Get Ready....Keepin' It Real Is Coming!

So here's how it's going to work. On Tuesday, April 1st (I know, April Fool's! I thought it would be a perfect day!) we are going to have our first-ever Keepin' It Real Fest. Or "KIR" as several of you cool bloggers have been calling it. And the first time I saw those initials I was like, "KIR? What's KIR?".................."OH!" I can be pretty snappy sometimes.

Many people have told me they would love to participate in something like this. I certainly hope they weren't kidding! On Tuesday, post your best Keepin' It Real moment to share with the world wide web on your blog. Then, hop over here and sign up on the Mr. Linky, which I am really hoping I know how to do. Otherwise, I will have to buy Rachel a plane ticket so she can come help me and that will be terribly expensive.

If you want to see other Keepin' It Real moments from the past....just click on the button on my sidebar. (If you want a button, just drop me an e-mail!) Thank you again, Julie, for the cool button.

Thanks, everyone! I am looking forward to this and hope it will be fun and an encouragement for everyone who reads.

Because I Don't Have the Heart to Write a Serious Post

And I do have a lot of serious things running around my head right now. I just can't quite put them into words or a comprehensible post just yet.

So instead, I bring you a question I had the other day. How do you refer to those whom you have met on the internet? I need to know because this comes up for me ALL the time. In a conversation, something wonderful that I read on a blog will come to mind and I want to share it. So I say,

"A lady whose blog I read every day said that..."

or

"I read on the internet that..."

or

"A friend of mine had that happen to her and she..."

or

"This girl I know from the computer..."

Yeah. It really creeped me out about 8 or 9 years ago when the very first person I knew in real life married someone she met on the internet. Now here I am talking about my "friends from the computer." And I truly do consider some of you friends. Your first names come up in our house. S knows who you are. I'll say something and he'll say, "Is that the one who lives in __________?" You have become a part of my life.

So, how do you refer to the rest of us? Do you? I can't really fake it and say, "My friend Karly said that..." because my sisters and friends would be like, "Who's Karly? I don't know any Karly." Remember, I live on the same block I grew up on. My circle is pretty small and I've also gone to the same church my whole life. Plus they know I don't work so it's not like they would just assume that my "friend" is someone from my job.

OK. I'm ready to hear from you. How do you handle this? How do you refer to your computer friends in real life?

Also, don't forget that Keepin' It Real posting day is April 1st!!! Get ready to bless others by fessing up your real life stuff that you don't usually share on the web!

Reflections Near the End of Year One

I'm ready to talk about it now.

All the dumb things I tried this year, my successes, my favorite and least favorite things about homeschooling this year. I know the year is not quite over...but I'm feeling reflective because I see the end in sight. Well, the end of this year. For a while. Before we start the next grade.

I guess actually I don't see the end after all.

First let me explain, in case you are new here...I taught public elementary school for 11 years. Then I did a few other things. Then we began homeschooling. I read everything I could get my hands on about homeschooling before we started. Tried to figure out what I agreed with and didn't agree with.

I've said it before...I think planning to homeschool is kind of like being engaged. You can imagine what it will be like to be married...but you can just never know until you get there. So after all of my research, I thought I had a handle on things. I got one room of our house ready to use for school, organized all of our stuff, and got read to dazzle my daughter with second grade.

Then, at the end of two weeks she looked at me and said, "Mommy. I miss doing fun stuff."

Oops.

After further questioning, I gathered that she wanted to do "fun" stuff like her three year old sister was getting to do while she did lessons. So we took a day off, reevaluated everything and started over.

Now I had my three year old doing weekly themes from a really cool website I found. My 2nd grader was doing other more "important and official" themes that second graders should be doing. As I was perusing the library shelves for books one day she asked me, "Mommy, what is my theme this week?" I told her. "And what is Sissy's theme?" Again, I answered her. "Sissy's theme sounds like more fun," she muttered as she walked away.

Oops again.

Hey! Lightbulb moment! Why not study the same thing but on different levels? I tell you, all that higher education of mine was really starting to pay off. Or not.

The point is...I got brave and kept trying until we had worked out "what works for us." We jumped into unit studies, and lapbooks, dabbled in Charlotte Mason, and just kept trying new things all the time. We are still trying new things. The best thing I have learned all year is: we have the freedom to keep trying new things. Man, I LOVE that!

Good thing too, because next year is not going to be anything like this first year. And I'm OK with that, really. (And by the way...that classroom? It's a toy room now. Much better use, I'd say.)

Keepin' It Real: Nothing to Report+One Big Announcement

Well, Lisa from My Surviving Thoughts tried. She really did. She wanted to help us keep things real in the bloggy world, but she kind of had trouble finding anything to talk about.

It's hilarious! Go check it out.

Big Announcement:

If you have a Keepin' It Real moment you'd like to share, save it for Tuesday, April 1. I plan to have a Mr. Linky and we can all share our wonderful "real" moments with each other on that day. It'll be so much fun! And, you can reach back in time for ideas. It doesn't have to be a "current" moment in order to share. In fact, feel free to share real moments from your past or present--we like them all.

(Suppressing the fear that only one person will sign up on the Mr. Linky and I will look very, very stupid.)

Thank you and have a great day!

Nothing

I am convinced more every day that there is nothing....absolutely nothing...more important for us as wives and mothers to invest in....nothing more important that we could invest in than our home and family.

No ministry.
No job.
No outside commitment.
No volunteer work.

Nothing.

The future of our children in God's kingdom depends on it. Our family's happiness hangs there. Our marriages are nurtured there. I know people who don't even want to be home. Who don't even want to be with their own spouse.

So I am choosing to invest in my home and family. Not just stay home. Not just be a homeschool mom. Not just clean house. Not just go through the motions of all the wonderful things there are to do.

I will invest in this place and these people for the kingdom of God.

I think I will start now.