Home Sweet Simple Home

The Start of a New Year

Yesterday we started back to school. The kids were excited and so was I. The dining room table was stacked and piled with all our new books and we started our day off with a prayer asking God to bless our new school year.
We had a wonderful breakfast, followed by devotions and then we dived right into school . . . . before 9 am. Yay!
Here's Maiden starting her day with Grammar Ace . . . . nouns today.

Nice School Pictures

8:41 PM, 2007-Sep-3 .. Posted by Lynne

Amy,
I was thinking of you (and all homeschoolers) as my oldest started high school a week ago. She really likes music, She is in the marching band.
It costs $300 per student to be in the marching band. The parents are told about the cost in May, and $50 a month payments start in August. The kids can participate in fund raisers to offset their payments, and parents are told that if there is anyone for whom this is a financial impossibility, talk to the band director as there will be funds available for those in need.
The band was 6th on the east coast last year, and it is a big production. The band has a budget of $48,000 per year. There are 150 kids in the band, and most of the $48,000 is raised at the two Band Tournaments that our school sponsors. Money is raised by selling food and spirit wear at these events.
I was shocked at how much money it costs to run this organization (bus transportation to competitions, replacing uniforms as needed, etc.). It sounds like there is no county funding. It makes me wonder how much the football team costs per year to run.
So, I was thinking of you because I was thinking that homeschoolers don't have to worry about these costs. Or do they? I know in our county, homeschoolers can participate in any before/after school activity (music, sports, etc) that they want to. I am not aware of any that are in the marching band.

your school

9:16 PM, 2007-Sep-3 .. Posted by mccrjill

Your school looks like a lot of fun!
jill

Untitled Comment

11:29 AM, 2007-Sep-7 .. Posted by Lynne

Amy,
I hope you are enjoying your vacation. I have been looking at garden catalogs to order raspberry plants for a bed I have prepared. To get what I want, it is going to cost about $50 total.
My husband and I took a walk, and we came home to find a stranger in our front garden bed looking at our elderberries. It turned out to be someone who lives a few blocks away from us, an older German woman we have never met before.
She asked me what type of elderberries I had and if she could get some cuttings from them for her yard. During our conversation, I mentioned I was going to be planting raspberries, and she told me she had exactly what I want in her yard, and she will give me cuttings to root. She is also giving me a baby fig tree. My husband and I were taking an early morning walk, and we usually always take our walk at night.
What I find most amazing about this is that money is tight this month due to back to school expenses. I have been carefully recording every single expenditure, and I have been thinking of how I want to increase our church giving again next year, and trying to figure out exactly what our expenses are so I can justify to my husband increasing our giving (which we have done for the past 5 years, but we are still not at my goal of 10%).
Amy, I have just found it to be so amazing that our income has not gone up hardly at all in the last 5 years, but we have just "found" new ways to spend less and give more. This is no coincidence.