After 2.5 years of being unemployed – over 600 job applications submitted, a handful of ‘final interviews’ my husband finally got a job and starts work tomorrow!! Praise God!!

What a long road of faith this has been.  We are so blessed to have fared it all as well as we did.  God used my skills to provide for our household – without lack – during this entire time.  Everything was paid, we had food and clothes to wear!!

It was not always easy – there were times that the house payment was due in 2 or 3 days and we had no clue where the money was going to come from.  I just had faith it would and kept working.  Then out of the blue – a new client would sign up and it would be almost to the penny what we needed to make the mortgage!!  This happened at least 3 times that it got that close.  Our God provides.

Just like 2.5 years ago when my husband came home full time after losing his job; and we then chose to pull the children out of private school and go back to homeschooling (although last year we put them back in the private school)- and all the changes that came along with that.  We’re back full circle to more changes.

Funny how you get used to things over time.  So hubby going back to work will take some getting used to.  He stepped up and helped out tremendously around the house as my work had me busy 12-14 hour days (thus the reason for my lack of blogging)!!  Now there will be another shift in our daily routine.  A welcome shift – but a shift nonetheless.

So I drafted a new daily routine – in part, to accommodate the return to homeschooling.  Yes, we’re homeschooling once again; but for different financial reasons….

After my husband lost his job, we paid off all our bills except our mortgage.  We also did not put the children back into private school at the start of the next school year – we were trying to be frugal with our money.  We also learned some very hard lessons after having acquired all that debt years ago – and we liked not having all those payments every month.  Our mortgage payment is big enough!

So even though we could technically afford to send the children to school – we do not have the money to pay for the whole year up front; and the thought of that monthly payment has me remembering our previous struggles in paying the bills.  We decided that we do not want to have monthly payments for school.  We intend to live within our means:  which for us means, what we have cash right now to pay for – not how much payment we can afford.

Even though my hubby now has a job (again – thank you Lord!!!) it does not pay nearly what he used to make and not near enough to pay all our living expenses with our current mortgage and utilities, etc…  So I will continue to work, hubby will work and together we will homeschool the children.  I work from home, so my schedule is flexible and I do have a Team who works for me too.

I’m starting my new routine tomorrow, on hubby’s first day – so I can just make changes and adjustments now and get used to them.  We won’t start the homeschooling until after Labor Day.  Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives…. I’m ready.

Well, if homeschool graduates are anything like the daughter of our friends Tim and Sondra Wollbrinck, they will start their own business!

So let me back up a bit…. for a long time now, I’ve been on a local homeschool support group’s yahoo email list.  I’m busy, and don’t often (ok, like never) participate in this quiet little group.  But today, an email arrived in my inbox and I recognized my friend’s email address.  So that piqued my interest.

The email was from their daughter, Samantha, and mentioned something about ‘liking’ their Facebook page to learn when more books are added.  I had no clue what she was talking about, but read her signature and saw the name of what looked like a business.

I entered the name in Google, and the Facebook page popped up.  I visited the page and it looked like a brick and mortar business – complete with business hours and a phone number!  Ha!

So I called, Samantha answered and I learn that this homeschool graduate is now a full-fledged business owner!  I love it!!

She sells used books, homeschool books via consignment, candles soaps and more!

In this economy, with jobs scarce – I love that she took initiative to make her own way and be her own boss.  Not easy work by any stretch, but very admirable.

So check out Chapters, Books & More on Facebook; and if you’re ever in the Union, Missouri area – stop in the store and check it out.  I know I will!

We’ve been officially done with homeschool for the year for about two weeks; however, as you can tell by my lack of blog posts – life has been a bit busy.

While our homeschooling year went fabulously well – I’m looking forward to a break for the summer.

We’ve been homeschooling since 1998; and during that time have tried numerous curriculum and homeschool styles of learning to find what works for us. We have found it!! Believe me – when you find what works for your family, you’ll know it and homeschool life goes much smoother.

How was your homeschool year?

Do you school year-round, or take some time off in the summer?