Happy Friday! I hope your week was a good one. Ours was full of ups and downs. I imagine some of you could say the same thing. David took a nap this morning and Caroline slept until almost noon so that should tell you how we’re feeling about our week. LOL!

I’ve watched a little bit of the coverage of the events surrounding the death of Queen Elizabeth. Someone mentioned it is expected that her funeral on Monday might be the most watched event ever on Earth. Interesting. I remember when Prince Charles and Princess Diana were married. At that time, it was the biggest event ever if I remember correctly. It would be interesting to analyze why we are drawn to the pageantry of the British. I think it’s obvious, but I’d be curious what other people think if you want to leave a comment. Since I have English ancestors only a few generations back on my father’s side, I’d say my interest is in my DNA. But what draws other people with no attachment to the British?

Did anyone reading this attend any of the events in person? I know I have had at least a few readers in England, Scotland, etc. in the past. I’m not certain any longer since I’ve fallen out of the habit of tracking that kind of information.

This Week’s Artwork

Today I’m featuring Ein stiller Moment by Ernst Anders. From 1878, it is oil on cloth.

The Wikipedia entry for Ernst Anders is quite short:

Ernst Anders (1845 – 1911) was a German painter.

He began his artistic education as a private student of Andreas Müller then, in 1863, enrolled at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he studied with Rudolf Wiegmann, Heinrich Mücke, Karl Ferdinand Sohn and Julius Roeting. From 1868 to 1872, he was a private student of Wilhelm Sohn. Most of his paintings were genre scenes, but he made his living doing portraits, including many of his fellow artists.

That’s it! There are several of his paintings online so I anticipate using a few more of them in the future.

Homemaking

Caroline has a birthday coming up so I made a point of ordering her gifts early just in case there are problems with who knows what in this country. They have all arrived so that was a big thing to cross off my to do list. I still need to wrap them, but that’s nothing compared to actually getting them.

It is hard to believe she is going to be 16. SIXTEEN. Didn’t I just tell everyone that I was unexpectedly pregnant after waiting and praying for so many years? I’m truly at a loss for words at times regarding how quickly it has gone, especially the past five years or so. David and I are so blessed to have her.

Homeschooling

We had some good productive days this week and others less so. I was discussing with another homeschooling mom who has multiple children the challenges of blogging about homeschooling.

If you have multiple children, you can easily discuss this or that in a vague way without telling too much that would identify which child you are discussing. When you have one, you don’t have that luxury. Anything I say can only be traced back to one person. LOL!

I remember when bloggers I liked stopped writing about their children or stopped blogging altogether as their children got older. I better understand it now. Unless you have a child who does everything brilliantly, gets all straight As and honors, and never does anything wrong, it’s challenging to know how much to say in order to help and encourage other homeschooling moms versus saying nothing and not broadcasting your child’s life to the world.

All that said, we are learning interesting things and I’m keeping track of it all in case I do want to write at length someday.

Work

This week I did some reorganizing in The Shop on my website. My main goal was to make it easier to find the products that are for women (as opposed to child-focused) as I continue to add more. I also continued adding to my Made By Teachers store and my Etsy store. Each store targets a different demographic so I’m uploading products in a different order in each place.

Mostly I spent the week feeling vaguely unsettled and adrift regarding what I’m doing with my online life. When in doubt, upload products or tidy things up. LOL!

In all seriousness, I realized that I don’t think blogging about homeschooling and/or gifted/2e is going to be a big part of my future. I’ve not written much about them in recent years and that’s for a reason. I don’t see that changing. I’m going to be done homeschooling (Lord willing) in less than three years. I have no desire to hit the homeschool speaking circuit or I would have tried to make inroads long before this. That’s not to say I have nothing to say about those topics. I do and will. But my experience as a homeschool mom is so much of an outlier that it doesn’t feel like it transfers to a wider audience.

• Two parents at home full-time? Not common.
• Only child? Not common.
• Relaxed homeschooler? Not super common.
• Gifted/2e child with unusual combination of gifts/needs even for a 2e child? Not common.

My homeschooling experience just doesn’t translate to a wider audience.

But it’s also become clear that’s not why people come to my website any longer.

As I told a few people this week who were helping me sort this out, it’s the combination of being a godly woman living out her faith in a simple and consistent way in the midst of the culture that draws women here. Its the Faith-Simple Living-Culture combination. It’s always been that. That’s where I started 17 years ago with Two Talent Living and it’s the thread that runs through all of those years. Even when I spent more time blogging about gifted/2 and homeschooling as I was sorting it out in real life, it wasn’t what the core of my readers really wanted. And once I veered from homeschooling and gifted/2e, I lost almost all of those readers who ran away because I was talking about faith, culture, and being a godly woman. Then I also lost the women who liked faith and simple living, but do not want any mention of the culture because it is too stress-inducing or divisive or whatever.

Honestly, how do you talk about faith and simple living without discussing the culture at this point in history? Truly. I don’t see how I can. The culture/world/system is pressing in on us from every single direction. It’s impossible to escape its impact in any part of your life right now. I don’t compartmentalize my life so I don’t know how to think about being a godly woman and making simple living choices that are countercultural without, you know, discussing what is going on in the culture that you are choosing to go against.

But maybe that’s just me.

I know. We’ve talked about some of these things before. But this is my blog and it’s what I’m thinking about this week. LOL!

Anyway, what’s going on in your home? I hope you’ll leave a comment and share!