Field Trippin'

Our school day today was turned upside down by a mid-day realtor caravan. I spent this morning cleaning up the messes that occurred between the time the maid left yesterday and the very moment the Princess just exited the room leaving her Trail O' Stuff behind her. I thought I might be able to squeeze in some school after the cleaning, but then there was also the baking. I feel it necessary to stuff all of my guests full of baked goods. Of course, with these particular guests, the baked goods were merely a bribe nice gesture.

So no school as we headed out to lunch and to Wal-Mart to pick up goodies for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. Never fails. Despite good intentions to get these done way beforehand and therefore make it a much less stressful experience for the kids and me, I ALWAYS leave this for the day before the boxes are due. (This procrastinating...it seems to be some kind of trend with me. *sigh*)

Running errands in the middle of a school day always makes me just a touch nervous, causing me to cast furtive glances around me, looking for the Truancy Police. At some point, at some cash register or restaurant table, I have someone ask me, "Oh, are the kids out of school today?" You can see them check their mental calendar for holidays. "No they don't go to school." I'd like to leave it at that, but being the responsible and somewhat paranoid person I am, I then dive into a huge explanation of homeschooling and why we are not at that very moment at home with our heads in a book. As if I need to give an explanation.

Anyway, today we were enjoying a peaceful lunch at Olive Garden when about 25 students and their teachers walked in. Now I have this gift of eavesdropping (can I call that a gift?). Drives my husband crazy. At the end of any meal, I can tell him the life story of the patrons seated next to us (I'm an observant people watcher too, so I can embellish fill in any missing details). So, by using my gift, I gathered that these children were on a field trip. This excursion included Target and, obviously, Olive Garden.

Target and Olive Garden? For a field trip? I pay taxes, not to help me purchase educational materials with which to teach my children, but to help finance field trips to Target and Olive Garden? Isn't that what moms and dads and weekends are for? For trips to Target and Olive Garden? I'm not sure I see the educational value in such an excursion. If there is good news here, however, it would be that I needn't have had my children participate in any schooling when we returned home this afternoon; I could have just counted Olive Garden and Wal-Mart as our school day.