Hello everyone, I am currently on vacation, but a few of my readers volunteered to take over the site while I am away! They have written some excellent posts that I am sure you will love. I also have some posts I wrote answering your burning questions about The Happy Housewife. Enjoy!
A Year’s Worth of Blessings
As I reflect on 2008 I am amazed at how all the little things we so often take for granted pile up into something more than we could have imagined. This is how home schooling is for me. Some days I think, “Are we really accomplishing anything? What can we possibly learning from being together so much?” Yet, when I look back at an entire year I can see just how far we have come and the blessing that home schooling is for our family.
The largest blessing is the gift of time. The time for the kids to make homemade cards for birthdays, thank-you notes, Christmas cards and any other occasion we are faced with. My children are allowed the opportunity to be with me when I’m making a meal for a family faced with a newborn or a crisis. We are able to schedule doctor and dentist appointments in the afternoons. The freedom of our time to schedule field trips and vacations when it best suits us. The best of all is the time to enjoy the beautiful weather during the spring and fall. There is so much more learning going on at home than just reading, writing and math. The curriculum is the curriculum of life.
Most importantly, the blessing of time allows us room to breathe. I notice when our schedule gets too hectic I’m stressed, the kids are frazzled and there is definitely a lot more yelling going on than I would care to admit. We live in a society that stresses the importance of “doing.” Sometimes not doing is just as important as doing. It’s finding the balance between the two that strikes a harmony between peace and discord.
Here’s wishing you the gift of time for you and your family for the year ahead and may you enjoy the relationships that grow from it.
Julie is a homeschool mom of four kids with another blessing due in March. Currently she does not have a blog, but she is thinking about starting one.
Thanks for reminding me that NOT doing is OK too. All the DOING in my life seems to undo all the good things.
Before I became too ill I used to HS the little diva’s and I have to say I miss them when they are gone and all the time we used to have together.
Great post.
Julie, amen sister! I appreciate the flexibility and time that homeschooling gives. When they were little my children were able to go to events with their grandparents during the day that they couldn’t have if they were in school. My dad was a Pearl Harbor Survivor and they went to events and luncheons with him and met his Survivor friends and their wives, for instance.
The gift of time enabled them to spend more time with their dad who, at that time, was working some strange hours.
It meant that we could give them extra sleep if needed.
It also meant that our days, and especially our mornings, do not have to be so rushed.
This is my first year homeschooling and it has been a blessing to be able to do things on our schedule. I started our CHRISTmas break a few days early as I was worn out. We can take those days off that daddy gets off.
We find the same blessing as the strongest reinforcement that we’re doing the right thing by homeschooling. I love being able to adjust our schedule to suit our needs, rather than being victim of an arbitrary standard.