our last day homeschooling in Virginia

Tomorrow I have a morning doctor's appointment and Tim informed the family last night at supper that we will be leaving for Maine at 0500 on Monday morning so we can escape at least some of the Memorial Day traffic. So today after we learn a little bit more, I am packing up the last of our schoolbooks, taking down the alphabet  and vowel posters, and steam cleaning the carpet. I'm leaving the vast majority of our supplies and books behind for the packers.

Tim was offered a position up in Maine and we are patiently awaiting his final set of orders. The bad news is that the job is just out of commuting distance from our farm, so we are going house-hunting next week. The good news is that the job is in Maine and we can adjust our flexible schooling schedule to accommodate short trips up to the farm every week, allowing us to be back on Sunday in time to attend one of the only 2 Traditional Latin Masses in the diocese. To say that I'm excited about being real full-time Mainers and not just "summer people" would be a gross understatement. To be able to have most of my furniture be able to stay in one place, and not have to make that long 14-15 hour drive twice a year is just a dream come true.     

So, farewell Virginia with your byzantine homeschooling laws, with your homeschool liason in the public school administration who doesn't know the law, with your selfish policies that take tax dollars and don't allow homeschoolers to participate in classes or sports. Hello to Maine with simple homeschooling requirements and an inclusion that will allow my children to run track and play soccer on the local school teams. Hello to a much more live-and-let-live attitude among most of the population. My roots will always be in Virginia, the first of my ancestors came to the state in 1618, but it has grown and become too crowded and too much of a nanny-state for my taste. I'm sure some of those long-dead relatives must be rolling in their graves, but my heart is in way up north in Maine.