Decisions Made

Sometimes deciding things can be hard. Like what to eat for dinner or which fabric to use for a new apron. Or what to wear today and if I should clean the house or sew first.

But in all seriousness, we've had to make some big decisions lately.

Justin is up for promotion which is really great but it means some things will have to be decided. Justin is currently an E6/staff sergeant and he works out in the field, meaning he travels from location to location working on computers. Getting promoted means he won't be out in the field anymore. He has to go work at the National Guard state headquarters in Missouri which is in Jefferson City, the state capitol. Jeff City is 2 and a half hours away from where we currently live. The first decision we made was that we don't want to move. Not moving means Justin will either have to commute 4 hours a day or find a cheap apartment to stay in during the week. Both options would cost about the same and mean we don't have to uproot, pack, move, unpack, and get used to new surroundings. I don't know how long Justin will be working in Jeff City or where his job will lead once it's time for another promotion. I also know that he won't take up his new position until after he returns from deployment in 2013. We obviously have some time to wait but these decisions can't. Some people might wonder why we would choose to have Justin stay in the military and be away from us for so much time but we are looking way into the future. When he retires with full military benefits we will be taken care of medically & financially. This will especially be important for me as I am a homemaker, plan to continue being one even as my children grow, and because women live long then men and I'm a couple years younger then Justin, it means I will most likely out-live him.

Our last big decision we've made lately is that I'll be homeschooling Ian. He has been struggling in school quit a bit. Although somewhat better, he's still behind on reading. I feel that the school passed him on when he shouldn't have been. Not being able to read fully affects everything else in school and no one else has time to adjust things for him. He's also been having a lot of disciplinary problems. We've had a long year and a half, with the birth of Jameson and Justin being gone for half the time and the reading difficulties, it's been a stressful time. Ian acts out or has a hard time and because of that he's been labeled a bad or difficult child. I hate the thought that my child has to suffer with this label through the rest of his school years because the teachers can't or won't deal with him. I'm also not particularly impressed with the quality of the curriculum at the school or all the politics involved in everything. I was also told by a teacher that Ian was ADD/ADHD. She has no medical license to be making such a proclamation not to mention that this teacher has never liked Ian and has never given him good marks even though I know he does perfectly fine in his class. But I won’t get in to that right now.

I've wanted to homeschool for awhile but have had a hard time convincing Justin but after some recent problems he decided to give it a try. Even though he changed his mind I agreed to leave Ian in school until the end of the semester, which ended today. I've spent the last 2 months planning and preparing and scheduling and trying not to go crazy trying to plan school on such short notice. I have most everything figured out and am prepared to begin at the start of the new year. I'll be blogging about our adventures a little bit on here but mostly on http://www.harpersacademy.blogspot.com. It is a closed blog because there is a lot of personal information on it. If you’d like to read it then you'll have to let me know so I can approve and send you a invitation.

And that will conclude our decision making for now! Sometimes it's hard being a grown up!