Wednesday, August 20, 2008

About Me


I decided to participate in the new homeschool memoirs meme (see link in my sidebar). Their theme for this week is "All About You!". So here goes!
I come to homeschooling honestly--I was homeschooled myself until age 8, when I entered 3rd grade at the local elementary school in a small farming town in Utah. My mother, with a degree in Physical Education, didn't have much use for the educational and child-development theories of the day. She kept us home, made sure we were acquainted with basic reading, writing and math, made us practice violin pretty much every day, and otherwise gave us the run of a 25 acre farm. Honestly, I think I had an ideal childhood.
I started school at age 8, but bigger changes in my life were in store. The summer I turned 9 my dad left his small law practice to accept a Foreign Service job with the State Department. There were 6 of us children at the time, and we embarked with varying degrees of excitement/trepidation on the adventure of a lifetime. We spent about 9 months in Virginia while my dad was in training as a Foreign Service officer, then proceeded to overseas assignments in Guatemala, France, Bolivia, and Austria. Along the way our family grew to include 10 children, three of them born overseas. In addition to my homeschooling years, I was able to experience public and private schools in several different countries. In fact, in ten years of schooling I attended 7 different schools, in 3 different languages. After graduating from high school in Vienna, I returned to the States for college, where I attended Brigham Young University in Utah. I majored in Anthropology, minored in Microbiology, joined the Air Force ROTC, served as a missionary in Japan for 18 months, married the love of my life, graduated from college, and moved to Texas. Wow, those were busy years! A couple of highlights of my young adult years were an archeology dig I participated in at Petra, in Jordan, and a Eurailing trip with my sister and friends. I served in the Air Force for less than two years; when I was pregnant with my first child I decided she needed me more than the military did, and that has been one of the best choices I ever made. A few months after Lily was born my husband took a job in California and we have been here ever since. We added Luke to the family about 3 years ago, and Baby Esther last December. This is our first year of officially homeschooling, although in a way I have been doing it ever since Lily was born! When I was first introduced to Charlotte Mason's works, I felt like I had met an old friend--actually, I thought I was reading something my mother could have written. I think they would have liked each other very much. Anyway, I base much of my homeschooling on her philosophies. I'm really looking forward to the years ahead.

11 comments:

Jody said...

Nice to meet you and I love meeting first year homeschoolers :). We are only in our fourth year so I clearly remember that first year.Sounds like you have a great start though since you were homeschooled in the beginning too. Glad to get to know you some :).

Miss Rachel said...

Hello!
Yes, I have a post that I am hoping to post tomorrow... that has all the details about it. :) I am adding the final 'touches' onto the post, but should have it up by tomorrow.

YES. You can tell anybody you like about it! Thank you! That would be great for helping me spread the word. You are very nice!

Love,
Rachel

Kelley said...

You DID have the ideal childhood. It is exactly for this type of living that we're working so hard to get out of debt right now. What an awesome life! Perhaps I'll do a meme like this, too.

By the way, do you have pictures of those charts or files on your computer with them? I'm trying to figure out how I want to structure our homeschool, and what you've described sounds very like what I've envisioned. I guess I just need to sit down with all my ideas in one place and create a curriculum/plan for us. Would you be willing to email me what you've done here?

Miss Rachel said...

Hello there (again) -
I just wanted to let you know that I got the post up for the Bible Challenge,
http://dixonhomestead.com/rachel/?p=119
You can check it out and sign the Linky! Hope to see your name there!

Love,
Rachel

April B. said...

Hi! Thanks for the lovely comment on my blog! It is nice to find other like-minded mothers and families. Thank you for sharing.

Sherry @ Lamp Unto My Feet said...

Great to meet you! I'm a first year homeschooler. :D

Have a great homeschool year!
Sherry
http://lampuntomyfeetandalightuntomypath.blogspot.com/

Dana said...

Wow! What an interesting post. You're life sounds very busy. What a great childhood. It must have been very interesting and exciting (although scary) to see all those different places. You've done so much! I'd love to get to know you better.

Here's my link: http://cherry-soup.blogspot.com/2008/08/homeschool-memoirs-1-all-about-you.html

Angela said...

Nice to meet you, it was fun hearing of your childhood-it sounded great! Wish I could have been that lucky. But at least my kids will be. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Angela

MrsMomma said...

Great to meet you! I hope you have a wonderful year!

-Heather

Anonymous said...

I'm so grateful for the internet!! It's hard for me to call you "Paula" though.

Yes, this is your old roomie from another dimension.

I'm so glad you're homeschooling. I plan on homeschooling my kiddos, too. Well, I am, like you said, already in my way, but the oldest is only 2, so as far as everyone else is concerned, we haven't "started" yet.

Right now our main focus is tap dancing, oddly enough. I always said I wouldn't force my kids to dance just because I love it. But you should see my little boy study Fred Asaire. He then goes into the kitchen and tries out everything he's seen. So cute!!

Paula said...

Jessica! It's so good to hear from you. How is everything going with the new little bundle of joy? I wish I could see your little boy tapdance--I'm sure it's delightful!