The bacon sizzled as the family slowly scampered around getting ready for church. It was a drizzly and grey Sunday morning, where we all slept in since we’d stayed up until midnight to light sparklers and watch the New Year roll in together. Breakfast was finally finished cooking, but apparently nobody around here likes bacon anymore (go figure) and they started complaining about how hungry they were and how there’s nothing to eat. A batch of pancakes got everyone back on track, and all was well in the world again. I had an old Spotify playlist playing on our kitchen speaker with a collection of different worship songs and hymns that we had built up and added to over the years. I was mid-conversation with my middle boy, and he stopped and smiled and pointed at the speaker. “Hey, that was one of our hymns from school - I remember this one.” He then immediately dropped back into whatever he was doing, and the morning moved on. But that moment stuck with me, and I think it’s those simple little things like that I am beginning to store up and treasure. That song we learned was from a LONG time ago, and I was glowing inside knowing that it still caught his ear.

Making friends is hard. Especially when you homeschool. We have been on the hunt for some 10-ish year old friends who could maybe come alongside of us in this wild ride of life and learning together, and while we’ve got some promising buds, we’ve also had a ton of strikeouts. It’s affected our girl the most, and while I know this is tough for her, I’m trusting that when the time is right the Lord will knit together just who she needs for a season such as this. Just like He is doing for me. 

I don’t care how old my kids get, I therefor and hitherto solemnly swear and publicly proclaim that from this point forward and forever more we will always read picture books aloud together.

Ok, maybe that is an ambitious vow, but I DO hope we always keep that deep-seeded love for the classic, snuggled-up, tuck-my-toes-under-the-blanket-next-to-yours kind of book reading. I’ve always had a tender spot for a good story, since it’s one of the most lasting and powerful ways we connect to each other as people, and it helps us to understand things and ideas far greater than us. Over the years, we’ve read our share of books together as a homeschool family, and there have been a few that have stuck with me as real treasures that we will occasionally wander back to and recommend quite often to folks we know (and even to some we don’t).

When we started our homeschooling journey all those years ago, I was kind of winging it. And by “kind of winging it”, I mean I had no idea what I was doing.

As we fumbled and explored our way through the first couple of years learning each other and what worked (and even more things that didn’t work), I found myself really sifting what the most important things were. If I only have these handful of years with them, what am I hoping to accomplish? If we can’t do it all (which we we can’t), what things would move us towards our core values? After all, how we spend our minutes is how we live our lives, and if we’re not careful we’ll squirrel them all away on the things that never really mattered anyway.

I was stuck at home on a Saturday and feeling sidelined from all of the action because #toddlers, so naturally I was having a pity party, table of one, for no reason at all, and I began the endless cycle of insta-scrolling. After seeing beautiful homeschool posts of peaceful and kind-hearted children joyfully learning together at home, I started thinking about how much grumbling happened in our own little school room. How bad attitudes seemed more frequent than kind gestures. How I meet resistance at almost every juncture of our day, no matter what kind of fun or enchantment we’ve tried to weave into it. Then I started wondering - was it me? Was it something I was doing wrong? Are we not doing enough? Have we made the right choice? The insecurity and self-doubt was raging strong, and it was so unexpected and felt slimy.

P O S S I B I L I T Y . In our yoga practice the other night, that was our central theme, and it’s funny how just that single word can stir a sense of thrill, of anticipation. I’m learning about myself that I love to dream, to cast a vision and chase after it with people. I’m also learning to prioritize what I chase, even if it means letting some other possibilities go.