I'm back

My 16 year old daughter is laughing at me as I ask her..."How long have I been homeschooling?!"

"How old am I?" she responds. 

"I'm not sure...what grade are you in? 10th?!" I've been homeschooling for 10 years, now! Holy Cow.

I found this blog from when I started homeschooling! I had totally forgotten about it. Complete memory lapse. When I went to Blogger to see what they had available for Blogs, up comes this one I had already started. Whoh!! Look at that! *I'm a dork*

10 years ago, I wanted to be able to share what we were up to, but time and commitment made it near impossible. Now, armed with two teenagers, it's time we band together to share our journey. So, I'll re-introduce the residents of our NutHouse.

Rebecca - me- Keeper of the Nuthouse.
Luke - 13 year-old son - Head Nut (convinced he's in charge)
Alaina - 16 year-old daughter - Head Nut (thinks she's in charge)
Jeff - my sugar-daddy - tries to keep me from going completely insane.

We moved recently to a country home in Alexandria in the West Central area of Minnesota. Although I'm not entirely convinced that I'm built for the arctic chill, the rest of my family try hard to convince me otherwise. 

Enjoy our Journey. I've learned to celebrate it. God got us into this mess, He can get us out. ;-)

-Rebecca

The Compliment

I struggled with homeschooling for months before I fully committed. The struggle was not the benefits, but the stereotypes. It's hard to admit, but what has been displayed via TV and through society was embedded in my brain. I am different than the average woman, I know. I have domestic hobbies and stay at home with my children, but I am NOT weird. HA! I wasn't weird. I am now.

I haven't gotten that tattoo across my forehead yet that says, "WE HOMESCHOOL." And, I live my life completely different than the stereotypical homeschooler did in Law & Order. (Which is where I drew my accurate homeschoolers-are-crazy information from. This is a WHOLE other topic)

A fun thing I have discovered is helping others squash their stereotypical images of homeschoolers. Here is one recent example. There is a local bike shop owner named Chad. He's a great guy and we go in to his store and shoot the breeze.  He is even coming to our church now, which is giving us more time to get to know him. Like most small towns, we know his brother and sister-in-law, and Dana came over the other day. During our conversation she unknowingly gave me a great compliment.

Dana said, "Chad asked me, 'Did you know that Rebecca homeschools? They seem so normal."

Woo Hoo! Normal Homeschoolers!! We're breaking down that stereotype one by one and shifting it away from Crazy Homeschoolers. It may never completely turn around, but I love hearing when people hit that same point I did of enlightenment. It's God's work on people's hearts, and He has done it to me too.

I don't know, though, do they look crazy to you too?



Wait! Where'd their tattoos go?! Darn it. I know I put them somewhere.

Living Books

During the MACHE conference I went to a session about the Charlotte Mason approach to education given by Shirley Solis of Lifetime Books & Gifts. It was very inspiring since I strive to teach my children using good literature. Shirley talked about living books, which is a new concept to me.

Charlotte Mason promoted the use of living books.
Living books are well written books, “whole books,” with high literary
content. These books should display “origination, imagination, and the
‘human touch.’” Examples of living books are classics, such as LITTLE
HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, TREASURE ISLAND, or first hand sources, such as
“The Declaration of Independence.” Living Books are the opposite of
“twaddle,” which are books “drained dry of living thought.”

I know that there's a difference in the quality of literature out there, but having the definition helps me. And, the ridiculous name, "twaddle" makes me giggle. I've been tossing these words around in my head and will continue to do so. My kids' bookshelves are stuffed with 100's of twaddle books. (See below) Have they enjoyed them? Yes. But, are they enriching their lives? I'm not so sure anymore. I've just gone with the idea in the past that the more books they have, the better. As long as they don't teach anything too bad, then we're safe. But, is that a good way? I'm not even worried about the "best" way (since there seem to be thousands of best ways), I just wonder if it's even good, anymore.

My 6 year old daughter and I are almost done reading The Little Princess. It has been AMAZING!! It a true living book filled with beautiful words, vivid imagination, worldly lessons and rich values. I was a little nervous at first that Jeega would immediately dismiss it and I would push her to learn to hate books, if they seem too hard or out of her element. On the contrary!! She has worried when Sara is in despair, had tears in her eyes when Sara has gone without food due to the horrific actions of the head-mistress. Today she was excited as Sara's dreams were coming true and her attic room became transformed like magic. I miss estimated the power of these literary gifts, and I feel like I've unleashed the hunger of classics as they eat up the twaddle that has held our family captive for so long.

We're having a garage sale this weekend. It will take a brave step, but I need to remove the twaddle to make room for the living.

**20 minutes later** literally
Well, I quickly went through the nearly 350 books (yes, I have counted before) and here are my results:

Twaddle I've removed


Living Books left in Bear's shelf


Living Books left in Jeega's shelf


When examining the books left behind, you may not agree that they are all Living Books, and that's okay. Some of them are ones that are simply favorites of our family and we would feel like we lost a good friend if they were gone. Maybe after the shock wears off, I'll think twice about the ones left behind. But for today, I think we're good! Plus, my kids were excited about the idea of having only the good and best books in our library when I told them a few minutes ago what I have done. How about that? That was a good surprise.