It's incredible how MUCH different our lives have become in the past few years.

It seems like a minute ago, I still had five kids at home and was endlessly cooking popovers with eggs from our backyard chickens, and scraping together enough money from my online projects to visit Costco once a month. 

Our days were filled with video games and foam weapon battles, tending the yard and garden, and fights over who got to watch what on the TV.

We didn't have much community around us locally, and drove into the city whenever we could to try and ‘fit in’ with the community there.

The homeschool world in rural Texas has never been a place where my family has felt welcomed and accepted for who we are.

We're not military, not Christian, and way more pro-childrens'-autonomy (and pro-video-games!) than most of those folks prefer.

Now, we're not in rural Texas anymore…