New School Year Preparations

My regular readers know that we homeschool our two children.  What some may not know is that doesn't mean we stay home and fill out workbooks all day.  In fact, I try to have at least one "fun" learning day a week.  I've found my kids learn better by doing and seeing things, so we try to fit in lots of field trips and hands on experiences.  We also try to get together with another family once a week for science and history.  This allows us to do some things that really only work well in larger groups. 

And right now, I'm also preparing for next year.  Already, you ask?  Yep.  You see, next year my oldest will be in 6th grade.  In my book, that's a big deal.  That means he only has 3 years to figure things out (studying habits, test taking skills, etc) before everything he does will be under a microscope by college admissions employees.

Yes, my son is 7 years away from college, but something I've learned recently is that you need to start planning when they are in middle school.  Say, what?!?  I was surprised when I heard that too, but I can say that I've begun to live it, and it's SO true.  And for those of you that don't homeschool, this applies to you too.

I realize that not all kids will know what they "want to be when they grow up" by 6th grade.  But by 6th grade, I'm sure you know some things your child will NOT be.  For example, I know neither of my children will be athletes.  I played sports through high school and LOVED it.  My kids could care less.

So what is a parent to do with the information you have?  Help them start figuring out what they DO want to be.  That means giving them opportunities to try different things they say they are interested in.  That doesn't mean letting them try a class and then give up.  It may be they went on the one day a substitute was teaching.  I've found you need to go at least twice but maybe even a month.  When my kids asked to take karate, I told them they had to commit to a full quarter before they could decide.  At the end of the quarter they both decided the were no longer interested, but I was happy because at least they'd given it a good try.

My friends, Jenni & Jody came out with an eBook a few months ago titled 7 Easy Steps to Writing a High School Transcript.  It is full of a treasure trove of information.  To see more information or to purchase click here.  To get a summary and see the part I've done, click on this link to their blog. 

Luckily for me, I have a pretty good idea of what my son would like to pursue.  He's been telling me for years that he wants to build robots.  We don't know exactly what type of robot but we know he enjoys the mechanical, electrical, as well as programming involved in robotics.  That means I have a rough idea of what degree he will need to obtain (some form of engineering is a safe bet).

So what I've done is called 6 different colleges that offer the type of program he would be likely to pursue.  My goal with calling them was to find out what their minimum requirements were (specifically science and math since he's going into such a heavy science / math field).  And it's a good thing I called 6 of them too, because for the most part they all told me the same thing: physics and chemistry as lab sciences.  Where things differed was the math.  The first couple told me pre-calculus but a few said calculus.  So next year (6th grade), my son is going to be taking pre-algebra.  That will put him one year ahead of the schedule he needs, but that way he has an extra year if he encounters a class that he has trouble with.

I also learned that grades are important, but so are extra curriculars.  And not in the way I thought.  I've been hearing quite a few high school parents mentioning the phrase "volunteer hours for college" lately.  I learned that some colleges like to see that kids are willing to help others, but the schools I talked to were more interested in seeing that my son participated in a few (or even one) extra curricular(s) as long as he kept doing it.  They want to see a passion that he's pursuing.  That doesn't mean he can't stop something and pick up something new.  They just want a way to prove he's found what he wants to pursue because someone that really enjoys what they are doing, tends to work hard and do well.

Next year is going to be a bit of a tough one for my son.  He's going to be attending a co-op (a group class) so that he gets used to the idea of someone else being his teacher.  He's also going to be required to take on more responsibilities when it comes to making sure he gets his work done.  After all, I'd rather he fall on his face in middle school than in high school when it matters so much more.

What do I think this will accomplish?  My prayer is that it will prepare him to pursue and excel at the dream he's had for years... to build robots.

And I'll admit it, the selfish part of me wants him to build me a modern day Rosie.

Drum Roll......

Today is the last day of the Sarasota County fair which meant that bright and early this morning the kids and I were picking up their projects and prizes (aka. ribbons and cash) and helping clean out the 4H mini building.  I know all you inquiring minds what to know how they did, so here's the breakdown:

MY SON

Items submitted: 10 (canned goods, baked goods, photography, and a general craft)
Demonstrations given: 2
Participation in other activities: 1st place in consumer choices contest
Blue Ribbons: 9
Red Ribbons:3
Best in Show for a para-cord whip he made
Monetary awards received: $72


MY DAUGHTER

Items submitted: 9 (canned goods, baked goods, photography, a general craft, and creative writing)
Participation in other activities: 3rd place in consumer choices contest
Blue Ribbons: 7
Red Ribbons: 2
Best in Show for an original story she wrote
Monetary awards received: $52


And technically we aren't done yet.  In a few weeks, they are having an awards banquet where they will each be receiving a trophy for their best in show items as well as a trophy or ribbon for the consumer choices contest! 

It was a lot of work (for the kids and Mom).  And there was whining going as we were nearing the deadline to hand things in.  Yet, just like childbirth, my kids have already forgotten just how painful they thought it was at the time, and they are talking about participating again next year.  Now that we've been through the process, we have some ideas of how to handle it better next year as well as some of the other activities we may want to participate in next year.

What's first on the list for my kids for next year?  My daughter wants to sew and my son wants to compete in the whip cracking contest (maybe even with the whip that won him best in show this year).  But first, this Mama needs a little down time.

The Saga Continues

Home ownership is not for the faint of heart. 

As a Realtor, I see how hard it is to find "the home" and then get all the paperwork done before you are given the keys to your new home.  Right now, I have a client that is supposed to close on a house on Monday, but their paperwork has still not been cleared because the bank is waiting to get the appraisal report back from the appraiser (who completed the appraisal last Friday!).  To say my buyers are on pins and needles is an understatement.  Especially since they have to travel here to get to closing and they have a child in middle school that either needs to skip school or find a friend's house to stay while they are gone. 

I've seen it time and time again, no matter the stress leading up to closing day, the buyers are so excited to have a place to call their own.  Once those keys are placed in their hands, the troubles they just overcame are forgotten.  After all, they have a home that someone else can't tell them what to do (except if they live in an HOA where they restrict what you can do to the outside of the property), right?

Last fall I learned that's a bit of a fallacy.  My insurance company was able to force me to replace my roof (or else they would drop my insurance).  If I didn't have insurance on the house, my mortgage company would have forced me to pay for their policy (which cost 3X as much and only covered the structure of the house and not any of our stuff).

We closed on our house almost 3 years ago.  Since then, we have repaired or replaced:

• Pool pump
• Kitchen sink (rusting and ruining counter) and kitchen faucet (leaking)
• Roof
• Air Conditioner
• Carpet through pretty much the entire house
• Washer & Dryer
• Refrigerator
• Oven element
• "Storage Room" flooding with water when it rained heavily

And last night we had septic water start backing up into one of our showers.  We're praying it's a simple plugged pipe.  If it's not that, at a minimum we will need the septic pumped but we could also need to have our septic tank and or drain field replaced.  Add to that the fact that we have a detached pole barn that is beginning to fall apart and we've got more expenses on the horizon.

Like I said in the beginning... home ownership is not for the faint of heart.  We will get through this.  We always have.  But for those of you out there that think you'll get those keys and life will be easy after that.  Not necessarily true.  It takes work to keep the house in good shape.  It takes money (sometimes lots of it) to be able to sell your house a few years down the road and gain some equity (and that's not even guaranteed).  But it is nice being able to have a place that, for the most part, you can call your own and decorate it as you see fit.

What's Been Going On

I just realized that it's been a month since I posted a blog.  So here I am letting you know what we've been doing that's keeping us so busy:

• School for the kids.  We've had a couple field trips as well as regular school work.
• Preparing for the fair.  Not only are my kids both submitting things for the fair (food items, crafts, and even an original story), but my son completed two demonstrations a few weeks ago.  He got a blue ribbon for one and a red ribbon for the other.
• I've been busier for work lately too.  I've been showing houses multiple times a week. I also had a house close a couple weeks ago and I have another scheduled in the next two weeks.
• I'm taking a certification class for real estate.
• Hubby has been working on the house (the yard in particular) as of late.  This time of year is not nearly as hot and hard to work outside as the summer months so he's taking advantage.

Other interesting items of note:

• My son came up with a joke on his own a few months back.  His Oma and Opa were in town at the time and they told him he should submit it to a kid's magazine.  Yesterday we got a copy of the magazine with his joke in it.  For those interested, the joke is:  How does a yo-yo relax?  It unwinds.
• For years, we've had an issue with the kids cleaning their rooms.  They would clean it and then a couple days later it would be a mess again.  We had a really big cleaning push a couple weeks ago and they're still pretty clean.  Praying it continues.

What's Been Goin' On

I don't have any one particular subject to write on so I figured I'd share a little about what we've been doing lately and what's on my mind.

• I finally have a home sale that should close (maybe even this month).  It's only been 8 months since my last closing.  The only thing that could prevent it from happening is the seller not being able to get my buyer a clean and clear title or if it burns down.
• The kids have been plugging away at school and I'm definitely seeing some improvements.  They are also in the process of preparing to participate in the local county fair.
• Hubby's company was recently bought by another company but so far there haven't been any changes to his schedule or anything.
• Now that it's snow-bird season, I've been showing more houses.  Luckily the kids and I have found a bit of a rhythm so we can still get things done even on the days I'm away for a bit.  Hopefully I'll have another house sell soon as a result.
• The last week, hubby's changed his sleep schedule a little so he's awake more during the day so he can spend more time each day doing things outside. The yard is really starting to look nice (considering we have 1.7 acres that saying something).
• My son turns 11 in less than a month!  Where has the time gone?!?  Now to figure out how to celebrate on a pretty tight budget.  Suggestions are welcome.

The Right Choice?

I recently made a decision to continue in real estate.  Why was that a decision I felt the need to make?  Because I haven't sold anything since May and I had quite a few fees due (annual renewal fees for various real estate related things) in early January.  I HATE the thought of spending money not knowing when or even IF I'll make money based on that spending.

Another factor is that I homeschool my kids.  I even had one of the brokers at my old office mention it to me after I'd left their firm as a reason why I hadn't sold much.  Totally not true by the way.  I was at a real estate function at the moment he said it, on a school day.  Oh, and I was homeschooling my kids when I sold 12 houses in my first year!

Although I need to be available to help my kids with their schooling, the beauty of homeschooling is that you can be flexible to do it when you want or are able.  My kids prefer to do school later in the day.  Hubby works nights so I have to be home anyway.  And we also do school over the summer (we live in Southern Florida and it gets a bit warm, so why not enjoy the cooler weather of the winter for all the fun field trips and do the seat work in the summer when you don't want to go outside and roast).  Oddly enough, my summers are pretty slow when it comes to real estate (as opposed to the rest of the country) so it works out nicely from that perspective.

I recently had a meeting with my new broker and really felt she wants me to succeed.  She's been giving me a few leads that seem like they might pan out (she's a practicing broker which means by doing so, she's not getting the full commission = she's awesome!).

Do I know if it was the right choice?  Not yet for sure, but if the last couple days are any indication, I think something's going to happen very soon.  I've been showing houses with some level of frequency.  I have people contacting me about possibly listing their homes.  And this morning I submitted an offer on a house and may have a second to submit this afternoon.  Obviously, neither counts till it's accepted, but it means I have people seriously looking and that's a good thing.

So what am I doing about it?  Praying that I prove the naysayers wrong and that 2015 is my best year yet!  I'm also trying to organize my life a bit more which means waking up earlier to get a few extra things done each day.  It also means I may not be posting here quite as often for the next couple months in particular just because real estate "season" has hit in Florida.

I'll be back as soon as I can even if it's just to give you a quick update on how the real estate and homeschool journey are going.

Hard Work and Perseverance

My regular readers know that my son is a bit of an engineer.  He's particularly interested in robotics.  Considering his father is a programmer and made a robot when my son was only a few years old, it's not really a surprise.

What may surprise some, is that although we homeschool our son, he, at the ripe old age of 10 has been able to participate on a robotics team this year.  We have some homeschooling friends who knew that my son loves robots and programming, and put us in touch with a couple of other homeschool moms who wanted to start up a robotics team.  They needed a mentor (an engineer) so it worked out quite well that my husband is a computer engineer.

A few weeks ago, the team participated in a pre-qualification competition.  The goal was to let the teams participate in all the functions of a full competition without all the stress.  It was great, they were scored and were given pointers on how to improve for the actual qualification tournament.  Being that this was the team's first "competition" they went in with the goal being to learn the process so they didn't feel overwhelmed when it came time for the real competition.  How surprised were we when they won an award for the best research project (out of 11 teams present).  To say the team was happy was an understatement.

The team after winning the award for their presentation at the pre-qualification competition

There are 4 pieces the team is graded on.  The robot design (explain why you made the robot do X, why did you use that attachment to do it, why did you program it the way you did, etc), the research project (and an associated presentation of what you found out with your research), the robot performance (actually using the robot they designed and programmed to accomplish certain tasks), and what they call core values (team work and good sportsmanship).

Today was the qualification competition.  You go through each stage without really knowing how you were scored.  You can figure out the robot performance on your own because they assign in advance the points for each task, however you don't necessarily know how all the other teams did (unless you have someone watch all the matches - which we didn't).  So you have to go based on your gut, as well as compare how you did this time to last time.

• They came out of robot design feeling pretty good.  They were asked some detailed questions, but they were able to answer them, so they felt pretty good about that one.  
• They performed a skit which they wrote as their method of presenting their research project.  They'd made some improvements based on the recommendations from the judges at the pre-qualification and felt those changes reflected in their presentation so figured they'd score high on that one (especially since they won that category at the pre-qualification).  
• The core values is actually one of harder pieces for the team because there are 8 of them and it's often hard to get them to agree on a plan of action (they are give a task to perform and they have to work well as a team and not bicker).  Apparently this went well too, so again, they felt pretty confident.  
• The robot competition was the last thing they did for the day.  In the pre-qualification their highest score was 110.  Today they scored 185!  Not only did that end up being the highest score for the day, earning them the award in that category, it's also the highest score on the west coast of Florida so far.  There are multiple weekends of competitions just because of how many teams there are so that could get broken.

The team with today's award for the best robot performance

So what happens next since they won the robot performance portion today?  That depends on an appeal that has been lodged by the team's coach.  Although we won the robot competition, our overall score (adding up the scores for all 4 categories) was not high enough to advance the team to regionals.  We knew going in that could happen.  In fact, there are many stories of the winning robot performance team not advancing.

The issue is why we didn't score well.  What area did we score lowest?  The research project.  The same research project that won them the award at the pre-qualification (keeping in mind they won without the improvements made for this competition).  After looking at the scoring sheet from pre-qualification and the scoring sheet from the competition today, our coach feels we should have gotten a higher score than we did.  If we'd have gotten that higher score, we may have scored high enough to advance (the top 3 scoring teams out of 13 advanced).  Our scores in the other 3 categories were pretty high, so that category is definitely the culprit.

So now we wait to see what comes of the appeal.

In the mean time... our team has so much to be proud of.  They won the robotics performance piece today, and they also won the research project award at the pre-qualification.   They also handled themselves very well today.  They were very supportive of the other teams throughout the day, and after winning the robotics performance award, they handled not moving on to regionals pretty well.  They were certainly shocked (as was the coach and many of the parents) and they questioned why they didn't advance (as in wanting to know if they did something wrong), but they didn't have a bad attitude about it.  

If this is the end of the road for the team this year, they should be proud of themselves.  I think it's safe to say they had a great time learning all kinds of things about robots, teamwork, and even the medicinal benefits of herbs (what they chose as their research project).  And to see all their hard work pay off by winning two awards whether they advance or not = awesome!  Way to go team!

My son holding the award and the team robot.  I think he's happy  :-)

Late night yesterday, followed by an early and full day today = crashing HARD on the way home.