Homeschooling

I know it has been forever since I posted anything, but I am going to try and do a bit better. This summer the family was sick a lot, and then I started homeschooling my daughter which takes some adjustment time. Hopefully, I can get back into the swing of writing the blog too.

We started homeschooling at the beginning of September, and we are both getting our feet on the ground with learning to be a teacher and student as well as a mom and daughter. My husband and I decided to homeschool her for a variety of reasons, but most of them have to do with a lack of faith in the public school system. We believe that she deserves the best education possible and we don't believe that she will get that in a public school with all the inherent problems of meeting testing standards and teachers having to do crowd control more than teach. I intend to write a more detailed account of why we homeschool at some point, but for now I will just say we know this is best for our family right now.

We homeschool between 1 and 1/2 to 3 hours a day, 4 days a week as my daughter is not quite 2 yet and any more than that seems to be too much for her. Right now I am trying to establish the basics she will need for PreK. We have six subjects (English, Math, Science, Bible/Character, Art, and Physical Education) that we work on in the week with some having more emphasis than others depending on what needs work.

I will say that there have been some challenges, like trying to keep things interesting and age appropriate for a toddler. She loves art, and is doing really well with her alphabet and pre-reading. Math is hard for her, but the concept of numbers is abstract, so I think that will iron out in time.

I am constantly on the look out of for cirricula and activities that I think she will like, or that can make a tedious subject more fun. There are a lot of great blogs out there, and we are starting to get involved in homeschool groups. In NC you don't have to legally declare that you are homeschooling till your child is 7, but some of the homeschoolers have little brothers and sisters that she is getting a chance to do activities with.

More updates and pictures to come soon!

The container garden, canning and the grocery game

Well, my container garden did not succeed. I have some watermelons that are still doing alright, but the beans apparently did not have enough drainage and some of the other plants just never really took off. I got three salads worth of lettuce, a handful of carrots and onions. I will do more research on container gardening and maybe I can have a more successfull late summer crop. Luckily the other family members in ground gardens are doing much better.

I learned to can green beans last weekend with my sister in law, and now I can't wait to get my own canner. I think I will try some water bath canning myself this year (we go through tomatoes like crazy), and then do my own pressure canning next year when the kidlet is old enough to preoccupy herself a bit more so I can babysit the pressure canner. I am also vacuum sealing produce for deep freeze, so hopefully we will be enjoying summer produce way into the winter.

I have been meaning to blog about the grocery game for a bit now, and just have not had a chance. This is a site http://www.thegrocerygame.com/
I am not in any way affiliated with this company, it has just saved me lots on my groceries and thought it may be useful to some one else. Essentially you enter your zip code, and pick your store(s) and every Sunday your stores lists are updated. The lists show you what you can get at a deep discount or even FREE using coupons, and store deals. It tells you where to find your coupons, and what percentage of a discount you get on the item so you can stock up on things you need for cheap. Since starting it, I have routinely gotten $150 of groceries for $75 or less.
The site of course can explain the service better, but I thought I would write about my experience. There is a small fee (it comes out to less than $2 a week for two store lists) but since it does all the work for me and the savings are so large it is worth it for our family.

I am not June Cleaver

I have a confession to make: I hate housework, I mean really hate housework. This is really contradictory to being a housewife, so I try very hard not to hate it by coming up with many many plans to get and keep the house to the best Martha Stewart clean I can. I have made schedules, bought random organizing pieces, realized the schedules were not working and made more schedules. Something always throws the schedule out of whack... illness, too much stuff to do out of the home, or a toddler promptly pulling all the folded laundry out of the drawers to dance with it.
Here are the things that I have found actually do work for me, either to give me piece of mind or to get the house to a small level of sanity
1- Realize that we actually LIVE here. When you stay at home and don't eat out much you generate lots of mess. It was a lot easier to keep my home clean when I lived alone and worked all the time as I was never there to mess it up.
2- Give myself a break, it does not need to be perfect, and if people come over they are coming to see me not the house.
3-Do a little at a time. The one system I tried that almost worked was the Flylady system. One of the parts of her plan has you set a timer and do as much as you can cleaning before the timer goes off. This has really helped me and I can get my daughter involved as she thinks it is a race.
4-Get rid of stuff. The less stuff you have that you don't use the less you have to organize and clean.
5-Ask for help if you need it. This is a never ending job and like any job some projects are better tackled as a team.

Why I am a stay at home Mom

I thought for Mother's Day I should touch on a mom related topic.
I worked from the time I was 15-16 years old till I was laid off work when I was pregnant with my little girl, at 33. I was good at what I did, but it was always just a job. When I was laid off my husband and I sat down and did lots of talking and decided that at the end of the day we wanted one of us to be the primary caregiver to our child. I believe my daughter is only young once and she cannot possibly get the care and attention from a stranger that she gets from me. The most important roles I will ever play are as a wife to my husband and a mom to my child, and the idea of having to give them the last bit of attention at the end of a busy day from working outside the home just makes me sad.
Now that being said, we are not rich, in fact many people would say we are poor. We make conscious decisions and take actions to make it possible for me to stay at home. Part of my job, is figuring out where we can save money. I stretch and stretch every dollar that comes in. We do without luxuries, and have learned to find free or low cost things to do as a family, and at the end of the day we are all much happier than we were when I was working.
This is not the decision for everyone, not even for most people I know, and a lot of people who knew me in the past would be surprised that a feminist could be a stay at home mom. But at the end of the day feminism is about empowering women to have the choice and ability to do what they want, and this really is what I want to do.

Cheap vs Frugal

I guess to some people cheap and frugal are the same thing, but at least to me there is a big difference. Cheap means always searching out the lowest price, over all else. Frugal means learning to shop wisely, so you know what things cost and what is of good quality. Spending money on a cheap piece of clothing just to have it fall apart in your washer on the first or second wash to me is pointless, and aggravating when you then have to find its replacement.
When I go shopping, I do look at the price, but I try to weigh that against the time spent to earn that money, whether I believe the item will help our lives in some way, and whether it will last if appropriately cared for. I also try not to buy something the first time I think I need it to avoid impulse buying, I try to wait a week to make sure it is something I really want to spend money on. There are plenty of guides for the best time of year to buy big ticket items, here is a listing on an article with MSN http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/TheBestTimeToBuyAnything.aspx
In general though it comes down to appropriate planning and taking care of what you already have. My husband is a godsend because he really understands electronics, plumbing, cars, and can do our home repairs, but if no one in your family can, there are FREE clinics offered regularly through Lowe's and Home Depot to help with home repairs. If you do need to hire some one to work on your home or car, please get a personal recommendation, or at least call the Better Business Bureau before giving your money to a repair company you know nothing about.

Living Simply

Happiness to me comes from my kid running through the yard excited about the dandelions, or my husband appreciating the meal I just put on the table. It has never come from the things I can buy at the store. Don't get me wrong a good deal is a good thing and it does bring some temporary joy, but consumerism has never been where the heart is for me.
I have been making a conscious effort in the last few years with the hard financial times we have had to make home a soft place to land, instead of just a place we live. I think that the decluttering of our home has lead to a greater peace for our family. Creating family rhythms and rituals have slowed down the pace of our lives, and given us a chance to really enjoy each other's company. This has been more important to me than anything that I could ever purchase.
I have been rather ruthless when getting rid of stuff in our home. If I cannot find an immediate use or repurpose for it, then whatever it is leaves to donation or the trash. If I decide we need a new item for the home, I try to research it and wait a week before buying it. Often at the end of that week I have determined we really don't need it. As the items leave our home to bless Goodwill I do not miss them. For me letting go of all these things is freeing, and calming and helps me create the environment that I am happy to bring my child up in.
Does simple living help find peace in your home?

Vegetable Garden Experiment

Today I finally got the container garden in the ground, well in the pots. I have green peppers, carrots, cauliflower, pumpkin, watermelon, onion, lettuce, yellow bush beans, regular green beans, strawberries and two kinds of tomatoes. I am new to gardening, but hopefully I followed the packet instructions well enough to get some crop out of it. I paid a total of $2.00 in seeds, and $10 for organic potting mix. The pots I am using were free from a friend who was moving and no longer needed them. I figure since I am experimenting this year with container gardening as long as I can get that $12 back in produce then I have done alright, although of course the dream is lots to freeze and can for the winter.
I will post pictures when I get something other than dirt in a pot to show you.