Hello to all!  With all the blogs I read and the comments that run through my head, getting my own blog seemed like a good thing.  Trouble is introductions are easy enough when the person is next to you, after all the rules are very basic:  stand an acceptable distance apart, use a pleasant indoor voice, chat briefly, and watch their face for ‘go away’ clues.  Simple and straightforward; however, when the person is a screen and the space is electronic–how do you  keep from sounding like a heel?  Not many facial clues now is there?  So if this reads as stilted and odd….well, sooner or later I’ll get the hang of this.

So for the basics:  Hello, I’m Stephanie.  I live a small town in the flatlands of north-east Arkansas surrounded by acres of rice fields and acres of mosquitoes.  My dh and I will be celebrating 24 years of marriage in June.  We have seven children–5 boys and 2 girls–ranging in age from 22 – 3 years old.  Our oldest is married so you could say we have 8 children.  My interests include reading, gardening, sewing, flute playing, cooking, and working with my hands.  My children have stretched my interests to include SS teaching, 4H leading, theater props & costumes, ballet, sports, and several others that slip my mind.  On forms and questionnaires I check ‘not working’ or ’stay-at-home-mom’ but that isn’t as accurate an answer as form-makers believe.

Why yes we do home-school!  It took a number of years for dh to agree so we are a mixed-schooling family.  Our older three children decided to remain in public school–two have graduated and one is a jr.  The younger 4 are all now home-schooled.  We use Ambleside Online and Charlotte Mason methods–with adapting & tweaking due to LD and age spans. 

Yes there is a story behind the blog name, but introductions are supposed to be brief…  Its been nice meeting everyone.