You’ve got your corned beef cooked and you even took the extra time to brown it in the oven with a delicious mustard glaze. Now, you’re faced with a dilemma…How do you cut corned beef? Wasn’t there some special trick to it? You whip out your cell phone and put in a call to the family cook to ask how to slice the meat and he or she responds with an incredibly helpful:

Photo by Dexie Wharton

“Why, you just slice it across the grain!”

Umm…yeah. That helped. You’ll just go…umm…Right. Well.

Actually, it isn’t that hard to find the grain of the meat. After it is cooked, look at the side with the least fat. You should see long lines running through it. Ah, the grain! So, don’t cut the way the lines, which are muscles, are running. Instead, cut the other way, which is straight across the lines.

Still not sure you’re doing it right? Just make your best guess and cut a thin slice. If it is long and stringy and falls all apart, just eat it and then cut the rest of the meat the other way. Unless you break down and cry about the ruined slice so loudly that your dinner guests hear you, they’ll never know you messed up that first slice.

On this day, March 17, we can look at “green” crafts two ways….those for St. Patrick’s Day and those that help the environment.  The ingenious parent or crafting adult can combine the two.

Re-using materials has always been fun in our family.  I grew up in an era when there wasn’t lots of extra money for craft supplies.  So my siblings and I created with used materials from around the house and out-of-doors.  I also did crafting with my daughter using “found” items.

Image: sxc.hu

“Green” crafts for St. Patrick’s Day:

• Cut shamrock from green wrapping and construction paper saved from previous projects.  (Families can keep a paper recycling bin or box like we do at many schools.) Make these shamrocks into place cards for the table, connect them for shamrock chains, paste them to a larger sheet of paper for a collage.
• Make leprechaun houses from “found” items, such as twigs, leaves, paper, string and stones.  (Some people call these fairy houses.)
• Save cards…greeting cards, postcards, holiday cards.  Youngsters can have such fun making their own cards, collages, mobiles, and more by cutting images from the cards.  If you have any old cards with St. Patrick’s Day designs, they’re very appropriate for this celebration.

What do you do for “green” crafts? We called it being creative with what we had on hand, when I was a youngster.  Or stretching our budget when my daughter was young and I didn’t have money for new craft materials.

Today we’re being “green.”

I’ve always loved St. Patty’s Day for some reason. The food, the cheer, and all that green (one of my favorite colors.) But there’s more than that, of course. St. Patrick’s Day really means friends, family, and even faith. In other words, there’s more to St. Patty’s Day than green beer!

While I make my family a traditional Irish dinner on March 17th, I also try and do some things that fall within the “spirit” of St. Patrick’s Day. For example:
Send St. Patrick’s Day Cards
Forget Valentine’s Day! Send your loved ones a St. Patty’s day card to let them know you care. There are some funny ones and also a few with a serious message. My favorites ones carry the traditional Irish saying:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Send Your Favorite Blogger an Email
Is there a blog you enjoy reading? Why not look up your favorite blogger and send him or her some good wishes?

Review Your Favorite Book
People are more likely to post a review when they don’t like a written work. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, pull up your favorite book on Amazon and give it a great review. The author will certainly appreciate it, along with anyone else interested in buying the book.

Call Up an Old Friend
Before Facebook and Twitter, there was the telephone. Nothing replaces the sound of a friend calling to say hello.

Give Flowers to Your Neighbor
Have a cranky person living next door? Maybe some flowers will cheer him or her up. Pick up some inexpensive green carnations with a note that tells them to have a great day.

Pray for Someone
People often say they will pray for someone struggling, but this St. Patrick’s Day, be sure to keep that promise.

These are just a few unconventional ways to bring a little Irish cheer into your day. Do you have others? Share with us here!

Image: www.sxc.hu.

Are there St. Patrick’s Day festivities in your household?  Special foods, decorations, stories, or card exchanges?

We always made St. Patrick’s Day a special occasion when I was a youngster because the hired man, Dan Sullivan, was Irish.  He wore a tiny green bow on his work cap.  It was a game which one of us children spied the bow first when Dan and my dad came from the barn for breakfast.

St. Patrick's Day Dinner - Image: istockphoto

(Dan worked for my dad on the farm and was a surrogate grandfather for us children.  He took his meals with us and rented a room from a neighbor.)

Mother cooked corned beef and cabbage, with boiled potatoes, onions and carrots, one of Dan’s favorite meals.  Often Mother baked a cake and colored the icing green.

She had a close friend, Aunt Pat, whose maiden name was Kirkpatrick.  Pat always sent us cards on this holiday.  When these friends were in their 80s, Pat still sent a St. Patrick’s Day card, even when she didn’t mail one for other holidays.

When I was substitute teaching the other day in kindergarten, the teacher’s plans called for me to read a story about leprechauns, to use coloring and counting sheets with a St. Patrick’s Day theme, and to discuss the holiday during circle time.

Do you have any St. Patrick’s Day traditions your children will remember?

One of the nicest things you can do with the kids as Spring arrives is to head to the zoo. Today, we did just that. It was the perfect way to spend St. Patrick’s Day weekend, even if none of the animals was sporting a bit of the green in honor of the holiday. (Although the peacocks were showing plenty of other colors!)

Photo by K Thomas

Our little zoo is just the right size for a trip with young children and has a really nice picnic and play area attached. I don’t know if the kids had more fun visiting the animals or climbing on the play equipment, but I know I had fun seeing some of the animals up close.

We saw some baby goats, but if you wait a bit longer and go to the zoo for Easter or spring break, you may be able to see some more exotic  babies, like gibbons or wombats. (If you can’t wait to get a baby zoo animal fix, check out ZooBorns. These guys are soo cute.)

Don’t forget to check to see if your zoo has any spring time specials. Our local zoo doesn’t, but the Maryland Zoo at Baltimore is having a grand opening special today and tomorrow where admission is only $7 for kids and adults. Other zoos do egg hunts during the Easter holiday.

Photo by K. Thomas

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For people that want to watch their weight and diet regularly, holidays can be a nightmare. For some strange reason we are expected to celebrate holidays with all the “Fixing”. Thanksgiving revolves around a huge dinner that leaves you feeling tired and bloated. Christmas often brings sweets as do Halloween, Easter, and Valentines day. St. Patricks day is similar to Thanksgiving as there are traditional foods that are prepared. I love a good corned beef brisket with cabbage and potatoes, but that’s a load of calories. Soda bread is delicious, but it’s also loaded with calories.

Granted, it’s only one day of celebration and we are all entitled to violate our strict dieting rules every now and then. Livestrong.com offers healthy and tasty alternatives to the typical calorie-filled St. Patrick’s Day food and drinks Read more

St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching. In Savannah, Ga., USA it is special since we have the second largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the country. (NY, of course, is first). Making the guess that this may very well be brought up at some meeting somewhere in the next week, I’m going to take this opportunity to reprint last year’s entry on the topic…

Any Excuse Will Do…

A newcomer lady was concerned the other night about having a difficult time staying away from the first drink on St. Patrick’s Day here in Savannah. We have the second largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the country. After the parade there will be approximately 300,000 people gathered together on River St. downtown primarily for the purpose of getting trashed on alcohol. It’s a beerfest.

Funny, but coming from New York where the first largest St. Patrick’s Day parade is held, I couldn’t help but remember that any excuse to drink would do when I was drinking. TGIF. New job. Wedding. Funeral. Got fired. No Sex. Wrong kind of sex. Dirty diapers. Money. Bills. Football game. Baseball Game. Basketball game. July 4th. New Years. Stress. To relax. Christmas. Easter. You ignored me. You yelled at me. You disagreed with me. Too hot out. Too cold out. Picnic. Christening. Anniversary. Barbeque. Power went out. Washing machine broke. Dishwasher broke. St. Patrick’s Day was just another day when the beer drinkers drank green beer and found themselves in the bathroom a lot, losing time from their drinking. I had long since passed that “silliness.”

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