A Return Home

This week has been a busy one n our homeschool. We have been testing out several new products that we have received to review for the TOS Homeschool Crew. We have been putting the products through the paces and will be ready to report on some of them soon. So you can watch for that this next week.

We have also been busy with our NanoWriMo novels. It has been a fun adventure. My son has really taken to adding to his story each day. He wears a smile most of the time. It is nice to see the change in him as he was becoming such a reluctant writer prior to this experience. He has even asked if he can do this every month. We will see if his enthusiasm continues as I upped his original word count goal from 8,000 to 12,000 words. I felt that I needed to do this as he has already completed 4,248 as of today. Since this is only the first week, I imagine he just may surpass his new goal.

I am behind on my NanoWriMo novel. I need to focus on it. I have spent too much time working and making sure that things flow smoothly around here. So if you will excuse me for now, I need to go pound out a few thousand words. Hope you have a great weekend!

So last night while watching the election results, I got into a bit of a yelling match with my mother. No, it wasn’t about the election or even the candidates. It was about my choice to homeschool my child and work at home.

I thought we had made progress in this area, but apparently I was wrong. She doesn’t understand that I am doing all of this for the betterment of my family. She doesn’t understand that the local schools can’t truly help my son with Asperger’s. In her mind, I need to get my priorities straight and send him to public school and get a real job. She thinks that I would have more time then.

I’m not quite sure how that is supposed to work, since I was always more stressed when we did just those things. I spent all of my time after work helping my son with his homework and taking him to therapy and taking care of the house, etc. And I hated my job. I like working for myself. I don’t think I could go back to having a boss other than myself.

I don’t have a problem meeting my income needs. But my work is invalid in her eyes because it isn’t traditional.

I let her know that things won’t be changing around here. She will just have to get used to it. Stuff happens.

Photo by (c) vierdrie, www.sxc.hu

When we returned home to the place where my husband grew up, we undertook the responsibility and adventure of remodeling my grandmother’s home. This home is filled with many memories for me, all of which are happy ones. The funny thing is that although my husband grew up in this town, I have many memories of growing up at my grandparent’s home. I actually lived in this town for a couple of years from the end of 1^st grade to the end of 4^th grade.

Anyway, we moved back here to keep an eye on our parental units. Both sets live only about one block away from each other and are getting older. We felt that we should be close so that we could offer any assistance if it was needed. This has eased the minds of most of our siblings. And although it is a small town, it does have a homey feel to it.

We have been remodeling our home since June. It has been a long and drawn out process that has come with many challenges. Many of the challenges have come up while I have been trying to do my job and teach my son. I have literally been doing both of these between two separate residences. This week, I have finally made enough progress that we are able to school in our new home, even though we aren’t quite ready to sleep there yet. (We still need a shower or bath hooked up before that can happen. Soon…)

We are hoping to finally move into it this next week. I have been busy trying to organize things and clean things so that we can make the move out of my parent’s basement into our own home. It will be nice to be back in our own home. Building a home takes work. But being together as a family is what makes it a reality. How do you build your home? Leave me a comment and share.

Although I just moved back to my childhood hometown, I really didn’t spend that many years here. I am the oldest in my family, and I spent most of my formative years growing up in Southwest Missouri on a dairy farm. There are seven years between my brother and me and that made a big difference growing up on the farm. Although I was a girl, I in essence became my dad’s boy.

I was expected to be able to do the same things that a boy my age should be able to do. And since it was my dad, I had to do it even better. I hauled hay, milked cows, fed the cows and the calves, drove tractors, shoveled manure and did pretty much anything my dad asked me to do. I was his female boy. I was the oldest, so I had responsibilities to take care of and I had to be sure they were done correctly the first time. There were no second times with my dad.

Now, my dad really wasn’t harsh. He just needed help on our 105 acre farm. I was the oldest, so it fell to me to do the work. My brother and my sisters were just too little at the time. I remember one time when the grain auger quit functioning and I had to haul 5 gallon buckets of grain to fill the bins in the milking stalls. I was quite strong for a girl because I had to be. It was during this time that a young man stopped by to see me and finalize the details for our prom date. When he inquired after me, my dad told him I was in Prom training. It was about this time that I came around the corner with my buckets of grain. He didn’t think that was too funny. But I did and so did my dad.

So why am I reminiscing about the days of the past? Well, it became apparent to me yet again that I am still my dad’s boy. I may be a mother and appreciate flowers and lotion and all of the girly stuff, but I am still my dad’s boy. He just got to have two of them to boss around since my husband is working by his side. My husband was laying floorboard in the bathroom and I was hauling in boxes of tile to lay.

I may be my dad’s boy, but I am also his little girl. It doesn’t matter how old I get over the years. And that is enough to make me smile.

Photo provided by Robb

This past month has found me making some life changes and returning home. My husband and I felt compelled to make a move back to our old hometown from our youth. We never thought we would return to our hometown except for short visits to see our families. But we felt a very strong urge that we needed to return to keep an eye on the parental units. It seems that they are getting older and are not in the best of health. So we packed up our established home and made a move.

We are still in the process of selling our old home and trying to move into our new one. We are moving into my grandparents old home. While it is a neat old house, it wasn’t ready to be moved into. I am currently going through 60 years of stuff and sorting it. There are lots of memories involved. I am perhaps a little less attached to some of the stuff than my mom. She wants to keep everything. I am more prone to throw things out. I have incentive…the sooner I am done, the sooner I can move out of my parents home. (We are currently sleeping at their house.)

My propensity to throw things out has caused a few arguments. Mom contends that some things just can’t be replaced. I argue that I don’t know who needs 8o+ years of funeral programs. My grandma will be 89 in September and has kept every single program from every funeral she has ever attended. I am so not kidding. I threw them out.

The bathroom and kitchen are completely gutted. I don’t have running water yet. But all of that should be changing this week. I have fought a valiant fight to get tile floors in those rooms. I purchased the tile, so I will win. Even though we had to level the bathroom floor by 3 inches.

It has been an interesting process so far. Sometimes I wonder what we were thinking, especially when my husband has had to leave and attend trade shows for his job. But I remind myself that it will be worth it in the end. The house will be awesome. I made progress this week and almost got the office set up after pulling up 4 different layers of carpet. I found wood floors. There is a certain charm beneath the 40+ layers of wallpaper within the walls of this old home.

Returning home can be a good thing, indeed. Even if it is a lot of work in the process.

So I ran away with my husband and son on a business trip. My husband had a seminar to teach this morning and the call of a nice hotel hot tub called my name. After all, I could take my work with me and use the hotel internet to complete the assignments I needed to finish and put up this morning for a client. It really didn’t have to be done in my home office, right?

Well, this morning I just went through hell, all for the bargain price of $130 per night. For that price I think it is reasonable to expect a few things like internet service and hot water. It seems that this hotel couldn’t get their stuff together and it didn’t seem to matter if their customers suffered or not. I tried to connect to the internet this morning and lo and behold, I couldn’t get a connection. I ran diagnostics and reset my wireless card at least a dozen different times just hoping for a different result. (I know, that is the definition of insanity…where you do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.) The result was always the same…the router needed to be reset.

So I ran down to the front desk of the lobby and nicely asked if they were having trouble with their internet and sweetly suggested that perhaps they maybe needed to reset the router. The guy that was working the front desk was a real prick. He answered me in a condescending tone that their router was just fine and that maybe I needed to learn how to work the internet.

Ok. Now, I held onto my temper here and explained that I had been online in this very hotel just last night until around 1:00 am. He became even more condescending and explained to me (as if he were talking to a 2 year old child) that the internet in the hotel was W-I-R-E-L-E-S-S. (NO, are you kidding me?) I explained that I understood that and that I had been connected just 6 hours before with my wireless card. I also reiterated that I was trying to conduct some business and needed to help a client, so I really needed internet service. Could he just humor me and reset the router? He replied, “Well, our router is fine, so I guess it is your problem.”

Are you kidding me?!! When did it become OK in the hospitality business to be rude and not provide hospitable services for your customers? Maybe it was because I was a woman? Hmmm…So what did I do? I returned to my room, took a COLD shower, (I guess the hot water was only for the hot tub), and ran over to the cheaper hotel next door. I was able to upload the podcast for my client and set a few things in order for them. Then, I returned and packed. Next time I visit this town, I will be staying in the cheaper hotel, where I am assured that they ALWAYS have hot water for all of their rooms and internet service for their guests.

I missed working at home this morning. I missed my office. I missed my own hot shower. I can’t wait to return home.

What are some of your nightmare stories about working on the road?

Photo by Kevin Rosseel

Today I want to talk about my child who is just a little on the overweight side. Now he really isn’t too bad, but he does have a little bit of a belly. He probably just needs to tone up all over and he will be fine. The doctor isn’t worried about it and says he is just built like a linebacker. His shoulders and his chest are very broad, so he is wearing a size in his shirts that I can’t believe at 11 years old. Can we say Large Men’s size? His feet are pretty big too…size 9 ½. I know because we visited the Nike store on vacation and bought new shoes. He is a big boy and will continue to grow.

However, there are too many kids who are overweight in this country. We need to pay attention to what is happening. We need to do something about it. It should be considered an epidemic in our society. What are we going to do about it?

I want to suggest a great book and program for kids who are overweight and out of shape. It is called Kid Shape and was written by Naomi Neufeld, MD, FACE. Her program is a family-based program that has helped thousands of children lose weight and keep it off. This program helps the child gain self-esteem, establish healthy eating habits and have a more active lifestyle.

I will be referring to this program over the next few weeks, but I highly recommend getting your own copy of this book. It is a fabulous resource and a commitment well worth making as a family. I think we will review the principles of this program in our family and I’ll let you know how it goes.

What are your thoughts on obesity and children? I’d like to hear them.

Photo by Paul Anderson

Despite the fact that I woke up to 2 inches of snow yesterday morning, I have a serious case of spring fever. The snow all melted and the sun is back out and shining today and warmer weather is sure to be here soon. The crazy part about there being snow yesterday, is that it was 70˚F the day before. Crazy weather to be sure!

The problem with sunny weather and spring fever is that when you work and school at home, you just want to take the day off and play. It is perhaps just a little more difficult to go to work or school when the backyard is calling your name. When you are the boss, or teacher, you also feel guilty when you call in sick.

I think it may have been just a little easier to deal with spring fever when I worked outside of the home and the boy went to the brick and mortar school. In fact, I am sure of it. We didn’t have to deal with the beagle who wants us to go outside and play with him all day long.

I think I am going to have to find some school lessons to do outside so we are still making progress in school. I’m not sure how to deal with it when it comes to my work, however. I guess I am just going to have to be the mean boss and make myself work. Perhaps I can schedule short breaks as a reward for my hard work.

What do you think? How have you overcome the effects of spring fever while working and schooling at home?

Photo by: Brenda Emmett

Yesterday we talked about the drawbacks of working at home. Today, I want to discuss the benefits. While working from home is not an easy task there are many different things that are real pluses for the person who decides to try their hand at it.

I mentioned yesterday that my friend had done a poll of people who work at home. There should be no surprise that the response was greater as to the benefits of working at home. You can read the responses to her poll here.

I know that since I have left the corporate world, I have been much happier. I can’t imagine working any other way. I would never go back to working in a corporate office, no matter how hard some days may be.

What are some of the reasons that you can think of to work at home? Can you think of any that weren’t discussed at the poll? Leave a comment below and let’s discuss it!

There are several different reasons that people decide to work from home. It should never be considered an easy task, although there are definitely many benefits. I know that for me, the reasons can vary from day to day. I love my job and what I do, but sometimes it can be frustrating when you are trying to accomplish you work and nothing seems to be getting done.

A friend of mine did a poll among people who work from home and she listed the many different things that they said. Today we will cover the drawbacks and tomorrow we will cover the pros so we leave things on a positive note. You can read the replies to this part of the poll here.

Don’t ever try to tell me that working at home is easy. It is difficult. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything! What are some of the drawbacks that you can think of about working from home? Can you think of some that weren’t mentioned? Leave a comment and let’s discuss it.