First a funny backstory/side note.

I used to drink my coffee with cream and sugar. I got rid of the sugar, and eventually decided to go without cream or milk too. Those first few cups of black coffee reminded me of the smell of a skunk. But I got over it and now I only want it black. Why, exactly, did I do this? I’ll tell you: to make my coffee more low-maintenance. Because I love being as low-maintenance as I can be.

Which makes the following section really, really funny.

So seriously. How do you make it so that it actually tastes good? Is it even possible?

Yes!

(disclaimer: the links are to my Amazon affiliate account. I may get a small percentage if you order anything on Amazon when following the links that, uh, follow).

First off: french press. If you’ve never used one, it’s the same basic principle as making loose tea. You pour the grounds in the press, pour hot water over the grounds, wait, and then squeeze it down. Pour out the coffee, leave the grounds in the bottom.

For whatever reason, french press coffee is much richer than from a coffee maker no matter how good that model is (and I do love my coffee maker)

So pretending you’re convinced to try a french press now, what about the beans itself? 

You have two options. You can either buy coarse-ground coffee (since you need the same coarseness for cold brew, you can add that to the search terms), which is very hard to find for decaf. OR you can buy whole beans and grind it yourself. 

That’s what I ended up doing, because it was that hard to find coarse ground coffee. The grinder I linked to works great after multiple uses a day for 1 1/2 years, so I highly recommend it.

Then it’s a matter of finding beans with some bite.

Depending on how strong you like your coffee, this could be quite a challenge. I like french roast or other similarly dark roasts. That really makes decaf feel like…well, like Pentatonix without a guy singing bass. Still decent, but missing depth.

Reading up on ways decaf is made taught me that Swiss Filtered was a much healthier, much more flavorful form of decaf. So we started trying different brands. 

My favorite: Kicking Horse. We get it in two-pound bags with our subscribe and save order. 

There’s a first runner up: Don Pablo. It’s about half the price. Not as good, but for the amount of coffee we drink, we wanted to try it.

Our plan for this month is to actually combine the two and see how that tastes. I’ll let you know what we decide if you’re curious!

Since then, we’ve gotten passes most years. We had to go another year without them for financial reasons, but usually we’ve been able to pull it off.

Compared to the amount we spent on airfare, transportation, hotels/resorts, food, and park passes (for a WEEK), the annual pass is about half of that. 

So our trips are shorter now, but far more frequent. Instead of doing everything at each park, we can pick a few things and go home when we’re hungry. We can plan our days around our Fastpasses, just go for the Food and Wine festival, or just go to Animal Kingdom for a couple drawing classes. It’s a beautiful thing.

Doesn’t it get boring?

First of all, have you actually thought that? 

Short answer: NO. It doesn’t. There’s just too much to do there, too many things to enjoy again and again. Disney doesn’t get old. Its focus is nostalgia, which means each trip builds on the last one, because not only does the Dumbo ride remind me of my first time on it at 15, but then I remember the time the kids were tiny and rode on it in the rain. 

 Then there’s something magical called Disneybounding, which I explained here. and demonstrated here. This is a wonderful way to keep each trip fresh, and to create magic for the other Passholders and the Cast Members. 

Twice a year we participate in Dapper Days, (the pictures above are from Dapper Day in November, 2017) which can get rather pricey if you give me too long ahead of time to plan. Let’s just say our Country Bear Jamboree/Spaceship Earth weekend cost us a LOT more than I planned to spend, especially considering we got most of the pieces at various Goodwill stores!

Then there’s the advantage of knowing where the cameras are on all the rides. Planning these can be a lot of fun!

So what do you think? Could you keep making trips (we average about 1 a week) for 5 years? Or are we unusual? (actually, maybe don’t answer that) 

And more importantly, can you tell who we’re dressing up as in these pictures, and who should we attempt next? 

Feel free to drop me a line and suggest things I could discuss here. (charla@charmboxstudios.com ) I would love to hear what you think, too!

I’m going to leave comments closed on my blog posts, because nothing is more depressing than seeing a bunch of “0 comments,” and I detest having to delete spam. So write to me if you’d like to give me your feedback! And feel free to subscribe by going here and signing up!

A lot of people ask, jokingly or not, if I would be interested in taking their kids as well.

I’m honored, because it means my kids are doing okay. But seriously, if they watched what our kids did, they wouldn’t ask me*.

In homeschooling circles, there are a number of ways to teach your kids. 

Florida has a Virtual School, which is basically public school at home. Some of my friends love it, some hated it and ran as fast as they could from it. But that’s pretty much the same response to public school in general. 

Then there are open-and-go curricula, which is where a company will send you all the materials you and your kids need. Christian or secular, themed or more traditional: the options are endless. Overwhelming. So much fun to look through. 

The other end of the spectrum is something called unschooling. This is a very child-led instruction, where the parents figure out what thrills the child and creates natural learning opportunities for them. 

I’m a hybrid. Apparently there are others like me, and we’re known as “eclectic” homeschoolers.

Yeah, eclectic sounds just about right.

It means we pick and choose what we do, and it can change whenever what we’re doing stops working. 

That means we’ve tried a little of everything. Well, everything but virtual school. I want to be my kids’ teacher, and that isn’t likely to change at any point.

We currently use a variety of things.

Two of the kids (don’t ask which ones because I’d have to go ask them) use something called Teaching Textbooks for math. It’s an online/CD math program that teaches, gives problems for them to do, and then helps them when they make mistakes. 
One of them uses the Life of Fred series to learn pre-algebra.

All three of them use Prodigy (the free version) to practice their math. I’m not a fan of Common Core, and some of the problems they throw at the kids are about 8 math problems in one, but it’s an enjoyable way for them to make sure they really get the concepts.

That’s just math! Then there’s spelling, which is a combination of three different things as well. 

After those, though, then things kind of unravel.

History is something that I’ve always loved, but somehow we’ve never actually completed a curriculum. Never. Not even the one I created. Yes, I’m embarrassed by this fact. We’re only three chapters from completing the one we bought a year ago, though, and we have decided we WILL finish this one. 

(picture to the left is our creation of Hagia Sophia, from 2011, which we created as a church, then tore down the mosaics and painted over them to represent its changing to a mosque in the 15th century.)

Wish you knew what I thought about a topic? Feel free to drop me a line and suggest things I could discuss here. (charla@charmboxstudios.com ) I would love to hear what you think, too!

I’m going to leave comments closed on my blog posts, because nothing is more depressing than seeing a bunch of “0 comments,” and I detest having to delete spam. So write to me if you’d like to give me your feedback!

So what am I doing now?

That’s a great question.

I’ve spent the past several months trying to figure out what I want to do with my life now.

My sweet husband, who knows more about me than I know about myself, mentioned the other day that writing was something that got me out of bed in the morning.

He’s right. I used to get up at 5 a.m. to write.

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo several times. One of those books is on Amazon, and another is waiting for me to be brave and getting that one published too. A third I haven’t even gone back and re-read, though the kids think it’s amazing so I really should get on that.

So this is me, getting back into writing. With no idea where it will take me.

What will I do with this space?

I’ll chat about things I’ve learned or am learning. Don’t expect me to be an expert, because I’m not. I have a lot of topics I know a bit about, so I’m going to share what I’ve discovered.

More importantly, I’m going to use this space to be encouraging. Uplifting. Positive.

I’m an Enneagram 2 (I’ll write about that more very soon). Basically, that means I am happiest when I’m helping others get happier. So this place may challenge you once in awhile, but mostly it will be a place where I can let my little light shine. (you’re welcome for getting that Sunday School song stuck in your head. If you want a great updated version, which might just happen to have my children singing, check out Jeduthun Kids’ “Let My Light Shine.”)

Wish you knew what I thought about a topic? Feel free to drop me a line and suggest things I could discuss here. (charla@charmboxstudios.com ) I would love to hear what you think, too!

I’m going to leave comments closed on my blog posts, because nothing is more depressing than seeing a bunch of “0 comments,” and I detest having to delete spam. So write to me if you’d like to give me your feedback!

It always seems so exciting…so invigorating…to see someone change courses and find something they’re passionate about and run toward it with all their heart.

I write about our three children all the time. Their pictures are scattered all over this website.

But we consider that we have several other children. Kids we’ve never actually met, but who we love very much.

The oldest is one that Josh and his sister sponsored when they were teens, and that we took over writing to and sponsoring when we got married. She’s now married, a pharmacist, and has two children (the younger of whom, by the way, is named Joshua. That tells you how much of an impact Josh had on her life!) 

There are three more that we’re currently sponsoring. Each of our (birth) children takes the responsibility to write to one of our (sponsor) children. Our oldest writes to a girl her age in Indonesia. Our middle chose a girl to sponsor from Tanzania. Our youngest writes to a girl from Peru.

Having these children in our lives means we’re much more aware of what’s going on all over the world. Hearing about mudslides in Peru makes us aware of how dangerous life is for these families. And since I lived in Istanbul during the 1999 earthquakes, I’m VERY aware of just how devastating those kinds of natural disasters are. 

But at a more personal level, it’s incredibly powerful knowing we’re having a hand in helping three families get out of the poverty they’ve experienced. These children are given an education…medical assistance…and are being introduced to the God that notices when a sparrow falls. I’ve seen that faith blooming in our “graduate” sponsored child and we all celebrate as we see our three current sponsored children learning the same truths.

Because of how much we believe in what Compassion is doing, Josh and I are participating in a challenge to help 2,000 children who have been “in the system,” waiting for sponsors, for the longest AND who have birthdays coming up. We are praying for a 5-year-old girl named Mekedelawit Fekadu from Ethiopia. Her father passed away, so she’s living with a single mom. That hits home because we live in an area where SO many children are being raised in single-parent households, but I know the kind of poverty she’s experiencing is something I can’t even imagine.

Would you consider being HER answer to prayer? She and her mom are praying hard that someone will step in and offer her the same kind of education that the three girls in the picture on top are experiencing, and I can’t wait to hear that she’s being sponsored! 

Here’s her bio so you can learn more about her.