👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 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.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, my ‘lil shamrock!
I’m feeling extra lucky to know you, a fellow homeschooler (or homeschool interested) in this wild, mad world of noise, chaos, and algorithms. And today, on a day when we make corned beef and cabbage, and celebrate lucky charms, let’s talk about how lucky we are to be living this life, shall we?
I used to think luck was a fluke of fate, but now I know it’s just the quiet rebellion of finding the off switch while the rest of the world is still trying to break the sound barrier.
We’re told to hunt for the four-leaf clovers and the pots of gold today, but I’m looking at my crockpot full of corned beef and potatoes, realizing that real luck isn't a loud, flashy event. It’s the grace of letting the world spin at its own frantic pace while you stay exactly where the real magic (the messy, slow, human kind) is actually happening.
And I’m staring at this generations-old appliance while sipping coffee, thinking about the 90s and early 2000s. Not just the fashion (though those neon windbreakers and electric-purple patterns deserve a serious comeback, amIright?), but the effort of it all.
Remember when the internet was a destination you actually had to visit? You had to sit through the screech and guh-dong-guh-dong of a dial-up modem, a manual labor of love just to check your Hotmail account, discover a new skill, or find a hidden gem using Yahoo like these guys.
It was a creative act to find something good because you had to consciously dig for it.
And speaking of digging, we didn’t do a whole lot of that by staring at a blue light in the palm of our hand. We stayed outside until the streetlights flickered on, our only algorithm being the sunset and the sound of our own names being called for dinner.
But today’s world is vastly different. It’s a loop of continuity designed to keep us scrolling until our attention only moves in one predetermined direction. We look up hours later, our brains feeling like static, wondering why we’ve forgotten how to seek out what actually matters. We’ve lost the manual process of our own lives, and it hurts to realize how easily we let an algorithm take the wheel of our time—and our kids’ focus.
Sometimes, don’t you just wish you could unplug the entire frantic mess and just... exist? Do you ever wonder if your kids are losing that manual magic of discovery because the world is trying to optimize them before they even know who they are?
Nothing about learning is actually about the schedule. It’s about the process of helping our kids find themselves in the middle of all this noise. We chose the kitchen table (or the passenger seat of the truck) because we believe in the quiet rebellion of building a life on our own terms. Learning is the autonomy to decide that a perfect sunny afternoon is just as vital as a math worksheet.
I felt the full weight of this luck a few weeks ago when our weekly plans derailed, as they have been every single week lately. But instead of the usual internal struggle of trying to force a pre-determined schedule that didn’t take life into consideration, I decided to lean into the freedom we’ve worked so hard to create.
We were getting the truck serviced ahead of a camping trip, so school happened right there in the waiting room. When we got back home, the sun came out and the temperature hit that perfect sweet spot, so when we got home, we all headed outside to read and play.
And that’s when it hit me: We’re not just learning how to learn in school. And we’re certainly not focused exclusively on what to learn, either.
We’re learning how to live intentionally in today’s fast-paced world, choosing what’s lucky enough to get our time and attention.
We’re not trying to avoid the world. It still offers so much. We’re just changing how we behave in it, so we aren’t sticking ourselves or our kids in a whirlpool of responding and reacting to algorithms telling us what we should be paying attention to.
I still want my kids to engage with everything modern life has to offer, and sometimes the world gives us little gems of curiosity that lead us somewhere brand-new. But I’m more conscious now about finding the manual way—the way that is slow, meaningful, and deeply personal.
It’s a lot like using that old internet: you have to dig, you have to seek, and you have to be willing to get your hands a little dirty in the process.
So today, as we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day full of green, leprauchans, and some Irish food, let’s celebrate the real luck of getting off the train. The early alarms and the pressure to stay aligned aren't for us. We get to live together. We get to slow down. Most days, that looks like a 7:00 AM wakeup and a deep dive into a rabbit hole that fascinates us. It’s a deeper, more profound way to learn, and I wouldn't trade that manual magic for all the gold in the world.
XO,
Kimberly Crossland
