Monthly Musings ~ August 2023

I am linking up today with Patty and Holly for Monthly Musings.  Even though I have college students now, these memories are still fresh of the typical back to school.

I have 2 daughters. The oldest was homeschooled from Kindergarten through senior year, except for 2 years when she went to school while living in Bogota', Colombia in South America.  My youngest was homeschooled from Kindergarten through 9th grade, except for 1 year of school in Bogota' (she stayed home the 2nd year with me).  She entered traditional public school when we moved back to the states for 9th grade-12th grade.  Ironically, her 11th grade year was spent at home due to the pandemic.

1.  Because of homeschooling, our back to school shopping was for school supplies, not really clothes.  We usually bought any new supplies during tax free weekend.  Here are the girls when they were a part of homeschool co-op that met once a week.

2.  As a homeschool mom, I would spend a lot of time organizing.  Some years, I tried to adapt different systems to make it work for the girls.  I would purchase curriculum in the spring after usually going to a homeschool fair.  I would try to re-group usually on the weekends to make sure we were good to go on Monday mornings.

3.  I don't do a ton of true meal prep, but I try to have some cooked meats in the freezer.  I do try to meal plan, but it comes and goes &  I usually just meal plan for a week at a time.

4.  Our back to school tradition was taking pictures and trying to have a special dinner that night, but nothing over the top.  I would just let the girls choose what to eat or where to go out to eat.

5.  A fall routine is always nice and I would say within 2 weeks, we would be set in new routines.  I will be settling into a new routine in a few weeks when my daughter goes back to college.  It has been so nice having her home for the summer!

6.  I didn't pack a lot of lunchboxes, but when I did, it was full of mostly packaged foods, like protein bars, chips and gummies.  Just being real!

7.  We didn't have a lot of days where we had to be out the door for most of our school days.  The girls always went to a homeschool co-op class of some sort, but it wasn't too much of a struggle one day or two days a week.  When they went to school in Bogota', they had to be ready to catch a ruta (the local school bus) by 6:15am.  Needless to say, that was early and they went to bed around 8pm to wake up early.

Above is a picture of the bus that would come every morning and afternoon.  We lived on the 16th floor of an apartment building.  I would walk them down the first day, but then they did it on their own after that!  I really do need to blog about other aspects of living in Bogota soon!

2015

8.  I don't own an instant pot, but am definitely a fan of the slow cooker!  I have lots of slow cooker recipes on my Pinterest.

9.  The girls rode a bus when in school in South America, but I would drive them to any activities when they were homeschooled and Brook drove herself to school her senior yearof high school.  I enjoyed the time with her driving her to and from school during her 9th/10th grade years.

10.  School starts here before Labor Day, but as I mentioned yesterday, Brook's college doesn't begin until the week after Labor Day.   Here she is on her first day of kindergarten.  Mercy, I miss these days.  

As one of our guards in our apartment buidling would say to us, Happy Day!