Hi, I moved here last April from St. Petersburg, FL. Before that I lived in Salem, Oregon, and before that I'd lived in Palm Springs, California, all my life. I was homeschooled for two years (1st-3rd grade) and saw what a difference it made for myself and my siblings, and have always planned to homeschool my own kids. My parents also just moved here from California, they live in Rio Rancho and I'm in Four Hills.

I have two kids, Max, who will be five in May, and Jessamine, who will be three in August. Number three is due in early October, coinciding with a big midwifery convention, which has made it rather difficult to find a midwife.

We are basically hippies, though you wouldn't know it to look at us. We are also extremely broke, as my husband is a car salesman (at Galles Chevrolet), and when the economy recesses, so do car sales. We've been living on one-income minimum wage for nearly a year. Fun.

We share a car, and since my husband works very long hours, the kids and I are usually stuck at home. There is a park nearby, but it's inhabited by homeless people of dubious repute. My neighborhood is pretty bad all around, I can't let my kids play with the other kids in the neighborhood because even the littlest of them swear like sailors and they have no adult supervision. So to say that it's an understatement that we have cabin fever is in itself an understatement. My mom may be getting a new car soon, and if she does she'll be giving me her "old" one (it's a 2005). Crossing my fingers...

I'm not sure yet what our homeschooling method will be. I don't know a whole lot about all the different methods. I do have several books on the subject, but have found them too intimidating to open. I'm someone that needs a LOT of direction, so I've been looking for an affordable umbrella school or distance-learning academy. I think what we've decided on is to use CLASS, for its affordability and its administrative services, but I dislike its extremely religious leanings. So we'll combine that with Time4Learning to make a more secular curriculum. At least that's the plan right now.

When we were in Florida, I belonged to a Moms' group that was awesome. I made a lot of good friends there. We had play groups every week, and every six months we swapped out our kids' clothes with each other. I was hoping to find a group like that here, but it's kinda hard without a car.

You can visit me at my blog if you're so inclined, http://www.memarielane.blogspot.com.

Marie

Hi Marie, welcome to Albuquerque! What made you decide to move here? We're originally from the California bay area, but have lived all over. I used to live in Portland, Oregon, and loved it there. But in the end, I just couldn't take the rain 9+ months out of the year.  :P

It sounds like you haven't had much chance to explore Albuquerque, yet, but once you're able to get around more, I think you'll find it's a wonderful area in many ways. The museums, zoo, and botanical garden/aquarium all make great family outings, there are quite a few nice parks, and lots of friendly homeschoolers!

We have weekly park days on Tuesdays (west side) and Thursdays (east side) and would love to meet you and your kids. You don't need to join the co-op to come to park days, just come and hang out!

Albuquerque also has quite a few active MOMS Club chapters, so that might be another way to meet other moms of young children.

- Elizabeth

P.S. I'm a home-birther, too, I think there are quite a few of us in the co-op. What midwife did you eventually end up going with?

Welcome to ABQ!  We live somewhat near to your neighborhood, although on the other side of the freeway.

We also had our kids at home.  My midwife could be available (?).  Her name is Jayme Mckay.  She was at 3 of my 4 births, and I love her dearly.  If you're still looking for a midwife & want to contact her, let me know & I can get your info to her, or the other way around.

Home schooling is scary sometimes & we find that we often change directions & refocus our attentions.  You will grow more comfortable with it over time.  And since your kids are still younger, you've got plenty of time.

Hope to meet you sometime.  

ElizabethH- We moved here because we really disliked Florida (hurricanes!) and my parents were moving here. We wanted to be closer to family. I still haven't found a midwife, it's been really depressing getting rejected so many times. I've never had that happen before. My mom is also going to be trained and certified as a post-partum doula, so I know I'll have her support.

Marie

Welcome to Albuquerque!  I hope that you are able to get a second car soon.  Albuquerque is a great place to live, but it is really spread out.  Have you considered taking the bus?  I have used it on occasion, but I have to admit some routes are better than others.

Homeschooling can be really overwhelming.  When we first started, all the homeschooling books really overwhelmed me.  I read one with a title something like Take A Breath, You Can Do This!  It was really good at explaining the different theories of homeschooling simply without pushing one over another.  It was at the library and really made me feel more comfortable with my decision to homeschool and how I chose to teach my children.  Both my children use Time4Learning, and we are really happy with it.  I am not sure that it is enough to be the sole curriculum (especially in math) but it is really great at introducing topics (like lightning, the letter sounds, or even Vikings).  I am sure that whatever curriculum you use will be the best one for you and your child.  

Joining a Moms Club can be a real life saver.  I know that when we moved here, it was so helpful and reassuring to know that there were other ladies going through the same things I was.  It was also a great way to meet people and get more involved.

I hope to meet you soon!

Danise

Hi Marie!  
Welcome to Albuquerque!  And to homeschooling!  I think you'll find that Albuquerque is a great place for homeschooling- there are lots of resources here for us, and a large community of HS'ers.  A HS-friendly store you can check out sometime is Title Wave (http://www.titlewavebooks.com/), you can browse through some homeschool books, parts of curricula, etc, and they (the staff) are really helpful.  There's also a somewhat regular curriculum night that I have yet to go to, though I always mean to... if you would like, you can join a Yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewMexicoHomeschoolCommunity/ and you'll get a notice about it (and tons of other things) when it comes around.  

We're also a homebirth family, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE my midwife, Jenny West.  She actually lives in Four Hills, too.  http://www.albuquerquehomebirth.com/

Good luck, and I hope to meet you soon!

Alexis

Danise- I will have to look for that book, maybe it will calm me down a bit!

Alexis- Jenny West was actually the most recent midwife we interviewed. We really liked her, and she's very close to us, but she called two days afterward to let us know she'd be attending the midwifery conference (along with all the other midwives in town! :'(). I saw another store up on Menaul, called Learning is Fun or something like that, but I haven't checked it out yet.

Marie

Have to pipe in with my midwife referral too!  Terry Simmons.  Amazing!  Home water birth.  Welcome to town, hope to meet you soon!  Here is her info:
Ruth Kauffman, LM
Terri Simmons, LM
(505) 243-6116

I ended up signing on with Connie Koshewa at Gentle Birth midwifery. She is apparently the ONLY midwife in ABQ not attending the midwifery convention. I think I did talk to Terry, is her practice called Los Lunas or something like that? I really liked her, but they too are going to the convention. Connie is actually pretty happy about the convention situation because she's new to ABQ and needs to establish herself. She's been getting lots of new people whose usual midwives are unavailable.

Marie

I am glad you found someone!  And yes, Terry is with Luna y Sol.

We had to do the run of the midwives when we moved here, just after we moved I got pregnant with our 4th.  It is such a pain in the butt process, interviewing and all that.  

Quoted from KarenArnold

We had to do the run of the midwives ...

Love the image that brings to mind, Karen!  :D

Marie, Cool for you and your midwife decision.  Now that that's done you can relax a bit (?)!!  Anyways, I've met Connie before and she seemed calming and accepting.  Also, she took Gentle Birth over from Mary Lou Singleton, who I've known for many years.  I would trust that Mary Lou would turn the practice over to someone well qualified.  I love the house/office on Wellesley.  When I met Connie there, I almost cried.  Such strong associations with all of my pregnancies (well, 3 of them).

Yep, she actually worked as Mary Lou's back-up for a year before taking over recently. I love the house too, it's such a calm and happy place.

Marie