The greatest, most stressful #OneDayHH of all time

This was my third year (2014, 2015) participating in Laura Tremaine’s One Day thing on instagram. I’m writing this at 1am, right after the Cubs won the World Series — the Cubs! They won the World Series! — and I am so tired and emotional that I can hardly string a thought together. Rockford has been a Cubs fan for more than 30 years. This was a big, stressful, amazing day.

8:06am | Breakfast

9:37am | Chess class

10:21am | Go Cubs Go

10:58am | A Quiet Moment

11:48am | Hometown Tourism

1:07pm | A Quick Bite

Lunch of champions. #tacodilesupreme #crunchytacobesttaco #OneDayHH

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2:05pm | Back to Work

3:15pm | A Very Exclusive Concert

4pm | Leg Day

6:23pm | Game Face

We are ready. #OneDayHH #gocubsgo

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7:20pm | Birthday Dinner x3

Pulled pork, Brussels sprouts, creamed corn and hush puppies. #3bdaydinner #onedayhh

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8:07pm | It Begins

This'll be the rest of my evening. #onedayhh #gocubsgo #therewillbetearseitherway

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10pm | Cake Break

11:40pm | I Literally Cannot Even

This is unbearable. #onedayhh

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12:40am | One Out Left

#onedayhh #cubs I don't have any words left

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12:48am | World Series Champions

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh #onedayhh

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Why we homeschool our children

Teacher's PetWe are neither commune-dwelling hippies nor religious fundamentalists. The public schools in our area generally fall between fine and great. We aren’t trying to completely shelter the kids from the world. And as those are — warning: sarcasm ahead — most definitely the primary reasons that people homeschool, why did we decide to go that route?

It all started in my sister-in-law’s living room. Chloe Poppins had started homeschooling her two oldest children, and I was intrigued. The kids were learning at their own pace, in their own place, and sometimes even in their pajamas. It looked like a relaxed, comfortable way to learn. I wanted to know more. I started my research with the Poppins family’s copy of “The Well-Trained Mind: a Guide to Classical Education at Home.”

“The Well-Trained Mind” was written by Jessie Wise and her daughter, Susan Wise Bauer. It’s a very thorough guide to a classical approach to education, which appealed to me, and it talks a lot about the fact that homeschooling allows you to teach to your child’s level rather than to the average intelligence of a class full of kids. If your child is a math whiz, for example, you might breeze through addition and subtraction and get straight to tackling fractions. Or maybe your child is having trouble spelling and you need to slow things down a little. Being able to take advantage of either option sounded like a terrific way to approach school.

By the time I’d finished the book, I was convinced. Rockford and I talked it over and agreed: Should we ever have children, we’d give homeschooling a shot. Poppy came along five or so years later, and her education started as soon as she was able to listen to us read to her. (Pro tip! If you’re reading to your kids and talking to them about history or politics or the way the moon influences the tides? You’re doing a little homeschooling already!)

We’ve been at this formally for about seven years now, and unless our circumstances change I’m planning to homeschool all the way through twelfth grade. Having the ability to sleep ’til 9 and then do science in our jammies is wonderful (although we can’t do that as often as we used to, due to early-morning outsourced classes), but the factor that has made and continues to make homeschooling a great fit for our family is the freedom to pick up our school and take it on the road. Rockford travels frequently for work, and we’re often able to go along with him. I think that’s gone far to help us maintain a close relationship both as a couple and as a family.

So we aren’t homeschoolers for religious or even ideological reasons. We started homeschooling because I was inspired and idealistic, and we’re still homeschooling because the freedom to travel and the ability to customize our curricula to our children mean it works beautifully for our family.

Have you ever considered homeschooling? I’m happy to try to answer any questions you have about it! Just leave ’em in the comments.

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The chain letter that finally paid off

One of my neighbors posted something on Facebook a few weeks ago that caught my eye. It was, it said, a “social experiment” in which you send one of your favorite books to someone and then, eventually, you get a bunch of books in the mail from other folks. It was a good old-fashioned chain letter, but with books.

After being disappointed time and again as a youth, I finally grew wise to the chain letter and stopped sending them along. But I’m a sucker for a good book — and sometimes even for a bad book, as evidenced by the fact that I read a tome called “Saint Dale” in its entirety. So I signed on for my neighbor’s literary Facebook experiment, sent a Graham Greene paperback off to her friend and hoped for the best. Worst-case scenario, I figured, was someone would get to read “The Quiet American.”

And then a few days later Abraham Verghese’s “Cutting for Stone” arrived. And then “Supreme Courtship” by Christopher Buckley, and then “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Truman Capote. Then we went on vacation, and when we came home Rebecca Skloot’s “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rob Sheffield’s “Love is a Mix Tape,” Lisel Mueller’s “Alive Together” and Maria Semple’s “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?” were there waiting for me. I love a good book recommendation, and it’s been delightful getting things in the mail that aren’t bills.

The moral of the story? I don’t know. Take a chance on a chain letter now and again? Have a little faith in goofy Facebook things? Regardless, I’m loving having a stack of books waiting for me to read.

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