Homeschool Chat: Balance, Consistency, Scheduling, and Burn Out.

For a few years, I would periodically hold Q+A sessions to discuss homeschooling on Instagram. It’s always been a topic that gets a lot of questions, but I quickly learned that when given the invitation many more people than I would have otherwise heard from came forward with curiosity. Last year, as questions increased without [...]

Easter Guide

Easter Guide

Gathering our Easter resources proved to be quite an undertaking. It took hours of reading, watching, consolidating, typing, linking, prepping supplies, purchasing materials, remembering past resources and researching new ones. Yet even with an extensive array of curriculum, meaningful Easter basket ideas, educational videos, baking projects, hands-on activities, books for all ages, music, and more… [...]

There Is Much To Do

As the world burns, bleeds, and weeps - a ten year old finishes his first week of the fifth grade. Pencils litter geography lessons and long division. I begin gathering loose papers and stacking books. A journal falls open. Prompts mark the pages: “Things I’m grateful for...” and “Things I’m praying for...”. There, scrawled in [...]

Hold Your Baby

One day, you’ll be able to eat in peace. You’ll sit down and no one will dig their chubby fingers into your eggs or spill your coffee. One day, you’ll take an unhurried shower. You’ll dry your hair and paint your lips. One day, you’ll clean your house and it will stay spotless for at [...]

Like Coming Home

My grandparents house always had a distinctive, sort of clean laundry smell. Today that sweet fragrance punched me right in the face. I cried. Within seconds of scent recognition, without even a conscious thought; I just lost it. Tears were burning my eyes and it felt like saying goodbye all over again. I put on [...]

No Small Parts

Sometimes the “traditional roles” of our marriage are misunderstood. Not by us, mind you. Misunderstood by others. Well-meaning people have said things like, “How long will you be home with your kids? Do you think you’re going to get a job?” I quickly remind them that I have a job. It involves 12-14 hour days, [...]

January

Week 1 The first week of the year. The first week of a few household changes. And our rhythm has shifted. So I feel the need to summarize it as best as I can. We went through the week with less technology and more books. We worked through spelling words and math equations. We told [...]

Sunday Chicken

This is the simple chicken and vegetable roast that Damon makes on Sunday evening. We play with the seasoning and vegetables a bit, according to what we have on hand. But the method remains the same and provides consistent results. If you have ever found yourself with dry, bland chicken... this is for you: Ingredients: pasture raised, [...]

A Whole New Land

Of all the soil that my feet have landed upon and of all the air I’ve breathed... Whether across the Atlantic or the Pacific, over or under, amongst mountain and wood, brick and neon, or sand and sea... I often feel the journey that has most ignited my mind and unleashed my heart has happened [...]

A Full Heart Breaking

“What if the water touches you, Mama? What if you get wet?” He stands cautiously to my right, where seaweed has been tossed and left behind. “Sometimes you have to get close to get the good stuff.” I stand up brushing sand off of my knees. Staring out at a mass of churning grey against [...]