2020 was _________ [insert your adjective of choice].

Several come to mind:
crazy.
surreal.
challenging.
unprecedented.
catastrophic.
bad.
the worst.

Never before in history has the world been disrupted to such a great extent by a virus. The entire world literally came to a screeching halt in Mid-March as governments across the globe proclaimed various states of emergency due to the “novel virus” known as COVID-19.

We entered a zone called “The New Normal.”
Similar to the Twilight Zone, but not nearly as entertaining.

Words like “shelter-in-place,” “lockdown,” “PPE,” and “social distancing” became part of our daily vernacular.

Face masks became wardrobe accessories.
I think the jury is still out on whether they had any significant impact in preventing the spread of infection.

Daily routines were disrupted as many businesses were forced to close. Many businesses closed permanently, especially small mom-and-pop enterprises. You couldn’t go to a movie theater. Or a library. You couldn’t meet a friend for coffee. Restaurants were for pick-up or drive-through only. And if you didn’t make it to the grocery store by 7pm (some closed even earlier) you had to wait until the next day. Nothing was open 24 hours, if it was opened at all.

First World problems? Or problems of a different, more insidious kind?

Many things about COVID confused me.

1. Strange shortages of paper products confused me.
Paper towels and toilet paper began disappearing from store shelves. Was this some kind of prepping thing I didn’t know about? They were not the typical shortages you would see for, say. . . real emergencies like hurricanes, floods, or long-term power outages.

No, my friends. During times of extreme community preparedness, the first things to disappear from grocery store shelves are the important things like water bottles and Pop Tarts. Yes, Pop Tarts. Because THAT is how the average American preps for real emergencies. Trust me, I've done my research.

The hoarding of paper products was a real head-scratcher. I can maybe understand stocking up on extra toilet paper. But, paper towels?

2. The shortage of yeast confused me.
Yeast began disappearing from store shelves, and even online. Was there a sudden proliferation of people who wanted to make their own bread? As a bread-maker myself, I was a little irritated at the idea.

3. The word “essential” confused me.
I was baffled to learn that some businesses or jobs were considered more “essential” than others. Essential businesses, like liquor stores, could remain open. Churches, which were considered non-essential, could not. What the what??

People unfortunate enough to discover that their jobs were “non-essential” were furloughed with no guarantee of getting their job back.

To be honest, I'm still not clear about what the actual definition of "essential" or "non-essential" is or was, or how it came about. But I'm fairly certain that the folks making up the definitions held positions that fell within the "essential" category.

4. The lack of therapeutics for COVID+ patients, especially those exhibiting symptoms, confused me.
Our family contracted COV between Christmas and New Year's Day. I got it first, right around 11am on Christmas Eve, during a Zoom call with my family. I started feeling terrible, all of a sudden, so I dropped off the Zoom call to lie down.

Medical advice was to take Tylenol and quarantine at home. I think the worst part about it was that I didn't know what to expect and there were no instructions and not even an antibiotic prescribed. I found the lack of medical treatment odd, Usually, you can't go to the doctor for a broken fingernail without going home with a prescription of some kind. Even when you have a virus, docs like to prescribe antibiotics to prevent secondary infection. So I felt it very odd that doing nothing was considered the best treatment.

Thankfully, one of my brothers, who was working with COVID patients, was able to help me figure out what to look out for and what to do. I felt like I had a very bad flu, achey all over, so I stayed in bed. I had previously been taking a regimen of vitamins, including zinc, which I continued. I monitored my oxygen levels, breathing and heart rate. I also made sure to drink lots of liquids.

Within a few days I felt better, except that I couldn't smell or taste. It was the strangest thing I had ever experienced. I wasn't congested or stuffed up. In fact, I could breathe through my nose quite well. I just couldn't smell or taste anything. I could sense that some things had a taste – very strongly-flavored foods, for example – so I tried to eat those types of food to get the sensation of flavor. Not being able to smell was also terrible. I was nervous that I would burn down the house while I was cooking and never smell anything, so I was extra careful in the kitchen.

5. The policing of social media and censorship of information confused me.
Without getting into the politics of it, I'll just say that I would rather have the freedom to read both factual information as well as inaccurate or false information and make determinations for myself, than to be shielded from information that some third-party thinks, in their own opinion, is worthy of being read.


Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, public school classrooms were forced to move to an online format at home. It was a frustrating experience. Teachers had the challenge of converting curriculum designed for in-person learning into a virtual format. Parents, especially those with full-time jobs, struggled with how to find time to help their children navigate the online schooling. There wasn’t a lot of help or direction.

This was uncharted territory, and everyone was pretty much on their own.

Homeschooling was ubiquitous, and the struggles were nearly universal. One of the local news stations contacted me for an interview to get my input on how to homeschool in this new environment.

Getting used to a different schedule. Technology troubles. Connectivity issues. Online instructions that were impossible for even parents to understand. Strained parent-child relationships that were incompatible with the new dynamic of being home all day.

I heard many complaints about this new “homeschooling" environment.
I could certainly empathize.
If that were my first introduction to homeschooling, I would hate it, too.

But this picture of homeschooling was all wrong. What these families were experiencing was not homeschooling. It was public school at home. And for many, it was not working out well.

Why wasn’t it working out for a lot of these families? To put it simply, homeschooling is a different mindset. It’s more than just changing the location of school. It is altogether a different approach to learning.

What makes homeschooling different?
Here are a few differences.

1. Homeschooling isn’t a decision that is made for you. It is a decision that you make for your family.
COVID-19 was the impetus that forced families to school at home, creating a huge number of what I call “accidental” or “unintentional” homeschoolers. Government officials, not families, made the decision to close schools and move classroom learning to the home computer. Many families were simply unprepared for this sudden paradigm shift, especially those with full-time jobs.

Our decision to homeschool our kids was not something we decided overnight. You can find our story on the post "Live & Learn: What Homeschooling Has Taught Us."

The decision to homeschool should be intentional, personal, and the result of much careful research, thought, and prayer.


2. Homeschooling isn’t “staying home all day.”
Strangely enough, “virtual public school during a mandatory lockdown” became synonymous with “homeschooling." Several people complained to me, “Homeschooling is driving us crazy. I don't know how you stay home all day."

I had to laugh because pre-COVID we were rarely "home all day." Staying home was driving us crazy, too.

The word “homeschool” is a bit of a misnomer. Most homeschool families take part in many classes and extracurricular activities outside of the home — an average of five activities, according to statistics on homeschooling. There are so many wonderful opportunities for homeschoolers nowadays, that many of us struggle with spending too much time outside the home.

As surprising as it might sound, homeschoolers are a pretty social bunch who, in spite of what we call ourselves, don’t limit education to our own four walls.

No thanks to COVID-19, most of our activities had either been moved to an online format or cancelled altogether.

The COVID Homeschool Life was anything but a positive experience for us.


3. Homeschooling isn’t a one-size-fits-all curriculum.
Anyone who has children knows that no two children, even in the same family, learn the same way. Some children are more auditory. Some are more kinesthetic. Some are more visual. Some children are quick learners. Others are slower.

Homeschool parents know that there is no single curriculum that is the perfect fit for every child. What works for one child doesn’t necessarily work for the others. One of the beauties of homeschooling is having the freedom to choose a curriculum that best fits their family and children’s learning styles.

You just don’t have the flexibility of teaching to different styles using standardized curriculum in a classroom environment.


4. Homeschooling isn’t schooling on someone else’s schedule.
Homeschooling is flexible and allows parents to create their own schedule.
If a family wants to start their school day at 7am, 8am, or even 9am, they can. They can also decide which days of the week to homeschool.
Some families follow a normal public school calendar. Others design their schedule around certain months — for example, some school during the summer and take a break during the winter holidays.

By the fall of 2020, homeschooling had seen a huge boom. Our own state of Texas experienced as much as a 400% increase in homeschoolers. When families realized that they could school their kids on their own schedule, with their own choice of curriculum, many quickly began pulling their kids out of public school.

My feeling is that the longer the COVID pandemic drags on, more families will continue to look into private school or homeschooling as an option.


If you are feeling that homeschooling might be an option for you, you might want to check out my blog "I THINK I MIGHT Want to Homeschool located here.