5 things I love about my husband

Why, yes, yes he is. Awesome, that is. And I'm a little embarrassed that it's been almost six months to the day since I started this blog and I've not yet Chris the shout-out he deserves for basically being the foundation of all that's great about our family.

But then my bloggy friend Jessica Bowman declared today "My Husband is Awesome Day." And that was a great reminder for me to take a moment and tell the world (or, at least, the corner of it that reads this blog) how blessed I am to have Chris in my life and Sarah's.

There are probably hundreds of tiny things I love about my husband, everything from how he mowed my lawn for me before we were even dating to the way he looks in gym shorts and an old T-shirt and sneakers without socks. The way he finds new homes for old books and the time he lets Sarah guest-post on his blog and the 50 nicknames he's given each of our cats.

They're all worth loving, and they all make Chris who he is. But, to narrow it down...

1. He is a great father, 100% by choice.

Although I've "known" Chris - mostly as a coworker - since right around the time Sarah was born, we didn't get married until she was about 5 years old. He knew, going into our relationship, that I wasn't looking for someone to casually go to the movies or dinner with now and again, as most women my age might. Anyone I dated had to be, you know, "all in" with the ready-made family.

Did I mention that on one of our first dates, I also said, "Oh, and by the way, my mom lives with us. Is that going to be a problem?" (His response, by the way, was that he grew up in a house that at one point included him and his sister, mother, grandmother and GREAT-grandmother. I get the feeling one extra lady wasn't a big deal.)

So Chris was willing to take us on - and not just to play stepdad and leave the kid part to me. He adopted Sarah less than six months after we were married, as soon as we could get the legal whatsits together. And he has owned his role as dad in every way possible, dealing with everything from an Asperger's diagnosis to the wonderful world of chauffering preteen girls who want rides all over creation to questions about whether dead cats go to Heaven.

He reads fairy tales with different voices for each character. He created an imaginary friend for him and Sarah to share, Clover the Leprechaun. He builds with Legos and helps Sarah paint characters from her favorite video games and shares his love of antiques and ephemera with her any chance he gets.

Most importantly, he's always in Sarah's corner. He stands up for her, and he celebrates her accomplishments, no matter how big or small, with all the pride of the dad of a Nobel Prize-winner.

2. He's a great friend who makes the little things fun.

I tell him I want to write a post about 10 things you should know about our family members, and he comes up with "I have a vestigial tail."

We go to the grocery store and giggle the whole time about everything and nothing and all the Spam in between.

In the middle of a long drive, he starts a sentence with, "Here's a question..." and you know you're going to be going down a path to the bizarre that will lead to an hour-long conversation that makes you grin.

And he doesn't just do these things when he's with me. We share puns at the dinner table with Sarah. He is quick with a goofy joke or a pratfall when we're doing something like helping a stressed-out, not-feeling-well friend move.

If you don't know Chris well, you might think he's quiet, or reserved, or maybe even shy or unsocial. But for those of us who have the privilege to know him well, he is INCREDIBLY funny and one of the best friends you could ask for.

3. He is really, truly smart.

Chris almost certainly has the widest breadth of knowledge of anyone I've ever known. He can just as easily discuss politics or Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, weather patterns or zombie films. Unlike me, he knew which of the two Beatles were still living. (Don't hit me.) He probably knows what zeitgeist means without looking it up.

Remember when I said new ideas make me cry tears of joy? Chris is my number-one source of new ideas. He introduces me to books I'd never have read, movies I'd never have seen, facts that I could not possibly have known otherwise (like 15 famous events that happened in the bathtub), not-quite-famous-exactly authors who have changed our family's life.

And unlike yours truly, he has ZERO know-it-all tendencies, despite the fact that he really does know most of it all.

4. He values the blessings we have and looks for ways to share them with others.

I don't really believe in "luck." But I sure do believe in blessings, and that's a mindset that I am so lucky to have Chris share. Whenever something good comes our way, whether it's extra food, a little cash, some spare time, whatever - he's looking at who we can help and how.

Chris really brings gratitude to life. He will stand in the middle of our living room and announce, "I really like our house." He might not love all our yardwork - but he is quick to share how grateful he is for the time we can spend outside as a family. While walking through a local park or library, he will remark on how much he loves that we live in an area with such awesome resources.

He is blessed with good health, and has been a platelet donor for about the last 15 years.

And if someone needs it, he'll share whatever he has, no matter how big or small.

5. He fills in my gaps.

As it turns out, I'm not perfect. (What, you knew that already? Pssh.)

Anyway, there are these huge areas in which I am totally weak. I shoot my mouth off way too easily. Saying I'm prone to distraction and wild ideas is probably the understatement of the century. I don't often get down on the floor and play with Legos. I rarely use "the voices" when reading a story. And, some days, I am not blessed with the common sense God gave a rock.

Chris is my balance. In all the ways I run around, chasing this idea or that, shouting, "World, look at me!," he stands steady and quiet, ready to catch me when I inevitably throw caution a little too far to the wind and go spinning away.

I like to think I fill in some gaps for him, too. I liven things up and throw in those surprises here and there (like, you know, writing a whole blog post about a guy who would prefer not to be featured in a blog post). I provide occasional tech support. I take the money he works so hard for and develop crazy plans to get us out of debt with it. 

My husband is my hero. In so many ways, he's who I want to be when I grow up. And I couldn't be more proud to have him around; I just wish I said it more often.

I love you, Topher!!

Art is personal: Painting with drumsticks, and winning (or not winning) awards

Here's Sarah's summary of how we spent our day yesterday:

"My mom and dad and mommom and I went to Yorkfest to see my artwork that I have there on Saturday August 25th 2012. I got an honorable mention at Yorkfest.We saw this guy named Georgie Lehoop. Georgie Lehoop does drumstick art. To learn more about him visit: www.georgielehoop.com. He does some awesome artwork and I have one of his works. Mine is called Rainbow Rhythm. We had a great time at Yorkfest!"

She is nothing if not concise! As it turns out, her mother is more verbose.

 (This is a city park and garden called Foundry Park. We love the metal flowers - and Sarah's lanky build made her fit right in!)

Yorkfest is our local fine-art festival, held every summer downtown. I've attended once or twice, but never done much more than wander through a few booths. Yesterday, we went especially because Sarah had entered a short story of hers in the literary competition, as well as two pieces of art in the youth art juried awards.

Here's the thing. She won an honorable mention for the short story - which she only entered because some family friends encouraged her to - but nothing for her artwork, which she was INCREDIBLY proud of!

Overall, I think Sarah took the not-quite-a-win pretty well. It helped that she was most excited about having her art on display in a real gallery - so even before the awards announcement, she was feeling pretty good about herself. She did start crying when she realized she didn't win, though - and that was OK. The thing that was hard was that she lashed out at me, for "making" her enter, which I in no way did, but you know, I was the closest target, as Mom often is, right?

The good news is, the emotional storm blew over pretty quickly and we had a great rest of our day. In fact, it even led to an interesting discussion on how personal art is - and how "judging" it, especially across media, such as her 3-D mixed-media sculpture compared with a charcoal drawing - is very subjective.

I wish I had unlimited funds - I would LOVE to decorate much of my home with the one-of-a-kind art I saw yesterday. The only thing we bought was the "Rainbow Rhythm" masterpiece we're holding in the photo above, that Sarah mentioned, but I could have spent thousands!

(I really do encourage you to take Sarah's advice and check out Georgie Lehoop's website, though. The videos of him painting while drumming are awesome, and Sarah was inspired enough to want to make her own drum artwork, so we're off to find some cheaper drumsticks later this week! The only ones I have are a REALLY NICE pair of Pro-Marks, and she's not getting those!)

Our school pictures - now with 50% more livestock

It's "back to school photo" week on the Not Back To School Blog Hop this week.

While we've been back to school since July 1, officially, today is the day that a lot of districts in our area return, so it seemed like a good time to share our own photos of what we're doing.

These were all taken last night, Aug. 21, when Sarah attended her first meeting for the local 4-H alpaca club, which she is excited to be joining! (It will be her second club; she's also in Wildlife Watchers, which has been a wonderful experience as well!)

Best part?

You don't have to house an alpaca (which the township would not look kindly upon) to join! A wonderful alpaca farm owner, Beth, of Painted Spring Alpacas, runs the club, and she lets the kids use her animals to work with and show!

Best thing ever: The first alpaca Sarah worked with was named Super Seven!

Can you say "great fit for seventh-grade pictures"? Ha. (He's so named because he was born on 7/7/11, it turns out.) He was the sweetest boy; completely willing to run through all the obstacles.

Here, Sarah and Super Seven take on the cones, one of the simpler obstacles on the course.

I have to take a minute here and say that as a whole, the kids we've met through 4-H have been some of THE nicest young people I've ever met, and the four young ladies at last night's meeting were no exception.

One of the older girls, Meredith, was helping Sarah (I think Super Seven is normally "her" alpaca), and she was just so friendly and helpful. Sarah loved getting to know her!

Here, Meredith is showing Sarah how to help Super Seven not be so nervous on the teeter-totter, which was a good exercise for Sarah's balance, too!

Gratuitous Instagram photo of Sarah and the 'paca.

So sometimes, alpacas don't quite want to do what YOU want them to do. (Kind of like seventh-graders.) But if you encourage them, they'll usually cooperate. (The alpacas, at least...)

Here, Sarah's leading Super Seven across a platform that has a ramp on one side and steps on another. Apparently, alpacas aren't great with steps - who knew? But he was a trouper!

Here, the girls are practicing showmanship - learning to always keep their eyes on the judge, a smile on their faces, and the animal between themselves and the judge. Here, Meredith has Super Seven and Sarah has his friend, who I think was named Arpeggio.

We'll be having some "real" photos shot with Sarah soon - THREE of my best friends are photographers, so they are always willing to share their expertise with us! - but I liked having a chance to show one of the best things about homeschooling so far, which is that Sarah gets to live her passion, working with animals, in all sorts of ways!

(Oh, and in case you missed the first installment, our entry for "Curriculum Week," the first week's theme, was the unschooled version of a seventh-grade-ish curriculum plan, and "Schoolroom Week," last week's post, featured a family bookshelf tour! I'm also linking up today with Susan's Favorite Resource This Week, since 4-H wins hands-down!)

Our scrapbook: Photos from Lego Junior Robotics Camp

I'm a little late posting it, but LAST week, Sarah went to an awesome Lego day camp just a few minutes from our home. It's run by an organization called Bricks 4 Kidz, which is sort of a franchise for Lego programs.

The local organizers were wonderful, especially Heather, who led Sarah's junior robotics camp. She's a former programmer, and she had the kids working with motors and Lego's WeDu programming software to build things like an alligator that opened its mouth, amusement-park rides and more.

I don't think Sarah has ever had so much fun at a program she went to, or spoken so highly of the new friends she made.

Here's a look at some of the best parts of the week in pictures.

This is Sarah with her partner for the week and new friend, Nathan. (Many thanks, by the way, to Heather for sharing this picture on the Bricks 4 Kidz York Facebook page, because I didn't get a single good shot of the two of them in my photos!)

 

 This was the naval fort that a bunch of the camp members worked on together. The captain's area was at the top right, and Sarah's parts are on the blue bases to the top and left. "My title was bomber," Sarah said. Well, then.

This is Sarah putting some tweaks on her final project, "The Super-Duper Ride of Death." Yes, really. It's a set of four spinning seats that could almost make you motion-sick watching it. But Sarah was explaining how the non-friction pins make it spin faster, and how two of the seats spin faster than the other two because they have the same gear size as the drive gear in the center, a concept which you can read about in much more complexity here.

Here are "David" and "Jose," the custom minifigures of Nathan and Sarah, riding the Super-Duper Ride of Death on the faster chairs. You can see the programming screen above; they had a wonderful audio lead-in that played as the ride started... "Welcome to the Super-Duper Ride of Death. We hope you survive the ride and have a good time!"

 Here goes; it's starting up!

And this is Sarah with some of the free play bricks and the fort!

She's already signed up for a single-day workshop in November, a Space Adventure camp during a public-school in-service day, and I just bet she'll be begging to do more!

But where do we keep the school supplies?

We don't have much in the way of "curriculum" at our house.

No workbooks, no teacher guides, no workboxes, no folders, no binders... honestly, not even very many notepads and pencils and crayons and drawing papers.

But you know what we do have?

Books.

Books, books, books, books, books.

I'd not too long ago shown off the main floor of our house, plus our basement rec room, which are some of the major spots where learning happens.

So as part of the Not Back to School Blog Hop this week, instead of showing off our "homeschool room," which isn't really a thing we have, I decided to show off the homes of our favorite resources.

Welcome to the Otto Family Bookshelf Tour, 2012 edition!

 Let's start in the basement, shall we? So one of our side businesses as a family is that we have an online bookstore, and this is the main set of shelves in our "book room," of inventory listed for sale. Before it sells, though, we often find ourselves "borrowing back" a title for impromptu reading!

This is the smaller set of "stuff for sale" shelves in the book room, aka my husband's Ephemera Warehouse. Not pictured in this room are also boxes and boxes of ephemera, a shelf of vintage schoolbooks and some of Sarah's craft supplies. Sadly, it is also our guest bedroom. (Doesn't everyone's guest bedroom feature a futon and 2,000 books, and nothing else?)

Amazingly, for being People Who Love Books, we didn't have a bookcase on our main floor until earlier this year. Which is pretty weird. This one is now actually our end table next to our sofa. (I mean, doesn't everyone have a bookcase of things like a collection of National Geographic magazines and books about Indians and the Titanic, with a stuffed armadillo on top, next to THEIR sofa?)

Finally, let's move upstairs, home of most of our "reading" books as a family. This is Chris's bedside bookcase, home of what is probably the world's largest library of books by Ruth Manning-Sanders. (Doesn't everyone's husband have a collection of books by a deceased and somewhat obscure fairy-tale author... OK, I'm done.) These are actually WONDERFUL books, and make up a good part of our bedtime reading, complete with wonderful voices by Chris.

When you're out of room for bookcases, of course you just put one in your upstairs hallway, outside the bedroom door, like this one. This is home to all sorts of stuff - some great Robert Sabuda pop-up books, which are a Christmas tradition from my mother-in-law; Sarah's fiction collection, which is dwarfed by her nonfiction collection, and most importantly, on the second shelf from the bottom, between the bookends, at left is the start of Sarah's OWN Ruth Manning-Sanders collection (so that Chris can maintain his own!)

This is the larger of the bookcases inside Sarah's room. It's a nonfiction powerhouse - including that tome on Van Gogh at left, which Sarah actually asked for one Christmas when she was about 9, as well as every Lego Brickmaster book ever made. Note the minion cameo at top.

And this is our combination oldest-and-newest shelf. I actually BUILT this poor thing when I was in the eighth grade. Yes, really. It's terribly thin, has no back, and is really only sized for paperbacks. But Sarah's former bedside table was becoming a teetering pile of reading materials, so I rescued it from the not-too-often-dusted lighthouse collection in my bedroom and donated it to the cause of good reading. (At top: Life of Fred books, The Key to the Indian, claw-machine penguin...)

Also, immediately to the left of this is a plastic under-bed tote full of... more books!! "The ones I want to keep safe," Sarah says.

Did you enjoy your tour of the Otto Family Library? We hope so - because this really shows where learning happens!


(Oh, and in case you missed the first installment, our entry for "Curriculum Week," last week's theme, was the unschooled version of a seventh-grade-ish curriculum plan.)

Butterfly adventures: Our trip to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, plus tales from our own garden

Remember how butterflies were close to topping the list of things Sarah wants us to learn about this year?

In large part, that's thanks to one of our best experiences from our recent vacation to Washington, D.C. - visiting the butterfly experience at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History.

Essentially, for $5 a person, you enter a biodome full of plants in which there are HUNDREDS of live butterflies. They fly all around; you can see them up close, and (the best part in Sarah's view) sometimes they even land on you.

We went in twice as a family - and loved it both times.

Our favorite butterflies were these blue morphos. The amazing thing about them is that when they fold up their wings, they are a drab brown, and then there is this gorgeous blue surprise inside.

 This one landed on Chris's shoulder.

 ... and this one perched on his sleeve.

This buckeye landed on my shoulder and stuck around for about 15 minutes. The hard part is, you're not allowed to touch the butterflies at all to brush them off, lest you hurt them, so occasionally he'd crawl on my neck, which tickled, but I had to just leave him be!

There were melons and pineapple in a nectar bar, and some of the species enjoyed those. The great part was that you could easily see them using their strawlike proboscis to suck up the nectar, like the one below is doing!

 Sarah LOVED having them land on her the most, of course. This poor raggedy-edged Monarch was among the first to do so.

 Later, Sarah got the buckeye that I had been tickled by earlier!

 I love this picture. One of my favorites from our vacation, actually.

Here's a good full view of what the buckeye looks like.

Once we got home, we had a great wonder of timing - our butterfly weed, which we'd planted back in April, had a couple of caterpillars on it, so we took them inside to our butterfly hatchery to see if we could watch them develop. (We'd built the hatchery in 4-H one or two years ago, but never had anything to hatch!)

At first, we had a tiny green caterpillar with a black and yellow stripe down his side (seen in the center of this photo) that might have been a clouded sulphur. Sarah named him (or her?) Olive, but Olive disappeared somewhere in the recesses of the hatchery!

Now, we've got two small dark brownish-black caterpillars from the same plant, but of unknown species. I'm hoping I can get a better view of them as they get a little bigger, and then maybe Sarah and I can identify them!

(In other good garden news, we are now also home to a plant affectionately known as pumpkin-zilla that is taking up our side yard in an unplanned adventure from our compost pile; a praying mantis; and a small brown frog. I love seeing all this LIFE surrounding our home!)

The ultimate guide to homeschooling as a working mom

Some days, I feel like my head is going to explode. 

I'm a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a blogger, a martial artist, a homeschooling facilitator, a newspaper columnist, an editor, a project manager and, occasionally, it all gets to be a bit much.

There are days where I wallow in "oh, poor me." You know...

I work at home. I don't even have a home office - just a table with a laptop on it in the middle of our main floor.

I don't use a planned curriculum, so just about everything my daughter learns requires my direct involvement.

I'd love to be able to have "free time," or even "uninterrupted time," but it never happens.

Someone still has to keep up with the dishes, the laundry and the floors, and that someone is often me.

And then I realize how blessed I really am.

I'm busy - but so are you. So is your spouse. So is your mother-in-law. So is your neighbor's sister's cousin's friend. And all of us make choices, and we make the time for what's really important to us.

That's why I've made the time over the past few weeks to compile what I hope will be the ultimate guide to homeschooling as a working mom - because it's important.

• It's important to me that no one says, "Oh, homeschooling is the right choice for our family, but we can't because I have to work." 
• It's important to me that no one says, "If I homeschool AND work, we're only ever going to eat takeout." 
• It's important to me that no one says, "Sure, I can homeschool and work and keep up the house - but I'm stuck being the martyr who has no personal life and no time for friends or fun."

This guide is my look at how NOT to end up like that. At how to try to spin the plates or juggle the balls or whatever metaphor you choose.

Here's who this guide is for:

• Homeschooling parents who work outside the home.
• Homeschooling parents who work FROM home.
• Homeschooling parents, REGARDLESS of job status, who feel like there's never enough time in the day for themselves, their spouse, their friends or their house.
• Parents who want to homeschool, but aren't doing so because of job demands.
• Parents who work and want to spend more quality time with their kids, regardless of educational philosophy.

That's a big list, right? Mostly, I encourage you to read through and see how we juggle our household, our homeschool, our work and our personal lives - even if not all those areas apply to you.

I don't know ANY group of people who wouldn't like to streamline their lives and have more time - and I hope I can shine a light on some of the resources that have helped us do just that in all these areas.

First things first: Making a list

It doesn't matter how you do it.

The title graphic for this guide shows my ACTUAL to-do list, from a calendar pad I get each year at the kiosk in the mall. I write part-time job items toward the top, full-time job items in the middle and personal and family items at the bottom. (No, not in order of priority!)

But you can use Post-Its, a Google Doc, a whiteboard, the back of your hand, whatever.

Make yourself a list, though, of what you need to juggle today. Not an idealistic, "Boy, it'd be nice to wash the insides and outsides of all the windows while the baby's napping" type of list. This should be a list of stuff that has to happen before you can sleep at night. Appointments, work tasks (including concrete subtasks of larger projects), homeschooling objectives (depending on your learning method).

I will write on my list the night before anything I can think of, then I revisit it first thing in the morning. You will often see great things like "Take chicken out of freezer" on The List - because there's nothing like realizing at 5:45 that dinner is currently in a tundra-like state and you have to go to a tae kwon do lesson at 7 p.m. Hypothetically.

That's what keeps me sane - because my brain is too full of the thousand awesome things that happen on a given day to be counted on to remember the chicken and the Twitter responsibilities and the Lego club meeting. I bet yours is too - so give yourself the freedom of writing it down.

Keeping up with your HOUSEHOLD

Let's get real here. For most of us, this is the LOWEST priority item when it's compared with your homeschool, your work and your personal life. That's actually why I'm starting with it.

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links, which will make me a little bit of money if you choose to purchase any of the products I've mentioned through them. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!

Joan's takeaway tip: Focus your energy on what matters most, and set up systems to quickly manage the things that matter least.

I do like a clean house. Thankfully, we've gotten rid of a TON of our stuff, selling and donating the things we no longer love, and I've quickly realized that the less stuff we have, the easier the house is to keep up.

Our biggest areas of work are our laundry, our dishes and our floors. So we've set up good systems for some of them - like keeping laundry baskets in each bedroom and washing when any one gets full. The floors are the hardest to keep up with, thanks to our menagerie of five cats and a large dog, but I try to vacuum at least once a week and to clean up spills when they happen, which is WAY quicker than mopping the floors in our above-average-sized house.

Here are some of the resources that have helped us - OK, mostly me - keep up the house in a way that isn't time-consuming, but leaves us ready for drop-in guests at almost any time.

• First, I have to share that there are other guides in today's "Ultimate Guide" series entirely devoted to this topic. I would highly encourage you to check out The Ultimate Guide to Housekeeping Habits on Habits for a Happy Home, as well as One Fun Mom's Ultimate Guide to Keeping Your Home and Keeping Your Temper for a much more thorough list of resources than I can get into here. I will hit some of my highlights, though!
• Tops on my list is Flylady, both her website as well as her book, "Sink Reflections." I've been "flying" with Flylady, aka Marla Cilley, since probably 2001. I talk more about what this system meant for me when I discovered it in this post about the books that have influenced me the most, but the short version is that her system taught me to do one thing at a time, and to chip away for short, focused periods. I can't take a full day to deep-clean my house. Not gonna happen. But I can take 15 minutes that I'd otherwise waste playing Facebook games and vacuum one floor of the house. I can take 15 minutes and sort out a drawer full of junk that's gotten hard to close - and so can you.
• The other big items on my list of key "household" influencers are Adam Baker's Man vs. Debt and Sell Your Crap. I actually work for Baker as his project manager (and writer!), but I'm not getting any money out of this. And, in fact, when I discovered MvD almost three years ago, I had no idea I'd someday live the dream of WORKING on it! At the time, I had a serious excess of stuff, and a matching serious excess of debt. We're doing better on the "stuff" front, thanks to selling our crap, and we're almost $30,000 paid down on what was at worst $90,000 in consumer debt, which I'm incredibly proud of. Like with your physical house, getting your financial house in order is easier when you simplify. Paying off debt has freed up money, but more importantly, it's freed up options - like changing jobs when the opportunity arose to find one that was a better fit for our homeschooling lifestyle!

I said I wasn't going to go into too much detail in this area, but I do have one piece of assurance to offer you. As Flylady says, you can do anything for 15 minutes, and all I can say is, isn't it worth a shot to see if you CAN make a difference in that amount of a time a day? What do you have to lose?

Keeping up with your HOMESCHOOL

One of our biggest motivations for homeschooling was that it would actually use less of our family's time than traditional school, especially with the volume of homework and projects we were dealing with as parents of a middle-schooler, while allowing us to actually learn more in both depth and breadth.

I have to be careful here, because I absolutely want to be clear that I believe there is no universal right curriculum or right homeschooling "method" or style. We're very far on the informal end of things, but I believe that for some families, a much more structured approach is the right one.

That said, I know plenty of homeschooling parents who drive themselves crazy by planning WAY too much time for school. Whether you're working in an office, working from home or not "working" in a career sense but parenting 1, 2, 5 or 8 children, I cannot imagine you can devote 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, to solely your "homeschooling" and have any room left over for the other things you need to do.

Joan's takeaway tip: You don't need to be "doing school" for 8 or 10 hours a day - or even for 3 or 4 - to be learning plenty. The key is flexibility.

Sometimes, the best way to gain flexibility in the long run is to invest a lot of time at the start to make things go smoother day to day.

A great example of that: Even if you're using a prepackaged, planned curriculum, spend time KNOWING what's coming, through the week and through the year. If you have that background, it will be much easier for you to feel confident about adjusting on the fly when work gets hectic or the house looks like it's a step away from being condemned.

Getting organized is almost as important as being flexible, I think.

I don't just mean organized in the neat-house way. I mean organized in the "do we know where the library books are and when they go back?" sense, and, in turn, avoiding the end-of-the-year, "I don't know what we learned or what I'm going to show the evaluator and when's the last time we did anything that conceivably looked like art" panic.

With those points in mind, here are some resources to help you make sure that (a) learning is really happening in your family and (b) you still have time to keep your job and keep the dishes from touching the ceiling.

• I actually wrote a post earlier this year that I think sums up our personal tips for "making it work." It's called 10 pieces of advice that helped us get started homeschooling, but it's good no matter where you are in your homeschooling journey.
• Meanwhile, one of my favorite bloggers, Jimmie of Jimmie's Collage, has a great list of Homeschool How-Tos that tie heavily into the idea of being flexible. My favorite part? "There is always something  that needs to be done. So if math is causing frustration, move to science. If writing is not clicking today, work on art instead. If school is generally a disaster, well, do some organizing in the bedroom, make a craft, or take a nature walk. ... In my view, as long as forward motion is happening, we are succeeding in our homeschool." Amen, Jimmie!!
• Pick the days and times for "school" that work best for you. You might be an unschooler, or you might be using one of the popular Sonlight cores or a curriculum like Calvert that has a daily lesson plan. Doesn't matter. Nowhere - NOWHERE - does it say that you need to work on that material Monday through Friday, or when it's daylight out. And I thank God for it!! 22 ways to homeschool your kids on Christian Mommies tackles this with ideas like weekend schooling, evening schooling and so on. (But if so, what do you do with the kids when you're working? I'll hit that topic in depth when we talk about managing your job!)
• If you have to provide any homeschool documentation, I implore you, do it as you go. We live in Pennsylvania, home of Documentation Requirements That Make Even Organized Moms Weep. (Not an official state motto.) One of the pieces that is required every single year is a "book log" of materials read by date, and I can't even imagine trying to go back and guess at that even a month after we've read something. Specific to our state, there is an amazing site, Ask Pauline, that gives free printable copies of a variety of formats for most of your official paperwork. While it's designed around PA law, I am sure that if you're familiar with the requirements in your own state, you could easily adapt many of the materials!
• Don't over-plan or over-schedule. Relax. Theresa on Red Oak Road has a great list of Ten Things I Would Like to Tell New Homeschoolers, and the key one to me is "Say NO to things." It is so easy to think that you just HAVE to sign your son or daughter up for this class
• Figure out your children's areas of strength, and play to them. This is key no matter what, but I attribute it as the number one factor in my ability to work from home.
• There are actually other Ultimate Guides in today's series devoted to this topic, as with homemaking. On Simply Living... For Him, check out The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Homeschool, and on Our Homeschool Adventure, check out The Ultimate Guide to Homeschool Organization. (There's also An Ultimate Guide to Homeschool Rooms on Hopping To It, if you, like me, LOVE peeking into other people's houses!)

The good news about homeschooling is that I truly believe that children - and especially younger children - are NATURAL learners. Do you ask your infant, "Would you like to learn to crawl today?," or does he simply explore the world around himself and have a desire to experience it more?

Remember the 15-minute challenge about seeing what you could accomplish in keeping up your home? Here's a bigger one: Take the one-day challenge or, better yet, the one-week challenge. No matter your child's age, go a full day without "overseeing" any learning and see what happens. You're welcome to discuss this with your child, to show them the curriculum schedule if there is one, and so on. Or just let go and experiment.

You might hate it - and that's OK. I believe that what will happen is that you'll see that at least SOME learning happens even on the days you don't have time to facilitate it as fully as you'd like.

Then, the next time you're in the pit of despair because you've got a big project due at work and the only math your kids have done all week is counting how many times their brother punched them in order to tattle, just stop. Take a breath. Your homeschool will still be standing, and your kids have not suffered permanent educational damage. Be willing to be flexible - and you'll make it happen.

Keeping up with your WORK

Oh, the job thing. I did promise this was a guide for parents who homeschool while working, huh?

I currently work a full-time job and a part-time job. They're done mostly from home, though I have a day a week in the office for my part-time job, and occasional travel requirements for the full-time one. My husband works 60 to 70 hours a week in an office, and we both run small businesses from home on the side.

Before moving to my work-from-home position, I also worked about 50 to 60 hours between my office job and a couple of part-time jobs, and at that time, we were dealing with public school problems, occupational therapy and an autism spectrum diagnosis.

I'm not pretending this work-and-learn-and-live thing is easy. Some days, to be quite honest, it stinks. Right now, we've made the financial choice to do this, though, and we're committed to making it work.

There are good things, too. My daughter has learned a lot of self-sufficiency and time-management skills because she doesn't have my undivided attention. Even in public school, with her learning-support staff in place, she had almost constant adult supervision. The poor kid didn't even know how to make her own breakfast waffles at the age of 11, but now can get her own breakfast, lunch and simple dinner.

Joan's takeaway tip: The grass is never greener. Please don't indulge in the "we could do X, Y and Z if only I didn't work" mindset, or, if you work in an office, "I could accomplish more if I worked from home" - or vice versa. Focus on what you CAN do, and put 100% of your effort into doing that.

Look, that wishful thinking might be true - and there's nothing wrong with working with your employer to create the most productive situation possible, if you really think working from home will make the difference, as it did in my case.

The point, though, is that focusing on what you CAN'T do is almost never productive. So let's talk about some resources that help you focus on the ways it can be done:

• While I live in Pennsylvania, one of the best resources I've found for working parents who homeschool is this list from Homeschooling in North Carolina. There are forums, essays and all sorts of help, from practical tips to simple reassurances that it CAN be done.
• Homeschool Diner's post, What if Both Parents Work or I Am A Single Parent? Can We Still Homeschool? is incredible. It's from 2006, but I don't find anything in it that's not relevant to my life today! The best takeaway from this is the following question: "Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make it work?" There are many ideas here for what to do with your kids while you work.
• I am a huge fan of the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, an amazing homeschooling domestic diva. On the homeschooling section of her blog, one contributor, Heather, shared a reader question about Homeschooling When Both Parents Work, and the comments are full of fantastic advice.
• Specifically if you own your own business, work freelance or otherwise set your own schedule, pick your times wisely. I'm writing the last bits of this post at 12:23 a.m., when my daughter is in bed. Tomorrow morning, I'll get up earlier than I'd like to write a post for Man Vs. Debt while Sarah's at a summer Lego day camp she signed up for. There is no way, though, that I can work during the two hours before dinner or before Sarah's bedtime. There's just way too much going on in our home for that. So setting myself up to do so would only be inviting frustration.

This is counterintuitive to what most productivity professionals suggest, but I am not a fan of setting "work hours" in long blocks if you work from home. I do have periods where Sarah knows I'm busy working - but there are two caveats.

First, I'm never too busy to be interrupted if it's semi-urgent. Some people might disagree with what we consider "urgent" - like, "Hey, Mom, come look at this praying mantis in the garden!!!" Sometimes, I'll say, "Oh, that's cool, but I'm writing and I can't look right now." But sometimes, I am blessed to be able to say, "Whoa! Let me save this draft and I'll come see!"

Don't forget the reason you're working and homeschooling - it's because you feel homeschooling, and more importantly, being with your child, is important. That means, to me, that I never give Sarah the impression that I'm consistently too busy for her. When you DO go back to work after an "interruption" like that, it's almost always with a positive, rejuvenated attitude.

Second, I keep my individual work blocks fairly short - almost never more than an hour and a half. Let's be realistic; if you work from home and homeschool, you're not REALLY going to get 6 uninterrupted hours to work - OR of educational time - are you?

This helps minimize interruptions, because Sarah knows I'll be free "soon enough" in most cases. It also helps me prioritize my tasks into bite-sized chunks, rather than behemoths like "create spreadsheet of all blog posts since 2009 for SEO." Instead, my task list turns into concrete steps that can be done in that amount of time, like "copy all 2009 post URLs into Excel."

That's the part that many people consider counterproductive, but it works for us!

That's the challenge: Be willing to find what works for you. It's not always comfortable - many days, I miss the routine of my neat desk and my defined tasks at my office job - but it's sooo worth it.

Keeping up with your PERSONAL LIFE

I have less than a year until I test for my black belt in tae kwon do. I've enjoyed several good books this month, helped my best friend move, had a scrapbooking night and thrown a summer party.

Joan's takeaway tip: The answer to juggling all the things you are is NOT to stop being who you are.

Balance, in all things. I am a better, more focused employee who can often accomplish twice the work in half the time thanks to my tae kwon do practice. I am getting better at being intentional as a parent thanks to the kinds of affirming, goal-oriented people I interact with in the personal finance and lifestyle design blogging realms. My prayer life is better than it has been in many years, and I directly attribute that to my ability to keep my cool when I want to shout at the rest of my family.

When I'm unhappy, I'm not very productive. It takes forever to do the simplest thing. Any delay, interruption or frustration derails me.

But when I'm happy, I am more able to successfully manage all the things I try to do in a day. I am flexible and can roll with the punches; I am wider awake and have enough energy; I am intentional and can be mindful of each task.

I get unhappy when I try to be someone I'm not - or NOT be someone I am, I guess is a better way to say it.

I AM a friend. I AM a daughter. I AM a wife. I AM a martial artist. And if I neglect those parts of myself and my relationships for too long, I'm only part of myself, and not the best part.

So how do you make time for YOU in a sea of house needs, homeschooling needs and work needs - and why is it so important? Here are some of the best reads I've come across on, you know, actually having a life:

• Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project website (and book!) have been life-changing for me. I especially would encourage you to check out the Eight Splendid Truths of Happiness.
• One of my personal happiness projects came after I read Cami Walker's book 29 Gifts. Essentially, the book (and its accompanying online challenge) ask you to give a gift every day for 29 days in a row to change your own mindset about what you do and don't "have" in life. I've completed three sets of 29 gifts so far and am looking forward to completing at least one more before the end of the year. It's a challenge I highly recommend. One of the best takeaways, for me, was that I believe that changing your perspective into one of abundance serves to make it clear to you how abundant your life really is. Instead of thinking of yourself as "too busy," you come to realize how blessed you are to have the opportunities for using your time that are in front of you.
• A wonderful post on Hip Homeschool Moms, Out of the Overflow, talks about letting go of the minutia of homeschooling for a little and focusing on time with God, time with your spouse and time with your family.
• A great read on tying it all together - being actively involved with your kids and spouse, making a welcoming home, having a career and having personal passions - is the blog Awesomely Awake, by Shawn Ledington Fink. I'm actually lucky enough to know Shawn in person; we used to work together, and I've long considered her someone worth emulating. So when she started her blog and published the Awesomely Awake Manifesto, well, I became a proud fan and have enjoyed putting Shawn's great suggestions into practice in our life.

Your challenge this week is to simply spend a half-hour doing something you love.

I don't care if that comes in 10-minute chunks on three different days. Give yourself the gift of 1/336th of your time this week, and use that time to be refreshed and to create some positive mental energy to help you get through the next seven days.

Working and homeschooling and having a life and keeping a house aren't an easy set of plates to keep spinning. I hope, though, that I've pointed you in the direction of some ways to make the road easier to walk - and some encouragement for the path!

Even more great resources

First of all, if YOU have books, websites or ideas that are helping you juggle a busy life, especially if you're homeschooling as a working mom, please leave me a comment below! I'll keep updating the list with as many great resources as possible!

Also, this post is part of the iHomeschool Network's Ultimate Guide To... series. Click the image below to see great tips from some of my fellow bloggers on everything from choosing curriculum to Pennsylvania history to inexpensive art projects!

The unschooled version of a seventh-grade-ish curriculum plan for 2012-13

What, worst post title ever?

The fact is, we're not exactly "textbook" people.

We're DEFINITELY not workbook people.

In good news, we are book people.  Lots-and-lots-of-books people, actually.

We're not exactly "grade-level" people, either.

By Pennsylvania law and standards, Sarah, who is 12 and a half, is a seventh-grader as of July 1.  

Her work and her abilities, though, literally range from about a third-grade level in some subjects to a post-high-school level in others.

Oh, wait. We're also not really "planning" people.

Thankfully, the law in Pennsylvania, while it requires that you submit "objectives" to your school district, doesn't require you to plan out your year or even pick a curriculum.

It simply asks you what skills you think your child will learn each year, which can be answered with broad-brush bullet points like this one:

"Student will review lower-level math fundamentals and work to increase her knowledge of subjects such as geometry and pre-algebra commensurate to her ability."

Disclosure: This post does have some affiliate links, which will make me a little bit of money if you choose to purchase any of the products I've mentioned through them. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!

Most days, I have no idea what we're going to learn about until it happens. We make plans - of sorts - but the best opportunities always seem to be those that just arise naturally.

With all that in mind, why am I even bothering to join the "Not Back To School Blog Hop" for curriculum week?

Mostly, because I want to show other not-exactly-planning, not-exactly-at-a-grade-level, not-exactly-textbook people - and I know you're out there - that you CAN make this homeschooling thing work!

So with that, I give you...

The Otto family's unschooled version of a seventh-grade-ish curriculum

Well, let's start with this idea in mind: What we learn about is driven by Sarah, and what we do is experienced as a family. Don't stress about that right now. If you're thinking, "But if I gave my 12-year-old a choice, he or she would sit around and play video games all day," you're probably right. So would Sarah - and she WILL play a lot of video games, which she loves.

But if you find out what your kids are REALLY interested in, you'd be surprised what you can facilitate.

Sarah made this list of things we'd like to learn about as a family this year. (You can tell it was done voluntarily, because you can actually read it. Her handwriting when she doesn't want to do something is truly unreadable!)

We also made this list, of places we'd like to visit, some near and some outside our state.

So how does this turn into "curriculum" - and what else will we be mixing in? As well as I can, I'm going to try to do a subject-by-subject look; most of what we do is what would in my state documentation be called cross-curricular, but this way, if you're using a planned curriculum in some subjects and want to mix in something we're using in another, you can see how it might fit.

History, social studies and geography

This is one of Sarah's favorite topics - and, while it was always my least favorite "school subject," I'm finding that I'm learning a ton by experiencing history through books and trips with Sarah! Some of the items on our bookshelf include:

• Several books in the Sterling Biographies series, which we really enjoy the style of, including Sitting Bull: Great Sioux Hero and Jim Thorpe: An Athlete for the Ages as part of our study of American Indians and Abraham Lincoln: From Pioneer to President to help us learn more about the Civil War.
• Abeka's New World History and Geography and Old World History and Geography. I mentioned we're not much for textbooks, and we don't tend to use textbooks LIKE textbooks - but Sarah really enjoys some of the Abeka stuff, and when she saw that two matching sets of this were available, she wanted me to get them and give the extras to one of her best friends, Madi, a fellow homeschooler, "so we could both be reading them." For reference, I think one of these is designed to be a fifth-grade text and the other a sixth-grade one, but I find Abeka's materials to be a bit advanced, so I could see these being used at least through an eighth-grade level.
• Fiction. Lots of historical fiction. We've just started the last of five books of the Indian in the Cupboard series by Lynn Reid Banks, titled "The Key to the Indian." After that, I'm hoping to dig up some Civil War middle-grade fiction, so any suggestions are welcomed! (Doesn't have to be "about" the war, just the time period.)
• American History: Observations and Assessments from Early Settlement to Today by James P. Stobaugh. I received a free copy of this to review through New Leaf Publishing Group, and while I haven't done the "official" review post yet, Sarah has loved browsing through it. It's considered a 10th-grade text, but she's had a great time reading various parts that piqued her interest. If I were using it "officially," I'd probably have to modify some of the essay questions, which are a little beyond Sarah's level, but the great thing is, we can pick the parts that work well for us and skip the rest!
• Our subscription to National Geographic. I don't think we've had an issue yet that didn't turn into a history, geography or social issues learning experience. In fact, I think I'm on some kind of "wavelength" with the NatGeo folks, because we got the Titanic issue right when Sarah was most passionate about that, and now that we're heavy into American Indians, this month's issue focuses on the Sioux and their lifestyle today!
• The Olympics are providing a great springboard into geography as well (and tie in nicely to that Jim Thorpe biography, don't you know?) We've been using our globe to find the countries involved in our favorite sports and talking about them, and we've learned more about London than I ever thought I'd know!
• Finally, we'll be improving on and adding to our giant timeline of history with dates from our research. Sarah loves using this thing - and I am coming to love seeing it on the door to our basement. (And I finally, after 29 years on this planet, know the approximate dates for the Civil War, a fact that eluded me despite many years of Advanced Placement work in school.)

Math

This list is as short as the history list is long! We have started the Life of Fred series of "math as a story" books, and Sarah is loving them!

So far, we've finished Life of Fred: Apples and are about halfway through Life of Fred: Butterflies, the first two books of the 10-book elementary series. I'd love to see us get through all 10 of the elementary books this year and then see if Sarah is ready to go on to Fred's version of fractions, which is the topic she REALLY struggled with last school year.

Essentially, much of this year will be a "rebuilding year," to quote most Phillies managers ever, but I'm 100% fine with that. Given Sarah's significant math phobia coming out of public school, a mix of Life of Fred and some fun and games based around our favorite math-in-the-real-world resources will serve us better in the long run, I think.

Science

Like with history, this is another area in which I don't have to worry too much about Sarah's interests leading us down a path. Not a week goes by that she doesn't pick up an interest in something scientific. Some of the topics I'm guessing we'll focus on this year:

• Space and astronomy. This week's landing of the newest Mars rover, Curiosity, has been a HUGE hit with Sarah. We'd already been using the "Let's Explore Astronomy" set from Calendar Connections at 1+1+1=1, and coincidentally, our current Life of Fred book talks about the constellations, so... WAY cool tie-ins there.
• Butterflies. In fact, look for a post coming from me later this week or early next week on some of the fascinating butterfly stuff we've been doing in the last month! I expect we'll work in the "Let's Explore Bugs" set from Calendar Connections here, too, where we read a fact a day on the topic. 
• Wildlife. With our 4-H club being the Wildlife Watchers, it's kind of a given that we'll be doing a bunch of projects on this topic through the year. In addition, though, Sarah wants to take another trip to a wolf sanctuary about an hour from our home, and she wants to focus on how we can help endangered "big cats," which is a huge National Geographic initiative. The great thing about these projects is that they also turn into entries for her 4-H wildlife journal, which can then be entered as a 4-H fair and county fair project.
• Plants. Sarah is our resident gardener, and she's been planting to attract wildlife (and especially butterflies). This is a great way to tie together a lot of her learning (and a great 4-H project, too!)

 Here's a look at some of the books we lean on as resources in these areas.

• Abeka's Understanding God's World, Investigating God's World and Observing God's World texts. These are designed as fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade texts, but again, I find them good through at least the eighth-grade level. This part of the Abeka series is heavy on plant and animal studies, which is great based on our interests. Much like the history series, we don't really use these like textbooks; we read from them as part of our family reading time, and Sarah will sit and browse them on her own as well.
• The Stargazer's Guide to the Night Sky by Dr. Jason Lisle. This was another book I received via New Leaf Publishing Group to review, and, again, while I'm behind in doing a full review post, I have to say we've really put it to use - even despite not having a telescope yet!
• Enough butterfly and bird field guides to sink a ship. We have tons, and Sarah's always talking us into buying more. Should the blue-footed booby, crested grackle or great horned whoozywhatsit decide to perch on our deck, if it can wait while we search a catalog the size of the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, we're sure to be able to identify it.
• Birds and Blooms magazine. This is another subscription we get immense value from, on everything from butterflies to birds to gardening.

Language arts

In some ways, this is our simplest subject to explain.

Here's the short version: We read across genres as a family, both aloud and silently. We work with Sarah to help her spell the words she needs to use correctly.

And she writes all sorts of things of her own choosing, everything from blog posts to fiction stories to her 4-H project documentation.

Now, for the longer description...

The hardest part about not "assigning" writing projects comes when I have to prepare documentation for our evaluator.

Sarah knows a lot about many subjects - including the ones we've talked about above - but asking her to write a report or an essay isn't a good way to get her to show what she knows. That said, the evaluator needs something she can easily look at that shows Sarah is making progress as a written communicator, as well as in her core subject areas.

This is one area where I admit I don't quite know what we're going to do.

Sarah and I have talked about what we need to be able to turn in, and sometimes she'll get it in her head to "do a project" on someone or something, so my plan right now is that I have faith that we'll end up with a research report on Olympic gymnast John Orozco or a PowerPoint on Sitting Bull somewhere along the line!

In addition to those general notes, here are a few of the language arts-y things we'll probably focus on specifically this year.

• Biographies. (Obviously, from the lists above!)
• Short stories, fairy tales and folk tales. Sarah likes short fiction, and Chris has a real passion for fairy tales. He uses them to help Sarah learn about culture and geography, too; in fact, right now, we're interspersing our Sitting Bull biography and The Key to the Indian with Ruth Manning-Sanders' "Red Indian Folk and Fairy Tales" and talking about the tribes the stories come from!
• Historical fiction. Given a preference, Sarah will read a nonfiction book over fiction any day, but she really enjoys the experience of being read to in this genre, so I'm glad to continue doing that. (It's also a great way for me to gauge her interest in a topic; the Indian in the Cupboard series was one I loved and thought she'd like, and it was a great way for me to see if Native Americans were a topic we'd want to delve into more.
• Understanding higher-level texts. This is a HUGE benefit to reading aloud as a family. For instance, right now I'm reading to Sarah a National Geographic article about the Lakota Sioux and their lifestyle on the reservation today. There's a lot of complicated stuff in there - from the controversy about growing industrial-grade hemp to the use of peyote in traditional rituals to the symbolism of Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument. Sarah could "read the words" on her own, but her understanding of it as we talk through things is growing deeper and deeper, and the more we do it together, the more she builds an ability to do it on her own.

Music, art, technology, home economics, faith, physical education and other good stuff

I could spend all day listing the things that we do in this area, which includes an awful big swath of things Sarah is interested in.

Here are just a few:

• In the area of music, we're going to listen to things across all genres, and attend concerts as often as possible. (Big ones include Celtic Thunder and David Byrne, both in September; we'll also do the local high school band's show and the spring musical.) Sarah also enjoys composing song lyrics and putting tunes to them at the piano, which I'm sure she'll continue.
• In art, we'll dig into the works of M.C. Escher and Andy Warhol, including a trip to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh if we can. We'll also almost certainly do some family collage, calligraphy and Native American art projects.
• As far as technology, this will be a big year, because Sarah will get her own cell phone and be responsible for managing it. She already uses Pinterest, Twitter and Google Plus, and will continue to work with those, and we'll possibly consider letting her have a Facebook account once she turns 13, their minimum age. 
• Home economics. Oh, that's a fun subject, which I usually lump under the category of "daily life skills." That's everything from cooking and baking to doing dishes and laundry to helping with the grocery shopping to managing her savings accounts. Thankfully, Sarah's pretty independent in those areas, but we'll keep working on the finer points.
• We're still sort of looking around for a good church home. Right now, we attend a couple of different places pretty regularly, but no single house of worship. That said, we're going to keep working on our family Bible reading, and we'll talk about the differences between various Christian denominations this year as we broaden our church search!
• For physical education, Sarah's going to continue her tae kwon do lessons (her goal for the year is to earn her green belt, the first intermediate level in our discipline), and we'll hike and bicycle as a family. She's also using the pedometer on her 3DS to track her steps each day (she found this feature, by the way, not me!)
• Other fun stuff. I take this to include lots of trips, lots of reading, lots of internet searching and lots of time with friends.

So how and when do we "do" all this stuff?

We don't plan our days to include any particular "school times." We learn when it happens.

That said, we've got a family tradition that is a HUGE part of how we learn, and that's our bedtime reading aloud with Sarah. This isn't simply "read a story" reading aloud, though it started out that way.

It's morphed, though, into what is usually at least an hour and a half of devoted time in which either Chris, Sarah or I read aloud. That's really the linchpin of our day in many ways, with the hours immediately before bed tending to be heavier in learning than the daytime ones. (We're all night owls - yet another reason homeschooling works for us!)

And that's where the books that figure so prominently in the lists above come in. Most nights, we're reading and discussing chapters from three or four books on a variety of topics.

We're even at the point where, if Sarah's going away overnight, we sit down and read before she leaves. We read while we were on vacation. It matters, and we love making time to do it.

Will we get to all - or maybe even any - of the listed items this year? Not a clue. And I couldn't be happier. We're hitting our stride as a homeschooling family, and wherever this year takes us, I hope you'll stick around for regular updates!