• Devotionals - Homemaking - Homeschooling - Motherhood - Planner - Streams - Desert

    Doing a new thing

    Based on past performance, many of us can attest that doing a new thing is hard.   This is where some of us fall off the cliff — or don’t even try!  It takes determination to not allow past performance to thwart us from trying or doing a new thing! Doing a new thing is tough.  Especially when that new thing takes will power or money — few of us have much of either.  And,  as we age, we have this daunting fear that past results (things that were good before they stopped being good) don’t necessarily mean that today’s performance…

  • Homemaking - Homeschooling - Motherhood

    the endearing faces

    I stared blindly at the ceiling as I lay in bed and thought of the evening I’d just spent.  Sleep didn’t seem to come easily. Or soon.  I couldn’t stop thinking of them… their tender, lineless faces, bright smiles, dark hair and the playfulness of youth in their eyes.  And, I couldn’t help but — for a moment —  wish that I were once again in the place they were last night — once again a young mother with seemingly limitless opportunities before me — a young mother with a vast clean slate before me. As I stood there sharing…

  • Devotionals - Homemaking - Homeschooling - Parenting

    What’s Pulling on Your Apron Strings

    That might sound like a strange title to a message I want to share with you today, but perhaps by the time you finish reading this letter, you’ll have an idea and perhaps realize some things you’ve been wanting to take care of for some time. So, what’s pulling on your apron strings?  You know… the thing or things that nag at you or that seem to be pulling at you from one direction or many.  You may be attempting to work around your home and keep having interruptions or distractions that prevent you from accomplishing what’s really needful.  You…

  • Family - Homeschooling - my story

    Another homeschooling year

    So, yes… another homeschooling year has begun.  We’ve already had the usual variety of commitments — planned and unplanned, absences and extra-curricular activities: some sick, some tardy, some cutting class (uh, that would be two of the teachers :-O ), etc., etc. Three days into the new school year:  We’ve already had to revise our expectations — both raising and lowering them regarding courses of study and assignments for different students.  We’ve had to do this many times through 22 years of homeschooling.  We seem to forget this every year! Three days into the new school year:  We’ve discovered we…

  • Homeschooling - Potpourri

    encouragement & geography today…

     I’m thinking of how our children learn, what motivates them the most and what creates the greatest results in homeschooling?  Yes! it’s enthusiasm and love — it’s saying to our children: I am so for you!!  I love you!! Maybe at home today we need to give a little more attention to what’s most important and, remember, we all need a little more enthusiastic encouragement for whatever we’re teaching (or learning).

  • Homeschooling - Potpourri - Recipes

    What’s for dinner? And more questions.

    Every day… every day… day after day, there’s the dilemma:  what’s for dinner? Or… for many, the daily questions are more like: What’s for breakfast? When’s coffee? What’s for lunch? What’s for snack? What’s for dinner? Where’s the chocolate for me? Here are a few dinner recipes and you might also want to print up a couple of these… “Dozens of Dinners” dinner ideas and a page of “Bunches of Lunches” lunch ideas I wrote up for a cookbook a long time ago. As an aid for the kitchen sink ponderings as to what to have for dinner, I posted…

  • Family - Homeschooling - Motherhood

    Another first day of school

      I woke up this morning with eager anticipation for the day: our 21st “first day of homeschool.”  In the early days of homeschooling, I would not have even guessed where we would be today — in terms of both where we’ve been or how many children have been taught at the table.  I could not have asked or imagined the blessings that have come through the years.  Additionally, I most certainly didn’t know enough to know that there would be days of anguish or exasperation — near despair over what I don’t know and couldn’t communicate.  But I also…

  • Homeschooling - NewsDuJour

    An eye on California…

    Homeschool law. From the HSLDA E-lert Service June 25, 2008 QUICK LINKS HSLDA Home Page Join HSLDA Members Home Page HSLDA Bookstore You can only do so much… No one can be everywhere at once. And you can’t be at home, teaching your children, while monitoring your state’s legislature. Through electronic legislative services, HSLDA is monitoring state legislation for you—watching and listening carefully for any proposed laws that could erode your right to homeschool. Join HSLDA today—we’ll watch out for your future. We also provide 24/7 legal assistance and some great money-saving benefits! More reasons to join HSLDA… Join 9,000…

  • Homeschooling - More Slices of Life - NewsDuJour

    “Should Home-Schooling Be Illegal?”

    That’s the title of an article in this week’s Parade magazine: Should Home-Schooling Be Illegal? I don’t often read much of the Sunday paper – well, that is, unless an article catches my eye or unless there’s a series I’m following. So this week, as I was tidying up the table, I was just glancing through the different pages and sections and happened to open the Parade magazine to the page where the aforementioned article is posted in the IntelligenceReport (Parade.com/intel) column. There’s just something about certain words that catches my eye and when I see particular words in the…