Creator

 Ive looked out my window

Willing the mountains

To speak to me

They hold a life line I've learned

When you live in the valley.

I've leaned out my window

Hoping the wind would sing me a song

Soothing and sweet

Ive stepped out my door

Wanting the flowers to envelope me with fragrance

To bring me back to my softer self

I have driven long hours

To hear the waves rhythms

Their constancy bringing comfort and healing

I have hiked into forests to breathe among trees

Feeling connection that brings me closer

I have weeded a garden and watched seeds growing

Marvelling at the miracle that all of this is

I have sat beside meadows listening to bees

Watching them faithfully spread life

I have made flower crowns from Daisy's and Dandylions

And felt beautiful

I have shuffled through crackling leaves holding my Grandmother's hand

Making memories to last a life time

I have jumped into lakes and sat high upon mountains

Feeling that all is well with the world

I have jumped off a waterfall

In an ecstasy of victory

I have skated on a frozen pond

Fresh and cold and free

I have sat by a creek and listened to its melody

Being comforted and blessed

I have cried as I rode on the back of a pony

All of my heartbreak spilling over onto her warm back

I have marvelled at Apple Blossoms

After a cold grey winter

I have seen whales breaching from the back of a ferry

My son and I feeling like this was just for us

I have kayaked on the Ocean during a rain storm

On an anniversary with my husband

The rain sounding like it was hitting glass

The sound unlike any I had heard before

I have swam over a barrier reef 

In shock and awe at what I didn't know existed

I have been in a forest of bamboo

In total quiet 

In all of this I have been in awe of you

Creator

The wonder of all you have done

This canvas of love 

Displayed for all

As I look out my window

Willing the mountains to speak

Marvelling at Apple Blossoms 

At sunsets

At you

My Homeschooling Journey Part Four

 Why did I decide to homeschool my fourth child if I didn't like homeschooling? Maybe I am a glutton for punishment? My fourth child has struggled with emotional regulation like my oldest son. If I had put him in school he may have needed an assistant. He also begged to stay home. He has never wanted to attend a school. He has a completely different brain than my three oldest children. He learned to read at age five and has no troubles with it. He also is quick with Math comprehension. He is also now eleven and would rather play and create. This year I put him in a three hour English class.

You know how God always gets me through? Well He did it again.

I was SO burnt out after homeschooling five children with a very needy baby last year. I wanted to put my two youngest in school in the worst way. I was exhausted and felt like homeschool was this vice in my chest. However they did not want to go. I knew that it would be a terrible and probably traumatic fight to get my eleven year old to attend school and that it was not worth it for me. I also knew that I would have to get lunches ready for all three kids and drive them to three different schools. That felt daunting. I felt trapped. What was I to do!

I saw online that there was an English class being offered for homeschoolers only for his grade for a very reasonable price and I signed him up. He said he would not go. He said he would hate me forever if I made him go. He  ran away from the first class causing all sorts of drama. For September, October and November I sat outside the classroom door and supported him. Now it is the end of December and he went to his last two classes totally independently with no anxiety or issues. He has a phenomenal teacher. He also has a tutor he goes to once a week. I don't know if I will homeschool him until graduation. I would rather not. However we shall see how things go. He is learning a lot this year. He is the first child I decided not to enrol in a school. This took a lot of pressure off of me. The rule where I live is that the child only needs to be enrolled through grades ten to twelve in order to graduate with a regular diploma. I may enroll him in grade eight but right now the set up we have it great and a lot less pressure on me. 

He is a really social and a competitive child and I think he could thrive in school if he could manage his anxiety. We shall see how the years progress. He has enjoyed being in homeschool soccer and taking art classes. He loves to learn when it's presented in a way that engages his brain :) and don't we all.

He is in grade six this year and I am homeschooling my little six year old. She is doing well. However I would love for her to be in some sort of co op or something that she can meet other children her age in. I hope I can add that into next year.

 Each year I have had to reconfigure, find support, or go it alone, and each year has been totally different. Each child is so vastly unique. There have been no easy years for me but there have been years of triumph. The year that my oldest son learned to read, or the year he did three grades of Math in one year? Triumph. The year my oldest graduated with honors? Triumph. This year my grade ten daughter is doing a lot of her work on her own. It was not long ago I read everything to her and wrote or typed all her work for her. The fact that she is working independently feels miraculous :) 

Triumph 

My Homeschooling Journey Part Three

 Now I am homeschooling a child in grade four and a child in grade one and I have a baby at home. I have more confidence and things are in some ways easier but I have two children who have learning challenges and behavioural challenges. I have a nursing baby and a child who wakes up screaming in pain every night. Homeschooling is still really hard. However, out of necessity, I do my best.

Again ~ God comes through ~ as ALWAYS ~ with support and care.

While I was pregnant with my third child an eye doctor started me on a journey to get my two oldest children tested to get funding for the financial support they needed in school. I ended up with the kindest most empathetic psychologist to test my daughter who then agreed to also test my son. In the end they both qualified for support. At first I didn't know what this meant and it took years to get this into place. 

When my oldest was in grade five she went back to a private school for three years. It was a wonderful experience for her for the first two years but in that third year much went wrong again. During that time she had some support at school and a wonderful teacher. I continued to homeschool my second child. 

It was interesting having the option to now hire help. Admittedly since adopting my oldest daughter I was used to professionals coming into my home and advising me on how to raise my child. It was not a graceful journey. I eventually realized that I was her parent, I knew her best, and advice from people who don't actually know her personally or live with her should not be taken as God's truth. 

This ended up being my journey with my son as well. As different people came into my home to help him learn it did more harm than good. It was another challenging journey to realize how and who I needed to hire to actually help him and sadly he went through trauma because of it.

If you have a child who requires support at home or at school ~ remember that you know your child best~ and you know if the hired person will be a good fit or not no matter their education and qualifications!

After grade seven my daughter came back to homeschooling and continued that journey until she graduated. She did really well through her high school years with different tutors supporting her and me at the helm leading the way (although she didn't really realize I was at the helm). She took classes that truly interested her and she was able to do a lot of extra curricular things that inspired her and taught her many great skills. She is a very gifted musician, dancer, riding instructor, artist and more. She would not have learned this about herself if she was in school all day. She also took multiple years of gymnastics and many different types of art classes. Homeschooling was the gift it could be and needed to be. She graduated with honours and went out into the great big world to live her life.

For my third child ~ the summer she was in her fifth year of life she went to a Vacation Bible School and when I saw her in her performance up on stage I knew she could not attend school. She had gone to preschool and I had hopes she could attend school. However she could not sit still for a moment! I knew she would get in trouble constantly in class. My husband had been the same way and had struggled all through his time in school. He had thought himself dumb for years because of his ADHD and Dyslexia. He is actually brilliant but his time in school taught him the opposite. I did not want that for her. She was such a bright little active light! She started kindergarten with me and has never been to a school and she is now in grade ten and fifteen years old.

She is dyslexic as are my two oldest kids. She is more severely dyslexic than them and she has ADHD. She did not learn to read until she was eleven. My son did not learn to read until he was twelve. Both of them can now read and do read a lot. My daughter reads multiple novels a month. It was such a journey to get to that place though with so much research and so many building blocks put into place to get her there. She also went and got testing done but was not given any funding. I have had a tutor for her once a week for three years now and that has helped her immensely but I pay for it myself. 

She has a dream to graduate early and is well on her way. She wants to travel and see the world and she wants to start as soon as possible.

This is the gift of homeschooling. She started taking grade ten courses when she was in grade nine, she took more over the summer, she has taken grade eleven courses while in grade ten. She is done grade ten Math and starting grade eleven Math in January because she started grade ten Math in the summertime. She has worked so hard and been so focussed. It is incredible. This is the gift of homeschooling. She also has been able to play volleyball and basketball through a local school, she has volunteered at a horse stable and now has a job that she would not be able to have if she was not homeschooling. 

Do I like homeschooling yet? NO

How many children am I now homeschooling ~ last year it was FIVE children ~ this year it is only three. 

My Homeschooling Journey Part Two

 When I started homeschooling my daughter I didn't have a time line in mind. I didn't know what was going to happen. I knew this was the only option for her. One of the first things I did wrong was try to do school at home in the same format as was done in a bricks and mortar school. I also tried to get her sit down and work from books. This failed miserably. I had a toddler at home who was going through a lot of struggles and a traumatized seven year old who needed to NOT do school. If I could go back in time I would have given her a month off and then started by going on field trips and reporting about them and learning so SO differently than she had at school. Instead of reawakening her love of learning that she had previously had I just cemented in her how challenging and awful learning was. I also was impatient, unkind and just overwhelmed. This set the precedent of all the years of homeschooling and how my body feels in it. 

 My next child started kindergarten and had the most wonderful teacher. He was a very challenging child because he had an anxiety disorder but she did not allow him to ruffle her at all. She was always calm and kind and non reactionary. He ended up feeling very safe in her class and did as well as he could. However when it was time for grade one the school informed me he would not be allowed to attend without a teachers assistant. I had no idea how to go about obtaining a teachers assistant for a school and they offered no advice. So once again, I felt forced into homeschooling. Now I was homeschooling two children and had a baby. 

I want to talk about something VERY important in this journey.

That is the kindness and goodness of God to me. When my daughter was at her very first school she had had this specific kind of brain testing done by a very kind elderly gentleman that the school brought in. He informed me that his wife was a homeschool teacher. When eventually my daughter did need to homeschool I called this lady and she became my homeschool teacher.

The way it works where I live is you can choose to homeschool two ways. One way is registering through a school and then doing everything on your own. No one ever checks up on you and no one knows what you are teaching your children or how. You have total freedom. The second option is enrolling through a distance learning school. This provides you with a teacher that you report to each week. You send her or him copies of your work, the school helps pay for your curriculum, and this teacher writes your children report cards. I have always chosen this option until just two years ago. It helps keep you accountable and also gives you that support when you need it. I have been blessed with amazing teachers. To be clear I do the homeschooling, the teaching at home, the teacher provided by the school is a support person. 

Having this lady become my homeschooling teacher saved me. I wish however I would have listened to all her advice with a clear calm mind. My mind was so overwhelmed and much of the wisdom she shared with me at the time went over my head. Slowly through the years I learned from her and improved. This lady and her husband were a direct gift from God to me. They ended up transforming my families' future.

I will be forever grateful to Karen and Walter. Karen helped me for many years and I was so devastated when she retired. However God provided me with another wonderful teacher who has been so kind and caring as my children have gone through high school and graduated.

My Homeschooling Journey Part One

 I have been writing up a storm lately. I have always been a writer. I learned to read and write easily when I was five my mom tells me. She homeschooled me for kindergarten and then from grade three to grade seven. When I was little I remember sitting in front of the fire during the winter writing chapter books about a busy mother named Jessica. I think I have become Jessica actually if I think about it!

I have a car journal, a home journal, this blog....I write and write. I have written a book ~ two of them actually! They are not published, but my point is ~ I write.

I did not imagine myself, however, a full time teacher.

My mom drilled into me that I should not homeschool my children. Oddly enough as a teenager and young adult my main jobs were tutoring children. I did LIKE to teach ~ them at least~ I went to university to get a certificate so that I could teach English around the world. I briefly thought that I might like to do that but it was in order for me to be able to afford to travel.

Fast forward to my first child being kindergarten age. I did not even consider homeschooling her. She was going to go to the public school down the road. That is free here. You don't need to wear uniforms and you just sign up and go! It is payed for by taxes from everyone. However I was warned that that school was not a good place to send your child and I saw that a christian school had a deal where your child could go to kindergarten for fifty dollars a month. I signed her up, got her the uniform, and off she went! She was a keen student and such a sweetheart. It was not the best scenario for her as she was in a kindergarten grade one split class and her teacher had never taught kindergarten before. However she did her best and all went relatively well. 

In grade one is where things went really wrong. I won't go into details but eventually we had to move my daughter to a new school through no fault of her own. Her teacher at that school was a very cold and strict woman and my daughter had gone through trauma and had a lot of anxiety. Eventually it got to a place where I had no choice but to homeschool. Her anxiety was so serious and debilitating.

The fact that this didn't feel like a choice (that I had to homeschool), was not what I wanted, and also was nothing I had any clue about was deeply daunting to me. And guess what, I did everything wrong, so deeply wrong, and it was horrible. We were having endless power struggles because of our personality and learning differences (which I didn't know yet needed to be taken into account). It was just a disaster and I felt like a failure every day.

I remember going to a massive conference on homeschooling where there were MANY vendors selling curriculum. I was just having panic attacks. I had no CLUE there was so many choices out in the world. I had no idea what was good or how she would learn best. I had no clue how I preferred to teach either. I felt so overwhelmed and lost.

There were no rose coloured glasses, not many lovely fun learning moments ~ it was just awful. Yet I had to do it.

That was how homeschooling started for me. My daughter was in grade 2. Guess what ~ my daughter is now twenty one and graduated and I am STILL homeschooling. Currently my three kids I am homeschooling have never even gone to a bricks and mortar school!

I will continue the story in part two

Light and the Illumination

 What light illuminates your soul today? Maybe you woke up feeling fresh and rested and ready for a beautiful day. Maybe you did not. When your eyes look out into the world ~ these windows into your soul ~ what are they looking for? What are they seeing?

Today the rain is pouring again. I am sick. My family got such a horrid flue on the 28th of December and even though I didn't get it as strongly as some of them I can't shake the sickness. It lingers. I will recover but I am in a different head space than I sometimes am.

Today the light came in the form of my two year old. She had a cold for weeks and then the flue. She finally recovered and it was alarming how quickly I had forgotten her sunny personality. This morning as she got ready for church she was singing fragments of songs her sister has taught her. She was asking for a pony tail in her hair. She was commenting on her beauty and getting on her shoes and asking everyone to make sure she was totally ready. She was shining with confidence and inner light. It was radiant.

May you find light to illuminate your soul today. Maybe you have a pet? A bird that is singing or a cat that snuggles you or a dog with soulful eyes? Maybe you have a grandchild with a sweet heart who loves you fully. Maybe you had a partner who made you a cup of tea or coffee or did something thoughtful for you. Maybe you have flowers in your yard you could bring indoors or maybe you have a Christmas gift that is continuing to bless you with its thoughtfulness. Maybe there will be a memory that is full of light and joy that comes into your mind today. Maybe you could put on some lipstick or spend time somewhere beautiful?

May you find the light

xo

Totally Empty

  It is a new year. 2026. I will turn forty four this year. I am starting out the year feeling hollow inside. I have poured out everything I had to pour in the last few weeks of this year. This is not a negative thing. It is good. It just means that right now I am hollow inside. Totally empty. I am not exactly sure what to do to fill myself up right now. That is also okay. 

The sun is shining. That in itself is filling. I am so thankful the winter sun shines through my window and illuminates the books on my bookshelf and the silk scarf on the eons old piano stool. 

It feels like there is so much needed of me. I am not sure if other mothers feel this way. I assume they do. I have a baby who wants to nurse a lot. She is my third child in a row who does not have a soother or any sort of other soothing apparatus and I am it. That is a big responsibility for a mother ~ to be the soother. 

I have five other children who would love to connect with me, who would love to feel seen by me, and who want to be known. I have a husband  as well who wants that and a grandchild.

I worked so hard to try to give my family a Christmas that felt somewhat happy and warm and caring. I hope I succeeded. 

After Christmas ~ directly after the last gathering ~ the entire family got a horrible flue. It wiped everyone out except my husband (go figure). I was up for many hours emptying buckets and processing laundry and handing out cool cloths and just being hopefully some sort of comfort. I am never enough in these situations.

Everyone has recovered now.

My house is in shambles and I don't know where to start. I have so much work but homeschool starts again in a few days. The schedule for January feels daunting and there are so many things to try to figure out for each child.

I need a hand to hold but I must hold my own.

And so I will take one day at a time

And think on Scriptures like

Romans 8:26-28 ~ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Each year holds so much promise of good.

There is promise of pain and hardship, heartbreak and loss.

There is promise of beauty, of connection, of smiles and laughter, of warmth.

If you are really living you are experiencing, feeling, processing, all of these things day by day. You are working through it and reveling in it and making the most of it.

I am grateful to be here. Grateful for another year 

Welcome to January and welcome to 20206

In my emptiness may I go forth in singing

Xo