Jul

Governor, Frist brace for poor TCAP showing, try to lower expectations | Nashville City Paper: Nashville’s Online Source for Daily News.

So, just so we’re clear … my child took a test, upon which her entire future is based (her scores this year, the first time she ever took the test, determine where she gets to go to middle school, which determines where she goes to high school, and so on), and no one knows how to score the damn thing?!! How do you make a test without developing the standards for it?!! So basically they’re meeting later this month to “decide” how to score the test … when they will have the results right in front of them!!!

Favorite quote … our illustrious State Education Commissioner Tim Webb on the new scores … “For the first time in many, many years, we in Tennessee are being honest, truly honest with our students and our families,” Webb added, stressing the scores don’t indicate a “loss in knowledge.”

So we’ve been lied to for years with the test scores, but THIS TIME, they’re going to tell us the truth. Only, they’re not sure what the truth is, or how to find it. Are you f%#@*^! kidding me?!! No, they’re not, that’s the problem.

  

Nov

Still displeased with his intervention leading to VY being re-names QB1, and now Bud pulls this: http://mashable.com/2009/11/16/bud-adams-youtube/. Aside from the fact that an 86 year old man should REALLY know better (not to mention RETIRE ALREADY), how are you the owner of a team who’s … wait for it … 3 – 6, and feel justified in flipping off ANYBODY?!!

  

Sep

We’re having an election here today, for mayor and city council at-large positions. Craig & I are both disappointed that a lot of our friends aren’t very well-informed about the election, and many aren’t even going to vote. In terms of people’s day-to-day lives, I think local elections have even more of an impact than national ones do. So if you live in Nashville and you’re reading this – GO VOTE, if you haven’t aready.

Seriously, these are the people who are going to decide how good your kids’ schools are, how much property tax we pay, whether we get a minor league baseball stadium downtown or do something actually USEFUL with that (very valuable) riverfront property, whether the new convention center gets built, and all kinds of other things that will have a HUGE impact on life and living in Nashville. Nashville really is at a crossroads of becoming a MAJOR city, and this next mayor is going to have a huge influence on whether Nashville becomes the next Atlanta, or whether it (like Memphis before it) stops developing and starts fading, or whether we are able to forge our own path in between.

Our choice for mayor … Howard Dean. We’ll see if we get our way:

  

May

I have to say, I never thought I would see the day that I would pick another human being’s nose. Much less did I ever think I would see the day that I would do it, and then say something like “Wow, that was a good one!”. I guess it’s one of those things that goes on a “You know you’re a Mom when…” lists.

As you might’ve guessed from what I just wrote, Sami has a cold. Since babies can’t blow there noses (something that never really occured to me until recently), we have to “irrigate her” (Craig’s way of describing using the plastic bulb to suction mucous out of her nose). But now that she’s starting to get over the cold, the mucous is drying up, so the bulb doesn’t get them as effectively. We can use the medicine dropper to put water in her nose and then irrigate her, but she *really* hates that. So, sometimes we have to just pull them out. This job usually falls to me, since I have long fingernails. Lucky me! I’ve discovered that all the things people tell you about how it’s different when it’s your kid (which, by the way, I used to think was b.s.) are actually true. I really don’t find it disgusting to pick her nose, since I am very glad to do anything I can to make her able to breathe more easily.

In other news, we’re slowly settling into our new house. We are *very* excited to be back in Nashville. But we’re not too excited about unpacking, which would explain why we’ve been here a week for two weeks as of tomorrow and there are still boxes *everywhere*. In our defense, we both have *a lot* of work to do this month, before we get to slow down a little for the rest of the summer. Still, it is a little pathetic that today is the first day we were able to take a shower in our own bathroom, because I finally got around to buying a shower curtain yesterday – before, we had been using the guest room, which has those sliding shower doors and doesn’t need a curtain.

Speaking of work, I should probably go do some more. Just thought I would share the story about the boogers. Aren’t you glad?!! %-)