What do you do when life throws you a few curve balls?
Life has thrown us a few curve balls lately and it's been hard to keep all things going, so my strategy is to dump all nonessential activities. I hear this little voice shouting retreat! I call it getting back to 'basics', once I can manage 'my basics' I can then slowly add in 'my extras'. Everyones basics and extras are different it all depends on what we prioritise as 'need to' and 'want to'!
I guess it's all part of the great journey that is home educating, after all one of the blessings of home educating is that home is at the heart of it. I thank God for our place of refuge in difficult times. Now that I am slowly poking my head out from my hiding place I felt that I could give time to my blog!
I'm just going to start from where I am now and think it's a good spot to talk about what 'our basics' are. (Please leave a comment on what your things are)
Basics
1. Spiritual - I don't know about you but my spiritual state can fluctuate a lot especially since we had children and started home educating! There just doesn't seem enough hours in the day! You would think that it would go without saying but how often do we run on low or empty when it comes to our spiritual needs? How can we feed our children if we aren't getting fed? So 'my' basic here is helped by my husband who reads a daily devotional and prays while we eat our breakfast before he goes to work also at night we take it in turns to put our 2 eldest to bed (they share a room) and we do a bible reading and prayer time with them. My own personal time has been on an 'as I can find time' basis but this is something I want to make more of an effort to MAKE time for. Church attendance is a must for us too, the encouragement of others who love & serve God can be used to minister to our souls.
2. Household - Yes unfortunately the house will not clean it's self! My husband likes things tidy so we made an agreement that one room (the living room) would be tidy for him coming home. Due to a long standing back problem I struggle to get the house clean from top to bottom, I felt as if I was constantly chasing my tail! So I budget to have some one in once a week to clean from top to bottom. A luxury some may think but for 2hrs I pay £12. It forces me to make sure all is tidy so it can be cleaned and for the peace of mind it's a bargain! I still have to do the daily maintenance, laundry, cooking, shopping and what not that running a house entails.
3. Teaching - We have the pleasure of living in Bonnie Scotland where we are free to home educate and at the moment legally the term is 'educated otherwise' which can be open to wide interpretation. My boys are now 8, 6 and 2 so my 'basics' here are not necessarily academics I want my children to develop a love for God first and foremost and also a love of learning. So our daily family devotionals and the evening devotionals & prayer are a must and academically english and math (for those difficult times if we cover these four days out of five I'm happy). We also have many other things we do that are educational which will become more apparent as I blog about them. My main challenge this year is home educating with a toddler (our little boy blue) in tow!! More on that to come.
Our Family
(Can you believe this is the only photo of all five of us and its from 2 years ago!)
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