Finding & Balancing Work While Homeschooling, with Cristy Stebelton

Summary:

Wanting to bring more income into your home but curious about balancing homeschooling, work, and family life? In this episode of "Show Me Homeschool," host Erin is joined by Cristy Stebelton, a seasoned homeschool mom and entrepreneur, who shares her time-tested insights on managing these demanding responsibilities. Cristy and Erin discuss the importance of looking at your strengths and interests, seeing opportunities for income where you are, time management, community support, as well as offering practical tips for organizing household tasks and adjusting schedules to find a harmonious balance. This episode is packed with actionable strategies for homeschool parents striving to maintain a healthy and balanced home and homeschool environment while working.

Resources and Links:
Cristy at Podcast With Faith

Connect with Erin and Joe at Show Me Homeschool:
Show Me Homeschool Website
On Instagram, @show.me.homeschool
On Pinterest, @showmehomeschool

Be sure to leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode! For questions or comments email us: info@showmehomeschool.com

Transcript:

Erin [00:00:00]:

Hi. Welcome back to Show Me Homeschool. I'm very excited about our guest today and the topic we're gonna be discussing because I think that it will be something that is relevant to so many of us homeschool moms, how to incorporate homeschooling with a job, or what we're trying to do to help supplement income going from a 1 income to a 2 income family.

Today, I have Christy Stubbleton on the show. Hi, Christy.

Cristy [00:01:29]:

Hi, Erin. I'm so glad to be here today. Thank you.

Erin [00:01:33]:

I'm happy to have you. So Cristy is a dear friend of mine, and she also has a business. Well, she's got a business. She's got a job. She's got all these things in the air. So I'll let Cristy go ahead and explain what else she's got going on and how, as a homeschool mom, she's been able to manage the homeschool world, the working world, and her relationship with her husband, and all of the things that go into that. So, Cristy, welcome.

Cristy [00:02:00]:

Thank you. But in fairness, I wanna start by saying that I do all of these things now, and I just graduated my one and only daughter. So I know that it seems like, wow, she's got it all together. She can do all these great things, and and it's just simply not true. You know? But I run a podcast management and production company called Podcast with Faith. I got interested in that in 2019 as an outcropping of a lot of the virtual assisting work that I'd done. I started my employment before I got married. I mean, I was working as a secretary and then an executive assistant in New York for a lot of years.

Cristy [00:02:42]:

And back in the day, that was not a lot of computer work, but I saw a natural transition. And this is gonna be like my my first point is that keep your eyes and ears open to things that you're interested in. I think that if you start with your skills and and your interests like I did, I started picking up work when the Internet was kind of brand new. You know? I worked for Princeton press doing, editing of MCAP books where they needed someone to go through the publisher and edit it for English. And I had an English degree. So I was like, sure, I can do that and get paid for it. $15 an hour. Woah.

Cristy [00:03:27]:

That was 25 years ago. So it was like I started saying, hey. If there's something I'm good at, I could probably get paid for it. So how do how do I make that happen? So fast forward a little bit. I I was doing some virtual assisting, which is working for someone else on your computer virtually. You might have a client, 1 client, 3 clients, maybe you meet somebody. I've met a lot of my clients just being active online and say, hey, you know what? I can check lists. I can make phone calls or I can write emails or or whatever.

Cristy [00:04:05]:

But I was I was paying attention to the things I was really interested in. So I had this one client. My daughter was gifted and I was very active in her community because I needed to talk to other people about being gifted, about raising a gifted kid. And I realized that by being part of that community, I was learning a lot. I was doing a lot of reading. I was paying a lot of attention. And the person that had this community said, hey, I've got this podcast and I know you're really good at what you do online because I had worked on odd jobs for her just because I liked her. You know? And I said, sure.

Cristy [00:04:42]:

I'll do that for you. And she was like, well, I have this podcast. Do you know anything about them? I said, no. And she said, well, would you be willing to learn? And I think that was kind of like step number 2 is as you're looking and listening to to what's going on around you and what piques your interest, you know, talk to people about it. Tell other people about it because that's how ideas and opportunities come to you. I probably knew this gal maybe a year. I realized that sometimes people, you know, are looking for work today, and we'll accept jobs like that as we need to. But the reality was is that she reached out to me.

Cristy [00:05:20]:

I said, podcasting, that sounds kind of fun. Let me go listen to a podcast. And I listened and I started to learn and I started doing things and she was terrific. She showed me what she did. I, I went out and learned new ways of doing it so that it would be more efficient. I set up systems for her. A system online is no different than a system of you having a grocery list or having it. You would be surprised at the skills that translate from being a hand maker or being a wife or being a mom.

Cristy [00:05:52]:

Some of those skills are really easy to translate to other jobs. I started doing that with her. I worked with her for about a year and a half, and then I said, you know what? I'm gonna make this a full time business. And I started looking into how to make that happen. What kind of brought me to that point was I loved helping people find information. I loved books. I was a reader. I grew up being a reader.

Cristy [00:06:19]:

Unfortunately, I was a product of the New York City school system. And so any good books I was going to read were the ones my dad gave me. But I read all the time and I was always looking for information and it was a big part of my growing up. And I said, you know what? I'd really love to be a librarian. So here's epic fail number 1. I went back to school. I said, I have my bachelor's degree, which took 15 years to get. But I I have my bachelor's degree.

Cristy [00:06:52]:

Let me go to grad school and become a librarian. Well, I had a 4 year old. 4 year old and library school at a graduate level did not mix for me. And I know it mixes for you. I mean, I know that you're you're doing it now, Erin. You're you're doing this amazing thing with a young child. But for me, I couldn't do it. And I was close.

Cristy [00:07:16]:

I was like within a semester, a little more than a semester of finishing and I dropped out. But what had opened an opportunity for me at a local library, I walked in there and I said, hey, I'm in library school. I think I should probably get some experience working in the library. Can I volunteer? I didn't have a whole lot of hours, 2 hours a week that I could volunteer. So they said, sure, we we just need somebody to sit at the desk during story time. And so I started doing that week after week, 2 hours a week. And pretty soon they were like, we wanna hire you. I didn't use any of the education I got from library school.

Cristy [00:07:56]:

Mhmm. But what I learned to do was help parents and help kids find books. Why? Because I loved books. I I was able to recommend books that were just magical to me as a kid. And so that kind of ties all the way back into, you know, start with what you're good at and think about your interests and keep your eyes and ears open about what's a possibility for you. But you do have to have a reasonable workload. I mean, I I could not do the library school. It was 4 to 8 hours a week of study time on top of the 1 3 hour class I was taking every week.

Cristy [00:08:38]:

It was another 40 minute drive to the school itself, and we were just kind of launching into that online school. Mhmm. So, like, I had one class that was in person, one class that was online, but it it just got to be too much where I said, okay. With my 4 year old, I can do 2 hours a mile away. You know, it it was literally a 5 minute drive, 2 hours there and a 5 minute back. So a big part of it was just, you know, being flexible with what I could do and what I couldn't do. Make it a reasonable workload. Let go of some things.

Cristy [00:09:19]:

Mhmm. My husband likes a really clean house, and I've never really been a good housekeeper. Mhmm. But, I did try to find ways to get things done. And, you know, for a while, I did all my cleaning on Saturday morning. And that was the day that I didn't work, that I didn't homeschool, and that I was able to do that kind of work. But I also found, that, you know, you can be flexible with your homeschooling too. So maybe you have a job that's that's very regimented or you only work certain hours, or maybe you have something that's a little more flexible.

Cristy [00:09:58]:

Like, my my podcasting business is a little more flexible. I make my own hours. I do the work when I can do it, but you can be flexible with your homeschooling too. You know, my daughter actually learned better with a later start. She was much happier to, work with, and she got that extra bit of sleep. And if I was working in the afternoon and she had just started her school work, we would stop and we would finish after supper. I mean, there's nothing that says you have to homeschool from 9 to 3. You know?

Erin [00:10:32]:

Yes. I love that flexibility. I think that what you've said so far is, like, amazing because we really do have to know our own self before we try to do something outside of our home. I think if if that's not what we've already been doing as a homeschool mom, if we've been a whole a homemaker and a homeschool mom, but we haven't had, a job where we were employed by someone or maybe we started our own business. Like, you've done both options. But knowing our own availability is so important because, you know, when I look at my schedule, it's very hectic. And I mean, quite honestly, that's where, you know, we've kinda taken a little bit of a recording break for the last several weeks because, I started school again in January for myself to go back and get a degree in biblical counseling. I did not have a bachelor's already, so I'm working towards a bachelor's.

Erin [00:11:22]:

I did have some college, but what I found was, you know, I didn't just have my homeschool that I was doing. The legislative session are, started in our state in January. And so right in coinciding with the start of school plus homeschooling just after the holidays. And then I found myself traveling every other week to the capital, which is a couple hours away. And, you know, it just got to be so much. So I think as moms, especially homeschool moms that are trying to do things like run a business, you know, or show me homeschool is our small business. And then also adding school to that, plus the volunteer work that we do in the community because, you know, most of the moms that I know that are homeschooling are not just at home. We have sites.

Erin [00:12:08]:

Well, church that we do, volunteering with, we we help within the homes community. Like I know you've you've been a big part of co ops and things.

Cristy [00:12:16]:

Yeah.

Erin [00:12:17]:

So, so yeah. Continue on your journey and how you are managing these things because I can tell you it's been quite the challenge to get my own self regulated and scheduled.

Cristy [00:12:29]:

It really is. It really is. And I wanna just speak to that word schedule because we we get very, almost granular in the things that we're doing. And I wanna say it's really much better to do a routine rather than a schedule, and that sounds like splitting hairs, but it's not really. We never tied what we did on a daily basis to time. And that goes back to my daughter really did much better with a later start. But for an example, we had we had homeschool gym on Monday, which was 2 towns over. That was at 10 am every Monday.

Cristy [00:13:09]:

Mhmm. She loved it. It was a wonderful experience for her. But she knew to get to homeschool gym, she had to get up at 9 am and we left at 9:30. We didn't do any schoolwork before that. We did schoolwork after sometimes, sometimes not, depending on how quickly she was moving through the material. But other days like Tuesday was kind of a more relaxed day. We didn't have a co op at that point.

Cristy [00:13:33]:

And so we were a little more flexible with her getting uptime usually around 10. That gave mom time. I had time to have that first morning cup of coffee, kinda look at my day. I did most of my planning on Sundays. So Sunday afternoon was not like a huge, you know, sit down with the curriculum and plan all of that out. I do that a week in August. I I just sit down and say, okay. What are we studying? My daughter and I, for probably the last 8 years, every August, we would get together.

Cristy [00:14:06]:

We'd go to a park. We'd get some lunch, pack a lunch, whatever. We'd sit down and I'd say, okay. What are you interested in? These are the things we have to do according to Ohio State Law. But there's room, There's fun. There's possibility. And she would usually start with, well, ma'am, I still like co op, so I still wanna be a co op, and I wanna take as many classes there as I can. And I'm like, okay.

Cristy [00:14:30]:

That's cool. That's Thursday. What about Monday through Wednesday? Friday was our free Friday. We went. We when she was young, we went to a lot of parks. We went to a lot of, like, free stuff or, you know and and you might not have those things available to you, but every every place has something, you know. Like, it could be just to run, and it could just be to, like, play catch or play baseball or or anything, but Fridays were free. We did not do score.

Cristy [00:15:01]:

We did score 4 days a week. But I think that that idea of a routine, and I started to write down like, what what kind of routine did we have? Well, we we got up in the morning and we have breakfast and reading. Reading was such a huge part of our homeschool. My daughter taught herself how to read because all she ever had was books around her. Books were her entertainment, but we would very simply, you know, get up in the morning, have breakfast, read from whatever books she had for the time and she'd wash up, get dressed, and we'd hit some subjects for school. We did not do every subject every day. This is not public school. It's not.

Cristy [00:15:41]:

We didn't. Tuesday's usually was science. Thursday was usually, history or social studies or something along those lines. Before the coop, we did we did language arts and math, you know, because reading was a huge part of our of our homeschool. And then we did math because she loved math. So it was it was simple.

Erin [00:16:01]:

That's a really good, I think, very first point that we should probably say is when we're considering as moms taking on work for whatever reason, maybe a husband's lost a job, maybe the economy is crazy right now and we just need to supplement income in some way, the very first thing that we should do is prioritize what does our homeschool schedule already look like? What time do I already have invested? Because when you start Right. Especially I mean, people tend to think towards the younger years, but I can tell you the teenage years, they still really need your presence and availability. So if we are trying to figure out how do we fit in another side job or a part time job or and I'm not talking about side hustles. We're talking about using your skills to have a career, you know, or Right. Sure. Start a career. I mean, it could be both. It could be,

Cristy [00:16:53]:

it can

Joe [00:16:54]:

or it could be one or the other. Yeah.

Cristy [00:16:56]:

I think early on, I didn't have early on, I didn't have a real clear understanding of how I could organize my time to do my own business. It was much easier for me to work for someone else

Joe [00:17:09]:

Mhmm.

Cristy [00:17:09]:

And and kinda leave that job there. When you work for yourself, you are the boss. You do have to answer to yourself and your husband and and be able to say, you know and there were times I mean, since 2019, there have been times where my husband has said, I'm not seeing you. You're you're in there with headphones on doing work, and it's like, okay. I gotta step back, and I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do here and how I'm gonna do it. But I I also wanna caution homeschool moms too. I love taking my daughter places. I loved having all of the activities for her, both young and older, but it got to a point where I was in the car all the time.

Cristy [00:17:50]:

Mhmm. And I was like, you know, we're not really doing a whole lot of schoolwork here. It's, you know, we gotta we gotta roll this back a little bit. And we started not I'm not saying, like, painfully cutting her activities, but saying, hey. Let's be reasonable, and it's a great lesson to teach your kids. You know? Teach them that, yeah, I know you wanna do scouts and baseball and, you know, key club and this and this and this. The problem is and I only had one. I don't know how moms do it with more than 1, but I can't be at swim lesson and baseball practice at the same time.

Cristy [00:18:29]:

So we adopted a policy that I had from raising my my stepsons before my daughter, which was one one activity. Mhmm. Now I never counted co op as being an activity because there was a lot of academics and it was part of her home school. Oh. But when she was interested in something, she did theater for a while. She loved theater. I said, is that your one? Because we can we can get out of balance just as we can get out of balance sometimes with academics. We can get out of balance with some of these activities.

Cristy [00:19:04]:

Mhmm. And you have to have that whole family

Erin [00:19:07]:

Right.

Cristy [00:19:07]:

Attitude. You know, that whole family attitude, like everyone has value and and everyone has to be accommodated. If I'm if mom's driving you 14 different places every single week, she's probably not sitting down and relaxing or getting enough sleep or, you know, doing some of those things. And if we start early teaching our kids how to help, this was the other thing, get help, but your kids can help. I mean, my daughter had chores from the time she was 6 years old. They were not her chores, but she was expected to do them and she was expected to help. We had a conversation, my husband and I, about allowance, about chores, and he did not tie allowance to anything she did. He said, you get you get a little bit of spending money, and it was small.

Cristy [00:20:03]:

I mean, like a dollar a week, you know, but you do have things you have to do. You do have things you have to do as part of this family. And, you know, dad goes to work, mom does all of the cooking, cleaning, and housework, and she homeschools you. That's her job. Your job is school first, but you need to help out around here. And she did. And so she was like and I said, do you wanna set list of chores or do you just wanna do what I ask you to do when I ask you to do it? And she said the second one. Yeah.

Cristy [00:20:37]:

She said that's much easier. Yeah. And she never I mean, she's 19, and she has never said no. So Yeah. It's it's really worked out well.

Erin [00:20:47]:

And I think that's something that we're realizing as I'm taking on more responsibility with our small business. And as we're trying to grow that is seeing those ways where we've got our adult daughter living with us, and we have 2 teenagers that we're homeschooling, and we have a 7 year old. And what we're seeing is, you know, I we actually had this conversation the other day is I can't cook dinner and also do the dishes because, usually, I'm cooking and I'm going out the door to whatever activity or I've gotta study for my classes and really trying to figure out. And like, that's where it feels like, you know, I just wanna encourage any mom who is starting this out, whether that's going back to school, starting a new job, starting a new business, is that it will feel chaotic at first because you're introducing something that is going to take your time away from being at home or being with your family. And, you know, that might feel a little bit off a little bit, but, obviously, pray about things before. Make sure you and your husband are on the same page about work, availability, and commitment to think about bite of the home. But when you've made that decision, something that I'm seeing is, you know, I've had the same conversation with Joe of just feeling like he's like, I've I don't see you anymore. And I'm like, well, yeah, I've gotta figure out my time management.

Erin [00:22:02]:

It's a little bit better to figure out how do I fit those things in. And then also seeing, like you said, we dropped gymnastics this year for the summer. Just, you know, we need to drop something because that was taking me 30 minutes one way to drive there, but the hour time of the class. So 2 hours in the middle of the afternoon when I could be making dinner. So then what would happen? We'd be hitting the drive through or something that was not healthier. And so our goal of ours is to eat at home and, that we weren't meeting those goals. So it's it's constant reevaluation. And while it can be a little bit jarring to get started, I just wanna encourage any mom out there who's just starting out, just have grace for yourself.

Erin [00:22:42]:

Be very open with the communication with your husband on what your energy levels are. You know, if you're saying, like, I really can't cook dinner tonight. What could we grab out of the cabinets? Or, you know, make it cereal night or something like that. Right. It's easy. There's nothing wrong with that.

Cristy [00:22:59]:

No. And we tend to put so much pressure on ourselves about it. And and I'm like, you know, they're our partners and they want to help us. Mhmm. They they they want to be able to make things easier. You know, if you've already gotten the, yes, go ahead. Do what you do what you need to do. Get that done.

Cristy [00:23:21]:

Then it's okay to go back and say, you know what? I'm really struggling with this part of it. I mean, little things. When my daughter was little, when she was tiny, tiny, I was struggling with everything, the management of everything. And bathing her was hard for me, you know? And I just said to him, I'm like, this is hard. It takes a long time, and I'm I'm already stressing about tomorrow, and I've gotta be able be in this place and do this and do this. And he's like, bathing her? Bathe. And then, you know, I scoop her up, take her in the tub. He already had 3 kids, so he was already, you know, comfortable with all of this.

Cristy [00:24:00]:

But the point was is that you have to communicate clearly without hysteria Mhmm. If you can, that, hey, I need some help. How do you how do you think I can get some help from you? Or with our kids, especially, you know, one of the smallest things you'd be, you know, shocking. We have a dishwasher. If you have a dishwasher, your children can pick up their plates from the dinner table, scrape them, whether it's in your compost pile or in the garbage and put those dishes in the dishwasher all by themselves.

Erin [00:24:33]:

The chores thing. And, you know, we we've kind of done similar where we'd am not a charts person. I am not the one you're gonna

Cristy [00:24:41]:

come

Erin [00:24:41]:

to for organizational or those kinds of things because I am more, fly by the seat of my pants. And it's Right. Feel defeating when we see so many people, especially in the online spaces that we're in, you know, while we're sitting waiting for the water to boil for mac and cheese. You know? Like, we're scrolling Instagram or Facebook, and then you see all these people with these beautiful homes and all of the things. And, you know, in that moment Okay.

Cristy [00:25:05]:

But wait, Erin, if you add diced tomato and and ground beef to that mac and cheese, That's a healthy meal. Give him a break.

Erin [00:25:14]:

Oh, no. I I yes. I love it. I think but that's the thing as we start seeing, like, you know, we have to adjust our expectations of how our house is gonna run when we add something like working outside of the home That's to our plate. Yeah. Because Yeah. What my preference is on how I mean, my house is a total disaster right now. It's just stuff, piles, things everywhere where it's like we run-in the door, we've got this thing to get to, or we've got school to do.

Erin [00:25:41]:

And Mhmm. You know, I think that that's another thing we should talk about too a little bit. It's just when we're in these transitional stages of just starting a new job or trying to figure out where we're gonna fit this in, we really do need to take a step back and look at what expectations we have on how our house looks, how much we're eating at home. You know, maybe it is changing the budget to, incorporate 1 or 2 meals out a week just to get that Pretty good. Or pizza Friday where it's just set. That's what we do. And

Cristy [00:26:09]:

that's what and that's what we went to as well. We went to pizza every Friday. Now there were there were seasons where I was making homemade pizza. There were seasons where we were buying pizza. It it doesn't really matter. You know, you have to you kinda have to weigh. You know, for me, our our local grocery has a great deal where you can order everything online. And if it's over a certain amount, it's free to have it delivered, or it's free to pick it up in the in the parking lot.

Cristy [00:26:41]:

And I take $5 and I give it to this kid who has gone through the whole store and collected all my groceries, and put them in bags and put them in my trunk. And I go, that $5 was worth it. It saved me 2 hours of grocery shopping. We have opportunities now that we didn't have say 10, 15 years ago, that there are, there are things that can help. We have exploded as homeschoolers, a homeschool population. We have exploded. One of the things I did early on was I had a little girl across the street. She was like 12 years old.

Cristy [00:27:17]:

She wasn't driving yet. She really wasn't old enough to babysit, but she could be a mother's helper. And she would come over, and she would play with my daughter for 2 hours. She was not getting a job anywhere else. Her mom knew us because we were neighbors. She was 12. My daughter was young. She would play for 2 hours.

Cristy [00:27:39]:

I would come into my bedroom and work and get work done for 2 hours. You know, later on, I exchanged kind of services with another homeschool mom. She was helping people homeschool or get into homeschooling, mostly with kids that had gotten tossed out of public school for behavior or whatever. And so she was doing a little that that's a really easy side business is can you do, bus pickup and drop off? You know, can can you can a mom leave her kid with you and you put them on the school bus?

Erin [00:28:17]:

In our local community, a single mom who she does that. She drives the bus before and after her kid can go on the bus with her, then she drops the other kids off at school, goes home, and gets her stuff done with her kids during the day. There's a lot of really creative ways like you've said.

Cristy [00:28:33]:

Well, I just all I was thinking was, you know, there are there are moms that have to be at work at 8:30, and they need their kids on the bus.

Erin [00:28:41]:

You know,

Cristy [00:28:42]:

in the younger grades, some of our our kids don't even get on the bus till 8:30. And so you have to be able to drive you have to drop your kid off at a safe place. Yeah. Well, you can be that safe place, and then you only have a child for an hour, and maybe you're serving them breakfast. My girlfriend did this, my homeschooling friend. My daughter went to her house 2 mornings a week for 3 hours and brought her homeschool materials with her because they were homeschooling too. And we don't have, restrictions of how how many people are, you know, we're in Ohio. How many people are involved in your homeschooling as long as there is an adult that is supervising the homeschooling.

Cristy [00:29:24]:

But she would work on her materials there, mostly reading because it was easy and she could sit on the couch and do it. But she had activities at her house. There were other kids at her house, which I was, I was a mom of a of an only Mhmm. Only child. And so she I was trying to get her around other kids, but, you know, I would then turn around and help her with her computer issues, or I would turn around and I would I would run a science experiment at my house, and her kids would come over, or I give them a lift to the co op on the days that she had to do the bookkeeping for her husband's business. The point was is that we found people in our own community that needed help, and we exchanged it. Can you take Kenzie to this activity for this, you know, for this program, and I will take your kids next week. It was great, you know.

Cristy [00:30:16]:

So finding out who is homeschooling around you or near you that and and just kind of thinking outside that box and saying, how can I get these things done? Right. Sometimes I just paid for a sitter. You know, grandmas, I'm now a grandma. Grandmas are excellent babysitters. Find somebody who loves kids and hire them as a babysitter.

Erin [00:30:39]:

That's great. Yeah. I also as you're talking, I'm thinking through, like, I know, a couple people that do babysitting out of their home or offer summer babysitting. So it's Yes. Teachers that

Erin [00:30:52]:

That's you know?

Cristy [00:30:53]:

And so maybe you're just right. Maybe you're just watching the kids over the summer. You know, it's a, it's a finite period of time. Right. But think about, even if you do like half of what it costs for a daycare program, that's money in your pocket. Mhmm. And you're doing all of these things anyway.

Erin [00:31:13]:

Right.

Cristy [00:31:13]:

You know, and we have Pinterest now, which has hundreds of activities that you can do with materials in your kitchen cabinet. And we're we're very, like, you know, innovative as homeschoolers. We we come up with solutions to how do I teach these kids something fun today? You know, how do I do elephant toothpaste? Yeah. It it can be a blast. It can be a lot of fun. But yeah, I think you're right. I think that there's, there's a lot of opportunity to do things, look around and see what the needs are in your immediate community, but also, you know, in the homeschooling community, someone might be like, I need help with my kid too. Well, let's trade off.

Cristy [00:31:56]:

Maybe on Tuesdays you take mine and on Thursdays I take yours.

Erin [00:32:00]:

Yeah. There was a group of moms that I knew, there were 4 of them. So each week, a different mom had a rotation. So essentially, you're getting 3 Fridays or whatever day that you choose from a specific time to a specific time where your children are safe with all their friends hanging out. And this was when the kids were little. This may not work as well as they're older, you know, and they wouldn't need that situation anyway because they could be home and independent on their own. But when they were elementary age, these moms would do that and it would work really well for a mom who maybe has a blogging business or a business online doing VA work where you could say, okay. Now that's given me a whole day a week or at least, you know, 4 to 5 hours stretch of time, where I can get stuff done and not be interrupted.

Erin [00:32:45]:

The kids are finding activities to do with their friends or whatever. We've also had a couple of friends become real estate agents as the children have gotten older and can stay home alone during the day by themselves and be independently working. So I think a lot of the conversation too is how old are your kids? What's their independence level? And do you have a babysitter or an option for them to have a safe place to be while you're out of the house if you need to be or out of the room, and what job you have.

Cristy [00:33:14]:

I will be honest too. Working in a children's library, it was never an issue for me to bring my daughter to work. Right. You know? I mean, she was a reader, so she was happy to sit in the children's library and read books. You can find situations like that as well. You you know? I don't advise, honestly, with super young children, trying to find work outside of the house. I even my limit was 4. I couldn't do it with a 4 year old, but she was very inquisitive and wanting to get into everything and do everything, and I just I ran out of gas.

Cristy [00:33:47]:

You know, our family should come first right away. It's but financially, sometimes we do need to pick up other things. The other thing I was gonna suggest as well, and I see this a lot in my area and it may not be every area, but these grocery stores, I talked about actually, you know, placing my grocery order online and picking it up later. You can do that. You can go and work as a shopper at a grocery store.

Erin [00:34:15]:

I know. I'm a high school mom doing that, actually.

Cristy [00:34:17]:

If you if you know the grocery store backward and forward, this is an easy way to do shopping. Now me, I hate grocery shopping, but other people don't mind it. And like like doing it and know where everything is. That's a really simple way to find some work. You'll know you'll have a better idea when you sit down and do kind of an inventory of what you like to do, what you're good at. I was very good in an office setting. I didn't like doing it. The position that I have now at my local library is as a technology trainer, and it's by appointment.

Cristy [00:34:59]:

I work set hours and I help I help people with copy machines and computers, but I make one on one appointments mostly with children or with senior citizens. Yeah. And it's on my schedule.

Erin [00:35:12]:

Yeah. That's another thing that I've seen moms in my local areas offering tutoring. There was a mom that has a math degree, another mom that does science. And so for the especially the moms of high schoolers that are needing a little bit of extra help in in some of these specialized areas.

Cristy [00:35:30]:

Oh, yes.

Erin [00:35:30]:

Yeah. That's been a really good thing. So I I love what you're sharing because I think so many times, we think we just have to find a job. You know? We just have to get income. And sometime, that that is the case. But sometimes we have a little bit of time to be creative and to to really take that inventory, like you said. And what exactly could I work at home? And I find myself, I am not an early morning person, but there are times I'm up until 3 AM because I'm reading the books or watching my class. And the difference too when you were talking about school is I am taking all online classes so that saves me drive time and class time, and I bump that speed up to 1.75 so I can bump.

Erin [00:36:09]:

You're listening. Yeah.

Cristy [00:36:10]:

It

Erin [00:36:10]:

does. And they're listening. They're talking like a chipmunk,

Cristy [00:36:13]:

but you can still understand them and we move it, you know, make that a shorter lesson. Early mornings, later in the evening, I mean, almost all of my podcast work is now in the evening when I can. I try to, I try to make time for my husband. We have a supper together. We spend a little time. We like watching old television together. Then he has hours where he'll do what he likes to do, and what I like to do is work. And so I'll work on my podcast business.

Cristy [00:36:42]:

But I found that I found hours early morning. I have found hours later at night. When your kids are younger, you have a you have a routine, whether it's a formal structured routine or, you know, we always have dinner. We always get a bath, then we go to bed, whatever hour that is. Or maybe you just say, go put your pajamas on and go to sleep. You have some kind of routine. You can incorporate doing a little bit of work after that routine. And I know you're tired and I know you're exhausted, and it's gonna be okay.

Cristy [00:37:16]:

But honestly, you can do this. Any mom can do this because of what you do. As a homeschooling mom, you are already taking responsibility and and advocating for your family, for your children, and you are already planning, you're plotting. I dare almost any homeschool mom not to go into an office setting and say, you need a project manager? I am a project manager. Why? Because we are taking all of this stuff and we are making it happen. Maybe you feel like I'm just a bus driver. I'm just a person that sits here and reads from the book. No, you're not.

Cristy [00:37:57]:

I found I had a successful career before I got married and had children. I have found that this has been both the most challenging and the most rewarding, and I got more skills out of being a homeschool mom than I ever got working in an office because I had to work on the fly. You said that before and I just was like, she nailed it. That's that's the truth. Fly by the seat of your pants. Maybe you love your structure. Maybe you love your morning basket and you wanna do everything in order, and maybe that's your your way of doing school. That's all good.

Cristy [00:38:34]:

That's all well. But if something happens and the, you know, and the toilet overflows or the refrigerator starts leaking, you know, you're able to stop and say, okay, I gotta call the plumber. I gotta call the appliance repairman. I've I've gotta go get this in the mail. This bill is due. I was supposed to make that phone call. You're doing it. You're doing it.

Cristy [00:38:57]:

So I don't know that we give ourselves enough credit. I don't know if we say, hey, this is easy for me. This part of this is easy for me. How can I translate that into a job? Mhmm. I never had the patience to blog. Mhmm. I thought it was wonderful, but blogging still has a huge opportunity Uh-huh. For just about anybody.

Cristy [00:39:20]:

Maybe you're crafty. Maybe you're a good cook. Maybe you love to bake. I mean, my one of my friends taught her daughter how to bake, and we just had a graduation party where this 13 year old put together all of the desserts for our party. I've never seen the level of just brilliance, and she's 13. Mhmm. And I'm like, her mom taught her how to do it. Mhmm.

Cristy [00:39:52]:

Her mom. So what am I learning? That mom just went out and she's doing real estate now. Why? Because she can balance all of the pieces. She's good with people. She loves to instruct people. But what are you doing? Who are you and, and what's, what are you good at? You know, I found I was really good reading to children. I was very good with I loved Sunday school. I taught Sunday school for years years years.

Cristy [00:40:20]:

Mhmm. Our faith is very important to us. You know, there there's Lifewise Academy, which I don't know if you have that in Missouri, but they're going into public schools, and the parents can opt into their children going once a week to hear bible stories in the public school.

Erin [00:40:40]:

I've heard of that. I don't know if it's a story, but I have heard that of that.

Cristy [00:40:43]:

It's it's wonderful, but they hire people to do that. Mhmm. I can't think of anything more perfect for a homeschool mom to go in once a week and teach Bible stories for an hour. I'm seeing all of these opportunities. You just really need to kind of pay attention. Some of the neat things that we have going on now give you a lot of options. So kind of the elephant in the room too is AI. And everyone thinks AI is going to take their job or AI is going to stop me from having opportunities.

Cristy [00:41:18]:

I have found the exact opposite. I was an English major in college, and I did a lot of proofreading. I did a lot of writing and business correspondence. I was able to do all of these things and along comes AI. Guess who gets hired to check AI? People who know how to write, to people who know how to proofread. There's still even opportunities there as well. Podcasting is a lot of fun. Learn a little bit of skill.

Cristy [00:41:51]:

Erin is an excellent podcaster and, you know, and she's a good writer, But there are lots of things that you you can kind of incorporate. There are people that just deal with email. There are people that just deal with graphics. The online market has just exploded even since COVID. But, you know, just think. The last thing that I wanted to say was, and it was a boon when I did it in my home school was, I set aside a time for me every Sunday, after church, after lunch, after downtime with family, but Sunday, usually after dinner. Mhmm. I sat down and looked at my week ahead and said, what do I need to do? Okay.

Cristy [00:42:36]:

Tuesday needs a crock pot meal. Mhmm. Better take that better take that roast or that chicken out and have it defrosted. But I only I you know, and they do A lot of people do it month at a time and their freezer meals and their and all of that. But what I what I was looking for was what are the activities that I have or the hours away from the home that I don't have time? And let me find an easy solution. I could cook spaghetti on Monday morning for Wednesday's meal and just put it in a Ziploc in my refrigerator and add add some sauce on top with a little bit of cheese. You know, it it's not, it's not gourmet stuff, but I have a husband who's like meat, potato, vegetable. That's great.

Cristy [00:43:22]:

You know, but doing that planning, you know, give yourself a week in August or July or whenever your, your slower time is. Right. And say, okay, I'm gonna think through what our homeschool is gonna look like. I'm gonna think through what our home life is gonna look like. For us, kitchen clean, bathroom clean, and meals and laundry. Mhmm. After that came sweeping. After that came, you know, and laundry, I said clean, not necessarily, you know

Erin [00:43:58]:

Hold it and put away. Wrinkle free. Right.

Cristy [00:44:01]:

But I also when it came out of the dryer, I put everything on hangers. Mhmm. And so we had a standing rolling closet. Mhmm. And I would just throw all these, and I separated it by kid.

Erin [00:44:15]:

Mhmm.

Cristy [00:44:16]:

And then it was their responsibility to get it from the closet to the closet,

Erin [00:44:20]:

you know. Oh, good.

Cristy [00:44:22]:

Think outside of the box. What are the kinds of things? My daughter, hers her brothers before her were responsible for the animals. Mhmm. You know, buying food, you know, feeding them, walking them, watering them. My husband's taken over most of that now. Mhmm. But how can they help? How can it be easier for you? What is your time suck? What is taking all of your time And get some get some help, you know, get that mother's helper 2 hours. Impress upon your family.

Cristy [00:44:54]:

Look, I love that you're involved in all these things, but you have gotta have that uniform in the laundry room to be washed on Tuesday night or you're not wearing it Wednesday.

Erin [00:45:06]:

Yeah. You know? Yeah. That's so good. I'm so glad we're talking. And this conversation actually came about because we had a listener, Sarah. Hi, Sarah. Who wrote it

Cristy [00:45:16]:

Hi, Sarah.

Erin [00:45:16]:

Sarah King. You know, could you talk a little bit more? Because I did the the 2 part episodes that I did. And the second one, we talked a little bit about balancing that work, and we'll probably touch on this again. I feel like there's a lot of this conversation. I actually was just at the skating rink with a couple of moms today, during homeschool skate, and we were talking about that. The one was a real estate agent, and the other one is opening up a private practice with her husband who's a nurse practitioner, and she's gonna be the office manager. And, you know, there's things like that where could you come alongside what your husband's doing? It does he need an office manager? One big, huge, obvious thing that I think we haven't even touched on is if you have a coop and you have teachers that get paid to teach or tutor the kids, that's a huge thing that could either save you money because it's not always just about finding ways to make money. It's how can we find ways to save the money that we're spending.

Erin [00:46:10]:

Because you might find whether it's subscriptions or classes or sports or things like that, you could actually be sitting on several $100 a month and not even realize that's going out the door. And if you were to just take those couple things off your plate, maybe that could be an easier solution than finding ways to divide your time between home and work.

Cristy [00:46:30]:

Absolutely. Mhmm.

Erin [00:46:32]:

Yeah. So, Christy, I appreciate you so much for coming on and I just think that, you know, we just have these conversations with each other. And then and if you are a working mom, take a deep breath.

Cristy [00:46:44]:

Yes.

Erin [00:46:44]:

Gonna be okay. You will get there. It it might be a little bit questionable at times on on if you're doing the right thing or not. And God will show you if it is the right thing to keep going. And I mean, that's probably a whole other episode of how to know when it's time to stop working or how to stop the all the the hamster wheel.

Cristy [00:47:05]:

Follow after peace. Yeah. Follow after peace. I mean, I I'm I paint a very rosy picture of all of the things that I've done. There are trying times. I mean, that library job, I have worked at that library left, gone back, left, and now I'm on my 3rd go round with that library, but I did not have, there was a point where what I was doing was it there was no peace in it. There were struggles. There was a power play among the people that ran the library.

Cristy [00:47:38]:

And I would come home and my husband would look at me and say, how can you go to this place when it makes you so miserable? I mean, you come home and you're unhappy. And I had to stop and say, you know, the money isn't that great. It's not that important. Maybe I could go find a, you know, a virtual assistant client or or I can find somebody to go type for or or do phone calls or anything that wouldn't be such a a drain on me. And and you follow after peace. And when I made the decision to leave, I went home and I, and I had peace. So, yes, seek, seek God for the things that you need to do. I mean, I at another point, my daughter was really struggling with, different developmental things, and I had to say that was the second time I had to say to the library.

Cristy [00:48:30]:

I said my daughter needs me. Mhmm. My daughter needs me home. She needs me to help her get through some of these things she's struggling with. I love the job. I love being here, but it's taking me away from her. And that I got home, we we sat down, we made a plan, and I found peace. So, yeah, it it is something you should jump into lightly.

Cristy [00:48:53]:

And I've jumped into a lot of jobs that sounded really good, but made no sense even in the in the natural. But but god was saying, oh, don't do that. You know? This is this is not good. But if you have peace about it and you you have your husband's support and you are able to say, I can do this on a small scale. The other thing is start when you do find it, but it can start small with an expectation that it'll grow. The other thing I always say is if you need money like tomorrow, sell whatever isn't nailed down, you know, look around your house, Facebook marketplace, you could sell things. If you're stuck and you need money, you know, there's bound to be something that you can sell in your home.

Erin [00:49:40]:

Right.

Cristy [00:49:41]:

But if you have the flexibility, at least in the short term to wait and do it methodically and find that job or find that, that interest that you wanna pursue, that you wanna make money at, then, then take your time, pray through it, talk to your husband, ask, ask a church. If you have trusted women in your life, especially other homeschool moms like Erin and I talking right now, ask them, you're doing this. And, you know, they're going to say, look, my house is not perfect all the time. My job is not perfect all the time. My kids' homeschool is not perfect all of the time, but I can put energy where energy is needed one at a time. Mhmm. So if my family needs help, I'm gonna focus on that. If my job needs help, you know, I just came off of a really busy season.

Cristy [00:50:34]:

My daughter just graduated. I was finishing up my last two teaching classes. I was working this 20 hour job. I was helping to publish a teen literary journal. I was still doing my podcasting, All of these things in the month of May, and my father-in-law passed away. And we started having difficulty with a friend group. I mean, but I, but I knew, okay, this isn't gonna last forever. And God's faithful to stay with me through it all.

Cristy [00:51:05]:

And so every night I was going to bed later, but when I laid down, I'd say, Lord, I know you're with me through all of. Thank you for being with me through all of this. And sometimes that prayer is just, oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Fix this. Yeah. Mhmm.

Cristy [00:51:20]:

But say it. Say it. He's faithful. He's faithful.

Erin [00:51:25]:

Oh, Christy. I love it. I I love everything that you've shared. I appreciate you so much. And we didn't say this before, but Christy actually is the editor of our podcast. So when you hear the wonderfulness that is the sound quality, it's all on No.

Cristy [00:51:40]:

I don't know about that. But I do love the podcast, and I do love podcasting in general. I think that you share a whole bunch of wonderful, wonderful information, and you're very reassuring to, you know, us as moms and and wanting to do this the right the right way for us and the best way for our kids. You know, a very good friend said, put blinders on and look at your children and homeschool your wife or your kids. I have followed that advice, and sometimes it means making sacrifices, the family or the homeschool or the job or whatever. You know, we've, we've both had losses in our families. Homeschooling got put to the side while we dealt with the losses. You know, that's just that's living life.

Cristy [00:52:31]:

You're showing your children how to live life. It's it's amazing. It's really amazing. Thank you for having me today.

Erin [00:52:39]:

Well, where can our listeners find you if they were so inclined to reach out from your services?

Cristy [00:52:45]:

Well, I am podcast with faith dot com. I'm also on, Instagram and Facebook, Christy Stebleton. But, yeah, I I only work with faith based products, faith based companies, faith based coaching, anyone that has a message that lines up with Christ is welcome to look me

Erin [00:53:12]:

up. Awesome. I appreciate you. If you enjoy this episode or you have more that you'd like to hear about any of the things we talked about or other, items that we didn't even touch on, reach out info at show me homeschool dot com, and you can find us on our website www.showmehomeschool.com. We'll talk to you next time.

Erin [00:53:34]:

This episode was sponsored by Podcast with Faith, our favorite Christian podcast production company. For more information, visit them at www.podcastwithfaith.com. To learn more about booking 1 on 1 or group homeschool coaching sessions with us, upcoming events, see our speaking schedule, or to get access to more resources. Be sure to check out our website www.showmehomeschool.com and sign up for our weekly newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram at show.me dot homeschool, on Pinterest at show me homeschool, or email us at info at show me homeschool dot com.