The Charlotte Mason Show

S5E3 | Homeschooling Through Challenges: Moving (with Ana Willis)

Show Notes:

Episode summary

The challenge of moving can bring chaos to the whole family, and throwing homeschooling into the mix is a recipe for complete overwhelm! In this episode, Julie talks with Ana Willis about how she tackled this challenge with her own family and how to make it manageable for parents and children.

Guest biography

Ana is a wife and homeschool mom of three turned homeschool blogger. She is also a women's pastor, entrepreneur, and a passionate Bible and Hebrew teacher. She loves helping homeschool moms to find joy and fulfillment in their homeschool calling. Her goal is to help moms go from stressed to blessed, nurturing a restful homeschooling through a living education, and living a beyond blessed life.

Ana studied Theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and has a double Bachelor's degree in Biblical and Jewish Studies from Israel College of the Bible in Jerusalem.

She is the founder of Hebrew for Homeschoolers, a course that teaches homeschool families to read, write, and speak Hebrew in only 4-10 weeks.

For the past six years, Ana has been mentoring thousands of homeschool moms through They Call Me Blessed, The Homeschool Sisterhood, and co-hosting the Charlotte Mason Inspired Online Conference.

Ana loves bringing God's people together and above all, she loves bringing people closer to God!

Resources mentioned

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Show Transcript:

Julie Ross Hey everyone, welcome to the Charlotte Mason show. I am here with... This is your third time on, Ana.

Ana Willis This is?

Julie Ross You should win a prize for being the most person on this podcast. Yes, I know. Cause you're such a superstar. I'm here with Ana Willis from The Homeschool Sisterhood and the Charlotte Mason online conference and 55 million other things because she's just amazing as we're going to talk about in this episode. She just goes and goes and does so many different things. Yeah, so I'm starting this series for season five on homeschooling through different challenges in life because you can't separate homeschooling from the rest of your life. And if you think that you're just gonna have this perfect idyllic little homeschool experience and the rest of life is just gonna take care of itself, you're gonna be in for a hard road because life and homeschooling collide—and that's some of the difficulty and the challenge of homeschooling. It also can be some blessing, and learning those life-coping skills firsthand as well as you walk through it as a family. But today we're going to be talking about homeschooling through moving. And I thought I moved a lot because I've moved 12 times in 15 years, but then I listened to Ana's story and she has got me beat, people. So she is the homeschooling-through-moving expert. So Ana, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here.

Ana Willis I lost count of how many times I moved actually in 14 years of marriage. I think we moved 17 times. I think this is the 17th time right now.

Julie Ross Okay, yeah, you definitely have me beat. Plus the whole like international move. I can't even imagine that.

Ana Willis Oh yeah, this is the fourth country.

Julie Ross Fourth country. Okay, yes. So fill us kind of in on some of your story of moving and homeschooling and how that all... Just kind of where you've been and get us to where you are right now.

Ana Willis Okay well, hello everybody. I have moved so many times in my life that sometimes I really lose count. So we have lived in Israel, in Brazil, in Canada, and we're just moving to the United States right now, which just has been a crazy rollercoaster moving season for us. We have lived in Canada in three different provinces as well, and in 14 years of marriage I have lived in 17 different houses.

Julie Ross Plus the RV.

Ana Willis Well, the RV is one of them and I have to say, Julie, the RV's the place that we have lived the longest.

Julie Ross Are you serious? Okay, so how long have you been in the RV?

Ana Willis I am very serious. It's been four years.

Julie Ross Four years, you've been in an RV. Okay. Is it four years consecutively?

Ana Willis Yes, we had a break last winter. We had a break. We rented a house for the winter because we were stuck in Canada. So we moved to the house in October and we stayed in the house until the end of May. That was the only break we had, but all of those years we've been living in an RV. But you know the whole RV story began actually as a joke. I told my husband one day I was so sick and tired of moving that he just might as well just buy an RV so every time we moved, we took the house with us. And it became a reality.

Julie Ross So it wasn't like this burning desire to like RV road school. This was just like a practical, we might as well just keep this. This is stable. We're used to this and take it with us.

Ana Willis Well, you know, it started as a joke, but because we knew we loved traveling and apparently we love moving somehow. I might have some gypsy blood, you know, Jewish blood, and definitely I have... The Lord always brings me to the scripture about Abraham's calling and he's about to tell me I'm going to move. I'm not kidding. Nobody preaches it or I read it somewhere.

Julie Ross That's so funny.

Ana Willis And again, I know in my spirit. I go like, "Uh oh, we're going." It happened at our church right before we came this time. I looked at my husband, and...

Julie Ross You're like, "Uh oh, this is Abraham's sermon. We're in trouble!".

Ana Willis And the whole Abraham, you know, go where I will show you. And we looked at each other, and our friend was sitting right in the pew in front of us, and she just burst laughing. Because she knows like the Lord—that's how he speaks to us. And we were like, "Ah, that's it, we're moving again."

Julie Ross That is awesome. Yes, so you are definitely the expert on this and throughout this whole moving process, how many kids and what ages are they now?

Ana Willis Okay, so we have three kids, and okay, disclaimer: we're not a military family.

Julie Ross Okay, yes, I'm sure you get asked that a lot. Thank you to all our military families out there who are listening, who do have to move a lot for the military. I'm extremely grateful for your service and all that you do.

Ana Willis We are very very thankful. We have many friends who are in the military and it's really hard for them when time comes and they have to move to the next phase. Very very difficult for them as well and make new friends and the whole thing, right? So we understand. We totally understand that and we salute them for what they do for us. It's so much needed. But yeah, I have three kids, ages 9, 11, and 13. And the first big move for us was actually leaving Israel and moving to Brazil for 14 months, and my son was two years old, and I had a month old baby. So that was the first big move for us. We were there for 14 months and the Lord called us to Canada. So we moved to Canada and at that time I had a three year old, a one year old and I was pregnant with a third one.

Julie Ross Yes. Wow.

Ana Willis So I've done moving through all kinds of circumstances in my life.

Julie Ross And health-wise too. I mean, we're going to have someone come on for another episode to talk about homeschooling through illness. But yeah, even last year you had a really hard road. I can't even imagine moving through all of that. Let's talk about the challenge and we'll talk about the positive because there's always a positive, right? What do you think is the biggest challenge of homeschooling through moving?

Ana Willis It's staying consistent to your routine.

Julie Ross It all gets thrown out the window! We're like, "Where are we? What box is that in?

Ana Willis Yes, "Where are my books? Where are the pencils?" Yes be organized definitely is a big one. Be organized. Be organized with your time, have your resources organized—know where things are while you're moving. You know, people normally leave the kitchen for last. You need the homeschool stuff for last, that's how we do it. A lot of what we're using right now comes in the backpacks in the truck with us when we're moving, when we are traveling. So we kind of have like, this is what we need for every day and everybody will have their pencil holders and everything that they need—their calculators, their notebooks, their books, the audio books will go in the car with us. But yes, for me those two things is organization and consistency with our routine have been really life-saving in the midst of it.

Julie Ross How do you stay consistent with your routine throughout that. You're like, this is just we keep doing it even if we're staying in a hotel room today?

Ana Willis Yes. The routine for us, like my kids, I believe that routine brings safety and security to the kids. It does bring that normalcy that we're not having per se during that season. So what we do is, let's say our homeschool routine normally at home would take about two hours and a half to three hours a day, right? When we are moving, we still have the routine, but perhaps we're going to have an hour instead of three hours. But we still kind of do the same things. There's a lot of packing that goes with moving. There is a lot, we need to sell extra stuff, we need time for that. So we still have our routine. We just use a shorter block of time, you know, for homeschool. And then we designate a block of times for all things packing and related to the moving. And the kids got to participate in that, which teaches them life skills as well, right? I mean, they are pros. They know all the checklists and the system and how mommy organized the boxes and how things... You know, I have everything organized by room and by sections of the rooms. So when we move to a new place, then we know exactly where those boxes are going to go. And then that makes it easier for us. But staying consistent, family first, make sure that your kids are not being ignored, make sure the homeschooling is still happening up to a certain degree. That for us has been life-saving.

Julie Ross Yeah, those are really great tips. And I can't remember what number I said that this move was, because I lost count too. But this summer we moved like an hour and a half away, and I was extremely thankful. But it took me this long move, 11 or whatever I'm on right now, to learn what you said about the family first. Because I'm extremely task-driven and so when I get in moving mode, it's, oh, it's got to be packed. It's got be packed all right now. It's going to be backed by this day, and then when we get to the new house, I can't rest until the house is completely unpacked.

Ana Willis Because that brain does not work with chaos and mess.

Julie Ross No, mine doesn't. I tried purposely this time, I said, "Okay, there's so many hours of this day is spent on packing and the rest is we're going to go do something fun. We're going to go to a park, try to meet some new people." And that made a world of difference. It took a couple more weeks than it would normally have taken me to unpack. I've worked through that. But for my kids, it was so much more beneficial to... And they're dealing with so much too, which I'd love to touch on as well, is just the emotional impact that moving can bring, not just for kids, also for you, right? And to have time to kind of spend together, to do fun things, to kind of explore our new place and go find, "Okay, where's the best ice cream? Let's go try these places and find out." You know, it just made a huge difference on everybody's mood. So how do you kind of work through all the emotions that moving can bring?

Ana Willis Well, it's a hard thing, too. My kids had to leave their grandparents behind and had to leave their friends behind. But at the same time, it is just a matter of us building up the excitement of what is ahead of us and focus on those things that are ahead of us. And we make sure that our kids are still FaceTiming with their best friend once in a while. And we're talking to my in-laws almost every single day. So they are comforted that we have left, but we're still seeing them. We're still speaking to them on the regular basis. And look forward—create ways that we can look forward to life in a new place. I'm a type-A personality. I have a type-A personality, just like you, Julie. And we sit down and we create vision boards of what we want for this season of our lives. And that really helped us to look forward to different things. So that really helped us. Again, you know, taking the time to say "let's go explore that beach" or "let's go look for that pizza place." It brings excitement. But again, I know how task oriented I am. I have to always remind myself: heart first. Family first. You know, make sure that everyone's tank full. Make sure that everybody's connected and we're together in this. And then when we're all together in this, then unboxing things and putting them away, it just makes it easier because everybody is helping. But yeah, just for me, that was a major thing. It's just like family first. You know, even if we do this and it takes longer, like you said, it took you longer to unpack. We're still not where we're supposed to be. I'm at my mom's house right now. We've moving in three weeks. So it's like, unpack everything from the RV, put everything in grandma's house, take everything out of grandma's, put it at the Airbnb—which is not our final destination yet. So there's move number 18 coming. And 19. 18 and 19 coming.

Julie Ross Yeah, it's never an easy transition most of the time, right? You're always kind of on this journey when you're going from one place to the next. And yeah, you have to kind of be... It's that flexibility, which I'm not real great at. Sometimes life has a way of teaching it to you, right? And I think your kids, especially in these challenges that we're going to be talking about, they're watching how you handle the stress. And moving is right up there in like the top five stressors of life, right? And it is not easy. It's not easy. There's so many demands and like, you have to find a new pediatrician and call this person and find this piece of paper. Especially buying a house. It's like practically giving them a kidney I felt like, with all the paperwork they were asking me for the day of, and "I need this in 10 minutes" you know? And you're like, "Ah!" It is a lot of stress.

Ana Willis This is how I feel dealing with immigration process again, right? That's the fourth time in our lives we're dealing with immigration. And it's a lot of paperwork. It's a lot of forms. Then we had an emergency that happened in Texas. My daughter got bit by a dog. We ended up at the emergency with her. They almost had to do hand surgery. And now we're dealing with claims of our insurance. Yes, there are all of those things. So that is one of the reasons why organization comes before everything else. If you're organized, then you're going to manage your time well to deal with all of those things and you know where things are. That's I think a big priority.

Julie Ross Do you have any like super awesome organizing, moving, packing tips that you do to kind of track everything? You said something about like sectioning rooms and things.

Ana Willis So for us, there are always things that we have to carry with us when we're moving. So like I was saying, when we are moving, I want to make sure that what we use in our homeschool right now is with us. Especially when we were traveling like I did now, we just traveled for seven weeks to get here. Took us that long because we had so much fun. We went to Yellowstone and Grand Teton and Arches in Texas and Tennessee. And so we took our time getting here. But what we use every day in our homeschool has to be with us. Important documents have to be with us at all times. So we keep a fireproof box with all of our documents, passports, insurance, all of those things. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, that has to with us all the time because the last thing you want is "I don't know what box I put that in.".

Julie Ross Right, right. Yeah.

Ana Willis Right? So for us, those things are really important. Then medication. All your medical stuff: your pills, vitamins, whatever you take every single day, those things have to be with us. So this is my priority bubble—organized, have it with me. And then we just organize things room by room. And I box everything. I number everything. And then I make a list of every box. And I put like box number one has this, this and this. Box number two... And normally I write on the boxes as well. So when we move to a new place, I know that the kids' bedroom has—now it doesn't happen anymore because we decluttered so much living in an RV—but I say the kids' bedroom has 11 boxes, then I know that 11 boxes have to be there. And I know the order that I packed and the order that I need to unpack. And I know what's inside each one of them. So, yeah, I guess I'm a little bit like...

Julie Ross No, I think that's fantastic because I wish I would have known that before I moved this summer. Because you know you just write like master bedroom and then you're like, what's in that box from the master bedroom? Is it like winter clothes? Like I don't know what's in this box, you know? And then like... Oh my son needed this one book... See, you're gonna laugh here. My son needed this one book for this class he was taking. I didn't know ahead of time, but when I got here, I'm like, "Oh, I have that book. I have that book. I know I have that book." I unpacked all the boxes of books—which I have like over 2000, so a lot of boxes of books, right?—looking for that one book. Was it in any of those boxes? Nope. Just this week, I'm finally now unpacking the garage, and there wasn't that much in it. You know, it's just like I put like the Christmas stuff in it and random stuff that was labeled garage. So there's this box labeled Garage. Guess what's in that box. It was like bungee cords and electric cords, and that book. How'd that book get in that box? I don't know. But I've already bought the book by this point.

Ana Willis It happens. Listen, and there will always be that "I had no time to pack" box.

Julie Ross Yes, it was in the random place in the garage and I was like, "Oh, throw that in the garage box!"

Ana Willis We always have that one box that that was like, "We have no more time. Just throw everything in the box, we'll sort when we get there. So yeah, if you're dealing with that, it's normal.

Julie Ross Yeah, it'll come back. It's all good. But I do love that idea of writing down— numbering and then... And that's good too, for when you do get to the other side, going through it, do you have all the boxes, right? "Oh, we're missing box 2. Where's that?" Right?

Ana Willis Yes, absolutely. It does make it easier. And it's not that hard. It's not that hard. Number the boxes and write down... Okay, let's say box number one has underwear, socks and swimming suits. You know, box number two has all the t-shirts, shorts, and whatever, you know, skirts. Box number three has all the bath towels. You just write it down. So that way it makes it so much easier for you. And when we get to the room, we literally put the boxes in order and then we just unpack, like one, two, three, four, five, and put everything in order.

Julie Ross You're blowing my mind here, Ana. I'm like, why have I not done this?

Ana Willis Some clothes that I hang in the closet I actually keep them in the hanger.

Julie Ross I do do that.

Ana Willis That's what I do and put them in the box with the hanger. I just stick them all back in the closet. It is the easiest way to do it.

Julie Ross Yeah, the wardrobe boxes are fantastic, for sure. So that's really helpful. I love that moving tip, really. I hope we don't have to move again anytime soon. But if I do, I'm definitely using that. Now, how have people supported you and helped you kind of through all these different moves?

Ana Willis Oh it's been amazing to see our neighbors and our friends helping us with all kinds of things. Every time I had to pack or do a garage sale or, you know, anything that we had to get organized, we have always had—because we never lived actually very close to family—but we always had friends who came alongside us and helped us pack. And we always do the same thing for our friends as well. So we have had great support when it comes to that. People come and say like, "I hate to see you go, but I'm here to pack with you and we'll cry together." And we cook for everybody and it's always a blessing. But yeah, and our kids, they help us out a lot too, even though they're still young, but they still help us.

Julie Ross Yeah, they're used to that kind of.

Ana Willis But I have to say, Julie, can we just talk about decluttering for a second.

Julie Ross Yes. I haven't for two or three month. And today I'm looking around. I'm like, where'd all this stuff come from?

Ana Willis Julie, we are so good at hoarding stuff, aren't we? We're just so good at accumulating stuff, stuff that we don't use every day.

Julie Ross Especially homeschool stuff, can we just say that?

Ana Willis Oh my goodness, yes, yes. We're always decluttering in our homeschool. My husband said, "You bought new books? Time to get rid of some more." Especially that we have everything in the RV, everything has to be super organized, and we cannot have things that we're not using. So declutter before you move is the key. Declutter before you move. Get rid of everything that you're not using anymore. Remember those jeans that you loved and you used to fit in them 20 years ago and you're still hanging to it saying, "One day I'm going to be size four again.".

Julie Ross Yeah, I gave up on that a long time ago.

Ana Willis If it doesn't fit you, just let it go and go buy a new pair of jeans. But I had so many dresses and so many clothes. I had outfits... Okay, I had this specific outfit I was wearing when we took our engagement pictures.

Julie Ross Yeah, I don't have any of those because there's no way I fit in any of that.

Ana Willis Yeah, let's just say I was way skinnier than I am today and I was still holding on tight to all of those clothes and memories and stuff. So having less makes it so much easier when you move.

Julie Ross Oh, for sure.

Ana Willis It's so much easier to organize and stay organized as well.

Julie Ross Yeah, and even when I thought I had decluttered, once I got here, I was like, oh my word. I still have way too much. The homeschooling stuff I think multiplies when you're not looking, so I don't really know where it comes from.

Ana Willis I think our homeschool stuff had babies.

Julie Ross I didn't buy this stuff. I don't know where it came from.

Ana Willis You just keep multiplying. And then we have like a million pencils. We have like a million pens and the kids go like, "Mom, I can't find a pencil.".

Julie Ross You can't see the forest through the trees sometimes, you know? So is there anything that you wish you would have done differently throughout some of these moves?

Ana Willis I think I wish I had been more restful. I tend to get very stressed out when... Well, I wanna see what's ahead and I can't see it, right? I can't see my tomorrow, I just can't. I can do my best today. So I tend be stressed out during moving season. I want to make sure everything is organized and we're not missing anything. I want to make sure that we're eating and the kids are doing their schoolwork. So yeah, I just wish I was more relaxed. At the end, we're going to get there and everything is going to get into the new place. At the end, we all need to survive. But watch your stress level.

Julie Ross Yes, that's so important.

Ana Willis Because in my case, for example, it starts affecting my autoimmune disease and my body starts getting all hurt and shut down and headaches or whatever happens. Each one of us, you know, deal with stress in a different way. So just know that everything will eventually get there. Just try not to stress too much. I wish I was less stressed out.

Julie Ross Yes. Oh, definitely. Amen, sister. I'm right there with you. That is what I would wish too. And I do think I did a much better job this time. Like I said, I finally at this age (at 45) figured it out, but if I don't take care of myself and ramp up to self care during super stressful times, like this ship's going down. So I have to say, okay, like this one hour, I'm not going to unpack. I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to sit and read a book, you know, on top of all these boxes.

Ana Willis I did a lot of paddle boarding. That's what I did. At the end of the day, after I've done some, you know, decluttering or packing and getting school done, my husband came in and I said, "I'm going to go to the water. I'll see you in a little bit." And I would just, you know, go sit down on my paddle board and go paddle in nature and just be quiet. I just needed to be quiet, you know and not do anything. And sometimes I'll be just floating down the river for the longest time. Not wanting to come back and see the boxes. But yeah, it did help me. Those mother rest times are necessary.

Julie Ross Yeah, definitely. Take care of yourself. You need it. You need extra rest, you need extra time. Now, do you have any tips about... I know moving can be really hard socially to find friends, your people, you know, your community—leaving that, starting over somewhere. And you've had to do that so many times. Did you have any tips or thoughts on the social aspect for you and your kids?

Ana Willis Oh my goodness, one cool thing about Roadschooling is that we are part of a group that is called Fulltime Families, and every time we go, we tell them, "Hey, we're going to be at this campground in Orlando. Who's going to be there on those days?".

Julie Ross That's awesome. Yeah.

Ana Willis And then we got to meet all these different families and in our community too online, I put out there and I say, "Hey, who is in Nashville? We're coming to Nashville," and then we just do meetups and we get together with other families. But if you don't know people in different places like that, what I'd advise you to do (and this happened to us when we moved to Prince Edward Island)... I wish, you know, Anne of Green Gables was real, and I would just email her and say, "I want to meet you." But no...

Julie Ross "I want to be your bosom friend.".

Ana Willis "Yeah, I want to be a bosom friend and let's have some..." You know, what was that, "...raspberry cordial together." But when we moved to Prince Edward Island, what we did—because we knew no one there—what we did was I actually got into a PI homeschool group on Facebook. And I began to tell people, hey, we're moving into the island and we are coming from and la da da and I have kids this age. And I started actually connecting with moms before I even moved there. And when we got there, we were invited right away to meet with the local homeschool community, and it was such a blessing. And then, when we moved to British Columbia (and that was one of the coolest thing that happened to us), a family, a mom who was following me on the blog or something, we became friends. And I did the same thing: I connected with other moms online on the local groups there on Facebook first, and then this family in particular... When we got there and we moved there, I had to fly there with my kids. My husband only came a week later. Our container took a month to get there, so we had nothing. And this family came to our house the first day that we got there, and they brought us a table with four chairs. They brought us mattresses. They brought as duvets. They brought is pillows. They brought us an amazing, healthy, organic, delicious meal. They just welcomed us and we're friends to this day. We absolutely love, love that family—Amber and Adrian and their kids. We're always connecting with them even now that we're in Florida. But, you know, God raised people to bless us and help us through those transitions. He does. And the key is not to be afraid to ask for help.

Julie Ross Amen! I was just thinking that. I had to learn that the hard way because I didn't want to bother people, I didn't want people think I was needy, so I can do everything myself and it really... I mean I think it was this last move where I was like, no, because people are like, "Can I help?" and I'm like, "Oh, I don't think... No actually, could you come help pack?" or "Oh no, actually, can you help watch this kid while I go do this?" or "Oh, actually, I need peanut butter," and God just kept bringing these people. I think before, I just kept pushing them away.

Ana Willis Because people like to help and it's okay. You know what keeps us from not asking for help? Pride. And we shouldn't be prideful people, right? We like helping people as well. So don't be afraid to say, "Hey, we're moving this day. We have no bags to sleep. That was our case. We had no bags to sleep. We have no covers, no pillows, no nothing. I had to go to Ikea the next day, (which is not a bad thing to do) and I had to go buy so much and, you know, a bunch of different things. But our container was supposed to be there and it only showed up a month later. And this family just came and loved on us and helped us and helped us to plug with the local community as well, and we're friends to this day. We're never going to forget all the great things that they have done for us. And then when your friends move, you pay forward and help them as well.

Julie Ross Right. I love the social media tip. That is huge, right? Yeah, like our neighborhood has like a neighborhood Facebook thing. So say, "Hey, we're moving on this day and we have kids this age," or you know, "Anybody know a good pediatrician nearby?" I mean, it's an amazing resource and tool when you're moving. It is fantastic.

Ana Willis Yeah, it is, and they're gonna tell you, "Yeah, do you have a doctor yet?" or,, "Do you have a church to go to?" or anything like that. Or, "Hey, we're part of a co-op and you guys should come and check it out." "Have you gone to the recreation center? There's a recreation center around the corner." Or whatever it is people are always ready to help. All you need to do is ask for help.

Julie Ross Yes, right. And like you were saying, let the help that God is bringing to you in and accept that. He gives us what we need in those times, right? So we have to trust in that and accept it when it comes.

Ana Willis Never say "no" to a blessing.

Julie Ross Yes. Right. I had to learn that the hard way. Talk about learning through these challenges, right? They are there for us to learn lessons from if we'll take the time to reflect on them. And it does shape and mold our character, but also our children's character as well. And that's one of the blessings, I think, of these challenges. Is there anything you wish that people knew kind of about the challenges about this or that you would say to someone who is either going through a move or about to move to kind of encourage them through this process?

Ana Willis Well, like I said before, you're going to get to the other side. Don't worry.

Julie Ross And your stuff might come late, but you're going to get there.

Ana Willis You're gonna get there. Don't worry, you can get there. But really, just try to stress less. It's gonna make things so much easier when you're not stressed out, when you're now freaking out about everything. That family time, that time for yourself—that's precious. Make sure that you're just organized and one step at a time. Don't be anxious about tomorrow. I'm preaching to myself here, but don't be anxious about tomorrow. Don't waste your time with "what-ifs." "What-ifs" are just a big waste of time. It's one day at a time. It's right here, right now. Get it done. Then tomorrow, you'll do the rest, and it's fine. And keep that routine as much as possible. For us, like Charlotte Mason moms, we continue to read books through it or listen to audio books. We still go on nature walks. Try to keep that routine going with the kids. They need normalcy as much as you need normalcy as well.

Julie Ross Yeah. And I think that nature, the exercise, right? Like that's so therapeutic and key in the midst of craziness to keep exercising and taking care of that part of yourself. But all the peacefulness of nature and the beauty of that, even if it's just, "Okay, we're going to stop on the side of the road. Look at all these wildflowers. Go run around." You know, it doesn't have to be this big thing.

Ana Willis Julie, especially before we left Canada... Canada is absolutely stunning, beautiful, and we wanted to take in the lakes and the mountains and all those beautiful places—the creeks and the river. And we will simply stop and say, "Let's go for a bike ride," or, "Let's go down to the water and take the paddleboards," and, you know, "Let's go kayaking for a little bit." And sometimes that half an hour, 40 minutes that we took just to relax, decompress and go connect with nature, and connect with each other, connect with God, and just enjoy, it was exactly what we needed. It was exactly what we needed. And when we came back, we could be more productive actually because we were relaxed.

Julie Ross Yeah, and I love that because it's not like, "Well, our formal nature study topic for this week is pumpkins. And we just spent the afternoon looking at wildflowers, so I'm actually now behind on my nature study." Or, "My child was supposed to read 75 pages in XYZ, but we spent three hours listening to this audio book in the car and now they're behind and da, da, da, da, da." I think it's, "Okay, here are kind of these boxes of reading great literature, spending time out in nature, talking about ideas—like these big topics of ideas in these boxes of a Charlotte Mason education and being creative about what fits in the box." Does that make sense? And it fits in with the moving. Do you love that ol' pun there? That was pretty good.

Ana Willis Yeah, absolutely because you know what? Here's the thing... And we talked about that, like we drove through so many different states and different vegetations and I mean, we were like one day in Montana and then after a few days we were in Utah and it's all desert and it's beautiful, sunny. And what we did was taking in what we were seeing at the moment and learn about what we seeing—what was in front of us. So it's a good place for you to exercise the habit of attention, you know, put the full force of your mind in what is right in front of your eyes, what is in your hand right there. And we did that, and then we'll come back to the RV and then we'll get some reading done and we get the math done and we get language arts done. And then again, we'll get out again and take it in—what's happening right now at that moment. So we did that as well. And it helped us during the driving and the moving process up there as well—spending time connecting with friends before we left, connecting with our friends from church and our church. That was important to us as well. Eating that last order of poutine before we leave Canada. Those things were important to us as well, you know?

Julie Ross Yeah, creating those memories too along the way, I think is important and the traditions and things are super key. But I think you do have to give yourself a lot of grace when you are in this process and not hold yourself to maybe what you were doing before you were moving and give yourself some time throughout the process to kind of change things up a little bit and be more flexible. And it's not gonna look like your little plans that maybe you wrote out at the beginning of the year or whatever, and to be okay with that.

Ana Willis Yes. Just remember, it's a season. And even for our routines, our routines need to be adjusted often to fit the season that we're in. And it's totally okay that your routine today does not look like a week ago, because you're going through different things in your life this week—you know, through moving or through packing—that you were not going through a week ago, so it's okay to adjust to it.

Julie Ross Yeah, yeah. Well, you have just been an amazing source of wisdom, and thank you for your time, in the midst of moving, to come talk about moving. But I know this will be super helpful and encouraging for those who are going through this process or about to start this process, or even if you have a friend or someone that you're supporting kind of through these challenges. I think these are great episodes to listen to that you can come alongside like we were talking about with some of your friends through these different challenges, and help someone who might be in a different season than you are and give them grace.

Ana Willis Yeah, and let me tell you: take advantage of outsourcing your homeschool during that time as well. Your kids can take online courses. We did that while I was busy doing other things. Idea books work fantastic while you're packing as a family. So we did the whole Pilgrim's Progress this summer while we were packing. In PI when we were moving, we did The Chronicles of Narnia. We read all the books and it was a blessing to us. So you can still be learning and enjoying that learning time together while you're doing those things.

Julie Ross That's great. And are you still offering the online classes with the Sisterhood stuff? Tell us about that one.

Ana Willis Absolutely. It's open right now, and we're giving the first 30 days free if you sign up for The Homeschool Sisterhood. So make sure you share your link, Julie, so everybody can come and join us.

Julie Ross Yeah, I'll put that in the show notes. I don't know when the episode will air, so when does it close?

Ana Willis I think we're closing... I'll say at the beginning of November. But let us know if your followers, your audience, wants to join us. We can make it happen for them. But it is a blessing because we have all the online book clubs, we're a Charlotte Mason community, Christ-centered community. We got apologetics co-op for the kids. We got Friday Feast where every week, the kids learn about a famous composer, artist and poet. We do Poetry Tea Time, Virtual Poetry Tea Time. We do Show and Tell online. And we have also the Bible study for kids and for teens. There's a lot. There are mentorship calls. There're all kinds of different things.

Julie Ross I know, you're amazing. I don't know how you do all you do. Really.

Ana Willis You know, I don't know how I would homeschool without that. So I created it because I need it.

Julie Ross Yes. And that's a very good point. Every time I've moved, it seems like I feel like, oh, I need some friends. Why can't I find anything? And I can have a little pity part for myself, and then God's like, "Um, why don't you start XYZ co-op?" Or, "Why don't you start a book club so you can meet some friends?" I mean, it's just like, "I always find..." God's like, "Okay, if this is what you want, go ahead." You know, I have to be the one to kind of... Maybe that's just our personalities, right? Because God knows we're going to make it happen.

Ana Willis You know we're so similar, right? I do the same thing. If I want something and I can't see it, nobody's doing it, I'm going to go ahead and do it. That's actually how we launched The Charlotte Mason Inspired Conference because I was talking to Tatiana and said, "I really want to go to a Charlotte Mason Conference, but I can go in person." And she said, "Well, let's just do it then." You know, I said to her, "Let just do one." And she's said, "Okay, let do it, there you go!".

Julie Ross And you're doing that at the beginning of November?

Ana Willis Yeah, we have our fall retreat at the beginning of November.

Julie Ross So we're still here in the beginning of October, so people should still be able to sign up for that.

Ana Willis Yes, we're in October already, Julie.

Julie Ross I know it's crazy, isn't it?

Ana Willis Yes, and Julie is teaching at our fall retreat, which is a hands-on Charlotte Mason retreat.

Julie Ross Yeah, I'm excited. So, yes, you really are amazing. I really appreciate all that you do for all of us. So thank you so much for joining us and I will link to all your amazingness for people to check out all the resources that can help them through this moving time and kind of aid in their homeschool and give them some support, which we all need, but especially when you're going through some of these challenges. So thank you, Ana, again for coming on.

Ana Willis Thank you, Julie.