After writing about my daughter’s encouragement of my entrepreneurial efforts, and after feeling this general “high,” for lack of better words, about increased sales and focused energy, I have been productively busy with several items. (One of them is obviously not blogging—lol). We are within seven weeks of wrapping up another school year—as hard as that is to even think of. Where did the time go? I will save my anticipated and potentially frequent “and-this-is-my-baby’s-senior-year” rants, with and without multiple pictures of our son, at least until fall. You’re welcome.
I have also been preparing for the upcoming SHEM Conference on May 14-16. I am very excited about speaking and partnering with this group, including reacquainting with a number of contacts that I have not seen face-to-face in a couple of years. My topics include college preparation and planning, reflections on homeschooling (i.e., what I wish I’d known), and of course, why inclusive history is important. I am having fun preparing and updating old research on these and other topics. Learning mode has its own excitement and energy, you know? Also, I look forward to taking the children, and setting up the vendor’s booth, now complete with a logo and a new banner. Can’t wait to share before and after pics from our time as a family business at the Great Homeschool Convention in 2012 versus now.
I have also been writing, and feeling pretty good about completing my latest project…until. (Heavy sigh). As a curriculum developer, nothing is more frustrating than investing time—weeks and months of time—to the right book, only to conclude that it is the wrong book. I have spent the last several months with our son reading and developing lesson plans around The Last of the Mohicans. I ended this classic with two thoughts:
1) this was a rare occasion in which I think the movie actually is better than the book (although Daniel Day Lewis and Madeline Stowe are about as fit to be Native American and half-black, respectively, as the late Elizabeth Taylor was to be Cleopatra).
original photo at imgarcade.com
2) Mark Twain was right: John Fenimore Cooper is too wordy.
So, having gotten all excited about this book as a part of an overall high school curriculum, I now have the unenviable task of hitting the delete button over several pages of typing.
I was right here physically and emotionally when I typed my last post. That was about when our oldest wrote her inspiring words, and when I began to join with others who are on similar journeys with their businesses. It was then that I realized that I was given a work to do, and I have not yet completed my assignment. So, I will continue to press forward, without a brand new endeavor or new strategy, but just a determination to start the same task over and to keep pressing until I get it right.
I have thought quite a bit lately about how we handle tasks that are not sparkly or sexy; what do we do when God tells us to just keep plodding at the old? I will share more later, but for now, please enjoy my contribution to Joy Comes in the Morning. Be blessed.
Simply, Belinda 