New posts over at my new blog....

Check it out:

Homeschooling on the Decline?

The Current Financial Crisis

Cooking School

This will make you smile

Must Homeschooled Success Equal Homeschooled Grandchildren?

Come on over!

I'm Moving....Finally!

After lots of tweaking, the blog connected to my new site is mostly ready and I've begun posting on it. If you're subscribed via a reader or Feedburner, I will try my best to switch you over. We do have RSS set up over there, and other subscription options will appear soon. Thanks for your patience. :)

Busting Myths or Overgeneralizing?

My m-i-l gave me a copy of this Chicago Tribune article about raising a child with Down syndrome.

I'm kind of torn here, because I agree with both the moms who say their children are a joy and those who say making Down syndrome look like butterflies and sunshine could mislead people. The bottom line is that while having a child with Ds is both good and difficult, it's not up to us to decide whether a fetus with Down syndrome should live. God has already given that child life. He made the decision...it's not ours.

I hope all parents of unborn children with Ds are being told that there are parents who will adopt their child if they can't handle him or her. One agency that does that is CHASK.

New Carnival of Homeschooling

This week's carnival is hosted by Susan over at Corn and Oil, a blog based in my home state of Illinois. Do stop by and check out the wide array of posts she's assembled there!

Some of You Will Recognize Yourselves Here....

Melissa tagged me with a cool meme. Here’s how it works: If you recognize yourself here, consider yourself tagged!

1) I’m a mom and grandma who loves caring for my family and my home. Sometimes I also help my husband with his business. Oh, and I love my garden!

2) Barb and I only live about an hour apart but we haven’t met in person yet. I homeschool my teen daughter and three adorable sons.

3) I’m a Canadian redhead who just added two adorable children to my family through adoption, which now makes me a mom of six!

4) Listening to Charlie Sykes, organic food, the upcoming election and becoming a grandmother for the first time are some of the things on my mind these days.

5) We try to fit homeschooling in between recovering from our recent move to Florida and avoiding the alligators that are our new neighbors.

6) I have one foot on either side of the Cheddar Curtain (the WI/IL border) these days, and am busy working hard for the Lord while keeping up with my teen girls, one of whom has Down syndrome.

A Down Syndrome Pregnancy in the Spotlight

What Sarah Palin went through in her pregnancy with her son Trig was not easy. Being in the spotlight as the governor of Alaska, she had to work hard to keep her pregnancy and the baby's subsequent diagnosis out of the news until she and her family were ready for what might happen once the situation became public.

Whether or not we know about our baby's diagnosis before birth (I didn't know until my son was a day old), parents of babies with birth defects have to make a lot of hard decisions about how and when to tell people, how to accept the changes in their lives and how to move on. This article goes into detail about how Sarah Palin and her family dealt with her pregnancy and Trig's birth. Many of us can relate to it, I think.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is Up!

Despite some server problems necessitating a new location than what was originally planned, this week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up and running. Get your weekly homeschooling jumpstart here.

Teaching Traditional Subjects, Homeschool Worries and More

The October issue of "The Imperfect Homeschooler" newsletter went out this morning. It includes information about teaching traditional subjects and why homeschoolers shouldn't worry about homeschooling for the long run, plus links to sites that offer free great literature in your emailbox and a fun computer game to keep the kids busy for a while, among other things.

As always, we have the latest entry in the "What Our Kids Are Missing Out On Dept." as well. You can see the entire issue here. If you'd like your own free copy each month, go here.