Homestead Schoolhouse

    I believe it was Nike that used the motto "Just Do It!"  I recently thought about it when I was listening to a podcast about getting things done.  The guest on the show stated that the longer you wait to do something, the more likely you are to talk yourself out of it, and that you'll never be more ready than you are today.  I think it's good advice, at least for someone like me.  I like to research and learn, but at some point, even if you don't feel ready, I think it's best to just get to work.       I waited for two years to approach leaving my job to be home full time, and once I made the decision, it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  Again, I felt a huge relief once I told everyone at work what my plans were, and no one threw stones at me, but instead congratulated me.  Wait, what?       It happened when I was planning to homeschool as well. I read and researched for two years, bu...

     During my elementary years, I grew up living with my grandparents, who were homesteaders.  At the time, the word "homestead" was not one I was familiar with, although it was a very old word.  Instead, I would say that we lived on a small farm, which was also true.        We raised cattle that would later end up on our table.  We bought hogs from another farm that we'd have slaughtered.  I distinctly remember helping my grandpa make homemade sausage using a hand meat grinder in the basement of our home.  We raised rows and rows of strawberries that my grandparents would sell, and I was happy to help them pick quart after quart to be sold.  And I was paid for my efforts!       I remember a very large garden and breaking beans on the front porch.  I also remember picking tomatoes off the vine and eating them just like I would an apple.  Speaking of apples, my grandpa also had an impress...

     Five years ago, things got strange for my oldest daughter as she attended school.  Suddenly, my child who had always loved learning and enjoyed school, was focused on things that had nothing to do with learning.  She was instead becoming increasingly uninterested in attending school, and building up anxieties.  It would be a while before I learned that she was being relentlessly bullied by another student.       I always knew it could happen.  After all, I had been teaching for many years at that point and had seen things like this over and over again.  But it's different when it happens to your own child.  That isn't to say that I never took it seriously before.  I did.  I always wanted what was best for my students and did what I could to help them.  This time, however, it became personal, in a more flesh-and-blood way.  I began to understand what some of those parents before had tried to get me ...