Successful Graphic Designer and Homeschool Mom

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This is a guest post written by Laura Girdner, a busy working, homeschooling mom that has embraced homeschooling with her heart, and besides explaining how she successfully completed her first year of homeschooling, she gives some words of wisdom to keep priorities at hand when it comes to being a mother, a teacher, and a working woman.

Hi there! My name is Laura Girdner. I am a wife and mother of four living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have 11-year-old twin daughters who just finished fifth grade, a 7 year old son finishing up second grade, and a 3 year old son. My husband and I own Girdner Graphic Design, through which we perform a variety of graphic and web design services for companies large and small. We love our little church, Blaze Christian Fellowship, where my husband serves as a deacon and I serve in the women’s ministry.

My work hours are extremely random. Because I work from home on my computer, I am blessed with a lot of flexibility as to when I actually work. Most of the time I check on some emails first thing in the morning and communicate with clients, between 7:00am and 8:00am. I then check in on things around lunch time again and perform quick tasks as needed, spending less than hour during that time. Once we finish school I usually need a break emotionally, mentally and physically, and often I need a shower at that time too so I take some time for myself. If I have time before dinner I will hop on the computer and get some more things done, otherwise the bulk of my work I perform at night after dinner.

I’m very blessed to be able to work from home and not need to find sitters most of the time, but I do have to meet with clients in person from time to time. Reliable childcare is always a struggle for me. We don’t have a lot of family in town and the family we do have isn’t available. I have some teenagers I hire to come over and babysit while I’m out. Other times I can ask some friends or my mother-in-law will be available to watch the kids.

I just started homeschooling my children in February of 2017. As our small business was starting to grow and gain momentum at the time, I had a lot of fear as to how on earth I was going to be able to teach my children well and keep up with the work we had coming in. It was a big leap of faith as we knew God would provide for all of our needs, including time, resources, and ability, but we couldn’t see quite how it was all going to work out at the time.

I like to start our school work as soon as possible every morning. We start every day off with prayer and our Bible study around the table while the kids eat breakfast, ideally right at 8 or earlier if everyone is up and at ‘em. When we are in Classical Conversations, we go over our memory work all together at this time too. If we can get through it without distractions this takes about an hour. We then break up and I have work each of the kids can do alone while I work with the other kids so we make the best use of our time. For all three of my kids, we can get through Math, reading, spelling, English, Bible, and memory work within 4 hours. When we are in the throws of Classical Conversations, the Essentials tasks can take up to 2 extra hours per day. I would guess the preparation for Presentations and special projects probably adds an extra couple of hours per week as well. I do all of the teaching for my kids.

Laura and her children during school time.

The income from my work provides for so many of the materials and activities of our homeschool. Homeschooling helped me to be more consistent in our billing. Where before I may have been tempted to undercharge, my time is so limited and more valuable now I am sure to charge an appropriate amount. I love being able to include my kids in my work and teach them the skills I have.

My kids each have one extra-curricular activity they participate in. So far none have them have had a burning passion to do any specific thing that would require more than once or twice a week meetings. We chose to have one insane day where everyone had to be in a different place and I played chauffer all afternoon, but for my sanity I preferred this over having something every day of the week.

We were very blessed to have good friends in Classical Conversations so when we started homeschooling we jumped in with both feet. The weekly accountability is imperative for me to ensure I am staying on track and giving my kids the best education possible. The community aspect is so important for my kids and they love going every week. It’s also a relief knowing that we can rely on that one day a week to have a solid day of learning in weeks when everything goes haywire.

We purchase different resources for different subjects and for different kids. Our history is mostly read-alouds and documentaries.

The biggest challenge for me is confidence and peace in the day-to-day. I am learning that prayer and prioritizing are key to keeping my heart in check.

Prioritizing time with God first.

Having the opportunity to point my children to God and disciple them is the greatest benefit of homeschooling, I want to be sure to always put that first.

Remembering who we are is more important than what we do.

If we accomplish all kinds of tasks and projects but I spend the whole day yelling and being harsh with my children, we’ve gained nothing. We can set the bar high and work through hard things without being overly critical and ungracious.

Today has enough worry of its own.

When work projects come up and I have to take time away from homeschooling, there is always tomorrow. I have learned to keep our schedule loose and have resources available for my children to still have educational time even if I am not available to be working one-on-one with them. When this would happen early on in our homeschool path, I would feel very guilty and stressed out and I would try to force everything I want to get done into one single day, making for a very ugly day for everybody.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

We are a Christian family. We have a Helper with us at all times, whether I need to take some extended alone time to pray and ask for guidance, or when my heart is heavy and I feel so overwhelmed I feel like I can’t do it and all I can cry out is “Help!”. We are not alone, and I need to call on the Lord regularly.

Cultivating a heart of thankfulness.

My children are such a blessing, when I feel burdened by the work of being a mom I need to thank God for them in specific ways to get my heart back on track. When the schoolwork seems never ending and I want to give up, I need to remember how blessed we are to even get to homeschool, that we have the freedom to educate our children as we see best and all of the many reasons we are doing it. When my work is daunting and I’d rather watch TV or read a book, I need to remember that work is going to provide for supplies, field trips, vacations, etc.

My best time management tip is to write everything down. It is not only a practical way to ensure we stay on track, it is super encouraging to see what we have accomplished on days when I may not feel like we’ve done much at all.

I pray that you find Laura’s schedule insightful. As always, “We can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us” (Phil. 4:13), but we can’t do them all at once.