What I’m Reading & Learning as a Homeschool Mom | Homeschool Show and Tell

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Law Dock Way. I'm Jessica. Today's video is going to be a homeschool show and tell. The homeschool show and tell is an open collaboration hosted by Abby from Rooted in Rest and Myself. Our goal with the homeschool show and tell was to really just show that there's not one specific way to homeschool. And we do that by bringing homeschoolers together each and every month from around the world to share their take on a specific topic. This month's topic is basically all about moms and how we're continuing our education. So what we're reading and what we're learning. And I can't wait to share that with you guys. I thought this would be a really great time to basically share my TBR pile with you. So this is going to be kind of everything that I'm reading through. I am not a sit down and read everything from start to finish kind of person. When it's like one book, I read multiple things all the time. So the first thing that I have for a fun read on my Kindle is Ghostwriter by Julie Clark. Or the Ghostwriter by Julie Clark. I just started this. I'm only like the forward is all I've read so far. I will say I do more reading on my Kindle than I do anything else because it's easy to have and like throw in my purse and in my bag and go with it. In fact, I just ordered myself a new color soft because I wanted the color version of it. Super excited for that to come in. The other like for fun book that I have, Kevin bought me for my birthday. It is Frieda McFadden's Dear Debbie. So this one is chilling on my nightstand waiting for me to read it. I love Frieda McFadden because I can normally get through one of her books in a couple of days. They're like super fun and easy reads normally with some twisty turns. So it makes it really interesting to want to keep reading. If you're into like murder, mystery, thriller, suspense, pick up pretty much any of her books there for the most part, all pretty good. Skip the Tenet. That one and The Crash were probably two of my least favorite. Other than that, pick up one of hers. My favorite is Never Lie. She's what I like to call my palate cleanser. So like any time I read a book that's either heavy or I'm like, don't know what to read next, I will just grab one of hers. Next in the pile, I have two homeschool specific books. These two books I read every single homeschool year. The first one is More Than Enough, which was written by a really great friend of mine, Kara Anderson. I really like to read this one like this time of year, right when the school year should be in or needs to be ending. It's a really quick read, not anything like overwhelming. And there's like 100 pages. But I like to read it this time of year because I like to remind myself that I'm more than enough and that it's OK if we didn't get as much done as I wanted to, et cetera. This is like a yearly read around the end of April, beginning of May. So I will probably be reading that in the next week. And then around the end of May, I like to pick up Teaching from Rest by Sarah McKenzie. Again, this is another pretty quick, short read. I think it's also about 100 pages and 88 pages to be exact. So it's not something I can read this in like an hour. It's really not that big of a deal. But I like to read it at the end slash beginning of the summer. So like the end of the school year, beginning of the summer, as I'm sitting down to look forward to next year. It reminds me to not overload us, to keep things kind of simple, to remember that I want to be teaching from a place of rest and not stress. So I just like to read it like a reminder of like, hey, before you start buying things, remember your why. Remember like what you want in your homeschool and don't overwhelm things. So that's one that, like I said, I will be reading through quite quickly. Next up, I have Eat That Frog. This is the adult version of the kids version or teens version that we're currently reading in our morning basket. So Emily and I are reading. We just started reading the Eat That Frog for teens or for students. I think that's what he calls it. And so all year long, we've been reading like kind of buddy reading. So I read the adult version while her and I also both read the teen version. And technically, I'd already read this one. So I'm rereading it. This is a reread for me. We are on because he does it in numbers. We're on number 10 out of 22 currently or 21. So like I said, this is a reread for me. It's good. I like it. It's pretty basic. A lot of the things are things that we already know, but we need to be reminded, right? Like because procrastination is what it is and we need to be reminded not to procrastinate. So I'm enjoying this so far. And then I love John Acuff like I have written everything that he I've read everything he's ever written. In fact, the first two books that Emily and I buddy read together for her personal growth were John Acuff and then his daughters wrote them for the teen versions. She loved them, too. And so I had preordered his newest book that just came out April 24th, which is procrastination proof. And I am reading this as well. I'm actually immersive reading this. So I have it on Audible and the physical copy. I don't immersive read a lot of things, but I love immersive reading his books because there's something about his voice. I don't know. It's almost like you're like sitting there talking to him face to face. I love that. I am going to say, though, I will I didn't intend for this to happen. Because this was just the book that Emily picked next for our morning basket. And then this was a prerelease. But it feels like maybe there's a theme going on here and like somebody trying to tell me something, you know, like just going to doesn't really I mean, it is what it is. The last two that I have on my TBR one, I am just starting. And the other one I've like kind of read through it, but I'm still referencing it over and over and over. The one that I'm just starting is the new menopause. Unfortunately, we are entering that stage of life. So that's where I'm at. I have not read very much of this. I'm like on page 18. This this feels like one that is going to take me a while to digest. I mean, it could literally take me months to get through this. That's the thing about me and my TBRs. Like some of them, I will get through in an hour. Others, it will take me months to work my way through. This feels like it's one that's going to take months because I feel like it's going to break my heart every time I read it. Reminding me what symptoms and how long this kind of stuff could last, I just don't want to know that. And then the other one is Next Level by Stacey Sims. I love Stacey Sims. I've listened to like every podcast that she's ever been on. And this is her guide to kicking, but feeling great and crushing goals through menopause and beyond. And so I have her first book that I think is like Roar. And I read it when I kind of first started my health journey, really liked it, referenced it a lot. And I wanted to go ahead and grab this one and like start looking to what was going to need to change or shift in like what I'm eating and what I'm doing in my workouts and things like that as I'm aging and looking towards, you know, the rest of my life. So this is one that I've read through, but I'll still be like referencing it over and over and over, because that is something that I'm currently working on and learning as like. I guess like the shift that I need to be making as I'm like nearing and by nearing, I mean like right around the corner, my forties for health and for all of that. I also thought that this would be a really great time to update you guys a little bit on my hobbies. We had talked about some hobbies I wanted to try this year. I have not done nearly as many as I would have liked. The one thing that I have like fallen madly in love with is diamond art. So I've done a lot of diamond art. One of my favorite projects that I've done so far is this diamond art bookmark. So it slides onto the corner of your book like that. And I love it. I think Emily and I did like four each because we ended up buying the pack that we bought came with four. So we each did two and then we bought another pack. So we love them so much. And we each did the other two. So we have four of those. I love diamond art, but I love being able to do like practical things like this. Instead of like something that I'm not going to use. Like I love the idea of it, but I don't want a 12 by 16 poster of anything hanging in my house. So a bookmark is perfect. The other thing that I really love, I don't have a finished one to show you, but I've been doing these diamond art. They're basically greeting cards. So they're blank on the inside. I'm doing this one for my sister currently. And then you just like this whole area will end up being like all the little blanks. So like this whole mandala will be diamonds when it's done. And again, I love that I get to do the diamond art and have like the experience in the process. And then it's dual purpose, because now it's a beautiful card that I can mail to somebody and give them, you know, another like gift. Another thing that I've been doing a little bit of is watercoloring. I've been trying to like learn and teach myself because I love the idea of it. But it's a very, very abstract concept to me. So I just got like this really small watercolor notebook, which is hilarious, because like the very first thing that I did when I did this cover page, you guys was drip paint down the side of it. And I was trying to make a good example for Emily. So when she said, Oh, mom, it could look like sprayed edges like one of our books. I then like ended up painting the entire thing with sprayed edges. It was not intentional, but I was trying to make a good example for her. So that's what we went with. Like I said, I'm not great at it, but I have been using some of Andrea Nelson's examples on Instagram and TikTok. And it's just a process. It's one of the things that I am learning. And then the other thing that I'm learning has been like beadwork. I didn't think I would like it or something that I wanted to do because I'm not somebody who like wears or wants a lot of beaded jewelry. But when I realized that I can make other things like keychains or like bag charms or even charms like this to hang off of the back of my Kindle, I was like, sign me up. That's super cool. So Emily and I have been making a ton of these for friends and families. I don't have a lot of them left because we've been gifting a ton of them. But there's so much fun to make. The last thing and I've really, really been like diving into and learning lately has been skin care. You guys, I spent 38 years of my life barely washing my face. I'm not proud of it, but it's true. Like literally washing my face, probably with bar soap for a very, very long time. But like washing my face was it. I didn't wear SPF. I didn't moisturize. Lotion feels icky. It's weird. And so somehow I don't know how. Who knows? I decided that this was like something I needed to address, probably because when you have a teenage daughter and you're trying to like, you know, wash your face, you need to like, you know, treat breakouts and all of this. It's really like you realize that you can't, you know, say like do as I say and not as I do. And so it dawned on me that I probably need to take better care of my skin. And so I have fallen into this deep, very, very deep rabbit hole in the last eight to 12 months of skin care, like face, body, everything. And I now own way too many products. And I know more about things like I didn't even know existed before. I didn't even know what a toner was or serums or any of that. And now I have way too much of it. But that isn't something that I have been learning is like skin care, how to take care of my skin, how to try to repair some of the damage that I've obviously done in 38 years of not taking care of it. And then also trying to obviously set a better example for my daughter. So that is kind of where I'm at lately on my what mom is learning. I am reading a lot of different books. I'm trying some hobbies and I'm learning to take better care of my skin. I would love it if you would tell me in the comments, what are you up to? What are you reading? And what is something that you are learning lately that's just for you?