By Way of Introduction

My Daughters - Spring 2017

My name is Tina Hollenbeck, and I'm not new to blogging. I blogged at Being Made New (BMN) for almost 10 years, from November 2008 until June 2018, using that space well for a long time as I reflected upon and shared various aspects of my life. However, the busyness of launching a surprise business endeavor, The Homeschool Resource Roadmap, in 2013 threw me off course, and before long, BMN felt, sadly, like an afterthought. I regularly thought about making posts but rarely got around to it, largely because playing continual catch-up felt far too overwhelming.

After months of consideration, I finally acknowledged to myself that BMN had run its course and gave myself permission to close it down and launch a new endeavor. I backed up every BMN post in a blog book and then migrated a few dozen of them here, where I'll share them over time, before reluctantly hitting the "delete blog" button on BMN a few days ago.

Despite my sadness about that, the timing really is good in the grand scheme of things. When I started BMN, my kids were young and I was providing in-home babysitting for other little kids - babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. I was also new to homeschooling and many of my BMN posts reflected my inexperience and learning curve in that process. Fast forward 10 years and everything's changed. I closed the childcare business in 2014, and my girls are now just a couple of years from launching into adult life. And I'm no longer a home education ingénue; instead, I'm a "Titus 2 Homeschooler," willing and able to lead and mentor others, which I do via The Roadmap, as well as my Facebook group, The Christian Homeschool Oasis; my local homeschool association; and The N.E.W. Scoop, a resource site I created for those living in and around my city. I even had the honor of speaking at two Great Homeschool Convention events in 2015 and look forward to similar opportunities in the near future.

The title of this new space - Views from the Road Home - reflects this changing life season. On the one hand, it refers to the fact that I remain an unabashed advocate for home-based education - for encouraging parents to bring their kids home from the institutional, factory schools - able now to offer useful and credible insight and guidance based on my years of experience traveling the homeschool road. But this blog's title goes beyond that, reflecting, too, that I am first and foremost a daughter of The King, living away from home for now but on a continuing journey that will eventually lead me home to Heaven (2 Corinthians 5.1, Philippians 3.20, Hebrews 13.14). And so I'll surely ponder spiritual matters of various sorts as I go. Overall, I expect this place to be less focused on my kids' daily lives - which was largely the perspective I took with BMN - and more introspective, instructive, and philosophical. 

I hit "publish" on this first Views post with anticipation, wondering how this leg of my life journey will progress. Join me if you're curious too.