A New Year - a new beginning

Ya know, these new years are coming more frequently all the time. If I'm not careful, I'm going to wake up any day now and realize that all my children have grown and left me.

First a little update, and then I have something exciting to tell you.

I have one more assignment left to finish my current class. I should be done with it in the next few days. I won't have time to fit in another class before the term ends at the end of January, so I will have a couple of weeks to myself. I will have completed the equivalent of 27 credit hours this term. I love the fact that WGU lets me test out of some of these classes. Unfortunately my current classes have projects so I have to do them, I can't simply pass the test and move on. I can, at least, simply review the information and do the projects, so I am still catching up relatively well.

During my holiday break, instead of staying away from the computer like I intended, I ended up starting a new project. I made my own website. It ended up being more than 15 pages. I thought I was done and then I had an epiphany. A friend asked me if I had such-and-such a book and if she could borrow it. It occurred to me that I could add a list of books on my site that I would be willing to lend out. I put together a quick list of 30 titles; that wasn't even any curriculum, just the how-to home educate books and seminar CD's. - I have a lot more.

So I thought, what if I start a home education curriculum lending library? I think there could be a real market. The economy is tough, money is tight. I would love to be able to check something out for a short time and look it over, or even longer and use it for several months. To try before you buy. Potential home schoolers are easily intimidated by the cost of materials. The more I think about it, the more excited I get. The public libraries sometimes have things, but not very much and you can't keep it for very long. The post office has a library mail rate that is very reasonable. I could solicit donations of used materials. I just need to figure out the lending terms. Should I charge a rental fee? A deposit? Run it more like a membership club? I'm not sure. I need to find that balance between making too easy and it being abused, and making it so hard that I miss my intended market.

You want to know the most amazing thing? Throughout our marriage, I have come up with crazy ideas. Jonny is my sense of reason. If the timing is wrong, or it would put my energies in the wrong direction, he seems to know it and shuts me down. When it is good, he supports it. I have learned to trust his wisdom and insight. Well, Jonny is supporting this one. That is my biggest confirmation that this could be good. But yes, Crazy!