I cannot believe that another year is about to come to a close! It felt like 2022 absolutely flew by, especially as I look through pictures and remember just how much happened this year. So today I’m sharing our 2022 year in review!
2021 was our big year of change, as we moved way out to a rural area in May 2021. After many emotionally turbulent months as I wrestled with God about why He moved us out here and struggled to settle in, something finally clicked in early 2022 and I began to embrace our life out here.
And once that happened, I was finally in a place where I could pursue some of the dreams we had in moving here.
A BEAUTIFULLY WRECKED LIFE IN 2022
Two big things happened for ABWL this year: I launched my YouTube channel AND I launched my online shop!
I started posting YouTube videos over the summer, and then had to put them on hold as we started our school year AND our entire garden was ready for harvest at once. August and September were CRAZY in this house as I learned how to pressure can for the first time AND canned everything in our garden! BUT I’m really excited about continuing to produce more videos in 2023, especially as I’ve finally worked out a reasonable posting schedule that I can maintain for the long haul.
I’d love to have you join me over on my channel!
The other big thing was that I FINALLY launched The Shop! I have really been thinking and dreaming about this for a while. I’ve created loads of organizational tools, homeschool printables, and planning tools just for me to use in our homeschool over the past few years. I’ve had a lot of people ask where they can buy the things they’ve seen in some of my social media posts, but until now I haven’t sold them.
After months of praying about it, I finally decided to go for it. The whole reason I created the things I use is because I couldn’t find them anywhere else, so I made them myself. My hope and prayer is that they will bless other mamas in their homeschooling journeys, too.
FAVORITE BOOKS READ IN 2022
My goal was to read 65 books this year. I managed to read 64 of 65, and although I’m annoyed that I didn’t quite reach my goal, I am still quite thrilled with my literary life this year. Here were my absolute favorite books I read in 2022 (in no particular order):
FAMILY LIFE IN 2022
This year was a fun one for our family! For one thing, our youngest is now 3 years old, which always feels like a pretty big milestone. We’re past needing a diaper bag when we leave the house, we only need to take the stroller with us to a few places now (like the zoo and children’s museum), and everyone is finally potty trained!
Because we’ve made these momentous transitions, we began camping this year! My husband and I used to camp all of the time (1-3 times per month from spring to fall), but then we moved to South Sudan and basically “camped” for 2 solid years. When we came back to the States, we had a baby. As we continued to add babies to our family over the next few years, we just had no desire to attempt camping.
But this summer we finally set out on our first camping trip. It was actually on our own property, but we had friends join us and it was an absolute blast! From there, we ventured out to do some very primitive camping – no bathroom facilities, carry in your own water, no electricity. And we loved it! As we look ahead to 2023, we’re already planning some dispersed camping trips and can’t wait for warm weather.
We did have some sadness this year, as Blaise’s grandmother passed away in May. I’m so thankful for the year we spent living just up the road from her before she passed, and I thought about her SO MUCH while canning and preserving our garden harvest. She had always been a bit of a local expert on canning, so it was a joy to follow in her footsteps. Her funeral was such a beautiful time of people sharing their memories of her, and her legacy is one of following hard after Christ.
HOMESCHOOLING IN 2022
I genuinely feel like this current school year is our best yet! We’re getting the hang of Charlotte Mason’s methods (we’re still not perfect, but making steady progress), we’ve got a really workable schedule, we’ve established some great routines and habits, and Little Miss has become really good about tagging along without disrupting lessons.
The other really great part of this homeschool year is that we’ve been so much more consistent about things like clay modeling and brush drawing than in years past. Because of that, I’ve seen some amazing strides in the kids’ skills (and my own, if I’m being honest).
We definitely have our struggles, and I’ll be sharing more about that in an upcoming post. We suspect that our oldest has ADHD and potentially dysgraphia. We haven’t started the formal diagnostic process yet, but I’m already addressing the struggles we’re seeing – diagnosis or not.
And honestly, the challenges we’ve seen only make me that much more thankful that we homeschool. My kids are in the best possible environment to have their needs met and their education tailored to them.
MOTHER CULTURE IN 2022
As we started to feel more settled in our life here, I’ve been able to put a lot more focus on my own mother culture reading and my mother-teacher education. This year I read some really great books, and I’ve actually made it a habit to read through Charlotte Mason’s volumes. I read for 20-30 minutes each morning, and it has been so good for me to dig into her philosophy by reading her own words.
I was really encouraged to take my own mother education so seriously after reading Miss Mason’s own words,
“We are waking up to our duties, and in proportion as mothers become more highly education and efficient, they will doubtless feel the more strongly that the education of their children…is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands but their own. And they will take it up as their profession — that is, with the diligence, regularity, and punctuality which men bestow on their professional labors.”
Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p. 2-3
Nearly every profession requires some kind of ongoing professional development, and homeschooling is no exception. I’m so encouraged and excited to grow as a mother and a teacher!
And part of that growth this year happened back in February when I was also able to once again take part in A Delectable Education’s ADE at Home Conference. It was even bigger this year, and covered SO MUCH material. I tried to watch each session the weekend of the conference, and then continued to spend several weeks afterwards re-watching presentations and furiously taking notes. I cannot wait until 2023’s conference!
One thing I really focused on this year was keeping up with my commonplace notebook. I took the advice of other CM mamas and began using my commonplace time as a time of rest. Instead of hurriedly getting quotes scribbled into my notebook, I switched to an unlined journal (I can’t tell you how big of a deal that is for me…I LOVE my ruled pages) and began practicing calligraphy while commonplacing. It has become such a joyful part of my days, and while my journal is nothing fancy, it’s already so fun to look back on what I’ve done so far.
HOMESTEADING IN 2022
When we first bought our new house and property, we knew we wanted chickens and a garden. But we didn’t know that we’d also jump into raising rabbits and Coturnix quail. I started vegetable seeds, bought ten chicks, and bought a breeding trio of rabbits all in one weekend in February. We also started our small orchard, which right now only includes a couple of apple trees. And my husband began beekeeping, which has been a huge long-time dream of his.
It has been a steep learning curve, this whole homesteading thing, but it has been so much fun!
Next year, we’re hoping to expand our garden and get a lot more produce canned and preserved, as well as trying to grow some new fruits and veggies.
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2023
One of my biggest goals for 2023 is to continue to grow more as a mother-teacher. My professional background is in special education, which is a huge blessing in many ways. But I’ve also had to unlearn a lot from my time as a public school teacher and re-learn how to be a Charlotte Mason educator. Next year, I’ll be attending ADE at HOME Conference again (I HIGHLY recommend this conference if you’re also a CM mom), reading through the rest of Charlotte Mason’s volumes, and hopefully finding an in-person CM conference I can attend here in the Midwest.
I also have a big stack of books in my TBR pile, including The Living Page, Modern Miss Mason, and re-reading Know and Tell (now that we have a couple of years of narrations under our belts).
Another huge goal for 2023 is to grow my little online shop. I am currently working on making the homeschool planner that I created for myself (and LOVE) something that I can sell (it needs modifications to make it adaptable for every family). I’m also putting the finishing touches on The Formidable List of Attainments Journal and several other products that I’m quite excited about. I’d love your prayers as I make this dream a reality!
Finally, I’d like to actually reach 1000 hours outside! This is our second year taking the challenge, and we’re going to miss the mark again this year. I was lamenting to my husband about it, because I hate to set a goal and fail. But he reminded me that this year we had over 900 hours outside, which is about 700 hours more than the most generous estimates we’ve seen of the average American child. So it’s still a HUGE win, but dang it, I really want to get to 1000!
AND THAT’S OUR 2022 YEAR IN REVIEW!
I’d love to hear from you! Drop me a comment below and tell me your highlights from 2022!
