Share Four Somethings April 2022

Friends! Welcome back to another month of Share Four Somethings, hosted by my friend and fellow podcaster Heather Gerwing. I confess, I’ve struggled a bit with the two new categories for 2022, Something Braved and Something Achieved, but I think I’m beginning to settle into them. At first, they felt like big categories–like whatever I wrote about needed to be weighty and important (after all, brave and achieve are powerful words), but the more I ruminated on them, the more it hit home to me that we can be brave and achieve in small ways, too. What matters most about both of these categories is that we find something to personally celebrate in them. So let’s celebrate!

Something Loved

In our new house, there’s a room we’ve been calling “the middle room.” It’s between the living room and the dining room, and it’s connected to my library/office. Its intended purpose is a bit of a mystery. For the past four months, it’s been furnished with the piano and a bookshelf full of my cookbooks, as well as a small, handmade antique desk I picked up at a thrift shop for H. My rocking chair from when the girls were babies, which is basically an overstuffed club chair with rockers, we stuck in one corner for lack of anywhere else to put it, and it not only felt like a misfit piece of furniture, it quickly became a “hot spot,” collecting items the kids used and discarded during the day, like books and toys and art supplies. No one could even sit on it. Because I didn’t want the rockers to roll over LEGOs or beads and gouge the parquet floor, I’d stuck a boring 3 x 5 navy blue indoor/outdoor rug beneath it, which did nothing for the room’s aesthetic. Finally, though, I’d had enough. Inspired by an Instagram post, I went thrifting for a pretty cabinet in which to put part of my yarn stash, figuring it would add color and texture to the room. Then, I ordered an old-fashioned round braided rag rug to replace the boring navy one. A trip to HomeGoods netted me a cozy new cotton slub throw and an embroidered toss pillow. I hijacked the IKEA tea table from my office and placed it next to the chair with a hand-crocheted lace doily made by my great-grandma and a stack of craft magazines–Taproot, Vogue Knitting, By Hand–on top. Concerned about my yarn’s exposure to afternoon UV light flooding the room, I ordered a pair of (again, old-fashioned) embroidered polyester sheers and a vintage-y curtain rod to hang them from. The final touch was a tufted round ottoman to rest my feet on. I hung a few favorite pictures and placed some stacks of books and knickknacks just so. And just like that, the cluttery, purposeless “middle room” became my favorite place to read or knit or sip a cup of something hot.

Something Gleaned

As a lover of beautiful and well-crafted words, I love word art, but I also know that in a home, too much of it can be–well, too much. But as I was thrifting (the same weekend I thrifted my yarn cabinet), I happened upon a framed quote by Laura Ingalls Wilder that I’m not sure I remember reading before:

It’s the simple things of life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest, and living close to nature.

It so perfectly encapsulates my vision for our family life that I of course snapped it up, and it now has pride of place in that same “middle room,” on top of the piano.

Something Braved

In leaving Memphis, I left behind every face-to-face homeschooling connection we had. Like the MidSouth, West Michigan has a sizeable homeschooling population, and I was hoping to find at least a moms’ group for myself similar to the one I belonged to in Tennessee, a Charlotte Mason-centered group that meets monthly to read and discuss one of Charlotte Mason’s six volumes or another CM-related book. For several years, that group of loving and encouraging women was a source of inspiration and motivation for me as I sought to grow as a homeschooling mom. But all my searching yielded nothing. After many sessions of googling and searching social media, I came to the truth: if I wanted a local, in-person, Charlotte Mason-based group for moms, I would have to start one. So I did. I posted inquiries in some of the larger, Grand Rapids-based general homeschooling groups and received a handful of responses. Bolstered, I set up a Facebook group, sent out a survey to collect information on what the other moms were interested in, and then scheduled a first meeting. I then posted a link to the group in all those same general groups, and suddenly, my group swelled to 67 people. The first meeting is next week, and while I only expect a handful of those 67 people to show, I know that a handful is really all you need. I have both high and humble hopes for a little homeschooling community we can all call our own.

Something Achieved

After a long hiatus due to moves and travels and COVID and other obstacles, The Relatable Homeschoolers has finally kicked off a third season of the podcast. We have episodes already out and still to release on scheduling and rhythm, scaffolding your marriage while homeschooling, using games in your homeschool, homeschooling on-the-go, our favorite homeschooling tools, and more. Annie, Heather, and I all agree it feels good to be back doing this thing we love. Our heart is to serve other homeschooling families with encouragement and support for making your homeschool uniquely yours. If you’re looking for that kind of encouragement and support, or if you’re simply curious about homeschooling, I invite you to join us!

That’s it for Share Four Somethings this month, friends! See you at the end of May and, in the meantime, drop a comment telling me your own Something Loved, Something Gleaned, Something Braved, Something Achieved, or blog about them and join Heather’s link-up. Blessings to you!