Welcome to my blog!

Well, this is my first entry in my first blog, ever! For the longest time, I didn't even know what a blog was, let alone wanted to try one out. Ha! Guess the idea just grew on me. Now that I have a blog, I wonder if I'll keep up on it... Well, time will tell.

OK, had to come back and add a thought I just had. :) I'm a member of Flylady (www.flylady.net), and she just wrote an email about labels and how they can be bad and used as a crutch, to whine, etc. Well, all my life I've felt looked at as lazy, unable to control my life (ie, clutter, keep up with the kids, etc, etc, etc). I found Flylady, and things are definitely TONS better than they used to be. I am a SHE (Side-tracked Home Executive) as much as the next SHE, and I always knew that, deep down. I never really learned how to pick up after myself, keep up with chores, etc. So now that I'm learning how to do that, I am realizing that Flylady gives us the term SHE and helps us work through that without calling us lazy. She helps us change our attitudes from one of defeat to one of pride in who we are to gain peace.

Fast forward to her essay from this evening. I have recently figured out that, yes, I am lazy. Period. End of story. BUT! While I am lazy, I have learned what makes me feel lazy, and I am beginning to use that knowledge to change my attitude from one of laziness to one of "get it done now, because your kids might get sick tonight and you won't be able to do it tomorrow" (OK, I used that example because my kids DID get sick last night, and I spent this morning running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to pick up and clean before our Realtor came over and had a showing). Anyway, I digress. My (and my husband's, I should add) attitude has been changing a lot lately. We used to just agree with whatever was decided, take what came, blah, blah, blah. Now, my husband has a new job that he loves, we are able to upgrade to a new house (would never have been able to do that before the new job), and because of that, we both are feeling a new attitude come over us that we want to make life happen for us, not wait for it to happen to us.

So, now we are homeschooling our oldest, next daughter will be in 4K just for this year since her sister got to (you can't tell a 3yo she can go to school, then retract that when her sister got to go and she's been waiting for her turn for a year), and our youngest will be homeschooled completely. We are getting a new house on our own terms where we want to live, we are cooking/eating healthier (OK, so we fall off the bandwagon a lot and go out to eat, but we're trying), we're working through our debts using Dave Ramsey's guidelines (www.daveramsey.com), and we're just plain cleaning up our lives and changing for the better, doing what WE want to do instead of what people EXPECT us to do. It has been met with some resistance by our families. We are reminded many of times of the lack of social interaction our kids will face by not attending traditional school (we sign them up for a few city-offered classes, so they get their interaction times, plus we have been searching for other homeschoolers in our area - this will be easier after we move and know where we will be living), they wonder how they will compare to traditional students academically (most homeschoolers are ahead of their peers), they wonder how this will affect college (many colleges are seeking out homeschooled kids because of the diversity they bring to a campus and because their SAT and ACT scores are very high), and they just plain wonder if I can do it. Well, I am proving that I can do it. OK, so it's been 3 days. :P But we already had a meltdown, and my husband and I talked it over and fixed the problem. As other problems come up, we will face them head-on and figure out how to overcome them. I know our teaching and learning styles will change with time, the schedules will get readjusted a million times, and there will be countless obstacles to learning, but the most important thing is that I WILL make this work. The fact that people think I will fail and just can't do it makes me want to prove that I can do this. That and getting the new house, keeping up with some church work, my friends and family, and everything else I have going on in my life. I just want to prove everyone wrong, that I can be "as good as them." Yeah, I'm not perfect, but neither are they, and sometimes people act like they are and that I'll never be as good as they are.

Anyway, this took my my whole evening to set up (I played with a lot of settings :P , so I guess I should get to bed. Church tomorrow morning, and 3 girls to get ready besides myself and a husband. :D Have a great night!