Friday, August 8, 2008

Believe It or Not

Believe it or not it's 1 a.m. and I just got back from a Board of Education meeting.

Believe it or not we thought we had a bear in the garden today.

Believe it or not my daughter is moving to Delaware.

Believe it or not I can't find the word(s) to describe this summer. I would say it sucks, but not all of it. And there are four weeks left before school starts, one of which will have us on vacation and away from it all.

I could write a couple of pages about what's been going on with our BOE here in Branchburg. But I won't. Enough of it has been published in newspapers and been on the radio and it truly amazes me what people can do with a little misinformation. But it angers me nonetheless. Why? Well because I work for the school district of the town that I live in. Accusations have been made against the administrators in the district involving mismanagement of funds. I am a taxpayer here. I work in a school office. I know the rules that we have on the use of school funds and our office follows them. So I feel that these people who are making the accusations against the administration are also challenging my ethics. Would I, as a taxpayer, stand idly by and watch money being spent illegally and not say anything? I want to scream at these people and tell them they are wrong, but I can't. While my personal ethics are being challenged by these people in a roundabout way, my professional ethics prohibit me from giving out confidential information even if it would put some of these rumors to rest. It's so effin frustrating. I wish it would all just go away.


Now the bear - here is our garden looking up the hill from the house. See that angel in the middle of the picture? She is on a 3 ft. pole. Look carefully behind her. I had to work from home today because they shut off all the power in the school today to do some electrical work and Rachel and I were in the kitchen talking when we both looked out the window and I said "what the hell is that?" and she said "is that a bear?" She grabbed the binoculars and I grabbed the camera.
It appears we have the most clever ground hog. This one is an acrobat. He has climbed up a tomato cage and is eating or knocking off THE TOMATOES!!!! You know, it wasn't worth running out there to scare the stupid thing away. I guess he knows about Jersey tomatoes!!!!
And here's the biggest sucky part of my summer so far. My daughter is moving - OUT OF STATE. She has applied for and been offered a job as a Special Ed teacher in Delaware. She is a graduate of the university there and even though she graduated in 05, her friends are there and she wants her life to be there. Do I need to say that I am sad? I'm just being purely selfish I know. We've talked and we've cried and we've talked and I've cried later. And I've cried. And I've tried not to cry so much. And this is all happening too fast for me.
Sorry to blabber on. You see these challenges and projects that I have been doing are all therapy and I didn't get to have my therapy tonight because I went to that epic meeting. I better work on something pretty involved tomorrow, um later today, to find my happy place again. Good night!

2 comments:

  1. Lorraine, those are truly beautiful photos and I think that your lenses, or your camera alone, would scare the poop out of me. It must be a BIG son of a gun!

    When my daughter moved out at age 19, I had to keep her bedroom door closed for a long time before I could even go in there. The mess that I'd griped about for 19 years was GONE. Like she was.....

    Imagine yourself at your daughter's age and realize that both of you are looking at the same situation from different perspectives and you're going to have to start rejoicing (OK. FAKE it) so that she can truly feel good about spreading her wings.

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  2. Fun story - accept the part about your daughter moving away..... :(

    we have a resident woodchuck too - named Woody - he has a condo under our shed and has decimated my huge patch of Brown Eyed Susans.... but he is awful cute!

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