Too Hot! Daydream and Surf the Net

I didn't have little Kennedy today, because her dad took her to the doctor.  She is fine, just has a nasty virus.  I took Connor to swim lessons and Chase to scuba lessons.  Connor went home early since his dad was home.  Anyway, I really didn't do much today.  I surfed the web for blogs on farms.  I found a perfect thing to daydream in when the temperature goes below 70.  We have had like 26 days of 100+ degrees.  Wednesday maybe 103.  I love to be outside too much for these temperatures!!!
I feed the animals early and turned the sprinkler on the front yard and that was it of the outside.

So here is something to sway in and daydream.  They are called nestrests.



 How did he get in there without getting wet?

http://www.dedon.de/en/collections/detail/collection/nestrest-171/hanging-lounger-1412/chalk-75.html


I'll have to get mine with air conditioning.  They look like so much fun.

Update On Got Your Goat

This is one like we have a deposit on.  See his blue eyes.

My sister, Lenora, and her grandson, Max, came by today.  I have talked Lenora into getting a male goat for my girls, Dottie Belle and Gypsy Ginger.  I have paid a deposit for a blue-eyed chamoisee buck from a farm in Oklahoma.  The doe, Rising Storm, is expected to give birth on 9/11, so we are hoping for a kid to match what we want.  The plans are, we will go get him when he is 10 days old.  I will bottle feed him and let him stay with my girls for a few months.  So in the spring, Dottie Belle and Gypsy Ginger will have kids and I can make goat cheese, goat ice cream and who knows what else.  Who knows, I might have enough kids to let every CPSB member have a name sake. lol

 

But all these plans lead Lenora to believe she is going to need an Australian Shepherd dog to protect her goat herd, since she will get all or most of the kids.  She has 12 acres in the country.  The farm in Oklahoma also breeds Australian Sheppards and they cost several hundred dollars.  So Lenora started asking around.  In less than a week her son, David, said his friend's girl friend's daddy had a litter of Australian Shepherd pups and didn't sell the runt.

 

So Lenora was given the 8 week old registered puppy. 
Talk about ask and ye shall receive! 
Anyway, he was already named Tex and today was Tex's debut as a goat herder. My video camera could not keep up with the herding, but that little 3 month old dog actually did get Gypsy Ginger all the way into the goat shack.   The goats and dog ran their hearts out.  Tex is a natural born goat herder.  So now all we have to do is wait for Billy Shakespeare to be born and we will get started on our herd.   
We have the herder!  

Board Member Can't Bare the Public's Gasps and Outcries. Pull the Partition!

I can't bare the Public's gasps and outcries of disbelief and disgust for my positions.  "We may need to pull the partition between the Board and the audience and let them watch us on TV monitors." threatened Caddo Parish School Board member, Ginger Armstrong.

If you have not been to a board meeting, please be aware that all board members and our attorney speak into microphones.  There is no mike in the audience.  Did you see the rowdy audience at the end that she was complaining about?

Louisiana Open Meetings Law

§4.1. Public policy for open meetings; liberal construction

A. It is essential to the maintenance of a democratic society that public business be performed in an open and public manner and that the citizens be advised of and aware of the performance of public officials and the deliberations and decisions that go into the making of public policy. Toward this end, the provisions of R.S. 42:4.1 through 10 shall be construed liberally.
(1) "Meeting" means the convening of a quorum of a public body to deliberate or act on a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power. It shall also mean the convening of a quorum of a public body by the public body or by another public official to receive information regarding a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power.
Can we just ignore that nasty little open meeting law?

Wait a minute. Did I hear board member Armstrong say she agrees with almost everything board member Crawley says?  So can we expect a yes vote?  Wait and see.

The Roadblock I was addressing was Board Member Larry Ramsey's substitute motion. His substitute motion had nothing to do with my motion that called for a 5% reduction to the Central Office Operating Budget.  The CFO and another board member were also discussing that we would be down to reducing paper clips, but yes we could reduce Central Office Budget by 5%.  We had already cut 300 positions at the school sites, which included office clerks who administer various medications and etc. to students.

Well, I have to admit that sometimes, I am interrupted by applause from the citizens who give up their Tuesday afternoons and often evenings without any financial compensation, to watch their local government in action.  Sometimes I'm embarrassed, but mostly, I worry that I will lose my train of thought.  But whatever, their response, I am glad that they are interested enough to show up.
It is a great feeling when the public believes "I'm on the right track, Baby, I was born this way!"

How the Board voted: 


Don't get excited or confused.  Mrs. Armstrong did not vote for my motion and I did not vote against my motion.  The vote that was taken was for Mr. Ramsey's substitute motion to mine, therefore since his passed, 8-4, my original motion did not get voted on.

We play such games.

I wonder if Mrs. Armstrong disagreed with my motion to cut 5% of the Central Office budget or if she agreed with me and was more concerned that her husband, who works in Central Office, might run out of paper clips. Maybe she should abstain from voting on Central Office issues? 
I'm just wondering. 

Yes, some of the post was for information and some was just for entertainment.  You decide which parts.

Why 2 Board Members and Concerned Citizens Held a Press Conference

Along with concerned citizens, fellow Caddo Parish School Board member, Curtis Hooks and I held a press conference today to discuss how the school board advertised on its web page and other required places that the School Board was going to have a public hearing to consider the issue of rolling the property tax millage forward, before we voted on the issue.

http://www.caddo.k12.la.us/cpsb-tax-roll-forward.cfm
Notice is hereby given pursuant to Article 7, Section 23(C) of the Constitution and R.S. 47:1705(B) that a public hearing of the Caddo Parish School Board in Caddo Parish will be held at its regular meeting place in the Board Room of the Caddo Parish School Board Central Office, located at 1961 Midway Street, Shreveport, LA, on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. to consider levying additional or increased millage rates without further voter approval or adopting the increased millage rates after reassessment and rolling forward of rates not to exceed the prior year’s maximum.  The estimated amount of tax revenues to be collected in the next tax year from the increased millage is $119,100,000, and the amount of increase in taxes attributable to the millage increase is $6,600,000.

Many citizens, along with Mr. Hooks and I, are concerned that we would advertise for a month that the board was going to hold a public hearing before voting on the tax issue, only to then, find out only 5 days before the announced hearing,  that the President of the Board, Lillian Priest, decided that the board would not have the public hearing. Doesn't this smack of false advertising?  Citizens had been researching, emailing and writing letters concerning this issue ever since the hearing was posted. President Priest said that the board had already made the decision not to roll the millage forward, therefore, the public hearing was no longer necessary.  What that statement meant to many citizens and Mr. Hooks and me was that the board did not need or want input on this issue from the taxpayers; at least not publicly and on the record where everyone would have a chance to express their opinions and hear from others.

This and other similar actions have shaped  the public's opinion of the CPSB as being dishonest with its processes and actions.  While some citizens are glad to save the tax dollars, they are leery, and well should be, of any government body that would deny the right of citizens to address this matter and future matters of such importance.  By advertising that a public hearing would be held on July 12 and then rushing to vote on the property tax issue on June 21, the public's distrust of the board seems to be validated.  The only way to regain trust is for the Board to follow through with what it says it is going to do.  The public will never trust a Board that can hide behind the powers its President or policies that can be used to deny or renege on a commitment that has been posted for a month.

Watching the Space Shuttle Launch. It Wasn't The Beagle

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=100309441

I actually got to watch the launch today. 
 It was just luck.  I got up so late, that I was drinking coffee and sat down in front of the TV and there it was.  It makes me sad that this is the last launch.  The space shuttle has been something that I have always found interesting.  I remember when they were taking applications for a teacher to go on the Challenger.  I actually got an application and filled it out.  But I found out I was pregnant with Paxton, so I didn't send it.  The day The Challenger exploded, January 28, 1986, I had to leave school early because Paxton had gotten sick at daycare.  I had just gotten home with him and turned on the TV to watch it launch.  That was so dreadful.

Our Wall of Research on the existing Space Shuttles.

Later, NASA had a contest for classrooms to enter to name the next space shuttle.  So I sent off for all the information and got my class involved.  The proposed name had to be the name of an ocean vessel that was a ship of exploration and research.


So for the first week the students researched ships and names.  A boy named Erik found The Beagle on which Charles Darwin sailed .  Of course 4th graders would think The Beagle was a great name.  My then, Kennedy- husband, advised me that The Beagle did not sound like a winning name; too much controversy with Darwin and look at what the other Space Shuttles' names sounded like Columbia, Challenger, Discover, and Atlantis.  But I loved it because it did sound like a name that the kids chose.

Our replica of the Space Shuttle and The Beagle

This was a great project that the kids did themselves and several parents really stepped up and worked hard with the students. The students wrote a skit, played a song on their recorders and sang a rap song with the help of parents and performed them for every class in the school.





I always loved all my students and classes, but this was an exceptional group of students.  It goes without saying that NASA did not choose our class's very wonderful and involve project and name a space shuttle The Beagle.

Our space shuttle crew with Charles Darwin (actually Molly)

I think a 5th grade class in Mississippi won and the name chosen was The Endeavor.  I think the Ex was right on this. I saw the class project that won and it wasn't much--really, but they had the name that the NASA folks liked.

So now the Space Shuttle will ride off into history.

A Whole Week Off and What Have I Done?

Ta DA--No weeds and new mulch.

Counting tomorrow, I will have been completely off for a week; that means not babysitting,  but still doing the household chores of clothes, dishes and cooking etc--.  You understand.

Also, I've met with the deputy tax assessor, met with a concerned citizen about a school board issue, gone to the grocery store twice, walked over and played with the grandkids just about everyday, cleaned out a messy flowerbed and added mulch, worked on Ancestry.com, and played with the goats.

The new one is for Carson

   Actually, all of these things I did to avoid making a cowboy burp cloth that I got an order for last Tuesday on my Etsy site from a lady in Tennessee. Also, with all this time off, I need to mend a pair of my husband's scrubs that have been on the machine for 3 months and Jackie's Boston Red Sox purse I made.  I have a lot of hobbies and I do them in a rather cyclical manner.  I sew and sew until I get rather burned out and then 6 months are more will pass before I sit in front of the machine.  But I have to put the burp cloth in the mail Tuesday.  So far, I have repaired my husband's scrubs.  I am working on the embroidery design, when I'm not checking my e-mail, facebook, or googling for a blue-eye Nigerian Dwarf goat buckling for my 2 little does. So actually, I'm doing everything but completing my recent sewing order.  Maybe the word order is slowing me down.  My mother actually took in sewing when I was growing up. I remember my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Guice, coming to our house for Mother to alter her clothes.  I didn't like her because she called me Grandma and I was only 10.  But I know, I bossed everyone around.

 Mother warned me that if I started taking orders for my purses, baby items and etc, that it would not be fun anymore. I really think my problem is that I only like to do something twice.  The first time, I am so excited to see if I can do it and the the second time to clean-up the mistakes.  After that I am bored.  I've also made about a dozen New Orleans Saints leather purses, one Cowboys purse, and a couple LSU .  I did change from gold with black to black gator print with gold fleur-de-lis on the Saints purses.

my ETSY site
http://www.etsy.com/people/theDivaSeamstress

I haven't been blogging, because I should be sewing.  But now that I have started the project, I can blog during break time.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July.