Bridgewater Soccer Mom's view of the world

According to NPR today is the "National Day of Listening" in which people are encouraged to record stories from relatives about their lives or the past. Nonny's house where my brothers grew up (post-renovations) I thought instead of my usual blog, I'd share a story heard about my late (half-)brother Dino . Dino was bigger than life when he was alive, so you know he's almost a mythical figure now. I heard a story that I've confirmed with my Dad is true - at least mostly. I should also say that I know almost nothing about cars , classic, sports or otherwise. So if I am wrong about the details of cars or stamps or the like, please know I'm not trying to mislead... Here is "How Dino leveraged a paper route into a Ferrari" (as told by cousin Robbie and now retold in my own words): Can you guess which one is Dino? Once upon a time (ca. late 1960s) my then-teenage brother had a paper route. Not just a paper route - THE paper route. Through...

Went to the BOE meeting this week and heard the Assistant Superintendent speak. You can hear the presentation here . (I was looking for the powerpoint to share here but couldn't find it at this time). I learned three key items: 7th graders do poor on the Language Arts section of the NJ Ask and other testing. Some feel this is because of the unique age. Others talked about the test perhaps being more challenging. No one mentioned poor instruction. My daughter had a FABULOUS 7th grade LAL teacher - but I don't know about the others. That the new way that test scores are being considered may water down results, making it seem as though issues that were being noticed by the old way of number crunching will be hidden in the new way to look at results. Returning the lost days to the calendar isn't going to make anyone happy. The Superintendent had something like 5 suggestions... to which the board and the community suggested various tweaks.   I was sad to see that Cind...

I don't know where the time went! It seems as though "three minutes ago" I was happy about one portion of election results and distraught over others. I think my predictions of party politics invading the school board elections came true: a well-known R family is now represented on the BOE. Am disappointed that Cullen will no longer be on the BOE - she is one of the few members that openly challenged and the leadership and asks questions that show thinking out of the box. She was a good antidote to the reputation that the BOE is most concerned about gifted kids. Maybe other members are just as broadly-minded in their concern, but hers was palpable. Her loss is my loss. Diego: apathetic about elections, but no fan of snow I was much more distraught about a different win... but what can you do with opposition who has a winning grin and the right connections? Then "two minutes ago" I was at work in Metuchen when the power went out (we kept working)... and...

Aftermath First - and foremost - thank you to all our friends and relatives from around the world that have shown such concern and care. It's hard to imagine how quickly life changes when you go from techno-addict to a dark house with no cell phone service, tv or light. We tried to make the most of it. Realizing that so many people have experienced extreme hardship makes it easy to pull ourselves out of the trap of self-pity. A week or two without power is horribly annoying, but not life-threatening. (Although it sucks to be in the midst of a power outage). Even our neighbors behind us still are without power, as is most of this section of Bridgewater. How we ended up as the lucky few in the "Eisenhower section" is beyond me! Our yard got the beating that our house was spared. Today I spent a couple of hours trying to clear some tree branches so that we can use the chainsaw (which I was considering to take on, until my husband suggested that maybe I shouldn't pl...