Homeschooling Family Interview: Lisa

Today we learn about Lisa and how she works hard to live a life of Joy with her husband and six-year old daughter. She has a blog called Perpetual Joy where she details how she does it.

So if you're ever driving anywhere near Bloomington, Indiana, and you suddenly experience a great feeling of Joy going up your spine, it's probably coming from Lisa's home...



1. How long have you been homeschooling (or if finished, how long did you homeschool)?

We have been homeschooling since birth. I say since birth, and not school age, because we have been deprogramming ourselves from the "mainstream" educational model since she was born. :)

2. One of the main benefits of homeschooling is the freedom and flexibility it allows. Can you give us a few examples of how this freedom and flexibility benefited you (your family)?

Homeschooling for us means we can do whatever we want! We can go to the park at a moments notice, or go to visit family in Toledo for a week, or watch TV all day if we want! We learn in each and every moment, so the entire world is a source of learning, exploring, growing and Being!

Basically, we follow our Joy! Having the freedom and flexibility to do this is AMAZING, and allows us to love ourselves for *who we are*. This makes us Shine, and is ultimately the most wonderful benefit of homeschooling.

3. Another benefit of homeschooling is the fun factor. Can you give us a few examples of some especially fun times you had as a result of homeschooling?

To be honest, homeschooling for us is about Joy! We are always having fun by following our interests and what makes us Shine! This doesn't mean that every moment is perfect or 100% joyful, and it also doesn't mean that our life of Joy is always easy. It is actually *a lot* of work, but our goal to be in touch with our Joy is worth it!

What brings us Joy really ebbs and flows- right now Kathrynn is really into Star Wars so she spends a lot of time playing with her Star Wars characters developing vignettes and new stories .

Two other things she really loves are swimming and pottery (haven't blogged on that yet)!

4. We all have funny experiences while homeschooling. Can you share one of yours with us?

Here are two related funny experiences that summarize a wonderful aspect of Kathrynn- her love of performance! She does not always love the actual performing- she often loves the planning and the decoration and costumes and the “idea” of events more than the actual content. But sometimes she loves the performance itself too!

In the first blog post there are some miscellaneous videos, but then if you scroll toward the bottom there is a section where she decided to pretend to be on different television channels. It was so funny for Wes and I to watch because we had no idea what was coming up- she just spontaneously created these vignettes/channels and out came her “show!"

The joke channel was particularly funny, as I hadn’t heard most of the jokes before. Since I was filming the show, I had to try to stifle my laughs, and that was *so* challenging!

The next experience occurred spontaneously the night of Kathrynn attending her first circus. She called Wes and I into our living room to tell us that she had a performance for us. She came out wearing an outfit that is for her baby dolls - a size 2T dress and bottom set!!! She is a petite child, so easily stuffed herself into this outfit. I videoed the first part of the performance, and unfortunately turned it off before it got to the good part where I finally realized what she was doing. She was imitating the performances of the clowns she’d seen that day. She was basically doing slapstick!

The costume was picked for the absurdity value, and then the crazy dancing with her doll was to show their zany antics, and what I didn’t’ capture on video was the funniest thing of all - she performed this slapstick routine that was very Charlie Chaplin-like: she dropped her doll's hat, then went to pick it up, only to drop the doll, which led her to picking up the doll, only to dropping the hat, which led her to drop the doll…. etc. So this went on and on and it was so amazing and funny to watch her portrayal of slapstick comedy. She did great with her facial expressions and her body language as well.

These are the kind of funny experiences that go on at our house at a fairly regular basis!
Here is the blog address for the second experience. The video clip is at the end in all its unedited splendor!