- Homeschooling (how to home school your kids, the philosophy of, etc.)
- World History
- Nutrition
- Herbs as medicine, herbs for health
- Household Finances
- Child Safely (CPR, etc)
- Gardening
- Home management
- Cooking (I can cook, but I want to get much better)
- Guitar
- Singing
- Basic Business Principles
- Senior Project: start and run a functioning business--either "Catherine's Caramels" or meal-planning and cooking classes
We are going to budget a good chunk of money each semester for books, classes around town, possibly even a trip or two. For instance, I have a friend (incidentally she used to be my babysitter) who has 6 children and she home schools the older ones. From what I hear, her children and sweet, incredibly well-behaved, and seem to do well in the home-schooling environment. I think the best way to learn how to home school would be to fly out to their house for a week to observe, help, and ask questions. That will cost a plane ticket and maybe some time off for Doug who would have to take care of our kiddo while I'm gone. But that's the kind of thing we are willing to spend money on to do this right. Doug just graduated from seminary. We figured out that for all 6 years he was in school, we spent 20% of our income on his education (yikes!). We can definitely make this a budget item.
So! I have to start somewhere. This semester I've chosen Home Finances and Child Safety for my 2 classes. For the Home Finances course, I am taking Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at a local church. It cost $95, it is every Tuesday night for most of this semester, and get this...they feed us dinner. My friend Abby said, "That's worth the $95 right there!" But the best part is that I've suckered my friend Noel to sign up too! It feels like college again except we're bringing her 7 week old baby along. I don't remember any baby carriers at Liberty. But back to the class. The main thing is to complete the FPU course and all the assignments. Doug and I also created some assignments. I'll probably go into more detail later.
Child Safety. I've babysat (nannied, cared for?) two other children besides Bethany since she has been born, one for about 8 months, one for about 9. During those times I thought, "Man, I really wouldn't know what to do if this kid started choking on his sandwich or had a seizure. Maybe I should get certified or something." I found a Infant and Child CPR class (thank you Nicole Vidal!) which is only one evening, and also an all-day general First Aid and CPR class. Other than that, I have a list of assignments, one of which is to create a emergency fire plan for our family and (don't laugh) conduct fire drills.
As for the senior project, I reeeeeeally wanted to make and sell homemade caramels out of my apartment. I've got a kick-butt family recipe that always gets raving reviews, but (sigh) Doug did some research and you have to have an industrial-equipped kitchen for that. Oh well, I guess I just have to get Andy, my apartment manager and friend, to install a six-burner stove and other state of the art kitchen equipment into our apartment. Thus is life!
But if I can't do "Catherine's Caramels" out of my kitchen, I'm thinking of teaching meal-planning and basic cooking classes. The more I talk to women about how they run their homes, the more I hear that women (and often their husbands) are stressed about the process of getting dinner on the table. The list-making, the grocery shopping, the actually cooking...it all looks so easy on Food Network! How does Ina Garten always have heavy whipping cream and marjoram in her fridge when she needs it?! People don't realize that even good, simple cooking takes time to prepare. If you want to have spaghetti and meatballs with salad Wednesday night, you really needed to start planning for that over the weekend.
You're probably wondering who is writing the curriculum and "grading" my work and generally overseeing this whole process. Well folks, this is a self-made degree in just about every way. I'm deciding what I want to learn, I'm choosing the books and my husband and I are designing assignments and projects. No one will hand me a diploma at the end of all this, but I can tell you that if I stick to this it's going to benefit me, my family and whoever else wants to follow along for the journey. Who knows. Maybe you will decide to design a class or two for yourself to better what you're doing with your life. Or maybe a bunch of women will sigh with relief when I show them how to put a simple meal plan and grocery list together. For me, it's not about the accreditation (obviously, because there is none). It's about getting better at my job. I think everyone can relate to that.
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