A new guy started work at my day job yesterday. I found out during the interview that he and his wife homeschool four kids, ages 4-11. They use a lot of the same materials we used: Sonlight, Teaching Textbooks, Singapore Math, etc., etc. What made it more interesting was that, after the interview and before he accepted our offer, he wrote me an email to ask if this job was amenable to the homeschool life. I was glad to say that it was. We are engineers so, of course there are hair-on-fire periods of two or three weeks a couple of times per year to hit a schedule or solve a hard problem, but I think that is just the nature of the beast for jobs in general, not just engineering jobs.
My new friend told me his wife does 80 percent of the homeschool work while he fills in the rest. What people do not often understand with homeschooling is that it does not matter which parent does the homeschooling (usually both help, but one–usually the Mom–takes the lead), the other parent has to fill in the cracks with everything else. I managed the homeschooling and most, but certainly not all of the outside work (mowing the lawn, etc.) while Lorena had to handle plenty of things I would normally have done–most of it involving getting in the car to go do something. I often get more credit than I deserve for the work we did in our homeschool.
When Kelly and Christian were his kids ages, I worked at a company that is a competitor to my current employer. I worked a lot longer week at that company than my current one–probably 50+ hours per week on average with three or four weeks per year at 60+ and even 70+ hours. Still, it did not have an inordinate impact on our ability to do homeschool. On the upside with that job, I had about a 12 minute commute. If it would have been even a half an hour each direction, it would have been more difficult to spend the time I needed with the kids. So, I was able to tell my new friend he could homeschool quite well with this job, but his long commute was going to be his biggest burden.
The upshot is that where there is a will there is a way. I am glad my new friend took the job. He is actively looking for a way to move closer to minimize his commute. I think he will do great, both at his new job and in his family’s homeschool.
Betty Blonde #416 – 02/18/2010
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Sixty is a great age. I plan to enjoy my sixties greatly. Being older is such a good deal, I might have been enticed to wish I was seventy if I were not enjoying sixty so much. Lorena and I are going to celebrate a little more tonight, but she got me a few little gifts yesterday (a wallet, a bell to ring when I want her to bring me something to drink–like that is going to work and a few more little things). Tomorrow, we look for houses. We think we know what we want, but we have been wrong before. Many times.
I made the comment that those pictures, even if they are well preserved, are not going to be too meaningful to anyone in not too many years. If/when Kelly and Christian have kids, they might get a kick out of looking at them a time or two during their life, but the pictures will be pretty meaningless to the generations after that. It just made me cognizant of the importance of embracing the opportunities we have to do the right thing in the here and now.
Independence Day is celebrated in Mexico on September 16. Well, really, the celebration starts on the 15th leading up to el Grito de Dolores on the stroke of midnight, but that is another story. In my humble opinion, the very best part of the celebration is the ubiquitous and unparalleled Mexican mustache. The dapper fellow in the picture with the mustache is my nephew, Luis Leonardo at a school event in Queretero on September 15. He wears the mustache well–quite dashing actually. The costumes and sombreros everyone wears are beyond cool. All the family in Monterrey got together for a carne asada. I am stuck up here in Oregon while Lorena is eating carne asada and all the ripe mangoes she wants. That is somehow just wrong.
Right after Lorena left for Monterrey, her name was put on the board at our fitness center as one of the most active members in the club! Going to Mexico to eat great Mexican food non-stop with little access to a gym will not help, but she deserves a little break.
Christian sent me the paper he wrote as partial fulfillment of his qualifying examination and will turn it in later today. He does the oral qualification examination for his PhD on Friday, his last day as a teenager. What a great way to leave teenager-hood. Actually, he has done much more than we ever anticipated he might do by this time in his life. He has a few more classes after this, but the bulk of his time will be spent on identification of a research topic (he has a pretty good idea what it will be, but needs more specifics) followed by research for his dissertation.
