Zephyr Hill

A Family Blog

Time to Get Ready for Home Schooling!

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This Fall marks our 5th year with home schooling! Joseph will be a big 4th grader and Catherine is moving up to 3rd. Benjamin is still only 4 years old, so he’s not an official student yet since we don’t see the need for “pre K.” This year, I’m just buying two $4 workbooks from Rod & Staff to get out for him to work on occasionally.

My little pupils, way back in 2008!

Our curriculum consists mainly of Seton materials. The Seton Home Study school is 30 years strong and known for academic excellence (especially in the language arts) and solidly reinforces our Catholic faith. To save money, we don’t enroll officially with Seton. Instead, I’ve always written the lesson plans myself by hand each week.

But this year, to save LOTS of time and hassle, I’m trying something new! It’s a software program called Homeschool Tracker Plus and allows you to input lesson plans, activities and events for your children and then print them out as needed whenever you want.

I love the idea that I can create the lesson plans before school begins and not have to fool with it again for the entire year. What a blessing! Even better, once I put the lesson plans into Homeschool Tracker, they are saved for good. That means no re-do’s when a younger child reaches that grade level! Each week in the school year, I’ll be able to print lesson plans for Joseph and Catherine and they can check off items as they complete them each day.

homeschooltracker1

Later in the year, after we’ve used the software program for a while, I’ll post a review and link to it here.

Does your family home school? If so, are you doing anything new or different this Fall?

 

Women: Have You Ever Said “I Could Never Do That!”

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things I’ve said this about and where I stand

Baking Bread

Cloth Diapering

Making Our Own Clothes

Having a Big Family

On one hand, it’s been popular in modern times to tell women “You can do anything!” and yet how many women respond to a challenge with the words “I could never do that!” Surely there has to be a balance between knowing our limitations and meeting new challenges.

Quite often, when I tell someone that I have 5 children (update…now there are 6!), or that I home school, or that we raise and butcher our own meat, or that we cloth diaper, etc. etc. they will respond like this: “Oh, I could never do that!” Of course, this is not meant to be a criticism; they are just saying they think they can’t do it for one reason or another.

That response always brings to mind a saying I heard once from Dave Ramsey: “It doesn’t matter if you think you can, or if you think you can’t. You’re right!”

That is to say, when we think we can’t do something, then we generally won’t do it.

But the fact is, there are a lot of things we COULD do if we only put forth the effort, educated ourselves and made conditions ripe for the adventure. If we would “set the stage for success” then saying “I can do this” would be much easier.

Despite the many things I’ve undertaken, I am still very guilty of this way of thinking sometimes. Like many, I fear the unknown. I keep saying I’d “like” to bake all of our bread and sew clothing for my children, but I’m not taking any steps to make those things happen.

Another saying I love: “If it is to be….then it’s up to me!”

Here are some leaps of faith I’ve taken and the outcomes that resulted. It’s good for me to look over this list from time to time for encouragement. The fear of failure is usually a lot worse than the outcomes we imagine (and that rarely happen):

1. I got married. Yes, this counts! It’s a big leap to commit yourself to one man for the rest of your life, till death do you part. The outcome? Ten years together so far – and the security, comfort and happiness this brings. And did I mention all the beautiful children?
2. I started using cloth diapers. One day I just quit buying disposables, so I was forced to go “old school.” In came the prefolds and diaper pins and covers. The outcome? Lots of money savings. Some failures and foibles along the way as I learned what worked best. Four years later….here we are. I’m one of the biggest cloth advocates you find anywhere!
3. I started budgeting. Actually, this is something my husband and I do together. And it’s hard. But it works. Do I like having restrictions on spending? Not really. Do I like looking at the budget every month and going over the numbers with my husband? Hardly! Do I like that we’re not living from “paycheck to paycheck” anymore? YES! Do I like that we don’t overdraw on checking anymore? YES! Do I like that we finally have savings AND a growing emergency fund? YES!

What are some things you keeping saying you can’t do, and what are your reasons? What would it take for you to go ahead and try?