Back to School, Again

Oh sweet blogger friends!

I have missed you! But I have soothed my heart with a box of 18 dry-erase markers in the colors of love....aren't they beautiful?!!!

I'm back from what was a long and wonderful vacation in the desert (vacation posts to come.) I was able to see nearly all the people I wanted to visit with....but the good news is that I will be going to the desert again next year, so if I didn't get to see you, we'll be sure it happens next time!

I am still fighting major jetlag, but there is no rest for the weary here in the heart of North Carolina. 

I have a school to run, and the students arrive shortly.

Well, actually, right now they are tucked in bed waiting for their new alarm clocks to wake them up. This year they will learn a little bit about being self-directed and motivated (I hope!). 

I wanted to share with you where I will be spending 85% of my time in the next nine months of my life. This is our school room:

You'll notice that there are three notebooks on the table. The two white ones are what the kids will use to keep organized, and the middle one is what I often refer to as The Brain. It has the next nine weeks worth of lesson plans and notes and references, and schedules, and menus, and everything I need to be as efficient as I can be...if I loose that book, the world will come to an end for sure.

Well, maybe not end, but The Brain is the mastermind of this establishment and without it, school wouldn't happen.

But back to the tour of campus...

This is my desk.

Please note that you can actually see the top. It only took me all summer to get it cleaned off for this photograph. Don't mind the schedule tacked directly under the light switch. I keep meaning to buy another peg board, but I keep forgetting.  Its the one thing that isn't written in The Brain.

I am excited to start this year. Last year was difficult, as I learned to balance life as a mother, wife, homemaker, blogger, friend and teacher.

I've learned that I cannot possibly do it all. So this year I am starting out with this bit of advice for myself, and those of you with a full home (homeschooling or not). Its a quote from the Valley of Vision, from the prayer entitled Family: 

Sanctify and prosper my domestic devotion,

instruction, discipline, example,

that my house may be a nursery for heaven,

At the end of the night, when I lay my head down, it doesn't truly matter what knowledge I have given to those in my care. What matters is that I remember I have been given these beautiful brown-eyed gifts; Children who watch my every move as I go about my day. I have the privilege to use my home as a nursery for heaven, and not just for those who are born of my flesh and blood, but for those who seek a soft place to land in a harsh world.

In the end it will not matter to my children that I was able to cross off all the tasks that fill the lists of my days. Nor will the hours I have spent putting together the schedules, lessons plans, and lists matter. 

What I must remember this year is that my devotion, instruction, discipline and example done in love extends farther than the depths of the young minds of my students.  

Will they learn this year?

Absolutely.

The question is, will I?