Mom Monday Week 24 – Feelings

Posted on

“I don’t feel like doing math right now.” Has your child said that to you? Probably, in the beginning of your homeschool career, when the child was all new to the experience of homeschooling.

Surely, since then, your child has learned that we do our school work first, regardless of our feelings, and then we get to do what we feel like doing, within reason. If not, you have a long homeschooling life ahead.   Continue reading »


Mom Monday Week 21 – Summer Reading Program

Posted on

Everywhere I turn these days, somebody mentions how summer means diving into books. Naturally, as a homeschooling mom, you will take your children to the library and sign them up for the summer reading program. I know because I will do that. I assume we match.

You might want to sign yourself up for some really cool reading, too – the kind that you never had time for through the school year. I know I will.

Mom Monday Series - Summer Reading Program

What kind of books sound good to you? Personally, I like nonfiction, biographies, inspirational, and the classics.

Speaking of classics, I’m at 7% through “Les Misérables” on my Kindle. I found it for free, in French, the complete saga, and could not resist. Now I must finish what I started – eek!  Continue reading »


Mom Monday Week 20 – A Happy Marriage

Posted on

My husband and I got married in our early 30s.

By then, we knew who we were, what we wanted out of life, and how to communicate it. As such, our marriage started out blissfully happy and it has only gotten better as time went by.

Time did go by. This week, we are celebrating our ninth anniversary.

Bride and groom kissing in the church doorway

One of our wedding pictures, in the doorway of the stone church where we got married

We have had some challenges along the way, of course. We are people, faulty and broken, surrounded by other people, faulty and broken. But, through the challenges, our love for each other has only gotten deeper and richer.

We remodeled a home and had great fun with it.  Continue reading »


Mom Monday Week 19 – Get Outside and Play

Posted on

How many hours a day do you spend outside? They have a saying in Sweden – I lived there for three years – “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.”

It’s so easy to come up with excuses about not being outside: the mosquitoes, the wind, the rain, the snow, the cold, the heat, the gnats, the noise of the neighbor’s mower etc etc etc. The thing is, fresh air does so much for our minds and bodies, we should be thankful it’s freely available.

I love this blog that challenges families to spend 1,000 hours outside each year. I’ll spare you the math… That comes to two or three hours every day. What do you think? Is it doable? I think we were doing that already, but not consciously and, maybe, not every day.

Boy in Tree

Since we took the challenge, we have been outside even in the rain and even when I had a sore throat. The kids put on their rain boots and coats and ran around in the rain. I allowed them to play with umbrellas – which are usually off limits for them. I sat under the roof overhang, on a comfortable outdoor chair, with a wet cotton sock covered by a wool pashmina around my neck (natural remedy against sore throats).  Continue reading »


Mom Monday Week 17 – Rocking OPCs

Posted on

First, an explanation: OPCs = Other People’s Children. Before deciding to homeschool, I thought I would go teach other people’s children for a living while my own are in their respective classrooms. I never followed through with that plan because I felt short-changed.

How could I be away from my children for seven hours a day? How could I step aside and allow another person to see the sparkle of “now I get it” in their eyes? Homeschooling became the only solution my heart could accept.

It’s one thing to leave your school-age children behind for the day. It’s another thing altogether to leave your baby behind. Thankfully, I did not have to do either.

mom monday series on homeschool ways blog

Now, let’s take it to another level. If you have five minutes, grab a box of tissues and watch this clip from Paris je t’aime.

You don’t need to speak French to understand what is going on. There’s not much dialogue.  Continue reading »