I Spy… passions, plans, ponytails and more
October 7, 2009 by Cassie
I Spy With My Little Eye…
… help for the parent whose child doesn’t seem to be passionate about anything.
… a simpler way to accomplish your lesson planning.
… what you can do to dress up a plain ponytail, quick and easy!
… ways to get a young storyteller’s words on paper if they are reluctant about writing.
… some r-e-s-p-e-c-t
… a Jewish feast revealed.
Cassandra Simpson is a homeschooling wife and mother of four children, ages 1, 8, 9, and 12. She is starting her 6th year of home educating in Indiana and uses a “Classically Eclectic” teaching approach. Cassandra is the Assistant Lead Moderator for HOTM’s forum and loves talking homeschool with anyone who will listen! Her hobbies are reading, blogging, sewing, and cooking. You can check out her family’s blog at In His Image.
Write at Home: Leanna Ellis
September 28, 2009 by Marybeth
Welcome to Write At Home, a monthly feature here at HOTM. Marybeth Whalen will be introducing you to homeschool moms who write: curriculum authors, novelists, nonfiction writers, and popular bloggers and more. Many of us are deeply inspired by these moms who seem to “do it all.” This feature will provide you with a glimpse into their everyday lives.
Leanna Ellis is a writer, homeschool mom and keeper of many pets. Today we get to hear about how she writes at home!
Hi Le, thanks so much for joining us today! Can you tell us a bit about your work and your family?
Hi, Marybeth! Thanks so much for having me here! I write quirky women’s fiction, plus I homeschool our two children, a boy in 6th grade and a girl in 5th. Besides that, my husband and I have a menagerie of three dogs (one being a hyper puppy) and a surly cat.
You were once a writer of secular romances but switched to Christian fiction– explain what prompted that change.
That’s true. When my two children were born, fifteen months apart, I was busy writing romances. I think I suffered some burnout as I wrote 4 books from when my son was born to when he turned a year, plus I was pregnant with my second for 6 months of that time. But it wasn’t truly burnout in that I had other story ideas floating around in my head. Part of me wanted to spend more time with my characters and not have to rush so in telling their stories. So I made a tough decision and walked away from publishing for a while. When I was pregnant with my first child, a very difficult pregnancy with a lot of fears and questions about the health of my son, God really began to do a major work in my heart. My son was born with a hole in his heart which thankfully closed on its own, but God really changed mine. So for the first time, I gave my writing to the Lord and prayed about what He wanted me to write. For a few years, while I continued praying, I was also growing my writing and discovering my voice and what I wanted to write. I truly thought He wanted me to continue writing for the secular market but with a foundation of spiritual issues presented in the stories. After I’d been trying to sell Elvis Takes a Back Seat for a while, and feeling like I was hitting my head against a stone wall, I came across a CBA (Christian Bookseller’s Association) editor’s blog. This editor was discussing how the inspirational market was beginning to reach out to the secular market. I had an incredible visceral response to the blog which surprised me. So I began praying about it, asking God if He wanted me to suddenly move toward the inspirational market. I began to rework my manuscript, tugging those spiritual threads more toward the surface. Within three months, I had an agent … and a few months after that a publisher. God really began to open doors. One of those doors was with my publisher and that my book became their launch title. So it was all timing. HIS timing.
Your kids go to a university model school. Can you tell us a bit about that and how it fits with homeschooling? Also, what made you decide to go with that choice for your family?
About three years ago, I had already been homeschooling for a few years, and I felt like I’d exceeded my teaching abilities. My background is teaching elementary education with an emphasis on reading and the early grades. My husband and I really believed in providing a classical education for our children. Plus, we wanted to provide foreign language instruction, and I’m handicapped in that I only speak English. We had our eye on a university model school for several years and knew several people who went. Basically, the children attend two days a week. The other days are spent at home doing their lessons. The parent is also considered a teacher but does not have to do direct instruction. The teachers at the school do that. Mostly I grade papers, do remedial work and keep the kids on task. Friday classes are provided for extra subjects. We have really enjoyed our two years there. We still have many of the benefits of homeschooling but also benefits of a private school. Our thinking when we began homeschooling was to provide the best education we could for our children in whatever form that might be. We try to be flexible in that we want to follow God’s path for our children. We’ve learned one particular way does not always fit all children or families. What a great time we live in that we have so many options as parents to benefit our children.
You have a book that was released recently. Can you tell us a little about it?
Ruby’s Slippers came out in April. It’s sort of a Wizard of Oz meets Cinderella story. When Dottie Meyers loses her ‘no place like home’ during a Kansas tornado, she wakes up to find a pair of ruby slippers left by her father who abandoned his family thirty years ago. With her sister hot on her trail to find the treasured ruby slippers, Dottie travels a yellow brick road with three friends to find her father. No wizard can solve her problems. Only the love of a heavenly father can heal her wounds and give her the desires of her heart. There’s no place like … the heart for God’s healing touch.
Can you share a great time-management tip or two that you have discovered as you have worked to balance your writing and homeschooling?
I’ve learned over the years to give myself plenty of grace. God certainly does! There are days when I don’t get up early enough. Or I need an afternoon nap. Or a child gets sick and I don’t get any work done. For three weeks this past February, my father was in the hospital. During that time, I was driving the kids to and from school and to and from the hospital which was almost an hour from us. At the hospital, I couldn’t concentrate with nurses, doctors and visitors walking into the room at all hours. But I no longer beat myself up over bumps in the road. Things happen. Amazingly, I was still able to meet my deadline. Definitely a dose of help from God. Tomorrow, as Scarlett, so aptly said, is another day. I’ve also (and am still learning) to do things in little chunks. This includes cleaning the house. If I do a little bit every day, progress is made. 5 minutes every day adds up throughout the week. And this is true for my writing. Whereas I might not be able to write as long or as much per day as I once did before kids and homeschooling, I can write little bits here and there.
Finally, what advice would you give to a mom who has a dream of being a writer?
We can all say we don’t have time for the things we want to pursue. We’re all busy. But at some point you just have to quit talking or thinking about it and do it. Just write. Give yourself thirty minutes a day to write. If you can’t squeeze it in during nap times (which I so miss!), then get up thirty minutes early. Moms have told me, “But I’m not a morning person.” Neither am I. I trained myself to get up early and work. You can too. When my babies were young, I’d write when they napped. My son, unfortunately, only took 30 minute naps. So I wrote during those 30 minutes. I produced 4 books that year. It can be done. John Grisham wrote his first book during lunch. A page a day adds up to a 356 page book by the end of the year. So, no excuses, just write.
Thanks so much for taking time to share with us. We all could stand to learn a lot from you!
Thank you, Marybeth! I hope my answers will help someone else.
Marybeth Whalen is homeschooling mom to six children ranging in age from teen to toddler, as well as a speaker for Proverbs 31 Ministries. In her writings, she addresses things like burnout, dealing with interruptions, and handling homeschooling from a very practical perspective. Be sure to visit her blog, Cheaper by the Half Dozen.
CurrClick Contest: win an iPod Shuffle
September 23, 2009 by AmyS
CurrClick has a Cross Country Team and we need your help with our T-Shirts! Write the winning tagline for our Team Shirts & you could win an iPod Shuffle! Kids & parents are welcome to participate. Click here to find out more about the CurrClick Cross Country Team.
Send your ideas to staley@currclick.com by 5:00 p.m. CST, Thursday October 1st, with the subject line “T-Shirt Tagline”. So, be creative, have fun, and don’t forget to follow the contest rules!
Contest Rules:
- Taglines should be short and catchy and should somehow incorporate the word “homeschoolers,” “homeschooling,” or “homeschool” into the text of the tagline.
- Taglines should NOT be specific to running, but should focus on hard work and achievement. We plan to use these T-shirts for our other clubs, and sports teams, so we need to make sure your tagline is general enough to work for all sports or clubs.
- Special consideration will be given to taglines that incorporate our company name, “CurrClick.com.”
- Special consideration will be given to taglines that are inspired by or a derivation of our existing tagline, “Curriculum and Classes in a Click.”
- Submissions should be sent in an e-mail to staley@currclick.com by 5:00 p.m. CST, Thursday October 1st, 2009 with the subject line “T-shirt Tagline.”
- Please include no more than 7 taglines per e-mail submission.
- Submissions MUST include name, age, and a short bio about the entrant.
- Publishers, teachers, employees and their children are welcome to participate in this contest!
- In the unlikely event that we receive 2 identical submissions, we will choose the winner via coin flip.
Prizes and Notification:
- You will NOT be notified that we received your submission. Entries that are not chosen will not be notified.
- The owner of the winning tagline will be notified on October 10th and the ipod shuffle will be mailed on October 15th. The winner will also be mailed a t-shirt as soon as they are designed and printed!
Carnival of Homeschooling #196
We are proud to have the opportunity to host the September 29th edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling. I am sure almost everyone of you has heard of homeschooling’s #1 carnival, however here is more information if you have not.
How to submit to the carnival
Send your submission to the Cate family before Monday, September 28th at 6:00pm PST. You may do so one of 2 ways:
1. Via email CarnivalOfHomeschooling@gmail.com with the following information
- Title of Post
- URL of Post
- Name of Blog
- URL of Blog
- Brief summary of the post
- Please place “carnival” or “submission” in the subject field of the email
2. Via internet at Blog Carnival and click on the big orange button at the top right of the screen.
Your articles will appear here at Heart of the Matter on Tuesday, September 29th.
Make a Wall Timeline Without a Wall
September 14, 2009 by Bethany
You’ve all seen them. Many of you have drooled over them. What are they? They’re large timelines covering an entire wall or walls—or even an entire schoolroom. You know the ones I mean: they’re the really cool timelines around the perimeter of the really cool, official schoolrooms (as opposed to the kitchen where many of you do school). You know the rooms I mean: the beautiful, organized, separate schoolrooms with a desk for each child, file cabinets, and bookshelves filled to the brim with books, manipulatives, binders, and tools to make learning and teaching easy. Yep, we’ve all drooled over those rooms at one time or another. But, what if you don’t have a room like that? What if you don’t have enough wall space, either on one wall or around the perimeter, in order to do a wall timeline? What if your husband (or you!) objects to having the timeline in the kitchen or in the living room?
The answer is to put your timeline on a door. We all have doors in our houses, so why not utilize one of them for a large-scale timeline? No matter what your teaching style is, timelines can be a useful tool to show history. Especially for younger children, time and history eras can be an abstract concept. A timeline can make them concrete. A wall timeline can be as simple or as complex as you wish. It can cover multiple centuries or just one or two hundred years. Here is a picture of my whole timeline. This particular one goes from 1400 to the present time. For us, it’s covering two years of history.
I used sentence strip paper that I bought at a local education store, but it’s also available on Amazon for very little money. My sentence strip papers are 23 ½ inches long and 3 inches high. I used one strip per century and divided it into decades. Each decade is between 2 ¼ and 2 ½ inches long. I folded a template strip in half, and then made four more folds for a total of nine folds. Then I used a sharpie to mark each fold for a decade. I used my template to mark each of seven different sentence strip papers into decades for different centuries.
After I had the strips marked with decades, I made sure that they were in order, started with the oldest dates at the top, and worked my way down the door. I had to position them several times to make sure that I left enough room in between each strip.
Now that the actual timeline is on the door, what else do you put on it? I bought a book of figures at a used curriculum fair called Historical Timeline Figures by Liberty Wiggers. Homeschool in the Woods makes a great line of timeline figures as well. At the beginning of each year, I look through the timeline figures book and cut out every figure that belongs in the time period that we’ll be studying that year. If you’ve got a CD, you would simply print out the applicable figures. Then, I divide them into groups so that each group has a manageable number of figures (fifty-year groups this year) and put each group in a labeled envelope.
As we study history throughout the year, I pull out the appropriate envelope and have my daughter put the figures on the timeline in order using a small amount of sticky tack. Ta-da! We have a wall timeline—a large, always-visible representation of history—without a wall.
If you’ve wanted to have a wall timeline in your house, but have felt limited because of space, this is your solution. It’s still fairly early in the academic year, so it’s not too late to put one up now. Enjoy!
Bethany has been married for 16 years, homeschooling for 9 years, and organizing forever. She homeschools her two girls, grade 6 and grade 10, in North Carolina. She is also a partner in Codex Publishing, publisher of The Tutor and classic book reprints. When she isn’t homeschooling or driving the family taxi, Bethany enjoys reading, music, church activities, editing, writing, history, and keeping up with friends.
A Fantastic Homeschool Resource!
September 8, 2009 by Darcy
I recently had the privilege to chat with Karin, the mind behind the Homeschool Resource Toolbar. She has been working so hard on this awesome tool for homeschoolers, and is constantly updating it. If you missed Karin’s workshop at the Heart of the Matter Online Conference, you missed the “ooohhhhs” and “aaahhhhhs” as she revealed just how powerful this resource can be.
Here are some of the features you should know about:
Web Menu button:
sorts the best online resources by category—so easy to locate and use. Categories include Associations, Printables (sorted by grade), educational games, videos, free curriculum, multi media, open courseware and more!
Shopping Cart button
Has all the best homeschooling catalogs, curriculum and online stores. View by subject or methodology.
Chat feature
Lets you chat with other homeschooling toolbar users
Feed button
5 of the best homeschooling blogs feed right into the toolbar. Includes Heart of the Matter so you can stay on top of the latest homeschool news, encouragement and resources.
Radio button
Is actually the most used feature on this tool bar. It allows you to access local radio stations and program in your favorites. But what makes it useful is what it is preprogrammed with—some of the best PODCASTS including: James Dobson parenting podcast, classics for kids, Latin for kids, Candlelight stories for kids, Radio Disney, Sixty Second Science, Flylady and friends, Nutrition Diva, Stuff you should know, and much more including Christian radio stations.
Gadget button
Has tons of cool gadgets to help you get/stay organized. Includes tools to help organize your additional email accounts, social media, favorite online sources, and life!
Additionally, the tool bar updates automatically—download it once and you will always have the latest resources at your finger tips!
To download the toolbar visit http://HomeschoolResource.OurToolbar.com.
Darcy is the mom to three boys ages 8, 7, and 5 and blogs over at Life with My 3 Boybarians. She is the owner of a blog design business at www.graphicallydesigning.com. She and Handy Man live in Iowa…nowhere near a Starbucks.
At the Forum…Sept 9
September 7, 2009 by Cassie
This is the first of a new weekly feature highlighting what’s happening on the new HOTM forum. What? You STILL haven’t checked out HOTM’s awesome forum?! There is so much there waiting for you! Just look at a few things you are missing…
- Homeschooling with toddlers or preschoolers? Wondering what in the world to do with them while teaching your olders? Check out this discussion: What do you do with your toddlers/preschoolers?
- Teaching elementary-aged children? Find out how long a typical school day is in other families: How long is your school day?
- Have a middle-schooler? Check out Lee Binz’s advice on the best way to get yourself ready for high school at home here.
- Have some great advice for cutting down on the cost of high school at home? Looking for advice on cutting costs in your own family? Check out this discussion: High School Subjects, CHEAP!
- Share your thoughts on CM style narration and find out how others make it work for them: Narration: Simple, Easy, and Exciting!
- Network with other moms following the classical education model here.
- Learn more about different ways to amp up your homeschooling days by visiting this area of the forum: Creative Homeschooling.
Come check out these topics and so much more! Visit the forum to see all the different ways you can connect with like-minded families every day! There are categories of interest according to your child’s age, grade-level, learning style, and even learning method! There are also areas for discussion of topics not directly related to home education such as discipline, health and nutrition, single parenting, blended families, intimacy, budgeting/finance, bible study, and even ministry!
You’ve got nothing to lose so check it out today! Registration is quick and easy, all you need is a valid e-mail. Visit this link to register: Join now!
Cassandra Simpson is a homeschooling wife and mother of four children, ages 1, 8, 9, and 12. She is starting her 6th year of home educating in Indiana and uses a “Classically Eclectic” teaching approach. Cassandra is the Assistant Lead Moderator for HOTM’s forum and loves talking homeschool with anyone who will listen! Her hobbies are reading, blogging, sewing, and cooking. You can check out her family’s blog at In His Image.
Would you like to join the HOTM team?
August 29, 2009 by The Amies
Heart of the Matter is in need of help in several areas. If you can help in any of the following ways or if you have a talent and would like to help in a way not mentioned, simply email us and let us know you’d like to help!
Areas requiring help:
article editors: Heart of the Matter publishes approximately 50 original articles per month. We are in need of a few “perfectionists” with strong grammar and visual skills to help edit and beautify the articles.
- article writers: We are always on the look-out for talented and inspirational writers. Currently we are praying for more writers who have a passion for the following topics – homeschooling toddlers, homeschooling preschoolers, homeschooling a child with disabilities, military homeschoolers, homeschooling an only child, homeschooling a large family, and homeschooling in a divorced family.
- special features writers: These special features include engaging weekly discussion-type posts, and a “comments of the week” post which spotlights some of the best comments from the previous week on Heart of the Matter.
- forum moderators and promoters: This would simply require that you choose one (or more) sections of the Heart of the Matter forum, post often to keep the forum active and spread the word to your friends. We have 58 sections to meet the needs of a wide variety of homeschool families.
- social media experts: Are you active on Facebook or Twitter? Are you a go-getter who loves making new friends and being active in the online community? We could use your help. We have so many great articles, announcements, and especially questions to share and ask of other homeschoolers. You would be given access to Heart of the Matter’s Facebook and Twitter, as well as a list of potential topics/questions that you can be creative with.
- sales reps: Heart of the Matter and A Woman Inspired are in need of commissioned sales reps. You will be thoroughly trained and will receive an portion of your sales. Contact us for details.
- conference hostesses: Between Heart of the Matter and A Woman Inspired, we hold 10 conferences per year. Our hostesses are responsible for introducing our amazing line-up of speakers, providing the attendants with information about our sponsors, moderating the chat, and reaching out to the Lord in a prayer just prior to the start of all the sessions. You can volunteer to be a hostess for as many conferences as you like.
Please note that all positions, with the exception of the sales rep position are on a volunteer basis. As a plus, Heart of the Matter’s team members receive free access to all of our conferences. If you are interested in any of these opportunities, please email us at: the.amies@heartofthemattermagazine.com
Write at Home: Featuring Ariel Allison Lawhon
Welcome to Write At Home, a monthly feature here at HOTM. Marybeth Whalen will be introducing you to homeschool moms who write: curriculum authors, novelists, nonfiction writers, and popular bloggers and more. Many of us are deeply inspired by these moms who seem to “do it all.” This feature will provide you with a glimpse into their everyday lives.
This month we are excited to welcome Ariel Allison Lawhon to Write At Home!
First things first, you had an unusual childhood. Can you tell us about it? And how it influenced you as both a writer and a homeschooling mom?
My childhood was spent atop the Rocky Mountains in a home with no electricity or running water (think Laura Ingalls meets the Hippie Movement). We didn’t have television in our home until I was almost twelve so we had to find alternative forms of entertainment. For well over a decade my mother read to us by the light of a kerosene lantern. By the time I was five years old I knew every character in the Chronicles of Narnia by name. As far as I was concerned, J.R.R. Tolkien, George MacDonald, L.M. Montgomery, and Charles Dickens were household names.
My mother loved books and she loved to read them to her children. I owe my passion for the written word to her alone. I first learned how powerful stories can be while curled up next to a pot belly stove during snowstorms. Even at a young age I understood that Aslan was a type of Jesus, and because I loved Aslan I later came to love Jesus. So I longed to write stories that had meaning and purpose. That desire never wavered through the years.
Tell us about your family.
My husband and I have four boys ages six and under: London, Parker, Marshall, and Colby. I often wish that my kids were sedate but the truth is that they have two speeds: running and asleep. As such, I have learned to embrace life on fast forward. The energy level and noise level in our home is insane. I am often drowning in mind-numbing amounts of camouflage. But in the end I love this crazy, loud life of mine and I wouldn’t change a thing.
When did you first start writing?
I have known that I wanted to write since I was five years old but there is one person (aside from my mother) who charted the course for my writing career: my high school English teacher, Mrs. Wilson. I know it sounds a bit cliché, but the time I spent in Mrs. Wilson’s class was a turning point in my life. At the end of my freshman year she heard about me in the teachers lounge. Apparently a few of my teachers mentioned that I was a decent writer and she got wind of it. So one day after Algebra (I still have nightmares about all things math) she approached me in the hallway and asked if I’d take her Creative Writing class the following year. I did. And by Christmas she abandoned her lesson plan and sent me in the computer lab to write. To this day she is the biggest cheerleader I’ve ever had when it came to my writing. I wouldn’t be doing this if she hadn’t shown such an interest in me or invested so much in my development.
What books have you had published?
Although this is my first novel, I’ve co-written a number of non-fiction works and children’s books: Daddy Do You Love Me: a Daughter’s Journey of Faith and Restoration (New Leaf Press, 2006), Jesus: Dead or Alive (Regal Books, 2009), and the Justin Case series of children’s books (Harvest House, 2010).
Which do you prefer to write– nonfiction or fiction? Why?
Fiction, hands down. I love telling stories. Or, as my husband says, I love “making stuff up!” Every writer portrays themselves on paper whether consciously or not. There are bits and pieces of me in each character: hopes, dreams, struggles, sin, fear. As creative people, writers mimic God in the way he created. To a certain extent, I think we all make our characters “in our own image.” I write fiction because it gives me a chance to create and I feel God’s pleasure when I do.
Your new book is fiction. What gave you the idea to write it and how long did it take you?
In the Spring of 1995, I stumbled across an article in Life Magazine on the Hope Diamond. The two-page spread showed Michelle Pheiffer wearing the jewel and gave a brief history of the legendary curse. I knew instantly that it should to be a novel. Being the curious gal that I am, I dug around and was surprised to find that although most people were familiar with the curse, no one had done anything with the concept. So I began researching and writing and then my novel, eye of the god, was born. I started the process fourteen years ago this spring.
Your novel was recently chosen for the She Reads Book Club. Can you tell us a little about the club and what that will mean for your book?
She Reads is the new fiction book club sponsored by Proverbs 31 Ministries and my novel was chosen as one of the three initial selections. Each quarter, She Reads selects three Christian novels that set the standard in storytelling. I am honored to be part of this group and will be participating in a number of activities such as blog appearances, conference calls, and interviews. More information can be found at www.shereadsblog.blogspot.com.
Share what a typical day (ha!) looks like at your house?
My children wake up at the crack of dawn. They come by it honestly – they get it from their daddy. I, on the other hand, am not fully awake until 10:00. So we typically start slow in the mornings (for my benefit). Since I’m only in my second year of home schooling our kids, things are not too complicated. After breakfast I do basic housekeeping with the boys: a load or two of laundry, empty the dishwasher, makes beds, tidy the kitchen. And then we plunge into school. I try to get the harder subjects like math and geography done in the morning while concentration levels are high. We also spend a lot of time reading and working puzzles and writing on the dry erase board in the morning. For some reason my boys are much happier doing handwriting and spelling on the whiteboard than in notebooks – and I don’t mind as long as they enjoy the process.
Before lunch I often send them out to play and burn off excess energy. So far all of my children seem to be hands-on learners, so I encourage them to get their hands dirty (literally) and explore. That often means digging holes in the back yard while searching for earthworms or collecting pine cones, or catching bugs and lizards or wrestling with our dog. They ask a lot of questions, and while it usually drives me to distraction, much of our day is spent finding the answers.
After lunch I put the two babies down for a nap and work on reading and phonics with my first grader and kindergartner. For each subject they complete with a good attitude during the day, they earn ten minutes of computer time in the afternoons. At the moment, they love playing on www.kidzui.com (a fantastic child internet browser that is safe and interactive). Once their school work is done, they are free to play on the computer, in their room, or outside. I’d like to say that is our “quiet” time but things rarely stay quiet. This is my down time, when I return e-mails and phone calls, blog, research, or prop my eyelids open with crow bar (is it just me or is 2:00 in the afternoon a brutal time of day for mommies with little ones?).
By 4:00 we are on the downward slope of our day: dinner preparation, another round of laundry, tidying the house, baths, the usual stuff. We have dinner together as a family each night and then get the boys to bed. Afterwards my husband and I usually spend some time on our back patio enjoying the silence. I imagine our days are very similar to other families who teach their many little children at home: an odd mixture of wonder and exhaustion.
Of course, that is just the ideal. Our days have been known to descend into chaos or get sucked up by errands. We live in a small town so we don’t spend too much time in the car, but I do feel as though Wal-Mart has become a part of my daily routine. We just make it work, you know? We do what we have to do in order to keep everyone fed, clothed, taught, and rested. It works for our family and we are learning to delight in the dailyness of it all.
When do you write?
Whenever I can: before my children wake up, while they nap, or after they go to bed. Once we had our fourth child it became increasingly difficult to keep a consistent writing schedule. So these days I give it to God in the morning and ask that He provide the moments I need. And he always does. I keep my laptop open on the island in my kitchen so it’s always there when I need to jot down a thought, a snippet of dialogue, or a quick scene. It has become part of the ebb and flow of my daily life instead of something I set apart at certain times. I’m sure things will change as the dynamics of my family shift.
Give us one of your best time-saving tips.
I’ll give you my top four.
Cook in bulk. Whenever I make a meal, I double the ingredients and freeze half for later. I love not having to worry about what is for dinner – just pull it out of the freezer, throw it in the oven, and I’m ready to go.
Get your children involved in housework. It took time teaching them on the front end, but now my boys empty the dishwasher, put their laundry away, make their beds, collect the dirty clothes from around the house, and clean their bathroom. We are working on adding other things to their daily routine but they are already a huge help around the house.
Plan your meals in advance. I plan our meals for two weeks at a time. I write everything out, make a list, load the kids in the van, and head to Wal-Mart. It is not fun. And you wouldn’t believe the looks (not to mention comments) I get, but we save time and money when we plan our meals and do all of our shopping at once.
Wake up before your children. Admittedly, I am not a morning person. But when I get up before my boys, it gives me a chance to prepare for my day. I spend some time in the Word and I spend some time praying for my family. And then I determine what needs to happen that day. Since my kids hit the ground running, I have to be ready to go when they are.
What are you working on now?
Several new novels, countless home improvement projects, and an unruly flowerbed that refuses to stay weeded. As much as I tend to think that my kids are the ones who never stop, I’m starting to realize that I am the whirling dervish in our home!
Marybeth Whalen is homeschooling mom to six children ranging in age from teen to toddler, as well as a speaker for Proverbs 31 Ministries. In her writings, she addresses things like burnout, dealing with interruptions, and handling homeschooling from a very practical perspective. Be sure to visit her blog, Cheaper by the Half Dozen.
Repartee: The Conference After-Party!
August 7, 2009 by Angela
So the conference is done but we sure would appreciate your feedback! This is the perfect place to touch base with those friends you didn’t have a chance to get info to keep in touch and tell us who your fave speakers were! For those who did not attend, we missed you and hope to see you at future events! Tell us how your week went!
