👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hey there! I’m Kimberly, the woman who traded the traditional classroom for the kitchen table because I wasn’t vibing with the rushed, performance-heavy script of a 9-to-5 life. Now, The Ten AM goes out to thousands of parents bang in the thick of the mess and mayhem of raising humans in the wild, who are still trying to find the magic.
I’m a homeschooling mom of two, a coffee devotee, and an RV lover who craves the autonomy of the open road, and here is where I muse on the building blocks of our unscripted life: the rhythm of our days, the chaos of the in-between, career pivots, cold brews, and finding the courage to raise kids who actually know themselves. Call us rebels if you want, but heck if I don’t grab onto this messy, beautiful autonomy with both hands. It’s a wild, unscripted ride, and I’m doing it with a heart (and a coffee mug) that is (mostly) full. Welcome to The Slow Pour.
There is something borderline offensive about how beautiful life can be right at the exact moment you’re about to lose your mind.
We do this homeschooling thing because we want our kids to learn, but also to just…breathe. We want them to have the kind of freedom that isn't measured in bells and hall passes.
But I have to ask, because I’m looking at my own reflection in a lukewarm cup of coffee: Do we ever choose that freedom for ourselves?
We sign up for the co-op classes we don’t have time for. We volunteer to coach the sports we barely understand. We turn our SUVs into mobile cafeterias and our dining tables into laboratories. We embrace the bliss of having our kids close to us, with a front-row seat to their lives, sure, but we do it while sprinting. We do it while white-knuckling the steering wheel on the way to the third elective of the day.
And yet, we’re terrified that if we stop moving, the whole beautiful, chaotic circus will just… stop.
We adore this. We signed up for the deep dives, the slow mornings, and the "let's just see where this rabbit hole leads" afternoons. We’re out here giving our kids the world on a silver platter, and yet…
…yet…
… we try to make the whole beautiful production look effortless. And honestly? Trying to make magic look easy is the most exhausting job on the planet. It’s like we’re the lead, the director, and the person secretly sweeping the stage at 11:00 PM so the curtains can rise on another perfectly organic day tomorrow.
Sometimes, I think we’re so busy building a life we love that we forget to actually feel the love while we’re standing right in the middle of it.
But chaos isn't the enemy. The unintentional chaos is.
Last week was the peak of Spring in our year. My kids were wrapping up a Broadway School unit, which meant dress rehearsals, costume crises, and the frantic energy of a closing show.
I was coaching PE right before running off to get a cake on our way to the park to celebrate my son’s birthday.
We were finishing the first-ever songs the kids composed in music, which meant finding time to get creative with new lyrics and arrangements.
We were hitting the final stretch of the archery league, and I was putting this ridiculous, heavy pressure on myself to get better every single Tuesday.
It was a lot. And then, the universe decided to raise the stakes.
As I was rushing out the door to jiu-jitsu, I found out we lost a family member. I chose to hold that news close to my chest for a day, protecting my kids’ hearts since they didn’t know her, while we bounced from one event to the next.
Despite the heavy news, despite the rushing, despite the costume crises, I didn't spiral. I stayed steady. I hit the marks I set out to hit (although I did get more 5s than 12s at archery league), not because I was perfect, but because I’ve spent the last few years building a system that allows for the human parts of homeschooling. It’s a system I adapted from my strategy days in the business world, straight over to homeschooling…
… and it’s been a DREAM to have in my back pocket for weeks like that.
I have a very strong opinion that homeschooling shouldn't follow the same strict, sterile system that public school does. We left that for a reason. But—and this is a big but—it still needs guardrails. It needs guidelines to keep us in the right lane so we don’t end up in a ditch the second things get messy.
A plan is the most obvious way to save your sanity, right?
Yet most of us plan only half the story. We plan the curriculum we want to teach, the co-op we want to join, and the electives we want our kids to master. But that’s just the what. The other half—the half that actually matters when life throws a curveball—is setting up the systems that let you achieve those goals no matter what. It’s the method to the madness that keeps you on course when things feel extra crazy (and we homeschool… things WILL feel crazy).
There is a massive difference between just going through the motions and actually going through life with your kids while helping them learn. We’re going for the latter.
I’m obsessed with systems and strategies that keep things simple. That’s why I’m currently laying out my whole method to the madness to share with you. I want to show you the framework that keeps us sane, stays within the lines, and prevents us from completely melting into a puddle on the kitchen floor when the Spring peaks of life happen.
The course I’m building will teach you how to choose your curriculum, but more importantly, how to choose your system so the life you’ve built feels achievable—even when you miss a mark or two.
Out of curiosity…
Are you interested in learning this system?
Sending you love and a very strong cup of coffee to get through the remainder of the year,
XO,
Kimberly Crossland
