Hello Fellow At the Fencers!
I’m thrilled to be here at
Meeting Monday– thanks for the opportunity, Lori!
I’ve been blogging since 2008 at Golden Grasses (http://goldengrasses.blogspot.com)
and have loved the learning, friendships and opportunities that blogging has
afforded. I started blogging for several reasons; to hone my writing skills, to
keep track of the activities and academics that we accomplish each week (I post
a Weekly Report each Friday), to do curriculum and book reviews and to share
our life with far away friends and family. It’s been all of that and much more!
I have a couple of degrees (Master’s Degrees in both Human
Development and in Marriage and Family Therapy) and a lot of kids- 5 all
together; 3 daughters, ages 26, 22 and 10 and 2 sons; ages 18 and 13. Our
oldest 2 daughters are both homeschool graduates. They are also “other”
graduates - our oldest has a Bachelor’s degree in Missiology, having spent time
in Europe, working with missionaries in Romania and Hungary. Our 2nd oldest has
a Cosmetology degree/license. They live together, way too far away from us, in
KY. We are still homeschooling our 3 youngest in an almost 90 year old house
that we gutted and re-built in the last 3 years due to a house fire (you can
read more about the fire and our house re-build project on my “Tear Down to
Build Up” posts here:
http://goldengrasses.blogspot.com/search/label/tear%20down%202%20build%20up ).
I’ve been married for 27 years to a psychologist, having
vowed to never marry one (you can read more about that story here: http://goldengrasses.blogspot.com/2012/12/getting-acquainted-part-vi-who-i-wasnt.html)
and we have lived all over the country, including IN, CT, CA, OH, NM and SD. We
have moved for graduate school, jobs and the military. Each state and situation has afforded us
unique opportunities and communities.
Of those 27 years, we have homeschooled for 22 in CA, OH, NM and SD. We started this
homeschooling journey in CA, with my writing a Master’s thesis on “Why Parent’s
HomeschooI.” My lit review was on the history of education and the history of
homeschooling in America. Since then I have read countless books about both
topics and am passionate about educational reform. You can find some of my
favorite recommendations here (educational influencers: http://goldengrasses.blogspot.com/2012/01/educational-influencers.html).
Our pedagogy, (as a closet artist I love
that term) is a combo of neo-classical and “classical unschooling.” In other
words, we are a literature and experience
rich home with large doses of academics and practical living skills thrown in
for good measure. The above mentioned house fire has given us lots of
opportunities for honing our practical living skills!
I am a self identified findcoolthings4mykids2do fool and I
love to share our ideas, experiences and resources with others! This is one of
my goals for my blog: to give my readers
information, links and resources they might not be aware of, great reviews, a
dose of humor. I also hope to share the joys and challenges of being a conservative
Christian with a large family and real life challenges, disappointments,
victories and joys.
My blog has been, ultimately, about “crafting the
extraordinary from the ordinary,” (i.e. Golden Grasses), nitty-gritty homeschool living and faith
walking. They are all inextricably tied together. I’d love it if you stopped by
and said, “Hi!”
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