It's ON!

Today is my Monday! It is also day 4 to my 21 day fit challenge! My first 3 days haven't gone as good as I would have liked. Today is a new day though and I am ready to take on the world and my weight and health! My legs are still so sore from my workout a couple days ago (love it!) and this mornings workout was Pilates which killed my legs and bum again. Woot! I've got my containers packed with my lunch- grilled chicken and cilantro, carrots, and some cheese. I'm going to have to pick up something for my carbs today, I'm thinking brown rice to go with my chicken. I packed the cheese in case I decided on a salad! And as always for breakfast I've got my shake on! Tropical strawberry Shakeology with almond milk and kiwi! 

Happy Friday to you, and Monday to me!

How is your Friday going? What is your routine like?

Summer School!

MYes. I am one of those mean moms! We are schooling year round! Mainly because I work full time as a nurse in pediatrics so we don't get to school mom-fri or whatever. Also, during my days off we are busy going to speech therapy for my daughter and counseling sessions for all of us. So we do a lot of evening schooling, and they get plenty of breaks! (Remember when I talked about flexibility?! It's a beautiful thing). So far this summer our main focus has been on Math and English. Those are the things that are 1. Most important and 2. More complicated to grasp. Especially for my oldest! He is also resistant to learning, if he doesn't like it he don't want to do it. I was a bit like this but I enjoyed a lot more than he did, lol. Anyways we try to incorporate life lessons with book lessons, for example when we are going over math and money... If we go to the store for something I will give my son money and what we need and he has to help figure out how much/what we can get and how much will be returned. This has helped all of us understand math  and view it differently. It also introduces that socializing with someone outside of the home in a realistic and meaningful way. In pubic schools you are in a class with a bunch of kids your own age. I'm not sure how that prepares you for the real world? But OK. So he gets the social aspect, and speaks to people along the way, and learns math. WINNING!

My daughter is just in preschool/kindergarten. She is doing good and loves schoolwork. If it was up to her we would do schoolwork all day, everyday. She especially enjoys "math" which is matching and recognizing differences and grouping for her age. She has been able to count to 10 for a long time now, has known all ABCs and sounds for a long time now as well. She has trouble with speech and language delay, so sometimes it's not always easy to go to the next steps with her. She struggles with cvc words and phonograms. That's okay! She's eager to work and learn and we will get there! 

Today we are going to go over the map. Africa is our beginning. We will go over cities, states, history, culture, weather and whatever else we find. My oldest will write a couple of paragraphs and draw and label a map and my daughter will color pictures and tell me a story. Maybe we will find something we can make. 

As for the little one (11 months old) we will be working on patience lol! 

We also have a new member of the family! Meet our new boxer, Adrian. (Name is subject to change) it's potty training time for her!

In the Beginning

Almost two years ago the thought of homeschooling, although intriguing, completely terrified me. Sooo many questions and concerns regarding, well, basically everything. Will I have patience with him was perhaps my biggest concern. Lets face it, we love our children but they can be very trying on your patience some days. My son, my oldest, is probably every day. =p love him dearly but lord have mercy. The truth is, no, I DO NOT always have the patience for him and for his studies. I was really hard on myself in the beginning. I found that I am slightly more ODC than I had ever thought! I had this idea in my head that homeschooling should be exactly identical to public/private schools.


We needed to have a set time for everything and it needed to be done and mastered by that scheduled time. We needed to sit quietly (and still) at a desk. So many things that I felt like that was how it had to be done or it would fail. What I didn't realize was that was what made that year fail. Homeschooling is homeschooling for a reason after all, right ?


I am not good at schedules or keeping track of things to a T. I'm just not. I try. It doesn't work for me. I am a working full time nurse and mom of 3. We have speech, counseling and homeschool co-op. We have to be flexible.


Flexibility. One of my most favorite things about homeschooling; while also being something that took me a year to realize we needed this most in our lives in order to be successful! Schedules are great, especially if you're a scheduler! If you're not, it just creates more anxiety. Even if you are a scheduler, please understand that sometimes you just need to be flexible, and let it go. Don't make yourself crazy over it. Believe me, you can do this easier than you would think. Never did I feel so much on the spot as a parent by everyone I know until I began homeschooling. Seriously. Now it's all eyes and ears and people looking down on you. So, that alone will generate anxiety and you will feel you have to have everything together "perfectly".


So plan things out, but allow flexibility. Everyone will love you for this, including yourself!


One thing I have also worked on with forgiving myself for is not knowing everything. I know, that seems so silly. But again, everyone is extra watching me and my supportive friends will ask me questions (and the kids) and I feel like I should know everything, after all I am a teacher now, right? Truth is, sometimes I have no clue. That's completely OKAY. Truthfully it makes the entire learning/teacher process that much more beautiful. That is what homeschooling is, beautiful. Watching your children learn and love to learn and then learning and exploring TOGETHER... You just don't get much better than that. 

God is Calling

I started homeschooling my oldest son a couple of years ago. It was a lot more difficult than I had expected. A lot different than I had anticipated. I pulled him out of public school when he was in 2nd grade. It was January 2013. I had always contemplated homeschooling but I never had the opportunity. I was always in school and working-daily, and a single mom. In December 2012 I felt God was calling me to homeschool. It was the strongest pull I have ever felt about anything. I had discussed it with my husband. He was reluctant. Homeschool kids are "weird". After explaining my strong feelings he agreed but wanted me to wait until the next school year. At first I agreed. The calling became urgent. I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced any urgent callings. It is so unbelievably powerful. I, again, spoke with my husband. Reluctantly again, he finally agreed. We made it official in Jan 2013 and I was so happy, excited, RELIEVED. I had no idea WHAT was in store! During this time I was coming to the end of LPN school. It was a fairly busy time.

Before pulling my oldest out of public school he had a dramatic decline in grades and had gradually adopted a terrible rebellious behavior. We started counseling and changed several discipline techniques. It helped for awhile. Then again, decline in grades and attitude. We finally attempted medications for ADHD. It, again, helped for awhile, not entirely, but then started to decline again.

So starting to homeschool. How crazy and exciting right?! Now we were going to be that "weird" homeschooling family. It was so great! I was so stressed (we will go over that later) but excited to start this! After a few months of homeschooling a could-have-been-more-tragic-incident occurred. My precious son (age 7-8 at the time) put a knife to his throat and said, "sometimes people just can't handle life anymore". My mind... was blown. I had no idea what to do or say. To make this already long story a little shorter I will just say that a boy, his age, in his class, had threatened to kill him if he didn't participate in sexual acts with him. Apparently it had been going on for about a year. (Right around his decline in school started). Heartbroken. I can't even speak the feelings. After a long day/night and having him in a locked unit.... I just could barely hold it together. We later had to meet with the county police for a "forensic interview". In which case... they determined it was just "curiosity" and acted as though I was crazy for making it an issue. The parents were never notified and the school was never notified of the incident at all.

We have been working on healing. It is still hard for all of us, most of all for my son who now suffers from depression, anxiety, anger. I AM SO THANKFUL for being so intuitive and listening to God's calling. Who knows what would have happened otherwise. Unfortunately, some damage had already been made, but it could have maybe ended so much worse had I not listened and started homeschooling.

It Never Really Ends

I haven't wrote in a very long time! There was too much in nursing school to even gather thoughts to put into words for a blog. I loved it but was so happy to just be finished! I am now an LPN and have been since July 2013. I have been working in a pediatric urgent care/clinic and have greatly enjoyed being here. I love [most] of my patients and co-workers.. I have also learnt so much being here!!

I am ready to further my education and degree as a nurse and plan to begin RN school hopefully this time next year! (Sooner would be better but you know!) I am also contemplating Nurse Practitioner school once I've completed RN. So as the title of my post reads, "It Never Really Ends", because it really doesn't. I love going to school and learning though so that's a plus =)

As far as working on being healthy... 

Check my next post! I'll probably post periodically here about my weightloss journey and just work. Funny things kids say/do, crazy things parents say/do. Seriously, I could probably go on and on!