The 8th Country Fair is open!! July 23
When Doc asked if someone could cover the Country Fair for July and August (which still needs someone as far as I know) I thought it would be fun. I didn’t realize how much of the blogverse it would open up for me.
Why? Because as much as I have enjoyed the Country Fair in the past, I will admit that I was guilty of looking at the list and then skimming most of the posts. Hey, there’s a lot of them and not all of them might appeal to me on the day that I’ve gone to read over the Fair. And by the time that I’ve read 5 or 6 or more of them, I was looking for the gems, and not giving each post its due.
Those days are gone. In putting together this list, I have read every one of these posts. I can say that each one has taught me, entertained me, or made me think. I tried to compile the list as people sent in submissions, so I have been able to be relatively ‘fresh’ as I read each one, and I’ve found numerous bloggers that I will continue to go back and visit.
So, do me a favor. Instead taking a marathon session to read through everyone that is here; take a half dozen, pour yourself your favorite drink and read them, really read them. Then go away and come back later to read a few others.
And with that introduction,
Let Me Open Up the 8th Country Fair
The theme for this mid-summer Fair was to post about the ‘other’ activities in your life. I didn’t need to have a theme, but it’s hard to be sure that you have a post that the editor will think is worth submitting (believe me, in hindsight, everything is worth submitting) and I decided that by having a theme it might be easier for someone to decide to share.
I kicked some different ideas around before settling on this one, but this one called to me. There were a couple of reasons why.
First - recently Jo on Life with Heathens explained why she is doing some paid posts in For You “Anti-Paid Post” Bitchers. She’s not happy about doing them, but feels some satisfaction is knowing that she’s helping her partner make ends meet. The fact is is that in many homeschool families, the primary ‘caregiver’ also works at something that will bring in some money. Whether to augment a partner’s income or as the main source of family income the demands of a job are an aspect of their family dynamics.
Second - on our local Yahoo group a mom just wrote in about being a single mom, new to the area, and about to start grad. school. She was looking for advice and support about trying to homeschool her 3 kids while she was in school. She’s not the only one on the list who is going to school themselves as well as educating her kids, and it reminded me of that fact.
Third - summer is our family’s slow time, so I have been spending more time doing my own crafts (often with the kids) and many of the bloggers that I read also do some sort of crafts. So many of us are creative that I thought it would be a chance to highlight some of that creativeness.
And once I decided on the topic, I realized that nearly a year ago, on Get In, Hang On, I had written a post that was on this theme. A Week of New Things was all about where does school and school ‘activities’ end and stuff I do for me start.
Now, you can have your own ideas when you set up a theme, but everyone will read it and come to their own understanding.
So, for the first set of blogs, we have posts about why finding time for ourselves should be part of being a homeschooler.
Let’s start with Angelia from Land of Our Fourmother with her post - Cautionary Tale of the Mother Octopus where she articulates why there is a need for balance in everyone’s life.
Angela at Mother Crone’s Homeschool tells us why having that time to ourselves is important with Honoring the “ME” in “hoMEschool”.
We’ll follow next with some posts looking at what that ‘time for ourselves’ can be like.
Laureen writes under the Life Without School umbrella about her love of special teas and how they help her move through her day with her post Day of a Thousand Charms.
We got back to Land of Our Fourmother, where Angelia tells us about her new obsession with fiber arts in What We Do to get By.
Regular Mom describes herself as a Reader, Writer, Thinker, Homeschooler, and Insomniac on Like I Have Time For This? You’ll notice that ‘writer’ is second on that list when you read how much she values her annual retreat in RegularMom takes a vacation and What….is it Tuesday already? Damn!
Here’s a few posts about balancing the demands of work with life and homeschooling.
FosterAbba from The Second Maze: Homeschooling the Kid talks about trying to work at home and give their daughter the time and direction that she needs in Balancing Working and Schooling at Home.
Tammy comes to us from Just Enough, and Nothing More talking about her “Big Thing” that loams ahead and how she is taking little steps to get there in Procrastination Is a Great Tool.
Ron, of Atypical Homeschool, takes the whole idea of homeschooling is life/life is homeschooling to include his chosen field of work in The Secret.
Next we turn to posts that explore if there really is a point between homeschooling and things we do for ourselves.
Kim over on Hoppes Homestead reflects on where homeschooling ends and the other parts of her life begins in Other Than Homeschool.
Silva at Po Moyemu gives us two great posts describing how her life is augmented by being part of a homeschooling community - How Homeschooling My Kids Frees Me, Too. - and how her homeschooling is augmented by her life - We Call It “Gardenschooling”
Then we have posts that don’t just discuss the line between homeschooling and life, but show us how they interact in their homes.
Lynn at Homeschool 2.0 Blog and her family has taken on an amazing project. THE Family Project will give you a small peek into it.
Becky up at Farm School finds her spare time focused on her garden and feeding her family. With her post, Still in the Garden, she makes this brown thumbed observer very wishful that she lived nearby so she could show me how. In Food, Family, Fellowship: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle; she looks at why feeding her family is important to her.
Toast keeps Toast Floats afloat with a humorous look at how her two loves - her children and living on a boat full time - combine into her life in There is No Door Knob Cover for a Boat.
Lill out at Hawkhill Acres posts about life and learning happening at the same time with Unschooling Who?
JJ Ross of Cocking A Snook shows us how her “other” life focus works to connect the books, movies and popular culture her family enjoys with their life as unschoolers in her post School Rule From Bong Hits 4 Jesus to the new Harry Potter Movie.
Bending the Twigs, written by the Crimson Wife, is not one for compartmentalization in Incorporating My Life Into Homeschooling Rather Than the Other Way ‘Round.
Since it is summer and many people’s focus tends to take a different track, we’ll next look at some posts from people taking time to reassess in one way or another.
Angela at Mother Crone’s Homeschool returns to show us how she also is putting some of her ‘down time’ of summer to use to look ahead to where they are going in Taking Stock for a Successful Year.
Summer at Wired For Noise shows us how we can use ‘down time’ to refocus ourselves and remember why we are homeschooling in relaxing and thinking about life.
Megan from Home School Apergers sent in Circus Goes Back to School. They are done with break, but after this experience are thinking that they’re just going to have to have a permanent holiday!
And how many of us expect a group of homeschoolers to all make it to an activity on on time?
There is always something that comes up and some one who will miss it or come late. So I close with a late submission to last month’s Fair on diversity. Colleen on colleen_oreilly discusses diversity in the animal kingdom with Nature’s Way?? (I will warn you that this may not be a blog you want to go to with little eyes looking over your shoulders.)