5 on the Fifth - May 2015 (Homeschooling High School)

I love our local homeschool group!  It is beautifully created by an amazing group of families.  Each family is unique and special and fabulous all in its own right, and it's what each family brings to the group that makes it so magnificent.  On the third Tuesday of each month we hold a support group meeting that is open to everyone, members and non-members alike.  You just never know what you'll learn or what you'll be able to share just by being present.  Last month our topic was Homeschooling High School.  I have to say that it was by far my most favorite meeting of the year.  The conversation was amazing, and I do believe it could have gone on all night had we not been constricted by the time frame imposed by our meeting location.

We strayed from our normal meeting format in that this meeting was done in a panel fashion.  Those of us that are homeschooling veterans, meaning that we've graduated one or more child from high school, sat on the panel.  We used a list of prompts and opened ourselves up to questions from those that are currently traveling this homeschooling journey with a high school student, or they will be in the future.  It was amazingly interesting.  I didn't expect to learn too much, or really even take away any real encouragement.  It has after all been five years since I last taught homeschool high school, and I've got a good four years or so before the next one enters into the high school years.  Why does that seem so far away until I type it here?  You know as well as I do it will go by in a flash.  What was I thinking!?

Anyway, my contribution to the evening was to prepare the devotional.  Sometimes I write my own, and sometimes I share what others have written.  I prayed about this a lot, and on my journey I discovered a lot of wonderful resources.  I collected so many that I began a board on Pinterest just for Homeschooling High School resources and information.  You can visit it by clicking here.  For now, here are my five most favorite posts from my research:

Heather at Spirittibee nails it with this devotional, A Homeschool Mom Devotional: Being Broken.  That is why this is what I shared with the ladies to encourage them on their journey.  Her devotional written directly to the homeschool mom points us directly where our brokenness should be leading us.

Let me just say that I love Lee Binz.  It's no surprise to me that one of her posts made it into my top five.  I discovered Lee years ago, and she is a wonderful resource for anyone currently, or preparing to in the future, homeschooling high school.  How to Cope: Lack of Motivation in Teens effectively addresses an issue a lot of, if not all of us, will face somewhere in the journey.  I just keep reminding myself to enjoy the extra sleep teens need, and see it as a bonus.  Right now, I would give almost anything for my kids to sleep more!  LOL

I love this guest post by Gina Glenn on the blog Ben and Me.  It's refreshing to have a positive perspective laid out for us on areas where we may otherwise be inclined to impose negative thinking.  We're our own worst critic, and Gina does a wonderful job clearing up our focus with her post, 10 Things I Did Right Homeschooling High School.

I'm, eh-hem, 44 years old, and I still think about what I'd like to do when I grow up.  My paternal grandfather had the awesome blessing of knowing what he wanted to do when he was eight-years-old, going for it, and being a smashing success at it to boot.  Our oldest son is in the process of realizing his dream that he's held since age four, and he's doing quite well at it.  Me, well, I like a lot of things, and knowing what I wanted to do for THE REST OF MY LIFE at the age of 18 was not something I could achieve.  That's why I really like this post by Vicki Tillman.  With 10 Ideas for Career Exploration in High School Vicki does a wonderful job of equipping us with some tools for guiding our teens through this process of discovery.

Since my hubby and I seem to be on a quest to see just how long we can raise children, I think it's our full-time career by now, this post at The Relaxed Homeschool hits the nail on the head for me.  As you may know, we will be "older" when this batch of children is ready to fly the coop.  With that in mind, it has become more important to me now more than ever before to fully equip them to be independent and self-sufficient.  They must know how to care for themselves and witness to others.  We will not be here in the winter, and maybe even autumn, of their lives.  For me, Set Your Teens FREE! builds solidly on that foundation we are actively laying with our current brood.

If you learn nothing else from these posts, it is my prayer that you would leave here knowing full well that...

YOU CAN HOMESCHOOL HIGH SCHOOL!

Five on the 5th - Favorite Blog Posts for January

So today is the 6th, but it's still the week of the 5th.  It's all good!  This past month was a bit more intense than I had anticipated.    Illness seems to still be lingering in our household.  Guess who's sick now?  Of course!  Mom is always the last one to get it, right?  Nothing like trying to catch up on sleep after caring for three sick kids over the course of nearly three months just to come down with a cold yourself.  It's the icing on the cake!

Speaking of icing, my first blog post that I would like to share with you is a recipe for The Best Cream Cheese Frosting Ever by Gluten Free Gigi.  This is a wonderful site that was referred to me by the Facebook Page Manager at Bob's Red Mill.  For Christmas morning I used the recipe on the Bob's Red Mill Pizza Crust mix bag for Cinnamon Rolls.  I had a few questions, so I visited their Facebook Page and asked away.  They were super helpful and even provided me with this wonderful, gluten free resource.  The frosting pretty much is the best ever, and the blog is quite amazing, too!

As a mother of 10 children in a combined, adoptive, legal guardianship family our family makeup is a little different than the typical, nuclear family.  Sometimes it is confusing to others, and sometimes it is confusing to myself.  Loving that many children and nurturing them into adulthood is something I never saw coming when I was 20 years younger.  It wasn't part of my plan, but it was my calling nonetheless.  Just like the author at Five in Tow, I wouldn't have it any other way.  This is life.  It is mess, and I am absolutely tired.  This post spoke deep into my heart.  (why) I Don't Want More Kids is a worthwhile read for anyone that has ever loved a child.

Lately, I find myself being called back to an older, more simple approach to education.  My focus is more tuned to natural learning and more of the live and learn philosophy.  I find myself reading books about unschooling again and searching deeper into my soul while I examine the hearts of my children a little more closely.  What do they love?  How do they approach life?  What brings them joy?  Durenda at Simple Nourishing Home is a mom to eight children, and her post on The Unhurried Homeschooler pulled me back to my roots as a young homeschooling mom.  She reminded me of what I've known all along and encouraged me to honor my authentic self by reminding me to trust my instincts, and my children.  No matter the style of your homeschool, there are things to be gained here as well as some wonderful resources for further exploration.

I love free books, and I have quite grown to love free Kindle books.  You can own thousands of them for free, and they don't take up ANY space on the bookshelf.  Bonus!  Every Saturday, Homeschooling Library shares a list of free Kindle books on their blog.  They're listed by age and grade level, which I find very helpful.

Even though I am not in love with the idea of living grain free, I am warming up to it, and I do love my friends that share blogs with me that focus on good for you food that is fun to make.  One of my homeschooling buddies stumbled upon this recipe for Grain-Free Sugar Cookies at Danielle Walker's Against All Grain and thought of me.  This means two new gluten-free blogs to add to my list of resources for this month.  Yippee!  Now, I just need to learn how to make Coconut Cream, because that stuff is expensive!

You can visit the rest of the posts here.

5 on the Fifth - Favorite Blog Posts for December

I've decided that I'm going to stretch myself a bit this year with my blogging; more commitments, new activities, and getting to know more blogs personally.  This is the first step.  I just discovered this link-up, another new to me term, late last night when sleep was eluding me.  That being said, I've obviously not spent the previous month keeping my eye out for blogs to share with you here.  So, what I did was just take a moment and think about blogs I like; some from good friends.  I figured is as good a place to start as any.

Mothering Monday:  Help!  I'm so overwhelmed!

(Home Management Part 2)

The first blog post I'd like to share with you is from my good friend Anna at Where My Treasure Is.  I love her blog and the way she shares her wisdom.  No matter what I read there I leave with a good feeling, and it may even challenge me in a kind and gentle way.  Recently I read her post on home management, and let me tell you how timely it was for me.  I felt encouraged after reading this post, and I hope you do as well.

Make Your Own Calendula Salve

(a quick and easy gift idea!)

As some of you know, I have been on a trying journey to rediscover health and understand more clearly the food that I feed to my family.  This past year has been a year of tremendous increase in knowledge in this area.  One of my favorite discoveries was GNOFGLINS (God's Natural, Organic, Whole Foods, Grown Locally, In Season).  I love when the posts come through my news feed on Facebook, and I even get information from them in my email inbox.  Mind you, I've gotten pretty selective about what comes through that medium.  Am I the only one that can find myself drowning in emails?  Here is a recent post with a helpful, homemade gift idea.  Maybe you'll find yourself inspired.

Living on What We Have:  
A Month of No Groceries

This next post is an idea that I've pondered more than a time or two, especially since we've made our big move to the country.  I grew up poor, and I do know how to live with very little.  I am forever thankful for having a mother that taught me how to keep my house stocked with food and essentials like toilet paper, laundry soap, and medicines.  She managed to keep a hefty larder despite a VERY minimal income.  She was, and still very much is, very thrifty.  I suppose being raised on a farm by parents that survived the Great Depression had a little something to do with that.  Now that my hubby and I find ourselves raising yet another generation of children we tend to look at a lot of things differently than we did when we were younger. this is definitely not one of those areas.  My natural instinct is to have a good stock of food, among other things, at all times.  I shop for deals and do my best.  Often, though, I do find myself wondering just how long my stock will last and how much food do I need to put up to meet the needs of my family comfortably.  Leona at My Healthy Green Family took this challenge seriously and put in the very real effort to find out just what she was capable of pulling off, and I thoroughly appreciate the fact that she took the extra step in sharing her experience with the rest of us.  Check out her journey!

Dear Fellow Shopper...

I've had the honor of reconnecting via Facebook with one of my favorite gal pals from grade school, and I am certainly the better for it.  She's a bubbly person that grew up in the Midwest and sports a Southern accent.   (I've not had the privileged or confusion of actually hearing her talk since this transformation.)  One thing I have gotten acquainted with however is her personal blog.  Her writing style is amazing as ever; enhanced a little by age, faith, and hard earned wisdom.  She shares poignantly her exploits and the subsequent growing pains.  She's off the cuff and no holds barred.  She's not afraid to let you see her rough edges.  It's what I love about her.  One day maybe I'll be lucky enough to share a jar of pickles with her face to face again, but this time I think they should be deep fried!

What in the World is Tallow?

Here's another lady I know that loves to share her knowledge with those who are interested in learning and growing.  In the three short years that I've been privileged to know and cultivate a friendship with her, my knowledge has grown greatly.  Honestly, I owe a lot of that to her.  It's empowering when you are fortunate enough to rub shoulders with confident people, especially women when you are one yourself, that are more than comfortable being the person God created them to be.  When we want to grow it's a good idea to put ourselves in the company of those respect and those that challenge us to become better versions of ourselves.  This post has nothing specifically to do with that very topic, but using beef tallow for good things was a bit new to me.  I found the process interesting, and I love the biblical connections she always seems to share.  Those of us that know her personally are glad she's finally taken up blogging.  I think you will as well.

You can visit the rest of the posts here.