First things first! This weekend is the first weekend where I finished the weekend at under 190 lbs. Woo-hoo! I am losing at a rate of a little under five pounds per month. Some tell me that losing weight at that rate is optimal because when you lose rate a lot faster than that, it is harder to keep off. All right. I can buy into that. Still, it tells me a couple of other things. The bad news first. After looking at my weight chart, I can see that I make good progress during the week, then blow it on the weekend. That tells me that I am not nearly so disciplined as I would like to think. The good news is that, because of Bryan, Lyle, and the chart, I have stuck to this thing better than in the past. The upshot is that tenacity, returning to good eating habits after having blown it, and low intensity exercise (I am currently walking four miles per day) works better for me over the long haul than any kind of fad dieting or intense exercise plan. I do plan to return to weight lifting as soon as time permits, but that is because I like it and it is good for long-term health, not because it will help me lose weight.
When I posted my old blog post from April 16, 2004, it got me to thinking about doing a homeschool family business again. The purpose of the homeschool business is to teach the kids responsibility, to earn some money for college, and to teach the kids about how to keep books and run a small business. Raymond Moore and Dorothy Moore highly recommend starting such a business in their stellar book The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook, subtitled “A Creative and Stress-free Approach to Homeschooling”. We have talked about this a lot over the years, but have never really done much about it because we have been so focused on academics. Lorena is fundamentally more entrepreneurial than I and would be great at doing this if I helped with the bookkeeping and some of the logistics. Lorena just loves to make and sell things and she is a very hard and dedicated worker. The old blog post is a timely reminder that I need to refocus on this part of our homeschool education. I think Audrey and her family are particularly good at this, so we might consult them if we come up with a good idea. I will post our thoughts and efforts on this as we move through this school year.
April 16, 2004 – Homeschool business?
April 22, 2004 – Trip to South Carolina
Hi Ken, a home business is also wonderful training for your kids’ lifetime vocation. They can effectively apprentice with you from a very early age. By the time they are college age, they can have several years of “real world” knowledge and experience, such that college becomes an unnecessary expense and delay. If your kids’ calling is in a different field, you may find another family with a business in that field, with whom they can apprentice. More on the idea here at my site: http://www.everygoodpath.net/Economics101_CollegeVsApprenticeship
With college being not only increasingly expensive, but increasingly dangerous socially, it’s helpful to think outside the box of societal expectations, as we homeschoolers have learned to do. Keep us posted on your business ideas. -Mark
More on college social environment:
http://www.scottbrownonline.com/ScottBrownOnline/Welcome_to_Scott_Brown_Online/Entries/2007/9/28_Ten_Things_Campus_Security_Wont_Tell_You.html
http://www.scottbrownonline.com/ScottBrownOnline/Welcome_to_Scott_Brown_Online/Entries/2007/9/28_Dorm_Brothel.html
http://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Charlotte-Simmons-Novel/dp/0312424442
Thanks for the notes Mark. I have lived a life in and around academia including the running of engineering labs and teaching at large state universities. I am in complete agreement with you on the social environment in many of those places. That being said, we are very education oriented, populated with graduate degrees in the engineering and medical fields. I do not know how it would have been possible to do my current work without the foundation I got from a graduate engineering degree. I know not all kids are oriented that way, but mine seem to have fairly technical interests that would pretty hard to follow or even get credentialed to follow without going to college. Actually, our oldest has about nine semester hours of college credit going into her freshman year of high school and should have a year or so of college behind her at the end of this year. Our youngest is on the same track. Our hope is that the kids will attend college for their undergraduate degrees while they are living at home, going away when they are a little older for graduate work. Of course they are still pretty young and everything might change, but that is our current operating plan.
Also, I come from a long line of entrepreneurs, so we have lots and lots of resources for starting a family business when we get to that point. I have two side businesses now–one of them is a manufacturing business and one is an engineering consulting business. The problem is they are just too big and/or complicated to run as family businesses. We have identified three or four things we believe we can do on a smaller scale that we hope will work well as both learning tools and a way for the kids to make some money for college.
Thanks for the great comment!
Agreed that highly technical fields, law, etc. may require a college education. I’m an electrical engineer by degree and profession. When a degree is necessary, if your kids are living at home I think college can be made safe enough. Problem is far too many of the other kids are there just to party, or to seek a degree in a less challenging field, so there’s way too much free time and the current campus mayhem is the result.
You’ve thought it through wisely and also have experience and resources necessary to make sure your kids thrive in their calling. May the Lord bless your family as you grow together and as your children fulfill your vision. Blessings, -Mark
Thanks for the note Mark. It seems like we live in the same kinds of worlds! I really appreciate your input.