Elena 
The Changing Homeschool Landscape
Emphasis mine!!
Homeschooling is no longer mostly conservative Christians who home-educate for primarily religious education or out of moral concerns. All kinds of families–traditional and single-parent, religious and agnostic– are now interested in homeschooling. They are seeking out home schooling for reasons primarily regarding concerns over quality of education in the public school system, but also sometimes due to bullying, special needs, family schedule, or child-specific academic problems.
Even Christian families are doing so out of quality-of-education concerns as much as or more so than religious or moral issues.
In addition, I think the largest difference in Christian circles, at least, is that today’s homeschooling moms are actually second-generation home schoolers. We who were the home schooled children of the 1980′s now have school-aged children of our own. This is true for both my husband and myself, home schooled at various points in our childhoods. We, along with our other Second Gen peers, don’t feel a need for the “How to Get Started” seminars, or the “Help! I’m feeling overwhelmed” groups. Instead, we just started curriculum hunting when our oldest was a baby. Having a realistic idea of what homeschooling requires of our family and our schedule, we now just need the “stuff” not the “how”.
The end of the honeymoon for Pope Francis!
I was not the only one who said that the secular progressive infatuation with Pope Francis would be short lived.
Grasping at straws they took his “who am I to judge” comment out of context, pumped it up and rode it home to a Time magazine POY cover. They smiled and salivated over his washing the feet of prisoners–and one of them was a Muslim woman!!! Todd Unctuous and his crowd wanted desperately to believe that the new pope was one of them–a “deeply concerned” liberal who cared only for the poor, the women and the poor persecuted homosexuals.
They are now waking up to the stunning realization that errrm… The Pope is Catholic.
Duh!!
Matt Walsh– Dude, it’s time to man up!!
It went from courting, to dating, to hanging out. Sometimes even hanging out reeks of too much commitment, in which case ‘talking’ can be used. And if talking sounds too serious, maybe we’ll start hearing ‘vicinitizing.’ That’s a word I just made up, and it means that you and your female friend are often in the same vicinity, but it doesn’t get all intense by insinuating that you’re actually in that general location together on purpose.When did men become so afraid to make a commitment, to take the lead, to say what they want, to make long term plans, to set goals, to pursue, to talk about the future?We are devolving into primates, losing the ability to even discuss our own behavior using words and sentences. The average single American man is now relegated to grunts and shrugs and ‘whatevers’ and ‘you knows’ when pressed to have a conversation about his dating habits. Or his vicinity habits. Or his whatever habits, because whatever, you know?
Mom, put on that Swim suit!! Yes! I have been so guilty of staying out of the water out of vanity for too long! In fact, until last year, my older kids didn’t even know that I could swim. I’m determined to be there for Rosie, from now on.
I refuse to miss my children’s high-pitched, pool-induced giggles because of my insecurities.I refuse to let other women’s judging eyes at the pool prevent me from exposing their eyes to the wonder the sun glittering on the water.I refuse to let my self-image influence my children’sI refuse to sacrifice memories with my children because of a soft tummy. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about me, it’s about my kids.
The Five types of Yard Sales an excerpt:
5) The Pitty-PatThis is the mother of all yard sales (or estate sales). Good stuff is plentiful, and priced to move. I’ve come across a few sales like this in my life…and only a few so far. You know it when you walk into one. Either there is just nice, quality stuff everywhere that meets the eye – with looooow prices – or there are enclaves of nice stuff if you poke around in corners.
One such sale was the “shopaholic’s” – the sale that I’ve written about in my piece for AuctionBytes, “Estate Sales I’ve Known and Loved.”
There was a whole roomful of giant life-sized girls’ dolls priced at $10 each. There were four jam-packed doll houses, full of quality antique dollhouse furniture priced at $45 each. Probably worth $400-$500 with all the stuff inside. (Wish I could go back in time and buy one of them. At the time, I was running out of hands to hold things with, and too lazy to go back).
Another was an open-house sale I went to recently. The whole place was decorated like something out of Better Home and Gardens…or, maybe more like Under the Tuscan Sun marble, chandeliers, white and off-white, Ballard Designs catalog-esque decor. I got a beautiful ornate off-white carved mirror for $20. And the nice proprietress even plied me with free toy cars that her son had outgrown
Finally a lovely post on Toward’s Living the Liturgical Year!
We are by nature a rhythmic people.
We thrive when life is in rhythm and we chafe when everything is out of sync. Living a life of liturgy is living the rhythm of God in company with the whole Church. There’s something very nurturing about a home where the liturgy underpins the daily round, the weekly worship, and the celebrations of the year.