Welcome back to the next installment in our Tea with Julie series.

We're talking about self-care.

I don't know about you, but it feels like summer is a great time

to remind myself that I'm a part of this family and I deserve some time off too.

Gosh darn it.

I notice that each year I try to schedule at least one day at the YMCA

so I can lay on a lounge chair, listen to the water in the pool

being splashed, and not look after any small children. I like to read a novel.

That's how I take care of myself in the summer. I hope you find time to do that too.

Let's hear the next installment in Tea with Julie. Our next installment is called,

Do you have to yourself, I'm the wrong personality for my temperament?

You might wish for a clean orderly home in your heart, but your personality style is relaxed bohemian.

Or you are the sort who keeps a ship-shaped house, but you wish you could relax

when the kids make big creative messes.

L layered on top of the structured versus unstructured

selves we bring to homeschool are our memories of school.

We compare what we do at home, even when we don't want to, to what we experienced

as children. We react against it. I'm not doing that, or we suffer because of it. I'm not teaching my kids anything.

The temptation to overhaul our essential selves is powerful.

Advertising everywhere tells us we are one tweak away from being the

fantasy person in our heads. We may be able to resist Botox or Coach Purces, But the seductress for home educators is any method that results

in effortless joyful learning where parents and kids get along all the time. We hop from one program to the next, like frogs

...