For me, the word pennywise always brings up a mental image Benjamin Franklin and a printing press. It just seems to have a nostalgic ring to it. That’s why, when the opportunity came for us relocate to a historical landmark only five miles from our home, we jumped on it.

We started PennywiseLearning.com in 2002. Like a lot of home birthed businesses, it started in one part of the lower level and eventually had taken over most of the house. Which by the way is a great problem to have. By spring of 2008, we really had no choice but to look at our options.

Imagine a home with eight children and two adults. Fill the entire lower level with offices, shipping areas and many thousands of dollars worth of inventory. Then add in three or four employees, UPS, Fed EX, sales people, and a tractor trailer of two waiting to be unloaded.
Do you begin to get the idea of what it must have been like visiting the Pratt house? I remember people coming to visit and saying, “you really live like this?”, and we were like, “yeah. We wouldn’t have it any other way”.

But after one very hectic morning, Kristen and I had go out to run some errands and I remember saying, “I think it’s time”. To that she replied, “funny you should mention it, I saw this building I have always loved in town is for sale. Do you want to take a look?” So we did and within a day I made a ridiculously low offer knowing that if they said yes, it would only be the Lord. Of course, they accepted it on the spot.

The building was built in 1876. Built on the Erie Railroad it served as a dry goods store and the original post office in town. It even housed the town hall for a bit in the late 1800’s. It still has the original safe along with all of the receipts and paperwork from the 1800’s to the 1950’s.

This 7,000 square foot building is a treasure to us. There is enough room for inventory, offices, and even a warehouse outlet store. There’s even a loading dock where the horse drawn carts used to load and unload. To top it off we have the hitching post sill out in front of the huge front porch.

We love the fact that we have the opportunity to recycle and reuse this building as much as we love the history of it. Located less than five miles from our home, I could not have asked for a better location for PennywiseLearning.com

We spent the first two months gutting, cleaning, and remodeling the inside. After a lot of work, we moved in October of 2008. Of course there’s a long way to go finishing it off but we’re off to a great start. Best of all, now when I think of the word pennywise, I think of Ben Franklin, the printing press and of course, the Pennywise building.

HomeschoolingU.com is the official PennywiseLearning.com blogsite for news, product info, and encouragement.

Finally, we are pleased to announce Musicademy Instruction DVD’s. These DVD’s contain a year’s worth of music lessons. The focus is on learning to play worship music and offers tips and instruction from some of today’s most influential worship leaders. At present, there is instruction for beginning and intermediate guitar, keyboard, and vocal. Worship drums and bass instruction is coming soon.

Click here for more information on Musicademy Christian Music Lessons

If you are considering beginning your student in music lessons, I would encourage you to invest in a quality instrument. There are plenty of cheap instruments on the market but if you really want your child to develop a love for learning the instrument, then spend a little more and get the “right tool for the job”.

It’s easy to compare ourselves to our impressions of others. We tend to compare the “macro” view we see in ourselves to the “micro” view we see in others. Then we inflate the micro view into a macro perception of them.

In other words, we only see little glimpses into other people’s lives but we tend to believe that the little we see when people are at their best is the way they are all the time. We take this view and compare it to the big picture of our own lives. Often times, it is not a fair comparison.

I hate hearing someone tell us they are discouraged with their family after they have been around my family. I know that they are comparing their family to what they saw when we were at our best. What they don’t see is the days (or weeks) that our family operates like a run away freight train. It is not fair to their family to be held to those standards.

It is good to set high standards for our families and to find others that we admire and respect to push us to higher levels. But we do need to be careful not to elevate each other beyond reality.