I am happy to report that I will be attending the National PTA Federal Legislative Conference in March. I will have the opportunity to meet with Senators John Kerry and Scott Brown as well as Middleborough's Representative, Barney Frank and spread the PTA message (which can be found here).
In other related news, I am now officially serving a dual role on the MA PTA Board. I am both the State Advocacy Chair and the Federal Legislative Chair.
Who knew that when I joined the PTA six years ago it would lead to all of this?
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
And This Is Just Today's Agenda.
-condensing PTA Committee Reports and the newsletter
-updating the funds available reports for the Principals
-paying a few PTA bills
-printing the PTA Public Policy Agenda for 2011
-gathering responses to see if we will have a rescheduled School Council meeting Wednesday and emailing Mrs. L to let her know
-updating the new PTA treasurer with the details of what is what
-responding to PTA emails, writing a summary of the Federal Legislative call from last month
-continuing the development of the PTA website
-deciding if I can be available tomorrow nights PTA federal Legislative call
-printing and updating calendars for the bulletin board
-looking in to scheduling the PTA SHARP program at Nichols this summer (instead of HBB due to reconfiguration)
-emailing the PTA about up and coming volunteer opportunities
-typing up the notes for last weeks MKG/HBB School Council meeting
-planning for a meeting with Kate's teacher tomorrow
-rescheduling an appointment for Emily
I have a feeling all of this will go well in to the evening hours. Had I not made the decision to limit my intake I might have been asking for caffeine on an IV drip. It's a good thing I love every minute of all of this otherwise this list might look a bit more...daunting.
Break time is officially over. Back to it I go!
-updating the funds available reports for the Principals
-paying a few PTA bills
-printing the PTA Public Policy Agenda for 2011
-gathering responses to see if we will have a rescheduled School Council meeting Wednesday and emailing Mrs. L to let her know
-updating the new PTA treasurer with the details of what is what
-responding to PTA emails, writing a summary of the Federal Legislative call from last month
-continuing the development of the PTA website
-deciding if I can be available tomorrow nights PTA federal Legislative call
-printing and updating calendars for the bulletin board
-looking in to scheduling the PTA SHARP program at Nichols this summer (instead of HBB due to reconfiguration)
-emailing the PTA about up and coming volunteer opportunities
-typing up the notes for last weeks MKG/HBB School Council meeting
-planning for a meeting with Kate's teacher tomorrow
-rescheduling an appointment for Emily
I have a feeling all of this will go well in to the evening hours. Had I not made the decision to limit my intake I might have been asking for caffeine on an IV drip. It's a good thing I love every minute of all of this otherwise this list might look a bit more...daunting.
Break time is officially over. Back to it I go!
Labels:
All About Me,
Education,
Plans,
Political Stuff,
The List
Friday, January 21, 2011
PTA Update
During a MA PTA Board Meeting via conference call yesterday, I found out I may have the opportunity to attend the Federal Legislative Conference in DC this March. To help put this in to perspective a bit regarding how excited I am about this possibility, last years guest speaker was Michelle Obama. I am not sure who it will be this year.
The first day of the conference is workshops. I have already picked the workshops that I would like to participate in (Taking It To The Hill: PTA's 2011 Public Policy Agenda, 21st Century Voices: Using the Power Of Social Media to Persuade and Inform, Education and the Federal Budget, and Using Family Engagement to Drive Student Achievement). The next day is visits to Capitol Hill to meet with our MA senators and representatives to bring forth our PTA message and the Public Policy Agenda.
If this all works out, I couldn't even begin to tell you how excited I would be to do this.
We also started planning our visit to Beacon Hill to discuss the budget with our local and state representatives. We have a room reserved that hold 50 people (100 if we are standing). It will be sent out to PTA members statewide to attend and we (or me being he advocacy chair) will present our thoughts and concerns regarding the state budget and how it relates to children. I am pretty excited about this too (except for the part that involves driving or otherwise commuting to Boston).
Over the next few weeks I plan to do a lot of homework. I am going to review all of my information about advocacy, how a bill becomes a law, when bills are brought forth, deadlines, the re-authorization of ESEA, and the just released 2011 Public Policy Agenda. I want to make sure I am 100% confident and ready (even though at this point I have committed a lot of this to memory already).
The first day of the conference is workshops. I have already picked the workshops that I would like to participate in (Taking It To The Hill: PTA's 2011 Public Policy Agenda, 21st Century Voices: Using the Power Of Social Media to Persuade and Inform, Education and the Federal Budget, and Using Family Engagement to Drive Student Achievement). The next day is visits to Capitol Hill to meet with our MA senators and representatives to bring forth our PTA message and the Public Policy Agenda.
If this all works out, I couldn't even begin to tell you how excited I would be to do this.
We also started planning our visit to Beacon Hill to discuss the budget with our local and state representatives. We have a room reserved that hold 50 people (100 if we are standing). It will be sent out to PTA members statewide to attend and we (or me being he advocacy chair) will present our thoughts and concerns regarding the state budget and how it relates to children. I am pretty excited about this too (except for the part that involves driving or otherwise commuting to Boston).
Over the next few weeks I plan to do a lot of homework. I am going to review all of my information about advocacy, how a bill becomes a law, when bills are brought forth, deadlines, the re-authorization of ESEA, and the just released 2011 Public Policy Agenda. I want to make sure I am 100% confident and ready (even though at this point I have committed a lot of this to memory already).
Labels:
All About Me,
Announcements,
Education,
Political Stuff
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Cool Mom
I just signed on to Emily's i tunes account and download some of her music to my i pod touch, because yes, I am just cool like that. Here's the latest playlist generated from her music:
Firework by Katy Perry (LOVE this song)
Just A Dream By Nelly
Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars (LOVE this one too!)
Ke$ha Tik Tok
Raise Your Glass Pink
Check It Out Nicki Minaj
Time Of My Life Black Eyed Peas
B.O.B. Magic In Me
Enrique Iglesias Baby I Like It
Freak the Freak Out Victoria Justice
Comin' Home Dirty Money
Grenade Bruno Mars
Sara Barielles King Of Anything
The "coolness factor" goes both ways. Emily has some music from the 80's and before on her i pod including NKOTB, Air Supply, old school Bon Jovi, Men At Work, Hall and Oates, AC DC, Aerosmith, Jimmy Buffett, Kool and the Gang, MJ, U2, Journey and more. She also has a fair amount of country music, my other favorite genre.
And of course she also has some Barry Manilow on there. Let's face it, no music collection could possibly be considered complete without a little Barry.
Firework by Katy Perry (LOVE this song)
Just A Dream By Nelly
Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars (LOVE this one too!)
Ke$ha Tik Tok
Raise Your Glass Pink
Check It Out Nicki Minaj
Time Of My Life Black Eyed Peas
B.O.B. Magic In Me
Enrique Iglesias Baby I Like It
Freak the Freak Out Victoria Justice
Comin' Home Dirty Money
Grenade Bruno Mars
Sara Barielles King Of Anything
The "coolness factor" goes both ways. Emily has some music from the 80's and before on her i pod including NKOTB, Air Supply, old school Bon Jovi, Men At Work, Hall and Oates, AC DC, Aerosmith, Jimmy Buffett, Kool and the Gang, MJ, U2, Journey and more. She also has a fair amount of country music, my other favorite genre.
And of course she also has some Barry Manilow on there. Let's face it, no music collection could possibly be considered complete without a little Barry.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Julia and What Today Means To Her
Today being Martin Luther Day, I am reminded of a couple of examples from last year when Julia took the stories of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks to heart.
When discussing Dr. Martin Luther King at school, one of the parent volunteers asked Julia what she thought Dr. King's dream was. Julia pondered the question for a minute and answered, "I bet his dream was that he was white...then he never would have gotten shot."
Later that same day, she got on the bus and told the driver (who had the bus set up so kindergarten students sat up front) that because of Dr. King, Rosa Parks and Mrs. S (Julia's teacher last year), she could sit wherever she wanted on the bus.
Just a couple more examples of "Julia Logic."
When discussing Dr. Martin Luther King at school, one of the parent volunteers asked Julia what she thought Dr. King's dream was. Julia pondered the question for a minute and answered, "I bet his dream was that he was white...then he never would have gotten shot."
Later that same day, she got on the bus and told the driver (who had the bus set up so kindergarten students sat up front) that because of Dr. King, Rosa Parks and Mrs. S (Julia's teacher last year), she could sit wherever she wanted on the bus.
Just a couple more examples of "Julia Logic."
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Snow Day=Snow Play!
I took quite a few pictures of the kids in the snow today. They had such a good time. Here are a few of my favorites.
LOVE!
Practicing for her skiing/snowboarding trip with Student Council in a couple of weeks.
Julia wouldn't go down the hill at all in the beginning of last winter. Look at her now! : )
The tipping point...
LOVE the "front teeth" missing grin! : )
Here is the whole set.
We had a snow day today...
...and I have been up since 4:30 this morning. There really is something wrong with that. I woke when Ryun walked out the door to go check out the snow situation and see if he was going to try to get to Mass Eye and Ear for work. He came back in shortly afterward and announced that he was going to shovel out and make the attempt. At that point it was snowing heavily, with visibility next to nothing, and roads that were plowed but still not great. I though he was crazy but he is one of those people that goes to work unless something catastrophic happens (for example, the end of the world). After he shoveled and left, I couldn't fall back asleep (probably because I was nervous about him getting to work safely). At 5:40 I got a phone message from him saying he made it as far as exit 6 on 495 (coming from exit 3) and that he was turning around. After thanking him for coming to his senses, I hung up and tried to go back to sleep. I ended up getting up at 6 (thank you internal alarm clock). Had I known this was going to happen, I might have thought twice about staying up until 1AM. The kids didn't wake until 8 (ish) so we had a nice couple of hours to ourselves. I spent it chillaxin' on the couch, paying only slight attention to an episode of HIMYM, followed by Modern Marvels: Corpse Tech. Uh...yeah.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Aha Moment
This morning, while paging through my food journal, I decided to research some of my favorite restaurants, looking specifically at the nutritional values of certain meals, and more specifically at calories and grams of fat.
Whoa.
Appalled, disgusted and shocked just begin to describe the feelings elicited by this experience. Having never cared enough to look before (which really is a blog entry in and of itself) I had no idea how unbelievably high some of the values were...many in fact, would account for my entire days calorie/fat intake in one sitting (some even more than that). I haven't been living under a rock. I had a general idea of what would most likely be the best choice when looking at a menu, but even some of the "best choices" were alarmingly high in calories/fat. One thing I discovered...salad which is traditionally touted as being a "healthy" option, might not be. In fact one restaurant offered a side salad (a smaller portion than the meal salad) which was so high in calories/fat that I would have had to eliminate all of the "good parts" (which are apparently the "bad parts") to even be able to eat it!
While doing this research, I decided to make a "cheat sheet" listing some of my favorite restaurants and some of the "safe" meals I could eat should I dine out. I found some restaurants that I will never (or very infrequently) eat at again due to their lack of health(ier) options, their lack of available nutritional information, or lack of enough nutritional information (for example saying that an entree was considered lower fat but not providing the details like exactly how much fat or calories). I found a couple of restaurants that had a surprisingly good selection of possible choices with very detailed information about each option. Some restaurants also had a customizable option (taking away or adding ingredients to the entree) which I was very impressed with.
Needless to say, this was quite the wake up call. The next time I visit one of my favorite restaurants, I will be armed and ready with my cheat sheet of available menu choices, complete with a calorie and fat count.
Whoa.
Appalled, disgusted and shocked just begin to describe the feelings elicited by this experience. Having never cared enough to look before (which really is a blog entry in and of itself) I had no idea how unbelievably high some of the values were...many in fact, would account for my entire days calorie/fat intake in one sitting (some even more than that). I haven't been living under a rock. I had a general idea of what would most likely be the best choice when looking at a menu, but even some of the "best choices" were alarmingly high in calories/fat. One thing I discovered...salad which is traditionally touted as being a "healthy" option, might not be. In fact one restaurant offered a side salad (a smaller portion than the meal salad) which was so high in calories/fat that I would have had to eliminate all of the "good parts" (which are apparently the "bad parts") to even be able to eat it!
While doing this research, I decided to make a "cheat sheet" listing some of my favorite restaurants and some of the "safe" meals I could eat should I dine out. I found some restaurants that I will never (or very infrequently) eat at again due to their lack of health(ier) options, their lack of available nutritional information, or lack of enough nutritional information (for example saying that an entree was considered lower fat but not providing the details like exactly how much fat or calories). I found a couple of restaurants that had a surprisingly good selection of possible choices with very detailed information about each option. Some restaurants also had a customizable option (taking away or adding ingredients to the entree) which I was very impressed with.
Needless to say, this was quite the wake up call. The next time I visit one of my favorite restaurants, I will be armed and ready with my cheat sheet of available menu choices, complete with a calorie and fat count.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Dear Emily and Katherine,
Please remember to be very specific with your younger, very literal, sees everything as black or white sister. For example, if you are telling her that you don't want her following you, please be sure to also say that it doesn't mean that she can't even be in the same room as you, or that you may not tolerate her following you every once in a while. Otherwise she will think that because you said it once, you mean it to be a permanent thing. If you then say that she can come in the room you are in, she will accuse you of lying when you told her not to follow you in the first place. If you are letting her use one of your toys, please make her aware of the "terms of use." If she can use your doll but you don't want her taking said doll's shoes off or if she can use your DSi game but for only a limited time, you must make her aware of this. If you aren't very specific, your doll's shoes could be removed and, she may think that you have in fact given her the DSi game for an unlimited time and possibly even forever. For Julia, it's all in the details. Please be generous and abundant when providing them. In the case of Julia, there is no such thing as too much information.
Sincerely, Mom
Sincerely, Mom
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Silly Ladybug
Last night, shortly after Julia had gone to bed, I heard a blood curdling scream, followed by crying come from her room. I ran out of the office to see what had happened, expecting to find, I don't know, maybe a missing limb or something. Instead, I found her sitting up in bed, crying with a look of sheer terror on her face. When I asked what was wrong, she said, "There was a hard bug...and it was in my hair!" Whatever it was had vacated her head (we discovered that it was a lady bug that we found on her bed a few minutes later)so I hugged her, told her it was ok and tried, in vain, to settle her down. Nothing was working to calm her...she was seriously scared, and no explanation of anything was working. Julia being Julia had many, many questions about the whole thing . How did it get in the house? Why are bugs attracted to light? Should I shut off my aquarium? Should we shut off the hall light? Are slugs attracted to light because slugs rhymes with bugs (No, I am not kidding, she really said that)? How did I finally get her to settle down enough to go back to sleep? Observe the picture below taken a few nights ago with my phone camera:
I told her that the one that landed in her hair must have thought that her ladybug Pillow Pet was a real lady bug and they were going to hang out. After basically a good twenty minutes of crying, questioning, and me playing a live version of an encyclopedia on bugs, this explanation elicited this response from Julia, followed shortly by her peacefully falling asleep: "That ladybug is so silly! Didn't he know that my Pillow Pet was too big to be a real lady bug?"
Seriously, I love that kid!
I told her that the one that landed in her hair must have thought that her ladybug Pillow Pet was a real lady bug and they were going to hang out. After basically a good twenty minutes of crying, questioning, and me playing a live version of an encyclopedia on bugs, this explanation elicited this response from Julia, followed shortly by her peacefully falling asleep: "That ladybug is so silly! Didn't he know that my Pillow Pet was too big to be a real lady bug?"
Seriously, I love that kid!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
I don't want to...
...start the year off on a bad note, but seriously? I am all set with this family getting the stomach bug twice in two weeks time (that is assuming that Emily passes it on to the rest of us). I was only half joking when I said on Twitter that I was considering wearing a mask to fend off the germs. Besides Emily's illness, Katherine has a massive cold and Julia just got over croup. I guess I should be thankful that this was all either right before or right after Christmas and not during. That doesn't make it any less annoying that some of us are sick now, and some of use are just waiting for it to hit us (and hoping and praying that it does not).
So if you could all send some healthy vibes this way, it would be much appreciated!
*UPDATE* Katherine's cold...turned in pneumonia. Lovely. At least the doctor was thorough and listened to her chest when we went in with a complaint of an earache. She's was prescribed a Z-pack so she will hopefully be on the mend soon.
And really universe, a stomach bug for the family, a relapse for Emily, croup for Julia, and now pneumonia for Katherine...I think we've paid our dues, thankyouverymuch.
So if you could all send some healthy vibes this way, it would be much appreciated!
*UPDATE* Katherine's cold...turned in pneumonia. Lovely. At least the doctor was thorough and listened to her chest when we went in with a complaint of an earache. She's was prescribed a Z-pack so she will hopefully be on the mend soon.
And really universe, a stomach bug for the family, a relapse for Emily, croup for Julia, and now pneumonia for Katherine...I think we've paid our dues, thankyouverymuch.
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