Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We got started early this year by making corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and Irish soda bread last night since we were all home together. There are leftovers for tonight anyway, and now we can go have someone else's cooking tonight and take in some local Irish music and dance. We do this every year. So of course the question . . . "Are you Irish?" No, I'm not! I'm also not Mexican, but I still cook Mexican food every year on Cinco de Mayo. We've taken to going out for Chinese food on Chinese New Year because we like the free calendar they give us at our Chinese restaurant; it's the scroll type with "Year of the Tiger" 2010 pictures on it since we can never remember what animal is associated with what year (thank you Blogger for automatically figuring this out for us on our blog profiles!) So in our house, we treat St. Patrick's Day like no less of a holiday than say, for example, Thanksgiving.

Which has got me thinking . . . these celebrations are another component to our homeschool "mystery" as we've taken to calling it since no one knows exactly what we're doing on the inside here! The transformation of this blog started like this: first, as a writing project to get my kids writing more if they got to see themselves "published." Then, as a sort of "off the beaten path" travel blog since people were always asking Mike and I about all our little unknown restaurants, trails, yurts, hidey-holes, etc. Finally, as a way to explain and dispel myths about homeschooling. What I have come to realize is that the homeschool blog idea really encompasses all of our prior blog ideas because homeschooling is more of a way of life. The word "homeschool" itself is more commonly used as a verb than it's counterpart "school." For example, I would say, "I am going to homeschool my child." I could say, "I am going to school my child," but it is more likely that I would say, "I am going to send my child to school." There is nothing that angers the homeschooling community more than seeing this word broken down into two words "home school" which implies that we have a school in our home, and if you were to see my home right now, it is more reminiscent of a "home zoo."

So from here on out, holidays, travel, and the basic day to day are all fair game for the homeschooling blog since these are all ways that we educate our children. "Oh, so Kathy you guys are unschoolers?" Not exactly! At this very moment, my kids are taking an AIMS practice test because they will be taking this standardized test the second week of April at their homeschool enrichment program sponsored by the local school district. I think the mere fact that two days per week I send my kids to a program sponsored by the public school, pretty much disqualifies us as unschoolers. Aren't labels fun! "Oh, so you guys are Evolved Homeschoolers because you believe in evolution?" True, that we believe in evolution. My daughter still talks about the trip we made to La Brea Tar Pits when she was about 5 years old. I can't believe the stuff she remembers from that museum. It must've had a profound effect on her because she remembers the mammoths, saber-toothed cat, and even the 9,000 year-old woman that fell into the tar. I have no idea how people can doubt evolution. One of my daughter's best friends just told my daughter the other day that scientists mix up the bones of a bunch of different animals to make something that didn't exist. ??? However, since we also go to church, I think we're disqualified as Evolved Homeschoolers as well. I am the World's Biggest Doubting Thomas, and it is my nature to question everything, but I am fortunate that the ELCA that I belong to is a bunch of rebels, in the spirit of the biggest rebel of them all, Martin Luther. So once again, I am without a label, being completely disgusted with Right-Wing Christians in America, but at the same time, respectful of the fact that this group is also making up a large percentage of homeschoolers, and I include many of them as my friends.

So today we are celebrating St. Patrick: a man who found God as a teenage slave and who isn't really Irish, but let's label him that way anyway! I personally like to think of this "holiday" as a day to be thankful for Irish American immigrants, and the struggles and prejudices they overcame to be respected members of our society. I hope homeschoolers will someday overcome these same things too.