Well, on my part, anyway. Maybe not on the part of the kids!). It frustrates me when I work all day, yet feel I have not accomplished enough because there is still so much to do. I heard a sermon the other day that said if you reach the end of the day feeling like you did not get done what you had to do, then maybe you are not doing what GOD wants you to do because God always gives you enough time to execute HIS plans. Hmmmm. That makes me think this morning.

I woke early and lay in bed thinking about: "When will I get the garden put in and the flower beds built? Where will we put the new baby (who is due in June)? How will I get all these things organized to make room for everything a new baby requires (especially with me being on limited activity for the next month to avoid an early delivery)? When will we get a chicken tractor and coop built to house the 37 chicks living in a brooder on our front porch? When will I get the kids together to go on that field trip I promised (so I can feel like we are homeschooling properly)? When will I get our homeschooling, chores, kitchen, closets, drawers, bookshelves, garage, barn, etc. organized enough that I don’t feel like I am failing in some way all the time?"

I realize I need to get past this impulse to achieve what I in my flesh see as "good enough" and just focus on what God has for me to do at this time…namely loving God, loving my kids and my husband and my family, homeschooling, and making a healthy and happy home. These other things I find to focus on may indeed be a part of that picture, but on God’s timing, not mine. That control is the most difficult thing to relenquish.

I will have to trust that the Lord will give us time to accomplish the important things…at least, the parts that HE thinks are important…and that is what has to matter. The rest, well, I need to give it to Him and He will provide, or we will discover that it wasn’t something we really needed after all.

Blessings,

Heather