Welcome!

Hello there, friend! Grab a tea and get cozy… here’s what we are chatting about in this little space.

Where we chat the things we need to keep close: our faith, our own learning, and how to find beauty in the ordinary.

Find it all intermingled– keeping, learning, and living– just like our life. (And yours.)

Your space to grab resources, encouragement, and ideas in your homelearning journey.

Where you’ll find stuff I love to read, use, buy, and give.

The place where I share how stories & speech communication shape the lives of children & parents alike.

Where you’ll find our family in our groove: living, learning, reading, making food…

“What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”

Greg McKeown

About Me

Get In Touch

Essential Resources

Essential Keeping

Being a mom should change you. Not erase you.

I’ll be honest; there have been times that I have no longer recognized myself. The work of Motherhood had– and still sometimes does– completely taken over, and I was forgetting what I loved.

I got lost in the grind of motherhood, instead of seeing the joy it offered me.

I couldn’t find time for me, or God, or any of the habits I used to have or the creative outlets that energized me.

All work and no play makes Momma a dull woman. And a sad one. And a cranky one.

We say we would sacrifice everything for our kids, and we do. But in the process, what message do we send them? What message do we send to our little girls that all a wife and mom does is clean and run errands and not have time to stop and enjoy even the little things? What message do we send our boys? That women are meant to be in the home and cook and clean and nothing else? And while we can learn to embrace those necessities of homemaking and still be happy— it’s important for our children to learn that our value isn’t in what we do. It is who we are…

And Whose we are.

I’m on a path to remember who I was and find who I am now– with the improvements of the heart and character that the sanctification that homemaking and motherhood is working in me. I want to be the best version of who I can be to accomplish what God wants from MY life and in the lives of the people that live under this roof with me.

We are essential, fellow momma. YOU are essential.

YOU are worth keeping, just as much as your house. Don’t get lost in your list and your laundry.

Our calling is so much higher than clean clothes.

We are the keeper of His testimonies, in our hearts, and in our homes. 💛

Check out my
Must-Read
Booklist
Listen to my
“Victory” playlist
on Amazon Music.

Essential Keeping Posts

Essential Learning

“The word school is derived from the Greek word schole, meaning ‘leisure.’ Yet our modern school system, born in the Industrial Revolution, has removed the leisure—and much of the pleasure—out of learning.”  Greg McKeown

Learning NEEDS leisure. We input input input… and our brain needs time to process and meditate and GROW and ferment what we put in there. The leisure allows the percolation of CREATIVITY, and we are thankful for the communication of it in our home and world– through music, art, speech, innovation, story and more!

A large part of my Instagram feed is about how we “schole” with our eclectic version of a literature-rich, Charlotte Mason-inspired home learning life. I would love for you to explore my posts as well as my Insta profile to check out my Home Learning highlights! (They give you more of a day-to-day!)

Essential Learning Posts

Home Learning Ideas

Home Learning Life

When I was growing up, my dad had a garden. Often, the excitement of the garden would overtake the energy of the upkeep… but I remember him inviting me into the yard as he watered, telling me what was growing here and there. He would walk me to plants, eagerly showing me teeny vegetables, making their way into the world. I obliged. My interest was more feigned than earnest— but it was one of the few times when it was just my dad and me, so I appreciated the garden as a means to an end. “The world looks like something God had just imagined for His own pleasure, doesn’t it?” Those beautiful moments, woven into hard days of sorrow and grief? The easiest ever pie: My girls will sit forever and create. My buddy? Not so much. He’s not of fan of things that require fine motor skills. It might be a combo of his age, interests, etc., but he will easily pass by things that would be both fun and helpful for the skills that work towards the gradual improvement of hand and finger coordination. Handwriting isn’t his favorite or most proficient skill, and although I totally believe in the whole “it’s a marathon, not a race” philosophy to penmanship, I would love to encourage things that aren’t writing that can actually help with it. 😂 Just another evening in the life of a 4 year old… 🥴😂 Dvorak’s New World Symphony (4th movement) was a big hit. E is breaking in our freshly designed Queen Victoria unit study/narration guide! My sister, @thestemguru, suggested getting some snap circuits to go along with our summer study about electricity. We are still finishing up a couple of subjects before officially beginning our summer schedule, but I couldn’t help but busting this circuit box out (yay for a sale)!

Free Downloads

Click here to check out our educational freebies!

Journals, Narrating Notebooks, & Print-at-home Helps

Our Current Curriculum: A Gentle Feast

Click on the picture to go to A Gentle Feast and learn more.

(I have a post coming soon on why it is such a great fit for our family.)

Essential Speaking:
Communication Classes & Coaching


Before I was a homeschool momma, I got a couple of degrees in speech, traveled nationally as a debate judge and coach, and taught collegiate communication courses.

I keep my foot in my communication background by teaching speech and debate once a week to homeschooled high schoolers in my community, and have recently started to branch out a little more online.

If you are interested in seeing what is currently being offered, feel free to click on the pictures below to learn more about course offerings and our online coaching club or drop me a question in the contact form below!

Essential Speaking

Policy Debate Enrollment Open!

Enrollment for the Policy of Persuasion class is open! Click + download the enrollment form to learn more about the class, what your student will learn, and see the schedule fall schedule.

policy-2023-enrollment-form-Download

New offering: Theatre Arts

For students who are interested in performing vs. public speaking, I am also teaching the Theater Arts class for EspritGVL during the 2023-24 year. To read more about that class and how to enroll in it, please visit us over at EspritGVL.com.

Moving on over…

In other news, I’m in the process of moving things over from another website that I’ve been using for my speech, communication, and debate resources and announcements…

If you have questions or are interested in my speech + debate class offerings in the Upstate area or online for Fall 2023, please fill out the contact form. I’ll be happy to get back to you soon!

Thanks!

Posts

Load more blog posts

Posted on

Buffalo Bill and the Wild West (free journaling sheets + learning enrichments)

There are two things that I simply have adored throughout this academic year: the concentration and literature suggestions from A Gentle Feast for learning about the 1800s… and my time sharing some of those enchanting stories with our dear co-op, EspritGVL. I’ve had the delight of teaching Language Arts for both primary (1st-2nd) and lower …

Continue reading “Buffalo Bill and the Wild West (free journaling sheets + learning enrichments)”