Without further adieu the 2025-2026 homeschooling year has come to an end. This year has been a rollercoaster of a ride when it comes to homeschooling. Homeschooling is already a fulfilling challenge but being a working mom who also homeschools comes with a whole new set of challenges. Biggest challenge we faced this year was schedule. I started the year waking the girls up at 7AM so that they could do their lessons before I started work for the day, but the lack of sleep made them grumpy throughout the day. I then tried to work their lessons in small batches during my breaks and lunch. That also didn’t work for us. I’ve learned that I was still operating on the premise of my public school background, I was used to school as something that happens in the mornings at specific times. I forgot that one of the reasons I even decided to do homeschooling was the flexibility of it. So after prayer and guidance I decided to move our homeschooling lessons to the afternoons when I was done with work for the day. Some days were harder than others but overall this is what ended up working best for us.
Up until now my youngest Emily (6yrs) has also been doing her lessons right alongside her sister Anastasia(8yrs). They have been at the same level and doing their lessons together but this year that changed as well. If she had been going to public school Emily would have only started Kindergarten this year while Anastasia just finished 2nd grade. So when I saw that Emily was still working on learning the fundamentals when it came to reading that was when I knew it was time to separate the lessons and give them both individual attention at their level, which to my surprise they both thrived with and actually preferred the individual lessons.
It has been a year of many changes and lessons for all of us but it has been a successful year. I love seeing how far they’ve come and how much they’ve progressed since we started last fall and I’ve learned what does and does not work for us. But all things come to an end and this year we ended the school year with a bang and went to the lake with their grandparents. It was a perfect way to end the school season and start the summer festivities. We have many activities planned for this summer but at the same time, it is the time for rest and relaxation for all of us.
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
I am totally a planner girlie. I love calendars, love planners, love the cute pens and highlighters and stickers to go with them and keep myself organized. I have been this way since my school-days. I would always have a planner to write down everything for all of classes, due dates, tests, reminders, etc. When I finished school and started in the corporate world I traded in my planner for the calendar app on my phone and outlook on the computer. I didn’t have as many things to keep track of aside from meetings or scheduled calls. For many years this is all I needed, and it worked for me during that season of my life.
But now I work full time, am a mother, a homeschool teacher, and homemaker, all wrapped up and rolled into one. There was a time where I was also back in school as well, and my husband picked up most of my slack so that I could finish and get my bachelors degree. Now we have traded places and I am happy to be able to do the same for him, that he did for me. Now he works full time and goes to school, along with his many other responsibilities. So our responsibilities have shifted and suffice it to say the current season of our life, is busy. Very busy in fact, and the little phone calendar app just wasn’t cutting it for me anymore. Yes I still use it, especially for keeping track of appointments, schedules, important dates, etc. But for day to day organizing it just wasn’t working.
Sure there are hundreds of planner/organizing apps to help people get organized. I have even tried several of them, but they just weren’t doing it for me. I’d stick to them for a bit and then things would fall to the wayside. But you know what did do it for me? A good old fashioned paper and pen planner. I started using them again last year and immediately remembered how much I loved using planners to help me stay organized and on top of things.
Not all planners are created equally though. What some people find useful others do not. I tried several different planners, printable ones as well physical copies. I even tried designing my own, but that just made me feel even busier with everything I already have to do. Some planners were specific to the task, such as homeschool specific planners, while others more broad. But ultimately my favorite planner ended up being the one my sister gifted me from ChristianPlanner. I loved that planner so much that she gifted me another one this year as well. With this weekly planner I am able to block out the days as needed. I have my homeschool sections where I can note down the lessons for the day, to do list, meal planning, appointments, and so on, and so forth. I can make it cute with my different colored pens and highlighters (because that’s the kind of girl I am) but ultimately the purpose is the same. To organize and keep track of what needs to get done.
I think the significance of having a physical planner that has helped me the most, is the simple act of writing things down. Me personally, I am a tactile learner. I need to touch and feel in order to learn, I could type all I want on a phone or tablet but it doesn’t help me to simply touch a smooth screen. It is the act of physically writing things down on paper, that helps me actually remember them. I remember when I was in college, I didn’t study in the traditional sense of quizzing myself or using flash cards. My professors would often talk so fast that my notes would be messy and sloppy as I tried to keep up with them. So then I would go home and re-write them again, so that I could make them look nicer, more organized, and of course color-coded. I even had different colored notebook paper for each class. But it was that simple act of rewriting my notes that would help me remember what needed to be remembered.
Bringing that same concept back to planner I see now why all of those organizing apps and todo lists on my phones wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t remember what I needed to do unless I checked my phone a hundred times to remind myself. But by writing it down in the planner, yes I do still check it occasionally to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but simply writing them down already helps keep it in my mind, I can close my eyes and picture the todo section of my planner and what I wrote there. I mean this concept isn’t a foreign one. It goes back even to Biblical times if you truly stop to think about it. God told Moses to write down the commandments, he told kings to write down copies of that law so that they would remember. He told prophets to write down their prophecies so they could be remembered and preserved. Throughout time and history the act of writing things down has been used to remember and pass things down.
So, my advice today. If you find yourself struggling to keep track of your to-do lists, or figuring out what needs to happen throughout your days. Ditch the phone apps and try getting an actual planner to keep track. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or expensive. I’ve even seen small pocket planners at the dollar store. Give it a try, and I hope that it helps you, as much as it has helped me.
Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
Congratulations, we survived the holidays! If you are like me, you are probably still trying to get life back in order or maybe salvage what remains of your day-to-day routine. Or, like me, you may be learning that some parts of your routine just weren’t working anymore and you need to change things to adapt with the season. New year, new changes, or as some say new resolutions.
I know we are already a month into 2026, which honestly is hard enough to believe. But that doesn’t mean its too late to start thinking about what you want this year to be. Where do you want your focus to be? Do you want to start your typical health goals? Focus more on your career or family? Are you looking out into the world or within? Maybe these questions are too philosophical and to be honest I don’t even know why I am asking them; this is not what I was intending to write about today. But here I am.
The reality is that these are questions that everyone typically thinks about at the end/beginning of a new year. I know I definitely have. I have a journal and vision board of different things I want to do and accomplish this year. I did the same thing last year, and I will do the same thing next year. It is common practice to make new years resolutions. Lists of goals you wish to achieve or maybe changes you want to make. Even within the corporate world, the start of a new year typically come with big changes. Re-structuring happens, some get promoted, others get laid off. New years bring new changes.
For me it makes me think about the story about the two wolves. I’ve only heard this story through word of mouth so I don’t know where it originated from and I don’t take credit for it, but essentially a grandfather tells his grandson a story about two wolves fighting. One wolf represents good things, love, compassion, joy, kindness, etc. The other wolf represents the bad things: evil, lies, greed, etc. As the wolves are fighting the grandson asks his grandfather, ‘which wolf will win?” and the grandfather responds with “whichever wolf you feed.” But its not just characteristics that this applies to, but everything within your life. What you speak. What you focus on. If you speak negative words and focus on the negative, then the negative will win. You will be miserable and you will think about all the ‘bad things that happen to you’. Whereas if you focus on the positive, speak positive, likewise you will see a shift happen. The negative things will start to have less of an impact on you and you will have a more positive filled life. Like attracts like as they say.
Little Piece of Quiet 