Author Archives: Barbara Frank

Our New Site, New eBooks and No More Newsletter

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Now that I’m done homeschooling my kids, I’m finding it harder to come up with homeschool book and article ideas. But I want to keep encouraging those of you who homeschool your children. So here’s what I’m going to do:

First, I’ve decided to end “The Imperfect Homeschooler” newsletter. It’s been a labor of love for the last seven years, but it’s time for me to move on. That said, I’ll continue to share links to wonderful online educational helps and freebies, as well as the “What Our Kids are Missing Out On Dept.” and an occasional article by me, via weekly updates (the first one just went up on Wednesday) on our new site, “Thriving in the 21st Century.”

After all, why do you homeschool? To prepare your children to thrive in the future, right?  So you need the best resources and information you can find, and I plan to offer them to you every week.

You can subscribe to my weekly updates by using the RSS link at the bottom of the main page (subscribe-by-email links will be available on the right side of the page shortly). But current subscriptions to “The Imperfect Homeschooler” newsletter will no longer be active, so if you’d like to keep receiving homeschool encouragement and information from me, please subscribe on the new site.

Second, we’ve rounded up hundreds of articles and blog posts I’ve written over the years and we’re assembling many of them into a series of four eBooks collectively entitled “The Stages of Homeschooling”:

The Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings

The Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey

The Stages of Homeschooling: Letting Go

The Stages of Homeschooling: The Empty Nest

These upcoming eBooks will be available at Amazon.com and BN.com (Barnes & Noble). I think you’ll like them, and I hope you’ll learn a lot from them, too. Keep an eye on this blog for news of their arrival.

Finally, for those who are looking for personalized encouragement, I’m now doing homeschool consulting via phone (U.S. only) and email. Click here to learn more.

I want to thank all of you who have taken time over the years to write to me and share your thoughts and concerns. It was great to hear from you! I hope I’ve demonstrated to you that it’s been a joy to live the homeschooling life. I wish you all the best as you teach your children.

God bless you,

Barbara Frank

The Downsizing Chronicles: Redecorating

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A friend visited our new home today and had a lot of suggestions for how we could update it. I appreciate her input but I probably won’t take most of it to heart.

One of the things I decided over the course of our past four years as renters is that I spent far too much time thinking about making changes to our previous homes and then, eventually, making those changes. Yes, it’s fun, but it sure is time-consuming, and I just don’t want to spend that kind of time on a house anymore. I’ve decided I will appreciate the house as it is, and not spend too much time obsessing over changes. Yes, there will be changes, I’m sure, but I’m just not willing to put a lot of time into thinking, planning and executing them.

I didn’t make this decision on purpose. I think it’s a byproduct of living in a rental house after 25 years as a homeowner and enjoying the freedom of looking at ugly carpeting and thinking, “If this was my house, I’d replace that carpet, but since it’s not, I don’t care,” and then going on to do whatever it is I wanted to do for fun because I finally had the time. There’s a certain freedom in renting that I really enjoyed, and I guess subconsciously I’m trying to retain some of that freedom even though we just became homeowners again.

Another thought: we completely remodeled our first house, and bought our second house new and then completely decorated it. Maybe I just got burned out on all that decorating and now I don’t care as much? Who knows? What I do know is that I appreciate our latest house despite its dated wallpaper borders and various-shades-of-80s-beige walls, and that is very liberating.

How about you? Are you at this stage yet? Or would you agree with my friend that the box light fixture in the kitchen should be replaced with can lighting, and the basement walls should be painted a color other than white?  🙂

The Downsizing Chronicles: Living Small

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The first time our daughter drove past the home we just bought, she said, “It’s so small!” I responded, “That’s what you’re going to hear me say every month when I open the electric bill.”  🙂

That was one of our goals. We spent so much money over the years heating and cooling our homes, and we were sick of it. Money is much tighter now than it used to be (at least for us), so who wants to give so much to the utility companies? Not us.

There are other advantages to having a small home. There are fewer rooms to clean. The property taxes are lower than most. (Heck, the price of the home was lower than most.) And living small forced us to give up a lot of furniture, so we kept only our favorite pieces and are enjoying them more.

That said, it’s a bit cozier around here than in our previous homes. Sometimes we bump into each other in the kitchen or the hall. We’re all sharing the same shower (not at the same time, of course!) And since I’m a cook-from-scratch person most of the time, the kitchen cabinets are packed tight with pans, small appliances and other must-have-to-make-dinner items.

It’s only been a month, but so far we like it. And on the days I get frustrated with the lack of space, I figure I’ll just pull out the electric bills and re-examine them. That should help!

The Downsizing Chronicles: Getting Rid of the Good Stuff

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Over our previous moves, we got rid of a lot of stuff. What remained could be grouped into three categories:

Our Favorite Homeschooling Books

Our Favorite Toys

Our Favorite Mementos

Now, since we finished homeschooling our 18-year-old in June, you might be wondering why I kept so many homeschooling books. Well, for the same reason I wanted to keep the toys: for the grandchildren I may get someday.

Yep, I know it’s silly, but I just couldn’t let go of those things. Never mind that I don’t know if my grandchildren will be homeschooled. How can you get rid of Saxon 54? Or the Miller family series of Amish stories? Or the Holling Clancy Holling books?

Did I mention that books are heavy and take up lots of boxes?

Then there are the toys. For instance, every time I looked at the Little Tykes kitchen set, I remembered my eldest two children (then ages 3 and 2) excitedly watching the UPS man as he delivered the enormous box that contained their new kitchen set, which I had paid for with Huggies points. (Do they still have those?) How could I get rid of that?

As for the mementos, I find that I lose my memories unless I find items to trigger them. So it’s hard for me to give up the items because I’ll lose the memories. That explains why I kept little fuzzy sleepers and my kids’ favorite dolls and my son’s Sesame Street metal car collection (dang, those things are heavy!)

But we no longer have room for most of these treasures. And when I think about it, why should they sit in boxes and plastic containers when other children (children who exist right this moment, as opposed to my someday-grandchildren) could be getting use out of them?

That’s why we’ve been giving things away, and selling big things on Craig’s List, and just plain clearing most of it out. It is not easy. But I think it’s the right thing to do.

(Full disclosure: I didn’t get rid of all our best homeschooling books. I’m keeping the very best on our shelves, and that includes the Saxon 54, the Millers and the HCH books. But I’ve decided I’m not keeping books in boxes anymore. So I’m keeping what I can fit on the bookshelves, and the rest have to go!)

By the way, which of your homeschooling books are your favorites, the ones you’ll never let go of?

The Downsizing Chronicles: Pitching What Won’t Fit

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Our new home has just over 1,000 square feet upstairs plus a basement. Our last rental home had over 2,000 square feet upstairs plus a basement. You see the problem here.

I keep thinking it’s like trying to fit a size 12 foot in a size 9 shoe. Despite all the purging we did over the last two moves, we have to get rid of more stuff in order to fit four people and their stuff in this house.

I decided not to let anything in the house that isn’t going to stay here. So you can imagine what the garage looks like.

Someone suggested that had I spent more time over the last 30 years getting rid of stuff instead of keeping it, I would be better off.

I thought about that for a while. At first, it sounded right. But then I realized that while I did go through things at times, I was never forced to do a major purge because we lived in a big house that allowed me to store things instead of getting rid of them. Also (and most importantly), I was so busy raising and homeschooling four kids that I never had time to do a major purge.

And that’s ok, because I spent the time I could have spent going through stuff doing more important things, like explaining algebra, playing games, and reading to my kids. Now that they’re grown, I have more time to go through everything. So while going through all this stuff now isn’t a lot of fun, I’m glad I had the time with my kids when they were home.

So if you have lots of kids and lots of clutter, take heart. Someday you can take care of the clutter. But the time to take care of the kids is now.