Not Another Homeschool Blog

I am excited about the new year.  I am always genuinely enthusiastic about  New Year's when the preceding year has been especially dreadful.  Ok, it wasn't all that bad, just financially tight and a bit depressing on a personal and national basis. Between the Election, and mass shootings, I feel affected and drained. So anyway, whenever I have felt this way before, and greeted the new year with open arms, the next year has been fabulous and so I am claiming a fabulous New Year. Here's my problem though. I can't envision a whole year ahead of me. I can only see the next six months because my life will be changing so much halfway through the year. Because my girl is graduating and I have no more children at home, I feel like halfway though the year I will be making a brand new start.  So year 2013.1 I will be working hard to make sure my girl finishes her high school program, successfully and happily.  Then year 2013.2, I will work to make sure she transit...

This Christmas tree is in my foyer.  It's about 15 feet tall and is pre-lit.  A couple days after we put it up we realized that there is a section (upper center) that did not light or is no longer lit. Oh well.  It is our imperfect christmas tree.  There was no way we were going to take everything off and play with each light until it lit up.  We will worry about that next year.   Sometimes everything does not go as planned.  This Christmas, especially, the nation is depressed as a whole, for many reasons.  We are emotionally spent.   I am going to call my tree a poetic representation of that.  But........ We are together.   Everyone can't say that we have our families in our homes right now. All our children Our siblings  and if we are lucky, our parents.   So my foyer tree, the first thing people see when they enter our homes are imperfect.  But our family tree, and our family ro...

It's December and in spite of my best efforts to keep the school year going through winter break, by daughter had gone on strike and so we are done for the first half of the year.  I can thank my son who is home for winter break helped her make that decision. So this is where we are as of right now: College boy.  I've taken to calling him great-big Neanderthal Man.  He has changed.  He seems to be creating distance between himself and his dad.  This makes his dad sad.  I think it's his way of expressing his manhood, but it is still hard for his dad. His relationship with me is fine.  I think he's nicer to me actually.  I can question him about school and such, but when dad chimes in, he shuts down.   Anyway, he did good enough to keep his scholarships.  I am glad with that for first semester.  His dad wants more...  Maybe that's the problem. ... Or maybe his dad should stop "touching him

I can't seem to get off this subject... of the Connecticut school shootings.  So since my heart is stuck there, I thought I would engage you all to think, think, think.. about ways that schools might be made safer. Mine is in this video. (Looking at the video is hard... there is so much pain in my face... but still, it does not compare.) What is your idea?  What do you think we need to do to make schools safer? FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE ahermitt.com

I can give you a laundry list of reasons that I homeschooled. My daughter was being labeled as unteachable, and hyperactive.  My daughter began having night terrors and accidents.  My son had become sullen and withdrawn and while previous schools called him gifted, the one he was in did not.  My son was being bullied.  There were oodles and oodles of issues over just a few short years that were clearly affecting my children.  They were in the first and third grade.   No one so young should be having a hard time in school.  With all of these things going on, I was counseled by other mothers

At the Alamo, 11/1999 Most people who know me in real life would say that I am a "strong person".  I hate that phrase.  Probably because it is not true.  I am more of a 'stiff upper lip' type of person, able to hide my emotions, especially when and I am distraught.  I am not strong at all.  I am sensitive, and repressed. With that said, I am just so mad right now.  I am mad and I am sad. The connecticut school shootings are killing me.  I am over here ugly-crying, brooding, sobbing, and just overall ticked off.  I have so much to say, and can barely phrase my emotions today. I managed to squeeze out abbreviated versions of how I was feeling at Examiner.com today, but there is soooo much more in me that I need to get out. Will mental health professionals in the school prevent future school shootings? Media unfairly pointing to the fact that Adam Lanza was homeschooled I looked at an old family photo of my family taken when my son was in...

I am still in shock over the Connecticut school shootings on Friday. When it first popped up on the news, I actually remember trying to ignore, it, but the that didn't last long.  This news was going to grab my heart and infect my physche.  I was about to be drawn in and transported to a place I did not want to go. I was going to witness and internalize horror, and disbelief along with the rest of the country.  I was going to internalize this and find myself tearing up every 15 minutes, unable to speak.  I was going to seek out my almost grown children, hoping to get same hugs they freely gave at 6 or 7 years old.  They tried, but I knew they could not hug out the pain of a mother in mourning for another, and another, and another. As the details emerge, and the names of the victims are released, I feel like I have reached a point of complete saturation. I can't hear another word. I can't see another picture. My faucet won't turn off. My heart won't stop hurt...