It would be so easy. . .

It would be so easy to just quit. . .

• quit homeschooling because this is hard.
• quit cleaning the house because I never seem to get anywhere.
• quit trying to teach my children right from wrong and just give them whatever they wanted.
• quit submitting to my husband and stand up for myself.
• quit trusting anyone.
• quit loving my neighbor.
• quit pushing through the physical pain and just lay down to sleep.
• quit, quit, quit, quit.

It would be so easy to just crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14

I will press on, and trust in My Abba, who I know has my back.

Hot, hot, hot.

I know everybody is saying it but darn it, it sure is hot. We went for a nature walk the other morning and it was 85 degrees at 9:00 am. Needless to say being the delicate flower that I am (ha, ha) I turned those kids around and marched them right back home. Seriously, I was beginning to wonder if global warming was real for a while. Then I got to talking to my next door neighbor and he said that this summer reminded him of summers when he was a kid. We broke a record here in Kentucky the other day. The most consecutive days in the 90's or higher. Yesterday we broke a record temperature that was set way back in 1888. Well there was no global warming in 1888 was there. So I still really have a hard time believing in global warming.

Here is a tree we saw on our nature walk. We were really looking for birds, but for some reason they wouldn't hold still. It couldn't have been the fact that the kids were running and hollering and generally acting as if they had never been outside a day in their lives, could it?

Charlotte Mason to the rescue

I have been swimming around trying to keep my head above water. I knew that I wanted to give my kids a home education with substance. I looked at the ABeka curriculum, the Bob Jones curriculum, etc. The ones that are used in our local Christian schools. I'm just not really a fill in the blank kinda of girl. I wanted a curriculum that would make my children think. One that would be well rounded with art and music, latin and so much more than these curriculum offered. Don't get me wrong, we are going to be using the ABeka math and I'm still looking for a handwriting program that I love, but I wanted more than just reading, writing, and arithmatic.

Enter Charlotte Mason and http://amblesideonline.org/. I am really praying that this is what I have been looking for. So far it looks very promising. I am super excited.

Does anyone else use Charlotte Mason?

Homeschooling my crazy kids

Ok, we've been doing "informal" homeschooling all summer. You know finding learning wherever we were. We looked at the beach and learned about dolphins. We watched the space shuttle and learned about rip currents at the beach. We named lots of different birds in Florida that we don't have at home. This week was the week to knuckle down and hit the books. I think my kids thought that homeschool was going to be all field trips and fun, which we will do plenty of, and no books.

Well since the weather has been 100 degrees or more in the shade I decided that it was time to come inside and get some of the serious things out of the way. Hey, I must tell you that I prefer the "informal" myself, but I can't have kids who can name EVERY bird in the whole world and not be able to read or add. I just had to seperate them all. I put them together and they play and nobody gets anything done.

Has anybody else had this problem?