Yesterday was our first full homeschool day together and, like most fresh starts, it was great! (Talk to me a few months in when the shininess has worn off.) But yesterday? So good.

Why? Let’s chat about it.

First, we’re all back to early wake-ups. Sure, Kaitlyn comes downstairs and immediately becomes a lump on the couch for at least 15 minutes, but that’s when Hailey is eating her egg on a bagel and watching World Watch anyway, so it works. I love when we’re all up and going on the early side because it feels like there’s just more room in the day.

Secondly, MORNING TIME!

Gosh. In 20 years when I reflect on our homeschool years, morning time will certainly be one of the things I remember with such tender joy.

Our morning time isn’t super structured. I give the start time (8:30 currently), and the girls are required to have eaten, gotten dressed, brushed their teeth, and washed their faces for the day. From there, our topics shift day to day. I think switching things up keeps it fun and fresh for all of us.

Sometimes it’s academic, but focused on topics we all enjoy, like our current Medieval History, composer study, or artist study. Sometimes it’s what I’ll call “life studies,” where we discuss… well, life stuff. That could be anything from a devotional to current events, real-life challenges, relationships, or practical life skills.

Yesterday started with a girl chat about middle school and high school, being that they will be at co-op two days a week now. We discussed friendships, pressures, and how to handle some of the awkward or difficult situations that might come up—from helping a girl who started her period and didn’t realize it, to reacting kindly if a boy’s voice cracks in the middle of a presentation, to what to do when you’re on the receiving end of gossip and how to shut it down. We put together back-to-school teen girl emergency kits for them both to keep in their bags in case they—or a friend—need something.

Then we moved on to our current book study, How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teenage Girls. *This is one I’m glad I’m reading to them because I don’t love all the language and scenarios in the book, but it’s easy enough for me to leave snippets out. The overall content and guidance are solid.

Yesterday’s topic was all about how to give and receive a sincere apology. We usually include some role-playing scenarios, which are fun and almost always result in some good laughs. David actually came stomping up the stairs during one of the pretend scenes because apparently it was a little too real and life-like so was coming to shut it down🤣

Our next life skills study is going to be on habits. I’m excited about this one!

From there, I set Kaitlyn up with math and combed through all of Hailey’s assignments with her. I can see her growing so much in her organization and time-management skills. It’s really neat to watch the shift happening when I’m still here to guide her, but she’s increasingly capable of managing so much on her own.

We worked through the rest of our subjects: reading with Kaitlyn, typing, biology, Hailey’s math with David, a quick golf cart errand with a cute tagalong, and then reconvened for lunch, all feeling pretty good about our productive morning.

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David and I headed off to work out while Hailey dug into some piano and reading, and Kaitlyn schemed up a way to earn a 60-minute screen-time token.

Remember those? They still work as excellent motivation for her because she is definitely more motivated by screen time than just about anything else. She likes to play games on her iPad, like Block Blast, or watch Mark Rober or whatever teeny-bopper show she’s into at the moment.

She proposed reading a chapter of her assigned book, cleaning her room, and taking Finley on a walk. I accepted her terms.

In the afternoon, the girls hopped on their bikes to find friends to play with. David and I talked through business ideas (we always have about 10 ideas in development it seems, ha) and marveled at how much there is to learn and experiment with right now. And I sat down feeling motivated to write this post.

I guess I’m just riding the high of a good day, feeling inspired and excited.

Not because every day looks like this. It definitely doesn’t. There are messy days, frustrating days, days when plans completely fall apart, and plenty of things about our life that we’re still trying to figure out.

But sometimes I look around and realize that choices we made years ago (choices I felt incredibly nervous about at the time) are beginning to bear fruit in ways we get to enjoy today. Some of those choices came with tradeoffs. We’ve said no to things, changed course, questioned ourselves, and made decisions that didn’t always make sense to everyone else. It certainly hasn’t been a straight line.

But that realization fires me up in such a fun way.

Because so much of the life we’re living now didn’t happen accidentally. It started with asking questions. What do we want our days to feel like? What matters most to us? What are we willing to do differently? What are we willing to work toward, even if it feels uncertain or unconventional at first?

Then came small decisions. And work. And changing our minds sometimes. And trying things that didn’t work. And adjusting as we went.

I don’t think there’s one version of a “dream life.” Mine probably looks completely different from yours. Maybe your dream has nothing to do with homeschooling or working from home or any of the things that make up our particular days.

But I do believe there’s tremendous value in deciding what we want our lives to look like instead of simply accepting the default.

Most of us can’t change everything overnight, but we can ask the question. We can make one move or one new choice. We can start a fresh habit or routine. We can start building toward something. And then, every once in a while, you might find yourself sitting in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday afternoon and realize: Oh man! This is some of the fruit.

And that’s a pretty fun feeling. It wasn’t that we accomplished anything extraordinary yesterday. The day just felt like the pieces of life we value all got to show up at the same time.

Ok, I’m curious… What would you love for an ordinary Tuesday in your life to look like a few years from now? Do you have a dream you’re working towards? Are you currently enjoying some “fruit” on decisions and work you you sowed in years prior?

(and did I mention the double rainbow that emerged after a crazy afternoon popup storm yesterday, too?) Icing on the cake!