The End of one Era, 

   The Beginning of a New

My time as a homeschool mom is over. I have homeschooled all of my children since Brandon was 6, since August 1993. That is a long time. But my last kid, Cade, has decided to go to highschool. He started 10th grade this year at Walhalla. 

I did not plan on homeschooling my kids. I didn't even know it was a thing when my first two were born. We always planned on sending them to school like everyone else. Then Brandon came along.  What we were not planning was to have a special needs kid. That changed a lot of things for us. Life has never been easy and we have made lots of mistakes along the way. We didn't know what we were doing as parents half the time. Or maybe most of the time. But we did the best we could with the knowledge we had at the moment. When Brandon was getting ready for first grade, he had already been kicked out of two preschools. Mostly because he wouldn't stay in the class room or he just decided he wanted to go home. Something in my gut was telling me not to send him to the public school. We had no idea what we were going to do about that but knew something would come along to give us the answer. I was driving down the road one day and was scrolling channels on the radio when I stopped on an interview with Dr. James Dobson and Raymond and Dorothy Moore. The Moore's were homeschoolers and were helping others learn about it at a time when most people did not know it was legal. That's when I knew we needed to do this. 

It has worked out great for our family. I do not think it is for everyone. I believe it is a personal choice each family has to make for themselves. I am truly grateful that it is an option. 

I do not regret one minute of having that time with my kids while they were young and growing up. It has been a blessing that we were able to do this. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to be there for them. To teach them and take them to practices and meets or games. I wouldn't change our choice for anything. 

Now I am moving into a new era. My kids are older and I am no longer homeschooling. I spent 32 years as a SAHM. Homeschooling, and being the taxi driver, and helping my husband with his endeavors. I was really concerned about the empty nest syndrome. Not that we will have an empty nest anytime soon but just not being needed as much. This is why I started a new career as a real estate agent one year ago. It has been an interesting ride. I love the flexibility and the work. I get to do something new and still have time for my family. I am really excited about this next era in my life!