Our Journey Begins

As I sat on my back porch today chatting with a couple of homeschool mommies about when/how/why we began to homeschool, it brought back a flood of memories- some more cheerful than others. ;)


This crazy journey began when, for various reasons (another long post), we decided to pull our three daughters out of the local public school (that we had moved near to go to!). That summer was spent mulling over the various options, planning, and connecting with a few other homeschoolers. In the midst of this, my brother, his wife and baby daughter moved in with us---picture it---960 sq. ft with 1 bathroom for 4 adults and 4 children!! Needless to say, it was chaos.

As the summer progressed, my brother made it his mission to dissuade me from this awful, life threatening decision we had made. I vividly remember sitting at my tiny desk with him next to me- pounding me with argument after argument of why what I was doing was wrong. So, you can start to grasp the stressful situation that I was caught in!

Finally, I was going to go away to a "how to homeschool"  weekend seminar sponsored by some local homeschool "veterans". Promises of teaching us to lesson plan, choose curriculum and giving us assistance in our personal plans was a huge draw.

As the time neared for me to get away for this weekend, things were getting more and more tense around the house. The day arrived for me to leave for this promised weekend and my bathroom exploded! The strain of single handedly accommodating all these people was just too much for our poor tired bathroom!

Add to that, my brother was going to be leaving for that weekend too. His wife and baby would stay at our house leaving my hubby to care for their baby and our children while she worked. Ugh! I left with a sinking feeling in my heart, arrived at the seminar, got my money stolen at lunch, and called my husband to come get me before the first night even ended! A rather auspicious start to our journey!!

Anyway, the school year began- crazy family not withstanding. We started our venture at our rickety kitchen table in our beaten up kitchen with one counter cleared and organized with books. The one really cool thing that we had was a large magnetic white board (hanging on the wall over our table) gifted to me by my other slightly more supportive brother!

Since then we have homeschooled through the loss of dear ones, caring for sick family, illness, miscarriages, births, financial ups and downs, adult children going off to college, adult children coming home, marriages, grandparents moving next door, and more.

And, I don't regret one minute of it!

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