I found my desk!

I don't know about anyone else, but February and March tend to be the hardest months of the year ... for homeschooling or just life in general! My desk is always a good indicator of this mid-winter slump. Instructor's Guides pile up, assorted notes and papers litter my desktop, and somewhere under all of the "stuff" are bills and important notifications.

Each year at this time I see my life reflected in the clutter on my desk. My priorities go out the window and I have little motivation to put away the "IGs" and sort through the "papers".

So what's the remedy? Well ... cleaning off my desk is always a good place to begin! The point being that often just identifying one small task, and choosing to get it done, is a good start towards climbing out of my mid-winter slump. Another good idea is to get OUT! Out of the house, out of your office, out of the kitchen ... whatever applies. Even if it's just for a brisk, 15 minute walk around the block, the change of scenery and fresh air is always a good slump-reliever.

Or maybe you need to give yourself the "gift" of a few moments alone. After your kids are settled in for the evening, pour yourself a glass of your favorite beverage and spend some time browsing through Sonlight's Podcast library. The series on How to Organize Your Homeschool is always a good motivator this time of year.

Send me some of your "slump-busters" ... I'd love to hear them! And as my mother used to tell me, spring is always just around the corner.

Keep on . . .
~Judy

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It's that time again!

Is it possible that the summer is nearly over and it's time to begin school again? I'm fairly certain we just filed the end-of-year report with the school district, closed the books and filed them away! But the calendar does not lie and here it is mid-August again.

This year will be different for us. Our oldest has graduated from our homeschool and heads to her first year of college the end of this week. That will leave me with *only* two to school ... one sophmore and a junior higher. Our daughter's graduation has made me think back to when we began homeschooling some 14 years ago now and to mentally review how far we've come. There have "mountain top" years and years when I wondered if my children learned a single thing. Looking back I can see that both were valuable ... the mountain top experiences for boosting our self-confidence and building our love for learning ... and those lean years for causing us to depend on the Lord and realizing we really couldn't do this education thing in our own strength.

I'm looking forward to what this year holds ... and sharing some of it here! We'll be focusing on Civics, Gov't & American History from Sonlight for the sophmore. Along with Consumer Math, Chemistry and a writing program. The Junior Higher will be doing an indepth study of American History from Sonlight, Algebra 1 and Physical Science. It will be my second and third time through some of these subjects, but I find something new to learn each year as they share what they are learning.

~Judy

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