Saturday, March 24, 2018

My Long Sabbatical

It was not my purpose to go MIA on my blogs. It just sort of happened. Life at home, and life outside home sometimes throw you for such a loop that it takes time to get your nerve back. 

Since my last post, and I'm not sure when that was, I have graduated my last two homeschoolers. 
It is an end of an era. My teaching career as far as homeschooling has ended.

However, with the Lord's help and leading, I hope to continue in the spirit of Titus 2. Not only with homeschooling things, but on my other blogs as well.

Lord willing, I'm back. 

Monday, January 23, 2017

A Plan

A plan is always a good place to start with any endeavor, which is why someone coined the expressions about failing to plan being a plan to fail.

Quick update: merging posts, links, etc from my scattered blogs, and websites, into one space-here at blogger.

No promises of how soon I'll manage this, but at least I have a plan, right?

It's my hope and prayer to help and encourage homeschool moms, and moms who wish to homeschool but for some reason are unable to do so. 

If you want to keep up with updates, please "follow me", or subscribe.

Thanks. 


Sunday, April 5, 2015

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Tips for Helping Children Understand Money


Tips for Helping your Children Understand Money
By: Corrie Petersen

How many times have you told your child, "Money doesn't grow on trees"? I know I used to tell my boys that on a regular basis. Sometimes it felt like I was telling them this several times a day. Small children and sometimes the older ones as well, don't understand this, but it's something you need to show them or they'll have money problems for years to come.


We give our boys an allowance every week, but it doesn't come free. They must do chores around the house or they won't get it. Those chores include taking out the trash, rolling the garbage can to the street once a week, taking care of the dog, cleaning their rooms, and helping pick up other rooms in the house. It's not a lot, but we do expect them to help or they won't be paid.


It's no different then a regular job or a business. If you sit around and do nothing all day, you're not going to receive a paycheck for it and if you do it won't take long before it's noticed and it comes to an end. Well you need to treat the chores and allowance the same way.


If they don't do what's been assigned to them for the day or week, the allowance will either be docked for a certain amount or it won't be given at all. This may be hard to do, so you'll need to come up with a way to make it work. Pay a certain amount of money a day or per chore so it's easy to dock it from the pay when it's not done. Using a whiteboard may help with this or you can create a spreadsheet with the chores and boxes to mark when it's been done.


Another thing we struggled with was with them borrowing money. If one of the boys wanted something at the store, but didn't have the money we used to buy it for them and not require them to pay us back. It got to a point where he would purposely leave his money at home because he knew we'd just buy it for him. While this was a hard lesson it was one we decided was a must. We were spending way too much money doing this and it was defeating the purpose, so it came to an end.


Since we stopped making purchases and not making them pay it back they have learned how to save money or if they didn't think it was possible to save the money and make the purchase later, it taught them what a loan was. We put a list on the fridge that contained the amount they borrowed and each time a payment was made that was added and the amount subtracted. We came up with a reasonable pay off date and discussed it if the date was not going to be reached.


When you help your children to understand the value of a dollar and that you're not going to support them by purchasing things that aren't necessary, they'll learn about money and they'll make wise choices.


http://www.wahm- articles. com/Article/ Tips-for- Helping-your- Children- Understand- Money/10508

Monday, May 14, 2012

Graduation 2012

When school began it felt like it would be forever before we finished.  Honestly, it seems like a blink to me. Our lessons are almost complete and plans for next year are in the works.  

Last Friday we had our annual evaluations, which officially brought our 4th child to the end of his homeschool journey.  What a journey it has been. He was faithful and finished his course. 

While I am overjoyed at his success, it is a bittersweet moment for us. It reminds me how fleeting our lives are, and especially the brevity of the time we have with our children. Almost overnight they transform from babies, to toddlers, to teens, and suddenly, childhood days are done, wings are flight-worthy, and they soar off embarking on a new life's journey.  





In less than two days our son will be leaving his childhood behind and enter adulthood. 
 We love him so dearly. He is such a blessing to us. 

Son, you will be missed more than we can say.  I love you, Son.  

Monday, February 6, 2012

Homemade "Silly Putty"

Make Your Own Silly Putty

  • 1/4 C liquid  laundry starch
  • 1/4 C Elmer's glue

Place in a plastic bag and mix together. 
Store in the refrigerator.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Waffles Anyone?

When we first started homeschooling in 1992, all the popular homeschool magazine articles about homeschools families made a HUGE deal about them getting up at 5AM, having chores and breakfast, including feeding chickens, milking cows by hand etc, all done by 7AM, and in school by 7:15 or so. Then noonish, one o'clockish, they were done with bookwork and had time for fun and naps. 

New homeschool moms can read stuff like that and think that is how it is supposed to be. ( I did) When they find they can't get everyone moving before 8AM, and just feeding children and getting out of pjs takes utnil 10AM, with the arrival of new babies (which all homeschoolers are supposed to pop out annually-I say that with a touch of sarcasm and wishful thinking), these moms feel like they can't do it. They see themselves as failures. They think they are messing up their children for life, that they'd all be better off sending their children to school-often the only alternative being public school, and that they need to get a job to help with expenses since there is no "need" for them to be home.

It would be great for magazines to publish the reality of homeschooling, and not just someone's schedule, which for many folks is just out of reach.They intend to be encouraging, but in the long run, those type of articles can have negative consequences. Especially for those who, like many folks we know, are homeschooling, but they are just going through the motions, and/or have a take-it or leave-it view--they are not homeschooling because they believe God led them to do it. Which is really the crux of it, ya know?

It doesn't matter what good endeavors we do as Christians, it might be pastoring, being a missionary, or the church janitor, if God didn't/doesn't lead us to do it, not doing it is not such a big deal.  We can move on to the next thing in life without a second thought if it seems reasonable to us. 

From talking to many homeschoolers and Christians, especially since our family went online, well-intentioned friends, family, teachers, preachers, etc. often, (unwittingly?) put pressure on others to conform to a certain "image". They usually have scriptural principles to back up their ideas, but in their teaching, preaching and talking about it, they forget to advise people to seek God's face on the matter before committing to it. They fail to remind women to be sure their husband doesn't grunt "I don't see it that way, but you can do it if you want to", but that he agrees with, or is agreeable to any changes they are going to enact PRIOR TO enacting them.

During the election when....the "waffler" was running for president, people didn't like that. His flip-flopping went  against the character and qualities people seek in electing a  good president. 

In the body of Christ, there are alot of wafflers. People will accuse them of them being compromisers or legalistic, or extreme or liberal...etc.  I've seen this up close with people I love and care about, friends who one day bring up a topic they know we disagree on but never fight over, and suddenly they are defending their stance to me in an aggressive manner. A couple weeks later, they have moved to a conservative or liberal viewpoint, which they aggressively seek to conform me to as well. As time passes their stance on standards, and issues, and doctrines, flip-flop from extreme to extreme, and to onlookers they appear to be "compromisers".  I've heard this said to folks, and about folks. Personally, I think their intention is to be right with God, and whatever church or circle they are in, they conform to the standards and practices of that group. When they move on, they might conform to the new groups ideas, or revert to the ones they started with. In reality, it isn't that they compromised at all, but rather that they conformed to a standard that wasn't a conviction to them. The true compromise was in their conformity. At times conformity is done out of respect, and at other times conformity occurs due to verbal and non-verbal peer pressure so they fit in. My hope is that when I speak of matters on which people have strong beliefs, that if my teaching/speaking/convictions/beliefs differs from their own, that they will not feel the need to copy me to be my friend, or fit into my circle.

It helps me to remember that the same Holy Spirit that lives inside me as a Believer, also resides in other Believers. It's His job to convict a person to change, or not. It is only my duty to make sure He is leading me to speak/teach etc, and leave the results to Him.  Each one of us will stand and give an account at the judgment seat.

 Terry at home in PA