-
Homeschool Organization
I am not trying to brag when I share with you my storage solutions for all things homeschool related, but rather I am sharing with you what works for me.
First off you should know that we live in a small house, so getting creative with our storage is vital, and because we do not yet own our house permanent solutions are not helpful.
In the past eight years of homeschooling I have used bins, buckets, shelves, and stacks. However the one item that has transitioned with our ever changing lives has been the old turn about caddy from Pampered Chef. I love that it can hold our pens, pencils, markers, scissors, and more all in one place. If we end up doing school on the table it sits there, if we do school on the couch it moves to the coffee table, and on beautiful days we can take it outside while we work in the sun.
For our endless supply of books I use the stand by of a good bookcase, or perhaps more then one, but for the specific school books for each child and myself I rely on Thirty-One totes. I have so many bags and totes! Bags for library books, for tutor supplies, for bible study resources and anything I need right by me is stored in a bag or tote.
Tutor Bag 
One of a few book shelves 
Library Books 
Student Bag I do hope that one day I won’t feel like I am being swallowed up by bags and totes and I’ll live in a permanent place where I can put permanent solutions in to keep all our school supplies organized but for now I am content.
-
Abide, and sojourn
Abide:
To accept or act in accordance with, to bear patiently, to endure without yielding, to wait for, to accept without objection, to remain stable or fixed and my personal favorite to continue in place-sojourn.
I honestly think I am the worst abider I know. I have an incredibly hard time doing all of the above, so is it any wonder that I get burned from rash decisions? I speak when I should listen, I run when I should sit, I plan and control everything within my reach without noticing nothing is working.
Anyone else pick up the phone and call a friend when you really should just keep quiet?
Have you said yes when you really should have said, I’ll need to pray about that first?
I desperately want off this crazy cycle!
Lord I want to abide in you. I want to accept that if I follow hard after you, you alone will be the answer to everything I need or want. Only by your grace can I wait for and accept without objection.
In John chapter 15 the word abide is used 9 times. Three times a word or phrase is used in scripture and your antenna perks up, but 9 times and I am wondering why is this so important. To begin the chapter Jesus is talking about how He is the vine and that there are branches that can or cannot bear fruit. The branches that do bear fruit are pruned and the others are chopped off.
How does a branch bear fruit? By abiding in the vine (“abide in me, and I in you” vs.4), and what about this fruit that we cannot bear without abiding? According to Galatians 5:22, “the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control.” By this definition I cannot bear any of these without first abiding in Christ who is the vine, and abiding looks very different then what I’ve been doing lately. Here is what I can do.
- To accept or act in accordance with: I am blessed to be a wife and mom and I am enough in my loving them well.
- To bear patiently: I have dreams that do not include homeschooling all day long, but those will have to wait for now.
- To endure without yielding: The mundane of housework can drive a person nuts but by the grace of God I will not trade it.
- To wait for: My name to be called
- To accept without objection: This amazing life we’ve made. The great and the not so great.
- To remain stable: I will fix my eyes on the only one who can keep me stable, Jesus.
- To continue in place-sojourn: I don’t need anything more or less then what Jesus has given me today.
What an amazing life this is I get to live! In Jesus name, Amen.
-
Lets talk hobbies.
What is a hobby? According to a Google search it means
an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.“her hobbies are reading and gardening”synonyms: pastime, leisure activity, leisure pursuit; So it would seem by that definition I have a few, and I would like to share them with you over the next week. In the spirit of a new month, and new beginnings I’d like to introduce you to a health hobby.
Now I never would have considered myself a “dancer”
but these classes and breakdown of dances lets me think I am, for an hour everyday.
Dancebody is a live class format in New York City but a few years ago the owner began their streaming program. Every month streamers get access to a handful of new classes that have been instructed right from the New York studio. You feel like you are there in class and with as much Instagramming as these girls do you never feel lost or alone in your own home.
Their classes have a few levels. Signature class is for those of us less experienced with dance and or new to Dancebody. Full Out is for the experienced dancer or for someone who is very familiar with Dancebody. Each class is about 50+ minutes, 40 minutes of dancing and 15 minutes, or so, of sculpting on a mat. There are classes just for sculpting, which you could do everyday, as they use little to no resistance besides your own body weight, Thera bands, and 2lb D weights.
Wait I am not done! There are Follow Along classes which are for anyone who is bashful about routine dances and just needs to move. Express has a bit of everything in a shorter time frame, and Level 10 is a mash up of Full Out classes from time past. Not to mention private sculpting classes, stretching, and breakdowns so you too can be awesome.
Sounds to good be true doesn’t it? Here is the caveat to everything I mentioned, and that is you HAVE to keep an open mind when learning something new. The new dances can be frustrating at times as you are working through them and your butt can burn so bad in ways you had no idea it could but there are so many benefits. One of my favorites is that, because dancing requires so much of your attention you have no head space to think about the laundry, the dishes, whats for dinner, did you return that call. You can push play and literally forget everything for an hour, an
d to me that is priceless. I know I am stronger both mentally and physically, my tennis game is stronger thanks to the movements in dance, and I look forward to dancing almost everyday.
So when I think of a hobby that I do regularly and for leisure then I believe Dancebody fits that description, for me.
If you would like to try it out for yourself they do offer a three day free trial at Dancebody.com using code 3DAYFREE. I’d love to hear if you did try it and what you think so please leave a comment or send me a message.
-
Disneyland Hacks, from someone who has gone a few times.
Our family recently visited the Happiest Place on Earth, aka Disneyland, and I figured out a few things that I wanted to pass on to you. These tips may not be unique to fellow Disney fans, but it may help you, the newbie who wants to look like you know what your doing.
Disneyland ticket prices.
I really can’t help you here but agree with you that they are high, so you either have to save your pennies or be incredibly blessed by someone with season passes (as we have been). I honestly don’t think we would go to Disney if we weren’t spoiled in this area. Thank you Nana!!!
Food in Disneyland
It is not a surprise to learn that Disney over inflates everything they sell to eat. A single slice of pepperoni pizza is $8.00 or you can buy the pie for $40.00. With prizes like that who can afford to feed a family of 4 lunch every day for at least 3 days? Not only would you be broke, you’d be hungry because one slice of pizza never satisfied anyone. So what do you do?
As of today, May 15th 2018, Disneyland allows outside food, which means you can bring lunch and snacks into the park. Our lunch is usually a meat and cheese sandwich, apple slices, nuts, and hardboiled eggs. Truth be told, it’s not fancy, and doesn’t come with a commemorative cup, but we save a lot of money here and I have control of what my family eats.
Around every corner in Disneyland there is something to tempt your tastebuds. Churros, doll whip, soft serve, pretzels the size of my head, popcorn with butter, cookies, candy, donuts, and so much more why waste money on deep fried lunch when you could save it for a treat later.
I guess I should mention where our lunches come from because we don’t live in LA so we do stay near Disneyland in our Timeshare. Yes we are happy owners of a Worldmark Timeshare by Wyndam, and Anaheim is one of the many places we get to stay. Our Timeshare comes with a full size kitchen so I always pack our food in coolers for the 9 hour trip down. Now I know many of you don’t have a timeshare (but you might wish you did) nor does your hotel room have a full size kitchen, however most rooms can have a mini fridge which maybe just enough room for lunch items. I have also stayed in a hotel without a fridge but it did have an ice dispenser that I used to refill my cooler each day. Bottom line is that you use what you have and get creative if saving money is your goal.
Dinner is our meal that we budget for and because we have been down to Disneyland often enough we know what restaurants are worth going back to.
The Monte Cristo sandwich is a must eat, but you’ll need to make reservations before you leave for vacation. 
Souvenirs
After every ride ends they cleverly exit you right through a gift shop enticing you to buy everything. It is simply unavoidable so I devised a plan for my kids that is simply genius. Our family rule is that we will buy souvenirs on the last day so until then we use our camera to take pictures of everything the kids believe they “must” have, so by the end of our trip I now have a catalog of all these things that they can now decide which one they can’t live without.
Last Words
You could spend all day searching for clever ways to save money at Disneyland so if you are reading this post I thank you. I don’t claim to know it “all” but what I’ve shared has been tested over the years to make our trips more magical and less painful on our budget.
Do you have a tip that we could glean from for our next trip down?
-
Care to join me?
I am hosting an Information Meeting for
Classical Conversations
May 1, 2018 from 7-9pm in Murphys, CA.
What is an information meeting you are asking? An I.M. (for short) is where someone from a CC community, a proud parent, a Director, a seasoned tutor, gets together with parents who would like to know more about our program in an environment that is free of commitment. The attendee can peruse a catalog, hold the curriculum, get some of their burning questions answered all without having to agree to anything.
Those of us in Classical Conversations are passionate about the curriculum and we love sharing with anyone who wants to know more. We want our communities to grow so our children continue having a community to attend. CC is not a typical co-op, as we have trained tutors to lead the community day, but we relish relationships and surrounding ourselves with like-minded families.
Are you a homeschooling mom or dad who is tired of doing this thing alone? Do you want others along side you to bounce ideas off of? Do you find it hard to stay accountable alone? Do your kids need friends who “get” them? If you have answered yes to any one of these questions then maybe its time to check out Classical Conversations and see what our community looks like.
Comment below or register by clicking this link Murphys, CA
I look forward to meeting you!
