it's begun...

the start of tourist season around new england. this means of higher than normal prices for just about everything. the main problem is dealing with all the out of staters that don't know how to drive through rotaries.. about an hour ago. for example, we got behine someone to stopped in the middle of thr rotary for no reason other than reading a sign, i think. ack... who the hell stops in the middle of a rotary when there's no real reason to.. they even braked for the oncoming traffic that was STOPPED at the yield sign.. what's the worst that happens if you miss your turn off? you just keep on driving around the circle it'll still be there when you go around again, and no one will probably nitice tht you've missed your turn.. just don't stop... you could cause an accident.

the weather here has made it feel like summer alright. high 80's the past few days and tomorrow they're saying 90's! oh dear lord. i remember when i used to go swimming this time of year and not think anything of the cold water. what was i thinking... what was my mom thinking?! it was like a ritual to be able to go swimming on my birthday, or around my birthday and often i would go swimming after school... boy do i miss living across the street from the beach.

we're having our town elections in a couple of weeks, and both candidates for mayor are less than desirable choices. i think i'm gonna vote for the mayor. she was handed alot of crap in her first term as teh very first mayor. i'll give her another chance simply b/c i do not want that man to be our mayor. i don't like the things he wants to do with the school system here. he also seems to think he's got all the answers to what the mayor did wrong, but i haven't heard any things about how he's gonna fund all these ideas. the one thing i'd like to see happen no matter who the next mayor is, is the town paying less for health insurance to help ease the budget. the town currently pays 90% of the cost of insurance for town employees. there's no reason why we can't lower that and have the employess pay more. i know i sound mean, but jay and a former collegue figured out that in Hadley, the town only pays about 50% of the cost of health insurance, and i'm pretty damn sure there's no other town in the area that pays that much.
i also wouldn't be opposed to a price hike in the town trash bags as long as the extra income goes solely to the schools. i'm not talking a huge hike, but an extra 25 cents per small bag (19 gal) and 50 cents for the big bag (33 gal). our town has a reputation for a poor school system, and is facing some serious layoff this coming year. stupid. the schools need more money. we need to improve our schools to keep kids in the district b/c we're spending too much money letting them choice out. we need to have them want to go to greenfield schools. it's bad enough they're closing teh school that evan would go to school at to make it an early childhood education center.. aka preschool.. but the opponent candidate wants to close another elementary school.. not the answer. with the closing of these schools, is he planning on still making sure parents bring their kids to school? b/c i would think that the town would have to do some busing, b/c these would not be living close enough to be within walking distance to any of the other schools. and to make parents have to drive their kids to school if they would otherwise be able to walk if the school was still open is unfair. has he thought of this? if it comes to that the town needs to close this other school the town should start busing. atleast for the kids by the fairgrounds.... then all those kids will have to be squeezed into the newton school, which is where the kids from our neighborhood would have to go, i think.. i'm just not happy about the idea of closing another elementary school. sorry about the rant. besides the opponent isn't anything nice to look at... he looks funny. i know it superficial, but it's true.

we've also been very crafty lately. we built evan a sandbox today while he was taking a nap. we used wood that used to be our kitchen shelves when we moved into our house... (there were no cabinets, just open shelves in teh pantry) we painted it and pput it together... all we need now is sand. lol. earlier in teh season we built a swingset. spent about $80 on wood and braces at home depot and built that when evan was sleeping too. my mother in law and her bf also put up a deck this past week and we helped them put it together. they had decking already from a deck that used to be up and then got taken down 7 years ago.

ok.. got to run.. the kid wants to ride his bike..

enjoy your (hopefully) long weekend!