This past Mothers Day I called my mom and got her voice mail. I was doing the “Happy Mothers Day” routine when I stopped. I then said, “Thanks for homeschooling me. Or… un-schooling me. Thanks for being interested in life and curious and always learning…..you are what I want to be like.”

Of course I was never homeschooled but my Mom was always an inspiration to me. My mom never was much of a house cleaner, but she had an impressive bug collection. I remember taking trips to find the bugs she needed for the collection.

And there must be a lot of folks somewhere that have pictures of me as a kid, as I was the only child present at my mom’s college photography class and was a frequent model for their picture taking.

She was a farmer and naturalist and horticulturist. She showed me how to travel and learn all about an area. We did nature journaling before it was popular, and neither of us can draw worth beans, but we love to observe nature. We cooked over a fire with a cast iron pan while on week long exploring trips in the mountains (just us 2 because that was our interest!). My dad was a great learner too. In his 70s he took up Spanish and the piano! He always looked up words in the dictionary and my prize possession is his huge old dictionary. He’s gone, but now Mom lives with us and I am always learning from her as she teaches me by example how to garden and preserve foods and live a cheerful life.

Did I think that way about my parents when I was a kid or teen?

Surely not the same way I do now, but I did realize that my parents were a bit “different” then other kid’s parents. I cherished it and learned it was natural - not weird - to be different! I went through a stage after I was married when I was exposed to more families that viewed what we did as not only different… but weird too.

For a while I tried really hard to figure out what I was suppose to be like.

Thankfully I’m over that now and, yes, I do hear that I am “different” quite often, but now I am happy to expose others to the joys of “being different”!

A while back I was teaching at a church youth camp. I volunteered to do a lesson on nature watching and journaling. I knew this would be a new concept to most of the kids. Some of the adults involved where pretty skeptical that the kids would respond well. It seemed pretty “different” to them to get kids to draw nature when these public schooled city kids are mostly interested in skateboarding, Dr. Pepper and computer games.

As it ended up I had some boys try to light fires with the magnifying glasses and others who thought it was too dumb to participate at all. I guess it takes time and freedom for kids to not be so influenced by peers and be open to adults’ joy, interests and expertise let alone the teaching of nature.

So, in our own homeschool I am working more on my interests. Once I realized, from my own experience, how much my parents’ positive role modeling influenced my own life I relaxed even more. All this takes time. Relax. Enjoy this great world we live in and get really curious.

I am always motivated by a ticking clock and I was fully determined to finally get the major messes GONE and find some answers to pressing issues before the New Year! So instead of digging in with action I did what I like best – Pick Up A Book!

1) I decided I needed to really work on financial communication with my husband. I always hate listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio because I realize how many mistakes we have made. Denial doesn’t get you ahead and neither does false pride. So my hubby and I drove to town and bought his workbook **together**! Every morning we sat in bed and read through it and answered the questions. (We didn’t buy the book because we figured we could get the gist of it with the workbook and we did) We agreed to meet every Sunday night (when I plan the next week usually) to go over the spending and to check the budget (I down load from my bank to Quick Books and it is a breeze!!) A friend helped me fix a few QuickBooks issues and I am good to go!!

2) I have been organizing for a few months and finally got a desk (still not organized) and shelves (still have unknown contents in boxes) but it has been good progress. I still felt so overwhelmed by my BPM (Big Paper Mess) and wasn’t sure how to get started on it. I picked up a book at the library in preparation for being snowed in over the holidays and have found it to be extremely helpful! I really recommend this book to help you think your way into being organized. It was refreshing to hear her say you **don’t have to get rid of everything**! Now I have the BPM by my bed GONE!!! Exciting! (OK, the mess DOES still exist I just don’t share our bedroom with it!)

3) In the past couple of years we have been learning lots of new skills as the default mode to our homeschool. Actually it really was more of an intense Love of Learning phase as we moved to our farm two years ago and launched into many new experiences! Lately, however, I was noticing a readiness in the girls to try out scholar studies (hint: they were getting bored and bickery – Shhhh!). We had gotten past much of the huge TO DO list we set up for our homestead, and I needed a boost to get us into serious studies again, so I ordered Oliver DeMille’s latest book Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning.

Click here to visit ClassicBooks.com to purchase items.

I realized without items 1&2 I would forever have a hard time with any real progress toward Scholar Phase. The “Six Month Purge” was a main ingredient in DeMilles recipe for homeschool success. It was great to see I was heading down the right track with organizing first!

Now… If I can just start using that new exercise video I bought on the advice of my accountability partner (who raves about it) as a HABIT for me too – I will be set for a fantastic New Year!! (Don’t give up on me - I really want to say I am exercising too!!)