The glass is half-full.
Look at it through different pair of glasses.
Nothing is impossible.
Yes, you can!!
Just believe.
Have faith and keep moving forward.
My personality is a positive one!
I don’t often, if hardly ever, allow negativity to come out of my mouth.
I mean, I may think it but I will NOT say it. (most times).
Additionally, I am an encourager. That is my ‘ministry’ in addition to being a leader.
So put encourager, optomistic leader all together and you have ME.
Often that ‘ME’ may appear to some to be a ‘pipe-dream’ or the PERFECT life or living a fairytale.
Well……it really depends on how you see things.
I thought I’d shine some light on who I am as a homeschooling Mom of 16 years and homeschooler of eight children (2 are graduated now).
My days are not greeted with birds singing and sweetly chirping at my window.
More like our six guinea hens making the most loud indescribable, irritating noise ever. (But on good days I do enjoy hearing them on our farm.)
Nor are my days greeted with order, perfection and ‘candy’ love filling the aroma of every crevice of our 1400 sq ft home for our homeschooling family of TEN (save our full-sized basement).
I do not live in a castle of perfection.
Frocklicking along with pixydust upon my head with unicorns on our farm and a homeschooling fairytale to be told every day.
Nothing can be further from the truth.
Like most homeschoolers after the holiday break it was time to get back into our greatly desired ‘imperfect’ but workable schedule to start the second leg of the homeschooling year.
Monday, January 9, 2017 was the day I realized for sure that as positive and optomistic as I am and the wonderful blog post I wrote up, “Where is your homeschooling heart?” on this particular Monday, that although I treasure my homeschool, I also wanted to pull my every. single. strand. of hair out of my head!!!
It appeared that my five year old forgot how to read and my 7 year old forgot all of the hard work we did to learn how to borrow and subtract. She decided to start subtracting from the hundreds place INSTEAD OF THE ONES place.
Oh….after that morning of our ‘happy day to start back school’ I wanted to kill every guinea hen in my yard that was singing those ‘unsweet’ melodies all morning long!!! Ha!
Alas……my husband was home as we were still snowed in from the weekend. He saw my frustrations…..I mean the sprinkling of pixydust on my face and decided to serve me a cup of his peppermint coffee.
Well…..it didn’t help!
Folks…there’s no homeschooling fairytale happening over here at our Shine Bright Christian Academy!!
It was a hard Monday.
Hard Tuesday.
But not so hard Wednesday (today).
My purpose in writing this topic of this blog is to encourage you on this Wednesday….hump day.
No one gets a ticket to perfect. That’s my new slogan.
Although perfect it may seem.
And perfect is what you may think you perceive.
And perfect is the picture you’ve painted in your mind about EVERYBODY’S homeschooling journey besides yours…..
Well….. there’s no unicorns in ‘nobodys’ yard/farm.
There’s no pixydust that is getting sprinkled anywhere
And there’s no homeschool fairytale of make-believe happening.
Stop painting those pictures. 🙂
Bring it all back to reality.
All of us who continue on in the homeschooling ‘struggle’ do so with the weapontry we choose to pick up and utilize day to day.
This weapontry is….
*Prayer.
*Determination.
*Resources of encouragement.
*Associations. (those we associate ourselves with)
*Affirmation.
*Conviction.
*Commitment.
*Books.
*The cute little sleeping faces we care for daily. (You know how cute they are when they are sleeping. They make you forget all about the rough schooling days.)
*One day at a time.
That’s all the ‘magic’ most of homeschooling Moms and Dads have.
Maybe there are a few other tricks up our sleeves. But the reality of it all – is that we each put on our morning sweat pants one leg at a time. 🙂
Oh….Back to my Monday…….
We did make it through the day. I realized why my son forgot how to read. I forgot to pull out the ‘point sheet’ we use whenever he is schooling. For him, schooling is a game. He is looking to earn points for everything he does right. And if a point isn’t given then ‘he don’t know nothin.’
And my daughter…I forgot that whenever I offer a treat for doing something right (I told my three 3rd graders if they get their subtraction problems right they’d get a little chocolate hersey candy bar) she totally freezes-up and forget’s everything. Even her name!!
SMH! Lol.
Hey….if you have any pixydust to spare I’d sure like to borrow some.
Thanks in advance! 🙂
Here’s to reality homeschooling!
(Share this blog post with a homeschooling buddy. This may just be the homeschooling enouragement they need to hear in order to stay on the homeschooling journey.)
Serving You and Yours,
Angela Jordan Perry,
UCHU owner/director/administrator
Angela Jordan Perry, is a wife of 24 years, homeschooling Mom of eight children, entrepreneur, mad’am farmer, Toastmaster and follower of Christ. Angela and her family makes their home in Campobello, SC.