Stephanie Richey Art

Graduation and Education

There are so many ways to get an education. We took quite a number of different paths to graduation, and I’ll share them here.

Yesterday my oldest son (third child) graduated from High School. My daughter and her husband came and my Dad and Mom. It was so fun to have everyone under one roof for several days, and the weather worked out pretty good so it wasn’t cold and wasn’t always cloudy. We were able to go see some fun sights.

Education is something that is super important in our family. How you get that education is negotiable. My kids have had quite a variety of educational experiences, so I thought I’d share some of the ways we have educated our kids.

Classroom setting with desks in rows, things written on blackboards, and maps hung on the wall.

First, my oldest daughter, when she was 2, wanted to learn how to read and write. I hadn’t even thought about teaching them that kind of stuff at that point. But her desire got me going, and set a precedent for each one of my kids, whether they liked it or not!

Because of her desire, I started each of them 3 years before kindergarten and taught them how to read, write, count, and do basic addition. We didn’t spend very much time on it each day, probably 20-30 minutes daily. But they learned. Each had achieved a different level of skill by the time they got into kindergarten, but they were prepared for the process of learning. Many people told me my kids would be bored because they were ahead, but they never were.

They went through our local elementary school, and I was very involved as a volunteer, substitute teacher, and PTA member. I wanted to make sure they knew that their education was extremely important to me, and I felt like being there and participating with them in their classrooms and activities helped them know that. I also got to know who their friends were, as well as their friends families.

In middle school I homeschooled my kids. This was a great learning opportunity not just for them, but for me also. I had learned from my mom the importance of math and how it built one concept upon another, so math as well as reading and language were non-negotiable parts of our homeschooling. Everything else was negotiable as to the curriculum. We had so much fun trying different science programs and projects. We enjoyed PE activities outside the home, like rock climbing, basketball and Tang Su Do. Homeschooling was quite fun.

Little boy looking intently at leaves on a bush.

I didn’t want to homeschool through high school however, so they had to return to a public school. My daughters decided to go to a Career and Technical school for the first 2 years of high school. My older son went to the regular high school for the first 2 years, and my youngest went to an accelerated high school different from the rest his first year. The first 3 finished out their high school career at a high school/college called Mat-Su Middle College School. My youngest was able to enroll in that program for the last 2 years and will finish his senior year there as well.

The Middle College is a nice program because they take college classes but the classes count for both high school and college credit. Each one of them have left with over 30 college credits, my youngest will graduate from high school with his associates degree.

Through it all I have learned a couple of things. #1 -Being involved in your child’s education is critical. #2 – education is essential, although I knew that from the beginning, I’ve learned it over and over again. #3 – There are more ways to get an education than you may think. I had a counselor one day tell me that if my child didn’t do it the way the counselor outlined my child wouldn’t graduate. But by then I knew all the available resources, I knew my child, I knew myself, and I knew there were more options. They let me do it my way, and my child did graduate. #4 – You as a parent are your child’s greatest asset, cheerleader, tutor, advocate.

Education really is critical. There are so many ways to learn now, there is no reason why anyone can’t get an education, and no reason why we can’t learn something new every single day.

Leader or Follower

I have been both a leader and a follower many times in my life, but I have a preference based upon the situation.

My oldest son had the opportunity to go to a state welding competition. There were several rounds with different objectives that he had to go through. One of them was an interview with a group of business owners so that each competitor could gain experience with the interview process and what employers in that field find important in potential candidates.

One of the questions that was asked dealt with his desire to be in a position of leadership. My son is very honest in what he tells people, and he told this panel of business owners that he wasn’t interested in a leadership position. That he preferred being able to come to work with a specific job, get that job done, and go home. This was a bit of a shock to some of the employers as 99% of job applicants will say they want to climb the ladder of success, be the leader, take charge.

After the interview however, one of the employers sought him out and thanked him for his honesty, explaining that, while every candidate will tell you they want to be a leader, very few are actually cut out to be that leader, costing the company time and money as they have to train several before they find one that can do that job. He is actually a better leader than he thinks he is, but genuinely doesn’t like the responsibility that comes with being that leader.

Over the years I have had many opportunities to be both leader and follower. Both come with pros and cons. Overall I think that I am more like my son. I like to have a clear assignment, be able to get that assignment done, and go home and work on other projects. However, in my many years serving in my Church and community, I have had ample opportunity to be a leader as well.

Arrow being carried by a group of people with a person on the arrow directing the way.

I have found that being a leader is really easy when you have good helpers working with you. Whatever the vision, whether your own or the vision of the organization, when everyone has caught the vision and is willing to work toward it, offering help, advice, and ideas, amazing things can happen, and the work load is lighter when everyone’s doing their job.

On the flipside, when you have people who feel slighted, or that they aren’t getting what it is they want, they can make it difficult to accomplish anything productive. In this instance, it doesn’t matter if you’re the leader of follower, it’s a miserable and unproductive situation to be in.

I think we all have opportunity to be both leader and follower. Learning to work together with other people isn’t always about who’s in charge, but more about how to work together with a group of people to accomplish something bigger than any one person could accomplish

As the leader I think the thing I struggle with the most is assigning or asking others for help. I don’t want to impose on people, even when they’re willing to help, and I’ve had people volunteer and then never do the job. This has often left me in a bind that is hard to resolve at the last minute so I tend to do as much as I physically can do on my own. Consequently I really appreciate people who I know will get the job done and I never have to worry about it.

I think overall, I would rather be the follower than the leader as long as my responsibilities are clearly outlined and things are well organized. But if asked, I will step up and do what I can to be the leader and try to be a good leader.

Advice from My Seniors

Have you ever asked a teenager to give younger teens advice? I have, and here’s what they had to say.

As I have commented before, I teach an early morning seminary class for high school age students, studying the scriptures. It’s probably the best, hardest thing I’ve ever done. I absolutely love the student, I’ve always loved spending time with teenagers. They’re full of life, full of hope, and full of excitement for the future.

Every year that I have taught, at the end of the year, I have the 9-11 grade students write a quick note of advice, something they admired about that student, or a memory that they could share. It’s fun to read what each student writes. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it more heartfelt.

High school graduates throwing their hats in the air.

My favorite part though, has been asking the seniors to give their fellow students advice to live by, things they’ve learned along the way. So today, with their permission, I will give you their advice.

Tyler – “If your going to be stupid you better be just as tough. Do what makes you happy not what makes those around you happy. The only thing you can truly control is yourself, your attitude, and perception of the problem. If you want something, work for it. You get out what you put in. The world doesn’t care about your feelings or how bad it will hurt. “Life’s tough, get a helmet.” (Candice Owens). And stop complaining. If you can’t go over it or under it, then go through it.”

Calista – “Trust God. Even when your plans aren’t working out He plans always do. He loves you, so when in your eyes everything is falling apart he will bless you more than you can imagine. Some of the greatest blessings I have ever received came from the ashes of what I thought I needed. Love People. If it ever comes into question how you should react to someone, react with love. It might not change your situation but you will never regret kindness. What you do today you have to sleep with tonight. Be Yourself. Cheesy but true. There will always be someone who doesn’t like you, the real test is do you like yourself? Watch the Sunrise. Love your life, it’s really pretty awesome if you learn to enjoy every moment.”

I love these two seniors, not just because one is my son and the other one is my daughter’s best friend. They have learned some important lessons already in their lives. I look forward to watching who they will become. The rising generation is an amazing group of people. We hear all sorts of crazy stories, but I think it’s a small percentage that are just really loud. The rest of them are learning, growing, and becoming awesome people.

How it all started

Why blog? This is how and why I got started and the results of blogging for several years now.

My mom commented on the last post and asked how I got started with the blog. So I thought I’d share kind of how this blog came to be and why/what I write about.

I actually started with a different website that no longer exists. I can’t even remember the name, but something like Richey Family Adventures. It was kind of a journal thing about our family. I wrote a few little articles about what we were doing, mostly for family to read. But it wasn’t consistent, and I didn’t know much about blogging or websites.

When I started to sell my art I decided I wanted a place online to do that, so I started learning how to create this website. It was a huge learning curve as you may have read previously. But I did learn, and I got my site up and running selling art. But not a lot of people found my website, at least not legitimate buyers. So I did some research and a lot of the research said that writing a blog to go along with whatever website you had would draw in more visitors.

That’s kind of how it all began. I didn’t write about my art so much though, which was kind of what I had intended. I found that I just enjoyed sharing whatever was on my mind at the time. I found the writing to be fun, and a few people subscribed.

As I was still researching ways to grow a business, one of the things that came up along the way was the idea of combining a series of blog posts with a similar theme into a book. Many of my earliest posts were about goal setting. I had to add to them to make chapters, but I then self-published a book about goal setting. I didn’t spend a lot of money on the publishing and was able to make the money I had invested back, so I did a second book. Interestingly enough, I haven’t sold any of those books for over a year, but got a notification that 3 of each book had sold in the month of April.

I have written a third book. This one I decided to go through a publishing company. The first one I submitted to rejected my manuscript, but the second one accepted it, and it is in process, but approaching the completed stage!

I think blogging has helped me be more comfortable, not only with the writing process, but being comfortable with other people seeing what I’m writing. Ultimately, I think that is what gave me the confidence to actually attempt writing a book as that thought had never crossed my mind before. Nor do I think I would have just jumped in and written a book prior to the blog.

The nice part about having a schedule to the blog is that it forces me to come up with content 2 times a week, to thing more deeply about things, and to actually write down what it is I think and believe. I still don’t have a lot of subscribers, but you do live in a large variety of locations, and I am grateful for each one of you who takes the time to read my blog. Thank you!

Direction in Life

There are several factors that influence how I make decisions in my life. Each one gives me direction.

One of the prompts on my blog dashboard this week is: What gives you direction in life?” So I thought I would share what gives me direction, and how I make choices, especially bigger choices in my life.

My religion is the first thing that gives me direction in life. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe that there is life after death. I also believe that we will stand before our Father in Heaven and answer as to what we did here in this life, where we used our time, what choices we made, the works we did, and how all of that affected who we become.

This gives me direction, because it helps me maintain a better perspective. There is more to this life than simply existing, and there is reason and purpose to my existence. How do I know this? Because Heavenly Father isn’t silent. He speaks to anyone listening through the Holy Ghost. He cares about His children, He loves us, and I know He wants to be a part of my life because I see His hand in my life every single day. This knowledge affects every aspect of my life, my decision making, the way I spend my time, everything. I want to stand before Him in awe, but comfortable to be in His presence as well.

Atlas laying open with a pair of glasses sitting on the open page

My family gives me direction. My parents are still a huge part in my decision making, and I am grateful for their advice over the years. They believe as I do, and I can trust that they have my best interest at heart. My husband also gives me direction. He is supportive in my many endeavors. He doesn’t get super involved, but when he has something to say, he lets me know. Sometimes it’s not what I want to hear, but it always gives me reason to pause and evaluate what I’m doing and why.

My kids give me direction. I have 4 kids and have recently gained a son-in-law, all of whom I love and am so grateful for. They are all getting older, the youngest is 16. They are my biggest cheerleaders, and always have been. When I get discouraged because things aren’t working like I anticipated or wanted, they give me pep talks and cheer me up. When I have problems, I know I can bounce ideas off them and I’ll get honest advice back. I am so grateful for each one of them and their support.

Because of what I know to be true about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, I know that there is absolute truth in this world. I also know that there is help and strength in Jesus Christ and in families. I know we were organized into families because it gives us the best possible chance to succeed as well as help others whom we love to succeed. These are not only the reason’s for the choices I make, but the ones I turn to when I’m making those decisions. I am grateful for their support in all the crazy endeavors I’ve set out to accomplish, and their undying support in the future.