"When do you want to go home?" I asked my almost-college grad daughter, Julianna.

"Mom, we just got here," she chided.

"It's freezing, Julianna," her best friend, Marla backed me up.

But, Julianna was determined. It was the first day of spring break and she wanted to ENJOY the beach. Hah! It was chilly and windy. But, I had promised to go, so I slid my sweat pants down to my bathing suit. Immediately, goose bumps rose and I felt chilled to the bone. I grabbed a winter blanket and cuddled inside of it, wondering why Christians have to keep their word anyway.

The hours dragged on unmercifully until it was time to leave. Now, keep in mind, the beach is my very favorite place on earth and had I been wearing a parka that day, I would have enjoyed myself. But, timing is everything.

In homeschooling, timing is everything too. Just like Julianna tried to rush summer fun ahead of schedule, we can rush into teaching subjects ahead of our children's time table. Children are unique and learn at different times and paces.

When to Start Formal Education

 Katie Beth, my oldest daughter, was ready to learn her to read at the age of 4. How did I know. Well, I copied pictures of each of the letters from the phonics program I intended to use and hung them on the wall in the dining room of our small seminary apartment. I made paper, scissors, glue, markers, crayons, and other art supplies available for her in a large drawer in the china cabinet. When she began to copy the letters on her own and ask to write her name, I knew that interest was there.

I had been reading aloud to her several times a day and she loved to pretend to read books to her dolls. We started a fun phonics program that involved learning phonics rules through songs.

Another daughter was not ready to learn to read until the age of 6, almost 7. I tried a couple of times to start reading instruction and she was just not ready. But when she was finally ready, it went smoothly.

The Early Years

The early years of childhood are the perfect time to prepare children for a lifetime of enthusiastic learning. Reading well-written, beautifully illustrated storybooks aloud, picnics at the park, and playground fun can fill your days. All the things mothers do naturally: teaching animal sounds, make up silly rhymes, singing songs together, and talking to children about family history introduce your little ones to learning in a fun way. Baking together, cleaning together, setting the table together, and shopping together introduce educational concepts to your sons and daughters. You can stop and look at leaves, bugs, flowers, and small critters when you go on natures walks. Or bring along a sketch pad and fill it with your discoveries.

Don't rush this time or turn learning into hard work. Enjoy living life together with your family, knowing they are learning so much in their memory-making moments with you. There will be plenty of time for formal education in the future. Fill the preschool years with precious memories that last a lifetime.

Your Child's Pace

They were the best of times, they were the worst of times! 

College years are so exciting with friendships, opportunities to meet new people from all over the world, and the thrill of learning and growing. But, college can be stressful--those exams and papers! I have three people living in my house right now who are attending college. The end of the semester is crunch time around here, and sometimes stressful. 

But, my kids are successful in college! They make good grades, share their faith, and build strong friendships. Mike and I managed to not just survive college years, but to thrive! How can you be successful in college? Here are some tips that work for our family!

Put Christ First

When the pressure of crunch time comes--a paper is due, an exam is on the horizon--don't neglect your relationship with God. More important than your GPA and keeping your scholarship, walking in the favor of the Lord must take high priority. 

My daughter, Jenny Rose, sets Saturday aside for the Lord (we happen to meet on Saturday right now because we don't have our own church building). She prays, reads the Bible, encourages her friends, practices with the worship team, goes to sound check, and sings on the worship team at church. She realizes that this means losing an entire day that could be devoted to studies, but she doesn't care. She knows the truth, life goes better when you put Jesus and His Kingdom first.

Work Hard

If you are in college, school is your job. Learning is your vocation. Be excellent at it. Don't just try to "get by" or "pass the class." Make up your mind to be excellent at all you do. Set aside time to study and treat those times as if you are heading off to work. Be diligent. 

Zack is working two jobs and going to school. Some weeks the only time I see him is at LIFE group and at church. He works hard writing papers, doing projects, and studying for exams. Yes, he misses out on some fun things and will have to wait until the end of the semester to see certain movies, but Zack knows the truth: All Hard Work Brings a Profit!

Know Your Professors

Every instructor has preferences and expectations that are different from every other professor. Learn about your  professor's teaching style and expectations by reading the syllabus and paying close attention in class during the first few weeks of the semester. Ask questions if you are unsure of what his/her requirements. 

Go see your professor during office hours when they are available. My oldest daughter teaches English at UCF and she loves for students to ask for help or just come by to chat during office hours. One on one conversations will help you clarify information. Professors are happy to help students with difficult concepts or assignments.   

Take Assignments One Phase at a Time

Sheri Graham is a busy homeschooling mom with a houseful of children. She also runs her own business and writes books. Somewhere in all that hard work, she manages to post a blog each day. I am encouraged and challenged by Sheri and her ministry.

To do all that she does, and to do it all so well, Sheri must be a very organized lady! So, when she sent me her Intentional Planner to review, I was eager to see it. I like to learn from other homeschooling moms who do all things well.

The Intentional Planner is an E-book that you can download the minute you purchase it on Graham Family Ministries online store. You can make as make copies as you need and put together as many planners as you need for your family. Before I tell you any more about it, though, I have to give you some really good news! The Intentional Planner only costs $5.00. Yes, that's right, only $5.00 for 247 pages of wisdom from Graham Family Ministries. I could not believe that you could spend so little and get so much!

With a desire to combine her planner, calendar, journal, and home management binder into one notebook, Sheri created the Intentional Planner. It is everything you need to manage your home and home school in one neat package. There are fields on the pages available to customize your planner too.

This planner is laid out very simply.

• Front Section:  Daily Planning Pages
• Tab #1:  Monthly Calendars
• Tab #2:  To Do Lists
• Tab #3:  My Daily Journal
• Tab # 4:  Miscellaneous Lists
• Tab # 5:  Menu Planning & Cleaning Schedules
• Tab # 6:  Homeschool:  Lesson Plans
• Tab # 7:  Homeschool:  Reading Lists
• Tab # 8:  Homeschool:  Current Year
• Tab # 9:  Homeschool:  Long Term Plans
• Tab # 10:  Homeschool:  Articles/Information

There are 4 different covers to chose from: blue, green, red, and purple. The same covers are also available with only the border so that you can make up your own title for your planner. Throughout the planner, there are several opportunities to personalize your planner.

The daily planner pages are the "heartbeat" of The Intentional Planner. The Weekly Evaluation and Planning Page touches my heart every time I read it. There are spiritual examination questions. One question is "Where am I lacking in the fruits of the Spirit?" Ouch! I forget to ask myself questions like that. The page goes on to ask you to come up with practical ways to:

• Strengthen my relationship with the Lord
• Bless my husband
• Love my children
• Serve others
• Encourage others
• Simplify my life

I love the idea of starting each week with these questions and challenges. I commend Sheri for making this planner intentional by bringing prayer and self-examination into it. 

The daily planning sheets that follow have 4 sections: Daily Schedule, Appointments, To Do Items, and Notes.

Next, comes the monthly calendar pages, monthly plans pages, dates to remember pages, birthday/anniversary chart, to do lists, Bible reading schedule, memory work prayer list, personal reading list, and personal reading journal.

The goals section follows with room for family/ministry goals, health goals, handcraft goals, personal goals, and business goals. A daily journal section is a nice touch in this planner. I like to carry around little notebooks to journal in, so I liked the idea of this section.

The miscellaneous section has lots of neat, rather random pages.

• Membership websites
• User names and passwords
• Thankful Page
• Photograph pages
• Books to review
• Blog ideas
• E-book Ideas

The Menu Section has a master shopping list, shopping lists, menu pages, and weekly chore charts.

Life is so busy and there is always so much to accomplish. You have made plans and have ideas of great things to do and good things to learn. But, often our good intentions are not realized because our time management skills, or lack of them, prevent us from investing the time we need to invest to fulfill our goals.

So, where do we start? How can we learn to manage our time so that we can be productive and efficient?

Values

What do you value? What do you want to accomplish with your life?

Our values are found in the Word of God. God promises us in Matthew 6:33 that is we seek His Kingdom first, He will take good care of us (my paraphrase!). We put the Lord first by making time to read His Word, pray, worship Him, spend time with His people, and share the Good News about Jesus with the lost.

If we put growing in the Lord and honoring Him with our life first in our personal life and our home school, we will experience His favor and blessing. So, keep the Lord in mind as you make your schedules and plans.

Priorities

Priorities help us to put our values into practice. My priorities are quite simple:

1. God
2. His People (including my family, my church family, and dear friends)
3. The Lost who Need Jesus
4. Everything else

This makes my life simple because my priorities revolve around relationships and serving Jesus. So, in a practical sense, spending time building relationships is more important to me than spring cleaning, though keeping my house clean and tidy is a way I can show love to my family.

What are your priorities? Always keep your priorities in mind when you are making a schedule.

Goals

Goals determine our plans and are based on our values and priorities. 

"Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom," (Psalm 90:12).

Numbering our days simply means to realize how much time we have in a day, in a year, in a life. We number our days and we realize how brief life is. There is only so much time. We must use our time wisely.

What do you want to accomplish this school year? Think about your family as a whole and each child.

Plans

We try to go through our house each year before the school year starts and clean out the clutter in our home school room. If you are like me, your home is full of piles of papers, stacks of books, and a wide variety of every type of clutter possible to exist. Loved ones comfort me: "Your home is lived in." I smile, knowing the truth--my house is a mess right now!

Once the clutter is taken care of, I can take a deep breath and get back to work. Clutter makes me feel oppressed and a tidy house makes me feel productive and energetic.

I notice that my house is not the only thing that gets full of clutter. My email inbox can fill with clutter. My purse can accumulate all kinds of mess. My car can look like a locker room floor sometimes.

But, the worst clutter of all, is the clutter that builds up in my heart. It can damage my relationships and keep me from homeschooling effectively.

Clutter in our Hearts

What can build up in our hearts that is so damaging to our lives and homeschooling? Well, women can tend to be savers. We are so sentimental. We save cards, notes, letters, movie tickets, newspaper clippings, and recipes. But, we can also hold on to hurts, anger, resentments, negative words, and memories of negative episodes in our lives. We remember something our husband did or said on our honeymoon (15 years ago!) or the Mother's Day that our son said, "I wish I had a different mommy." We take these things out from yesterday and examine them closely, remembering how they hurt and experiencing more pain from them today.

We remember failures too. Our own failures are etched in stone, along with our husband's failures which we often build a shrine to, keeping them alive forever. We remember mistakes our children have made and can label our children based on these mess-ups.

"We are a sarcastic family," "None of us can control our tempers," or "This house is full of lazy pigs," are all things I have heard homeschooling moms say. Our words reveal the clutter in our hearts. I would rather hear moms say, "We are learning to be kind," "Our family is growing in anger management," and "We are learning to be tidy!" Now, that may sound silly to you, but how we view our family affects how we homeschool our children.

Clutter Check-List

With the economy shaky, many businesses are downsizing. Our children's soccer coach lost his job a year ago and is starting his own personal training for children business. He is now leading our homeschool coop's P.E. class. One of my musicians (I am a worship leader) injured his back and is starting a T-Shirt company. His designs are amazing and I look forward to wearing his products. After months of job searching to no avail, my niece is beginning to sell Avon. Our pilot friends lost his job in flight instruction and has started a home improvement and repair company.

My husband and I have had a family business since the early nineties, enjoying the joys and challenges of self-employment. Several years ago, we incorporated our business, making it an umbrella for several businesses, including my new publishing company, Powerline Productions, that my friend, Laura and I are getting off the ground.

It seems that I am surrounded by people who have, or are starting, their own businesses!

Reasons for Starting Your Own Business

Reasons abound for starting your own business. What a blessing it would be to be your own boss and have a flexible schedule. You could plan your work hours around the children's school hours and family needs. There is potential to make more money, thus sowing more into the Kingdom of God. You also have the opportunity to cultivate your own leadership skills and impact employees and customers. There is so much to make starting your own business attractive, why doesn't everyone start their own business?

Here is a little reality check. If you are used to working nine to five, or some other forty hour a week job, starting a business will be a shock. Most business owners put in at least 70 to 80 hours a week, especially when they are getting their business off the ground. Many times, there is no profit (and thus, no paycheck) for two to three years. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but, for the most part, starting your own business is a huge undertaking, best begun with lots of prayer and clear direction from God.

"There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD," (Proverbs 21:30 NIV).

The most important reason to start your own business is that God calls you to start a business. His heart and plan is for you to be blessed so that you can be a blessing to those around you. If God's plan and destiny for your life includes starting your own business, it will impact the people around you for His glory. That doesn't mean that it has to be a ministry, but that you minister through it to your employees and customers. Don't even try to start a business that isn't God's will or plan for your life. If a business doesn't honor the Lord, it is not God's will.

"Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed," (Proverbs 15:22 NIV).

Get counsel from trusted friends and family members before beginning your own business. What do they think? Write down their counsel and prayerfully consider it! It is good to talk to mature Christians, other business owners, and people who know the real you to get a broad range of counsel and insight.

Pitfalls to Owning Your Own Business

Before we talk about the character traits necessary to owning your own business, let's talk about three very big character flaws that cause problems for business owners. If you see yourself in these pitfalls, don't despair. The Lord can change and mature us in Him. Work on these areas and get them straightened out before you start your own business. I have seen these three things cause businesses to fail.

​I love summer: the beach, the sunshine, the lazy days, vacations, and chilling out. We do NOT homeschool during the summer, except for reading books. Here it is the beginning of August and it's almost time to gear up for the next school year.

Evaluate the Past Year

​"The best part of this past year was history day," Shine shared enthusiastically. "I liked the Diana Waring tapes."

"I thought history was boring," Jimmy interrupted. "But I liked the food. (We had eaten our way through history with some delicious lunches at history co-op)

Look back over the past school year. What went well? What do you hope will go better next year? Pray about these things. Thank the Lord for all the great things that happened. Focus on the positive, not the negative. But, ask the Lord to show you how to be more effective in your homeschooling this coming year.

Choose Priorities for the Coming Year

Jimmy really grew as a reader this past year, but I still want that to be a priority next year. Shine grew so much in the Lord and now I want her to start passing on what she's learned.

If reading was a weakness this past year, you might want to make reading a priority next year. If there was a lot of rebellion in one or more of the children, then relationships and child training should be a focus in the school year coming up. 

Choose What You will Study and How

 What do you want your children to learn this coming year? One year we decided that we wanted to learn about England and British history. Though I had been homeschooling for 12 years, we had never studied English history in an in-depth way. We were excited to learn about our "mother country." What do your children want to learn about? What are their interests?

How do you want to teach these subjects? Do you want to use traditional textbooks or on-line classes? Do you want to do a unit study with lots of time for open-ended studies?

Choose Curriculum

"Functional Neatness" was a concept I could latch on to in Homeschooling at the Speed of Life by Marilyn Rockett, a helpful guide to organizing your home and life. Full of practical wisdom from a mom who's been there, this book helps you stay on task while keeping your priorities in balance. This book might be very helpful for you! It was for me.

This book covers all the topics that are difficult and stressful for moms like me: de-cluttering, taming the paper monster, and keeping organized records. Marilyn is very administrative. She sounds like she enjoys organizing and de-cluttering. The book is positive and upbeat because her enjoyment shines through! Though I have learned to organize and keep tidy records for our family school, I don't enjoy it one little bit. I see it as a necessary evil. If you are like me, you will appreciate Marilyn. She is truly "The Mom's Mentor" dispensing wisdom with encouragement. Marilyn thinks that we can get organized and she just might be right.

Marilyn is refreshingly honest and real, but the bottom line is that she knows how to manage her home and homeschooling. She can pass on to us what she knows. This is a Titus 2 woman!

"Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the Word of God," (Titus 2:3-5 NIV).